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The Angry Birds Community: Social Learning Utopia?

The Angry Birds Community: Social Learning Utopia?

by on October 3, 2011 in Collaboration Tools, feedback, Game Mechanics, Informal Learning, Motivation, social learning, Video, YouTube

I’m not sure what it is about Angry Birds that made it so popular, but it works for me.  The game was introduced to me by my 10-year-old daughter, and we both seem to have the same (huge) amount of fun with it.

Angry Birds – the game – can certainly be used as a model for eLearning; it has all the attributes that make for effective game-based learning:  immediate rewards and feedback, increasingly challenging tasks, focus on action and decision-making.  Of course, actually creating effective eLearning with the same level of fun and excitement as Angry Birds would be a tall order, but it’s a worthy goal.

I’m interested in something more than Angry Birds’ gaming dynamics, though; I’m interested in the Angry Birds community.  We play Angry Birds on an Android phone – when we get stuck and click Hint, we are are transported to YouTube, where …

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Provide Feedback to Learners. But Be Vague About It.

Provide Feedback to Learners. But Be Vague About It.

by on August 4, 2011 in feedback

Well here’s an interesting dilemma. I read two intriguing articles in the July issue of Wired magazine: One was called “Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops” by Thomas Goetz. The other was a blog post entitled “In Praise of Vagueness” by Jonah Lehrer. My initial reaction was “Hurray! I have content for my next two blog posts!”

But then I started writing, and all of my grand ideas folded in on each other until I realized, heart sinking, that I indeed only have one blog post, and that I view these two articles as companion pieces to each other.

The gist of feedback loops is that, as one is provided with information about one’s behavior, it can be used to modify behavior in order to more closely approach a desired outcome. In Goetz’s article, he gives a compelling example (if all the comments to the article …

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The Lonely eLearner: Creating Social Learning Anchors

The Lonely eLearner: Creating Social Learning Anchors

by on March 9, 2011 in blended learning, eLearning, feedback, LMS (Learning Management System), social learning

The other day, I ran across Clive Shepherd’s recent blog post  The New Social Learning  – a review and I was struck by an observation he made there. The gist of it was that even though we have an enormous amount of tools available to enable social learning across far reaching boundaries, the self-study type of eLearning seen in so many workplaces today can potentially cut learners off from any type of social interaction during the course of the learning. This can be detrimental to learners who need that interaction to assess their new skills against others, discuss ideas, and gain new perspectives.

I agree with Clive’s observations on this topic. In my opinion, giving a learner a self-study eLearning program as their only form of training or support is not much different than handing them a manual to read with some exercises.  In this lonely form of learning, there is …

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The Great Survey Completion Rate Dilemma Solved (Maybe)

The Great Survey Completion Rate Dilemma Solved (Maybe)

by on December 22, 2010 in feedback, marketing

The holidays are upon us, which means gifts, family, services… and the end of the fiscal year.  For many, that sparks a flood of surveys from companies looking for a little feedback on “how they did” (there may even be a few from Dashe & Thomson to watch for).  With all of the competition for scarce attention time, it’s become received wisdom that surveys need to be short (like 5 questions short), or else the response rate will tank.  But is this really the case, I’ve often wondered?  As you’ve no doubt come to expect from my “investigative journalism” style, I did a little digging (and I mean little), and what at least one source reports may surprise you.

According to SurveyMonkey, adding just five questions to a ten question survey will result in an additional 2% of respondents dropping out before completing the whole thing.  While five questions isn’t a …

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