Harold Jarche

Whither ISD, ADDIE & HPT?

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Here is the question of the month from The Learning Circuits Blog:

Are ISD / ADDIE / HPT relevant in a world of rapid elearning, faster time-to-performance, and informal learning?

First, some definitions:

  • HPT – Human Performance Technology
  • ISD – Instructional Systems Design [or Development]
  • ADDIE – a process incorporating Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation, stemming from the Systems Approach to Training (SAT)

SAT, ISD and ADDIE stemmed from the need to train military personnel for the Second World War. They were necessary to train lots of people really fast. My initial experiences as a military trainer were from the point of view of ISD, SAT, & ADDIE.

Later I became immersed in HPT, and found it a good method to analyse certain aspects of organisational performance. One thing that HPT does well is to ensure that training, which is costly, isn’t prescribed unless it addresses a verifiable lack of skills and/or knowledge.

SAT, ISD and ADDIE are excellent methods to develop training that is stable. I spent several years using these methods to develop helicopter training for aircrew and maintenance personnel. These methodologies were highly suitable for the task. These methods are not suitable for developing educational programming. The problem with using training development for education is that the performance objectives are not clear. What are you supposed to do at the end of this education and how do you measure it?

As I have said before, I think that one of the problems with our education system is that there is too much of a focus on getting quantitative data, like testing. These functions are more suited to a “training” system, where the performance requirements are clear, measurable and observable. In education, the performance requirements are fuzzy. There is nothing wrong with either a training focus or an education focus; each one has its merits. The problem is when you try to mix the two.

So, are these methodologies suitable for today? The short answer is yes, but not everywhere. Too often we see training as a solution looking for a problem. Training often worked before, or at least didn’t create more problems, when work processes and organisations were stable. As we move to more networked businesses, training’s weaknesses are becoming evident. These weaknesses are also evident when we don’t really know what the performance objectives are in a constantly evolving society, economy and marketplace.

Enter the two-way web and the ubiquitously connected computer. We now have several new tools to address other performance issues that training was never good for anyway:

  • Unclear expectations – collaboratively constructed wikis and up to the minute blogs
  • Inadequate resources – user generated knowledge bases through tagging and social bookmarking
  • Unclear performance measures – direct feedback from customers via blogs

The Web is also providing an open platform for people to connect and converse with others all over the world, expanding informal education opportunities for millions. Both training and education are being opened up and exposed as individuals create their own networks and converse with each in their personal searches for knowledge and community.

The Internet is forcing us out of our self-constructed disciplinary boxes. As work and learning become connected online, the barriers are blurring between organisational development, HR, training, education, HPT, etc. A new, amalgamated field of practice requires better tools and integrated theories from which to base our practice.

These models are relevant, but they’re not enough.

Elgg Spaces Launches

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Elgg Spaces is the new offering from Curverider for hosted informal learning applications. I’ve used Elgg a fair bit and like the amalgamation of blogging, social networking and online portfolio applications on one platform. I also like the ability to control the access levels for each entry, so that Elgg can be used for closed group discussions.

Elgg Spaces offers tiered hosting, as well as a free, unsupported version. What I am looking forward to is the ability to “Allow your users to collaborate with those in other communities, both on Elgg Spaces and across the web”. Lack of integration with other systems has been the main reason that I haven’t fully adopted Elgg, even though I still recommend it for individuals or inside a “walled garden”.

Words of discomfort

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I spent this evening with several concerned parents who were discussing their concerns with the amount of homework that their children in elementary school have to do. Near the end of our talk, I was told about a recent article in a national newspaper, written by the Canadian Council on Learning. You may remember that the CCL received $85 million from Canadian taxpayers last year to set up five knowledge centres. In Words of Comfort to Parents About Homework, posted on the CCL site, Paul Cappon states:

Research supports the idea that homework assignments in reasonable amounts can substantially contribute to learning. Not surprisingly, students who do homework perform better on tests and other assessments than students who duck it. And, up to a point “there is such a thing as too much homework” the more homework students do, the better they perform.

