Six months ago Thomas Suarez, a 6th grader from Los Angeles, spoke at a TEDS event about the making and sale of an “app”  he created on his own – “Bustin Jieber” (a whack-a-mole type anti-Justin-Bieber game.)  (There’s nearly 2 million views of the video on YouTube so you may have seen it.) Anyway, he’s quite eloquent and now owns his own company. While he’s clearly much further ahead than the majority of 6th graders I know, his actions offer a glimpse of our future workforce.

Suarez, who is self taught, started to build, create and sell his own apps and even created a club for fellow students where he shares what he knows about programming.  He thinks “students are a valuable new technology resource to teachers, and should be empowered to offer assistance in developing the technology curriculum and also assist in delivering the lessons.”

Amen. He’s taught himself Python, Java, and C “just to get the basics down” according to his bio.This DIY mentality is why online learning from CodeAcademy and Kahn Academy, are so popular.

Here’s his talk:

I had a glimpse of that kind of thing in my house two weeks ago. My son is a gamer. His current game of choice is Call of Duty (COD). He plays LIVE with various friends. He decided he wanted to record the game play so he Googled it (“How to…”) and ended up finding something called  Dazzle (about $50 US), a video capture device.

He asked ‘guilted’ me into buying it for him as repayment for the iPod Touch I accidentally dropped, cracking the screen. (He said since a lot of people have small cracks in their screen, he’d rather I not pay to get it fixed but instead buy this Dazzle thingy. This is extortion mixed with love and guilt.) So off we went to BestBuy  and, as it turned out, Radio Shack after that for the right connectors which we couldn’t find at BestBuy. (Dazzle is not created for the purpose of recording XBox play…it just does but you need to add some cords.) Oh, and we went to Wendy’s too. Why not make a day of it?

Back from the road trip….so my son often helps his friends out when they are first learning to play (they help each other) so he thought he’d record a tutorial. I’m not making this up.

Using Dazzle’s software, he couldn’t figure out why the audio control was grayed out (I suspect it had something to do with the default setting on the computer) and since I didn’t want to stop watching the Stanley Cup playoffs to mess with this audio glitch, I told him to look at Audacity (open source audio recording).

Unassisted (except for the Audacity tip), he recorded the audio, saved it as a file type he could import (because I later asked and learned Audacity saves with a AUP file type...so he figured that out) , narrated his video recording, set up his own YouTube channel and uploaded it. All in the  course of an evening…basically unassisted. He’s 13! Amazing since a few folks in the industry (no one reading this of course : ) still say “http what?”

So…later that night, I was watching some lame Stanley Cup Western division playoff game that was boring so I looked up his channel on the iPad and watched what he did. Did I tell you he is in middle school! Yes, these kids are our future workforce. Neither Suarez nor my son would have learned this in school. There’s no app class. There’s no live online collaboration and video recording class (and least in our school district in NY State).

Do you have a similar story?

(As an aside…I know there are people who would not let a 13 year old play a game rated “M” -whether live or not – but my personal approach is one of involvement  – Why is the game “M”? Is he mature enough? Do I know who he is playing with? Do I monitor that? Have guidelines and expectations been set along with what will happen if those are disregarded? Am I prepared to recognize the signs that the game is having a negative effect? Is he getting enough physical activity to stay healthy?, etc. The research is mixed on video games, especially violent games.)

This video, produced by BrandGames, is a must view for those in corporate education. Some of the bad e-learning I have been exposed to (and early in my career created – argh!) is described in the first part of this video. The second half provides some good, common sense advice for anyone desiging and developing e-learning.

I’m a pretty typical suburban U.S. mother – a soccer Mom a/k/a “hockey Mom” of the minivan variety (read: boring vs. the sexy/gas-guzzly SUV variety). I limit my three kids to no more than two activities a ‘season.’ So right now we’re into the seven-month (ice) hockey season, short indoor lacrosse and indoor soccer seasons which carry over into the outdoor season, year-round ballet, and school year-long music lessons (what seasons?). Many are critical of this, even my own parents who become ‘exhausted’ when reading the schedule.Â

I’ve written about hockey before because it’s one of my favorite sports. Our youth hockey organization has a great group of parents I enjoy being around. Not so in many other organizations. Last year at a neighboring rink, some fans got into a fight and one ended up with a head injury in the hospital. This is youth hockey. Not the NY Rangers.

This is probably why hockey is the only sport where I have to watch a mandatory training video on how not to be a jerk.

I got thinking about why hockey is different – why it requires anti-jerk training. I think it’s probably due to violence-driven litigation at the youth level and the draw associated with the (condoned/’enforcer’-type) player fighting associated with the sport at the professional level. You know, the “I was at a fight and a hockey game broke out…”

It reminds me of mandatory compliance-type training that speaks to our common sense. We might just as well align our ‘common-sense’ compliance training with the adult education program (“relax, it’s just a game) in hockey.

“Relax, it’s just a password video or “Oops don’t get us sued” e-learning. Training for the masses based on the actions of a few. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I only screamed once or twice during the four games I attended this tournament weekend. Mostly just “skate Drew skate!” as he chased after a breakaway (he’s a defenseman). Better take the mandatory training again. Ugh

Photos: Mom from this Mom t-shirt shopand harassment from this law firm. Gotta love the irony.

