Stop Reading - Skim Dive Skim

Genie left a great comment on one of my favorite posts - Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog. She said:

"Because this is the way that we're going to learn in the future" - I love it!

Not sure about the 9 year olds though, my kids are downloading music and games and creating their own language on messenger. So not so certain about reading - no one reads these days - they play. Blogs are the last gasp before virtual interactive education takes over the schools. Plug in and turn off.

The 9 year olds reference is around a statement made by Karl Kapp - “my 9 and 11 year old sons have a deeper understanding of the tools” than you do.

Genie made me think a bit ... (thanks Genie) ...

While she is talking about kids in the future and their use of writing and reading, it really made me wonder:

Do we read anymore? Should we read anymore?

I know that I rarely really read anymore ... I skim and then dive in depth and then skim. I read as few words as possible. Just enough to get the general sense of what is being discussed. I miss a lot of detail, but I also am pretty good at being able to find the detail when I need to get to it.

I have a horrible habit of reading my email using this same reading style. This means that I sometimes miss important pieces of information buried somewhere in an email. [Edit - I originally wrote horrible. But I'm not so sure.]

And, in comparison to most executives that I know, I'm quite thorough. Send most executives a two page email and you are lucky if they skim the first two lines. Do they read their business books in depth? Did you read this? I don't think so, they find the single concept and then figure that the rest of the 200 pages give great support for that concept.

Genie is talking about kids, but in thinking about what she said and my own behavior, actual reading of items from start to finish is pretty much gone.

My bet is that many of you have skimmed right down to this item. Did you miss the question I asked in the paragraph above?

There's an embedded poll right here to show you how many people are skimming vs. reading.



My bet is most people, especially those reading blogs, are skimmers. And, they are right to be skimmers! So -

Stop reading.

Skim, dive, skim. That's the way to go.

Oh, and you need to have skills around understanding, keeping and refinding. You skim at a level that gives a basic understanding, allows you to make a decision around what it is, do you need this again and how you will store it away (if at all).

The only time you actually read something is when you need all the details for processing right then. Otherwise, it's a waste of time to go through all the details. You only need enough to understand what it is and get back to the details later.

Most often there is no payoff for reading. Skim dive skim is the best ROI on your time.

Request for Proposal (RFP) Samples

Based on my post LMS RFP, I've been asked several times if I knew where you could find samples of Request for Proposals (RFPs) for custom eLearning development, performance support tools, learning content management systems (LCMS), elearning authoring tools, etc. Today the question was for Microsoft Project. This wasn't something I could directly help the person, but I had the sense that people may be missing some key search tricks that would give them a list of reasonable results.

The keys are:

1. (filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc) - only show me actual documents in either of these formats. This trick works really well when you are searching for content on a wide variety of things, often I add in filetype:ppt as well to find presentations.
2. (RFP OR "Request for Proposal") - find either of these terms
3. (LCMS OR "Learning Content Management System") - find either of these terms

Obviously, substitute the key terms such instead of LCMS. And in the case of something like custom eLearning development, you want all of those terms, so you just add them at the end.

If you string these together in Google, you will find documents that give you suggestions what go in RFPs as well as actual RFPs that people have on the web. You have to scan down a bit, but it's well worth the effort.

• LCMS Request for Proposal Search
• LMS RFP Search
• eLearning RFP Search
• Custom eLearning Development Search

Click one of the above examples, and modify with your terms.

Human Computer Interfaces

The post questioning Cursive Writing has turned to a few questions of alternative human computer interfaces. This is a fun discussion. Thought I'd post a couple of pictures here that go along with the recent discussion.

A picture of the direct brain interface that allows input direct control of mouse via brain ...


Conceptually what is happening ...


Wearable computing, full high end PC with connectivity ...


Automotive repair interface seen through projection on glasses...


What I plan to look like in 25 years ...

ASTD TechKnowledge 2008 - Conference Planning

ASTD TechKnowledge 2008 is coming soon in San Antonio. Now that it's less than a month away, I thought I'd sit down and try to do some conference planning.

To help me prepare, I went back to a few previous posts on related topics...

In looking back, I first found a lot of posts that really suggested the key was having a good set of questions to provide a lens onto the conference:

• Be an Insanely Great Professional Conference Attendee
• Conference Preparation
• Better Questions for Learning Professionals
• Continuing Thoughts on Questions
• Do Learning Professionals Make the Worst Learners?

I need to figure out what questions I really have for this conference. I'm going to have to think a bit about that and come back to it.