Please Mr. Cappon; what research? The only positive research that I know of was conducted by students; was not peer reviewed; and had small sample sizes. Please post references to any other valid research data here, in case I am ignorant of some reputable studies on the subject.

So, do reasonable amounts of homework contribute to learning? The authors of The Homework Myth, The Case Against Homework and The End of Homework, strongly disagree, and cite several studies to support this position. In our small group of parents, several with PhD’s and statistical analysis expertise, not a single person has been able to find any data to support this statement by the CCL. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, puts it quite categorically:

For starters, there are no data whatsoever to show that elementary school students benefit from doing homework. None. And even in high school there’s only a modest correlation between time spent on homework and achievement – with little reason to think that the achievement was caused by doing more homework. Then there’s other evidence, including a brand-new study of TIMSS data from 50 countries, and it shows no positive effects from homework, even for older students. I wasn’t able to find any reason to believe that students would be at any sort of intellectual disadvantage if they had no homework at all.

So why is a publicly-funded learning institution making flawed statements in the national press about educational practices? These are words of discomfort for me.

Sacrificing the joy of learning

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This week we had “take you child to work day” for our son in Grade 9. He wasn’t interested in seeing what a home-based consultant does, as he sees this every day. Instead, we arranged a day with a family member who is a helicopter pilot. We drove the 150 km to the hangar and on the way our son did his homework.

His math work had to do with exponentials and reducing equations to a less complex form; or something like that. I looked at the equations and realised that I did not have a clue how to do them. Not only that, but I couldn’t tell him where he might apply this later in his life. So here I am, unable to do Grade 9 math, even though I have two years of university-level calculus and algebra, as well as two years of physics [I went to a military college where even those majoring in History had to have a “well-rounded” education in the sciences].

My inability to do Grade 9 math got me thinking about the usefulness of the public education curriculum (again). I can see the requirement for having skills in mathematics. Of particular importance today would be understanding statistical analysis and how stats can be used to tell almost any lie.

A couple of days later, I came across this article by Roger Schank; blaming the laziness of college professors for the focus on arcane subjects:

“Universities dictate curricula to high schools to make professor’s lives easier. If everyone takes physics and calculus and most never use it, well, professors claim it was good for the students anyway when in fact it was only good for making sure professors didn’t have to teach it in college. As long as professors don’t have to teach the basics it is okay that high school students are forced to study stuff they will never use in their whole lives. We have ruined an entire generation of high school students who don’t like learning and think the subject matter is irrelevant because professors only want to teach the good stuff.

We sacrifice the joy of learning for an entire generation so professors can have an easier time teaching incoming students.”

I have 18 years of formal education, 25 years of work experience, have never used exponential equations outside of school, and don’t remember how to do them today. What are we teaching, and why?

Networked Work Needs Networked Learning

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In a recent discussion on informal learning I was asked how it could be integrated into formal work environments. What I have learned so far about informal learning is that it is more of a cultural issue than about process or technology improvements. The key factor is control. To foster informal learning, organisations have to give up control. We see this with social networking on the Internet and that organisations that let go of centralised control are able to adapt quicker. The Dean campaign was one example, as is viral marketing.

The fact that small, loose organisations can adapt quicker has been evident for a couple of centuries, when you examine guerrilla groups fighting against large hierarchical military organisations. Guerrillas proved their worth against Napoleon in Spain in the early 19th century as well as against the US in Vietnam in the latter part of the 20th century. Many military experts now talk about network warfare, or netwar.

If network warfare was possible years ago, as witnessed during the Peninsular War, why is netwar something new? I think that the original guerrillas showed what was possible, but it took the ubiquitous information and communication network, the Internet, to make it the default organisational model. As a retired soldier, I always considered the military to be a conservative-minded organisation. If the military is seriously considering network warfare, then it seems that the need to understand networked business & learning is pretty obvious.