This was me, last Wednesday…well, almost. The student needs to be a 40-something woman running up 44 stairs (yes, I count them, got a problem with that?) with a book bag after wolfing down a Wendy’s chicken sandwich in the car. Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen. Good God, what’s happening here? If I sit in class one more time and think…’why aren’t we doing this online?’ I am going to scream. Or, die of a heart attack.

Preparation and organization. How much of your day do you think you spend on those two tasks? It’s all I’ve been doing lately and I’m a bit weary of both because they involve doing something now for something in the future. I’m weary I guess because I don’t feel like I’m doing anything. I feel like an animal gathering and storing food for the winter.

For many years, I hired outside instructors to teach advanced technical job-specific skills. Trainer A was a man in his 50s who did all his training face-to-face. He used flipcharts and occasionally offered his students videotaped vignettes to watch as part of an activity. He was meticulous in his preparation and organization. All binders were lined up perfectly. Everyone was given the same number and type of pencils. The name tents were set up perfectly. Everything was prepared and organized to perfection. His reputation was outstanding and his evaluations were always top-notch. He did not use a PC, didn’t have a Website, and communicated by phone instead of email. He had an interest in e-learning that might resemble the interest a polar bear, in the comfort of his recliner, would have about a report on global warming. He was not ready for change.

Trainer B was a woman about my age who also did all of her training face-to-face. Her expertise was in interpersonal skill training. She was as meticulous, actually more so, in her preparation and organization as Trainer A was. She would arrive 1 or 1 ½ hours early and rearrange the room, prepare flipcharts, ask questions about the group very, very detailed questions. She also used binders, flipcharts, and video. Her reputation was outstanding, her evaluations were exceptional, and she worked for many Fortune 100 companies. Her company had a Website and some post-workshop activities were available online and via email. Her interest in e-learning might resemble the stress a polar bear would experience when faced with shrinking ice. (What the ??? is this about?). She was starting to get ready for change.

Trainer C was a man about my age who also did all of his training face-to-face. Like Trainer A, his training served a niche market  hard to find technical content that was very job-specific. He traveled the continental U.S. and trained nearly 200 days per year. His preparation and organization was an art form. He experienced virtually no stress when faced with things I would’ve  freaked out about. He used a PC, projector, and online games in his classroom along with binders, and tent cards. His interest was keen on e-learning. I guess he’d be the Al Gore of polar bears alerting the other polar bears of changes looming by doing something about it. About the time I was working with him, I was rolling out a synchronous learning platform. He asked if he could work with me on it to deliver some of his training at a distance. He didn’t charge my organization for this and delivered a couple of pilots. He asked endless questions about online teaching and read everything I sent his way. His preparation was outstanding and he commented on the amount of time spent with this new channel for delivering his training. He was ready for change and doing something about it.

These three trainers, with different levels of readiness for advancing learning by incorporating technology, could easily have been some managers or learners at the organization. Or, any of us.

So, as I prepare and organize for workshops I’ll deliver, I’m reminded of these two videos that can remind everyone why we need to take seriously how we prepare and organize our learning activities.

http://www.youtube.com/v/P7J_ereCiTo

http://www.youtube.com/v/aEFKfXiCbLw

Photo: http://climateprogress.org/2006/12/27/polar-bears-endangered-by-global-warming/

This is too long (8 minutes!) but even if you just watch a minute or so you’ll get the gist. Well, maybe you won’t get it if you’re not familiar with MTV cribs. Via Mashable!

Good stuff.
How Common Craft Makes Their Videos

Probably only funny to those who know (and especially those new to) Second Life. Via Christopher Sessums. The only thing missing is the continuing altering of one’s appearance. Guilty.

I enjoy reading Dave Pollard’s how to save the world blog. His post Getting People to Give a Damn struck a cord after reading my colleague Gary Woodill’s comments about training professionals coasting to retirement. Lynn Marentette made several interesting comments in response to that post including people don’t know that they don’t know, or what they need to know. In effect, they haven’t found a reason to give a damn. What don’t you know? What don’t I know that I need to know? What don’t I give a damn about because I haven’t been shown why I should give a damn?

Michael Moore is an expert in getting people to give a damn. See the clips from his new movie, Sicko. What if the training industry made a documentary of outrageously bad training, bad decisions, and failed initiatives?

Now, I know there’s a lot of good classroom trainers and phenomenal teachers and am grateful to have had many show me the way to giving a damn. My point is not to minimize the need for instructor-led training.

So what to do? Dave Pollard’s action plan includes informing by showing so that people would care if they knew, they will and personalization. One cause Dave suggests attacking from a rather long, important list, is the need for a self-directed education system, with facilitators and coaches instead of bums-on-chairs lecturers. He suggests answering two questions:

This is about activism and passion isn’t it? We talk a lot about it – I’m doing it now -  informing (in a way, maybe) but not by showing and certainly not making it personal. So, my short-term action is leading an e-learning 101 session in Toronto next week where I’ll step out from behind the comfort of a keyboard and in front of a group, put on my favorite damn strappy sandals and get freakin’ personal. Maybe somebody will be ready to give a damn and it’ll be a catalyst for change.

Hey, I like your ring! 3D mouse you wear like a ring. Development cost- US $700 and 21 weeks. 5 students.
INVENTION AWARDS A New Breed of Mouse – Popular Science

No more eating Cheetos while I work : (
Microsoft Surface