Following a conversation yesterday with someone very interested in online learning, particularly leadership etc., and following the Future of Technology in Education conference today (well, in fact, a Tweeted comment on virtual worlds I picked up after leaving the conference) I feel that the two conversations (if reading someone's Tweet is, in fact, a conversation) are indelibly linked.
The first conversation was on why advertisers are so good at producing messages that get through to us so effectively and efficiently. Minimal time... but you remember the brand. You know what the brand values are. You know what the brand stands for. You know what it doesn't stand for... or what it stands against. So, the crux of the first conversation was, 'Why can't educators find ways of doing that?'
Is that the Future of Learning? We just create 'blipverts' of a couple of minutes in length that tell us all we need to know on a subject? We may need to go through hundreds of these blipverts, but if they are carefully crafted, surely they are going to be more effective than reading a text book, or a Harvard Business Review article, or a case study. After all, most business or management books don't really need an entire book to get their message over. I saw Professor Kim, author of Blue Ocean Strategy, talk about the book when it first came out. He gave a one hour seminar in a conference. Within 30 seconds he'd explained the concept, the rest of it was examples of what Blue Ocean Strategy is. This is in no way denigrating the importance or otherwise of BOS, but merely stating that it didn't need a full hour to explain the concept. I've read most of the book... it doesn't really give me much more. Is that just me?
Same could be said for Chris Anderson's 'The Long Tail' and his latest 'Free'. And Jim Collins' 'Good to Great'... and so I could go on.
My point? These 'important' management books may have been the product of much research and certainly many hours of hard graft, but one doesn't have to read them to understand the basic concept they're trying to explain.
I think, also, that the same goes for large amounts of knowledge in all areas of learning... not just management and business.
So how can we distil the important concepts into 1 minute easy-to-absorb 'bites'...dare I say...'Learning Bites'? One would need hundreds of them to get complex issues with all the necessary appendices, but that must still be easier to learn and retain than reading a text book or a journal article or even a 3 hour lecture.
Now the second point which comes from a Tweet today at the Future of Technology in Learning conference was to do with virtual worlds and the eventual development of gloves (and other clothing) that are able to replicate the texture or tactile sensations relating to particular things.
On the most basic practical level, this will help surgeons practice with 'hands-on' practical experience, with no dangers to the patients.
However, it obviously wouldn't be long before this was subverted by the sex industry to enable online sex to be more than looking... one would, combined with a multi-user virtual environment, be able to feel as if the...ahem...touching was really happening.
And pornography, distasteful, exploitative and seedy though it is, has always managed to be popular and retain people's attention. Perhaps not for long periods, but on a repeated basis.
So here's the idea. We create learning objects and edu-blipverts which are able to educate through sex. Sex brings in the learners and keeps them coming back. The educational element is somehow combined in the video (or virtual environment).
Perhaps better if we just went for educating through the medium of advertising.
After all, which is more important? That people learn, or that people study? It would be nice if the former came through the latter, but surely the main issue is to educate. By whatever means necessary.
2010-11-23
Sliced Bread - the Sequel?