One example of networked businesses is the animation field, where creatives live all over the world. With some companies, the creative team is physically separated from the production team by several time zones, so that work can go on 24 hours a day, as the day’s work moves back and forth between teams. Even when they’re spread out, excessive control is not necessary. Christopher Sessums reports on why Pixar is so successful as a creative force, citing the fact there are no studio execs to control the process. Control is the enemy of innovation and flexibility.

Effective work and learning networks are composed of unique individuals working on common challenges, together for a discrete period of time before the network begins to shift its focus again. This is like small groups of guerrillas joining for a raid, conducting it, and then going their separate ways to reform as a different set for a new mission. If armies and businesses organisations are changing to networked models, then the best learning support has to be informal, loose and networked as well. We are shifting from a “one size fits all” attitude on work and learning to an “everyone is unique” perspective. If everyone is unique then there are no generic work processes and no standard curricula.

If everyone is unique, we need to seriously reconsider our models for training and education. Brian Alger has shown the severe limitations of standard curricula and Bill and Julie at NineShift sum up the issue as:

The issue is also about the biggest educational struggle in this early century: the switch from making every student “normal” to understanding that every student is not normal, in other words, unique.

In warfare, work and learning we are witnessing a major change in command and control and we will have to shift with it or suffer the fate of several defeated armies.

Open Courseware Consortium

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MIT’s open courseware initiative (OCW), which put all of its course notes and resources online for free, has expanded to the Open Courseware Consortium, asking participating higher education institutions to freely share material.

An OpenCourseWare site…

  • is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses.
  • is available for use and adaptation under an open license.
  • does not typically provide certification or access to instructors.

Only one Canadian institution participates in this +100 member consortium; Capilano College in BC.

SmartDraw 2007

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I’ve been using SmartDraw since 2003 when I first looked for a Visio replacement to create diagrams and other visual graphics. My initial search had me looking for something cheaper than Visio, and at the time, SmartDraw was about 75% cheaper. I purchased SmartDraw 6, actually wrote an unpaid endorsement for the product and became a beta tester for SmartDraw 7, for which I received a free copy of that version – a good deal. I’m also an affiliate which means that I can refer potential customers and receive a small commission for my efforts. Since SmartDraw is a small company with what I consider a good product, I don’t mind this relationship.

After downloading 2007, I found it to be a quantum leap beyond the previous versions. It is much more intuitive and I was creating floor plans in minutes (my next task on our Commons project). I had tried with the previous version but it was a heck of a lot more work. I should add that if you create drawings in the new SmartDraw 2007 you won’t be able to open them in SD version 7, even though they each have the same *.sdr extension.

So what are the pros and cons here? First, SmartDraw has reduced their free trial period from 30 days to 7 days. I don’t think that this is enough time to really evaluate it. The 30 day free trial for version 6 helped me to decide to purchase it. As for price, SmartDraw 2007 is currently selling for $197 ($100 off until 7 Nov). That compares with Visio Professional at $499 or $199 for Visio standard. We cheapskates also have another free, less featured, online product available called Gliffy, and yes it does floor plans. Anyway, you have several choices.

You can check out SmartDraw 2007 by clicking on the picture below and I’ll receive a small commission if you decide to purchase it (thanks if you do).
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Update:

From feedback on this post as well as some e-mails I’ve received, I’d say that one of SmartDraw’s main drawbacks is that it’s not flexible for people who do intensive graphics, and they may prefer something like Adobe Illustrator. Personally, I use Gimp (free & open source) if I need to do any serious graphic editing. A couple of people have said that they are having difficulty removing SmartDraw from their Windows PC’s but I didn’t experience any problems. SmartDraw is a good tool if you need more than an online application like Gliffy, but you don’t create large diagrams that may need two monitors. Basically, SmartDraw is a mid-level application, with lots of built-in features that advanced users may find a pain (similar to the way that professional photographers don’t like automatic cameras).

Update 2:

Tony [see comments # 26, 27, 28 & 30)] has set up a Google Group, Drawing-Smartly, to discuss drawing programs (including but not limited to SmartDraw). I think it will be a better medium than this blog post, so please join if you’re interested in learning more

Final (I hope) Update: There is now a SmartDraw Blog to voice your opinions.