I also found a few posts around practical attendee ideas:

• David Warlick - Conference 2.0 - Ten Tips for Extending your Education Conference
• Session Hopping – A Practical Guide
• Conference Networking Tools
  

Ray Sims had some good practical suggestions in the comments of Conference Networking Tools that suggest how to make contact. It somewhat presupposes you have a purpose. It also supposes you can get into and use ASTD CONNECT for the conference. I don't think I have a login yet. Does anyone else?

I also looked at a few posts more from the presenter / organizer standpoint ...

• Better Conferences - Response Needed
• Conference Breakout Sessions

The better conferences post reminded me that one of the more interesting sessions I've been involved recently were very small (10 person), very early (7AM) sessions that were a moderated group discussion on a particular topic. For some reason, conferences that have table topics never achieve that kind of discussion. Maybe it's the separate space. Maybe it's the moderator preparation. Maybe it's the level of the discussion (more specific question / topic). Maybe it's the expectation of the people attending.

It doesn't appear that TK2008 has any formal ways of doing this. There must be an informal method.

So, my task list:

1. Figure out what my questions are for this conference (really for this year).
2. Plan my sessions accordingly. Review sessions handouts ahead of the conference (available one week before) to figure out what sessions make sense.
   
3. Plan my trip into the Expo accordingly.
   
4. Find informal opportunities to discuss these topics with other attendees.

What am I missing here?

In Case You Missed It

There's been a fantastic discussion in my post - Touch Typing - Cursive Writing - Why?

I never know how to alert people, so I thought I'd just post.

eLearning Authoring Tool

Looking back at my post about eLearning Authoring Tools - and particularly whether custom or off-the-shelf is the way to go, I've been interested in seeing the varied response.

Paraphrasing justifications for custom eLearning Authoring Tool approaches:

• A templated approach provides speed and consistency for repetitive tasks, freeing up time and budget for customizing demonstrations and adding in video and other engaging elements.
• HTML and JavaScript are likely here to stay.
• HTML and JavaScript are better from an accessibility standpoint. Note: this is more a question of what the tool produces (Flash vs. HTML and how clean the resulting HTML is - there are some complaints about Lectora produced HTML).
• Lectora has a long way to go before it reaches the flexibility and efficiency of a courseware framework (XML > core media > engine).
• Most eLearning tools do not promote the creation of effective courses, do not promote web standards, and do not promote accessibility; they merely make cookie-cutter course development easier for technically inexperienced course developers.

Paraphrasing reasons to use an off-the-shelf eLearning Authoring Tool approach:

• Finished projects built with custom eLearning Authoring Tools become almost impossible for the clients to modify and update.
• An eLearning authoring tool will provide consistent sustainability for courseware output.
• You’ll be more likely to find someone with training/elearning expertise who knows the elearning authoring tools.

Looking at other posts and comments suggest some things to consider:

• Team size (large vs. small) and composition (skills).
• Which tool will still be in business in 5 years? Which tool will convert to something else when it does go away?

Some additional thoughts before choosing your eLearning Authoring Tool...

• The comment - "Most eLearning tools do not promote the creation of effective courses" is flat out misleading. A book and a video can be really great learning tools for some content, but creativity is required. A painter needs to be creative with the medium they are using. So too for instructional designers / course authors. There's a lot you can do with off-the-shelf tools and especially if you are capable of dropping in more sophisticated interactions as needed.
• You need to build what is good for the client (internal or external) (see What Clients Really Want). Maintenance is important in most all cases. In many cases, it is best for the client to be able to do quick maintenance themselves. Some choices make this much harder or even impossible. That said, maintaining some template driven systems can be the easiest for clients (if the system is built for it). However, it is almost always a bad choice to build something that requires significant, specialized knowledge to maintain.
  

At least, this all should be a topic of conversation with the client to make sure that what you are doing is in their best interest.

Maybe this topic should have been about maintenance of eLearning courses rather than about eLearning Authoring Tools.

Touch Typing - Cursive Writing - Why?

I'm not sure if it's only our school district, but 4th graders (9 year olds) spend considerable time learning cursive writing and are not taught touch typing. Why?

This is especially troubling because students certainly are expected to write their assignments on a computer. Oh, that is unless the teacher wants them to write it in cursive just to help them learn how to write in cursive. I had a bit of trouble explaining this to my son who struggled with cursive - the same son who did the Fourth Grader Wikipedia Update.

I personally only use cursive when I write my signature. And I'm not sure I remember the last time I even had to read cursive writing.

Can anyone explain this to me?

And will it change in the next two years before my youngest becomes a 4th grader?