Technology Defined

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Albert Ip has changed the name of his blog from Random walk in elearning to Random walk in learning. Albert says that there are no specific learning technologies, just technologies that can be used for learning.

Of course we can talk about how to use a certain technology in a certain way to help some learners learn something. This is the process and context. Technology, information, artifacts, classrooms, chairs, etc are just part of the context. The actual process occurs between the ears of the learners, may be influenced by the process organised by the teacher.

My working definition of technology is similar, in that I see my work as a combination of 1) helping people to learn, 2) helping organisations and people to work better and 3) using information & communication technologies appropriately. Hence the name of this site, “Conversations at the intersection of learning, work and technology”. As far as technology is concerned, I use Harold Stolovitch’s description as my working definition:

Technology is the application of organized and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

Perhaps the creation of the “learning technologies” field has done us a disservice in spawning a separate discipline from learning (or education or training). As tool builders and tool users for millennia, we cannot escape our technologies, nor should we give them over to a small priesthood of experts.

Instruments of our success?

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I’ve just watched Reds, Whites and the Blues on CBC TV, described as “Four savvy teenagers from the Rez take us to their White high schools and show us why most native kids don’t graduate.” I watched four kids record video for several months as they go through school. What struck me was that these are intelligent and articulate kids but they don’t connect to the school. As one boy says, “I’m proud to be Chief Dan George’s great, great grandson … and he stood for education.” But the school system is not designed to encourage connections and there is no connection between this First Nation and the public school system; they are separate worlds.

Their stories once again reminded me of Roger Schank’s Student Bill of Rights. Almost everything that we see in this documentary by Duncan McCue breaks an article of the bill of rights, particularly these three:

Clarity of Goals: No student should be required to take a course, the results of which are not directly related to a goal held by the student, nor to engage in an activity without knowing what he can expect to gain from that activity.

Passivity: No student should be required to spend time passively watching or listening to anything unless there is a longer period of time devoted to allowing the student to participate in a corresponding active activity.

Arbitrary Standards: No student should be required to prepare his work in ways that are arbitrary or to jump through arbitrary hoops defined only by a particular teacher and not by the society at large.

Duncan says that teachers have no skills in how to teach native kids, but I think that part of the problem is that “One size fits nobody” and the system’s defects are just more evident here. The choice for these kids is to conform or else. With everything that we purport to know about pedagogy and neuro-science, can’t we create better learning environments than this? Do students have to write arbitrary exams to be certified as successful, and if they fail they’re branded as losers for life?

Chief Dan George said in 1967, “Oh, God! Like the Thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success—his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.” However, I’m not sure if the instruments of our success are worth taking.

Choose your bedfellows carefully

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Obviously, there are some big software vendors that just don’t know how to be good citizens. For many, it’s all about the bottom line, no matter what.

Anyone in the learning technology space knows about Blackboard’s greedy grab for intellectual property that was originally created by the community (yes, the initial suit is against D2L, but will open source be next?). And now along comes Oracle into the open source space and tries to squeeze Red Hat out of the enterprise Linux market, as reported by Matt Asay.

I would say that this proves Churchill’s adage that first we shape our institutions and then they shape us. The nature of the beast that is the corporation is that it is self-serving and motivated by profit at all costs. Community-based projects, like open source are built on a different premise.

One thing I’ve learned as a free-agent is that your real partners are the ones who have the same level of risk as you. When I partner on a handshake with another free-agent, I know that that person has as much at stake as I do. When I’m asked to enter into a partnership with a corporation, I know that it cannot be a real partnership with the same risk on each side. What happens if one of us decides to change the rules of engagement? If it’s the corporation, then I’m left high & dry because I don’t have the means to take on their retained legal counsel.

Therefore, I only partner with equals and I sub-contract to larger corporations. With corporations, it’s a contract, not a relationship. I can have a relationship with a person, but not with a disembodied corporation.

As open source projects of all varieties get bigger, they will be befriended by large corporations. My advice is to choose your bedfellows carefully.