Utah Open Source Planet

This week, after spending a lot of effort trying to prepare for the Mac OS X 10.5 Advanced System Administration test, I took off the last half of the week to work on a workbook for my son.  As those of you who have followed my blog know, my son Jonathan is within the Autistic Spectrum, at either very high level autism or Asperger’s Syndrome (we find out in February which it is).  As such, trying to work with him has been an adventure, to say the least.  

We found a book that has been a great help.  The Autistic Spectrum Parents’ Daily Helper by Philip Abrams and Leslie Hendriques provides a great insight into teaching in general, and teaching autistic children specifically.  It’s focus is on learning through repetition, Constructivist learning by building upon skills and recognizing associations between skills, and finally learning design.  

Why learning design?  Because autistic children vary across the spectrum, their learning requirements are different.  The only way to teach your autistic children the skills they know is to break them down and teach each part of the skill.  This book tells you what to do, but it does lack in telling someone how to do it.  That means parents may know that they have to do a skills analysis, but they don’t know how to do it.  Luckily the book provides several references for parents that need more help. 

This book is more about doing something, which ultimately is what all students want.  Parents want to be able to do what they can, and this book is perfect for them.  It has a workbook for parents (giving them a teaching skill crash course), and a workbook for the child(ren).  

The students are focused on tactile and visual learning, which is great for autistic children (mostly because their auditory learning is generally challenged).  The workbook is focused on basic skills that most children pick up through imitation.  This includes doing chores, dressing oneself, etc.  It’s a great workbook, and one that I want my son to use.  

Now, the workbook is designed to have tear-out pages, but I have this thing about tearing out portions of books.  That, and it’s a standard 8.5″ by 11″ which is a bit larger than I like.  So, I took a lot of the ideas from the book and a few scans, and started making my own version of the book.  

I started by writing up all the text sections in Pages (which, ironically, I think the workbook was written in originally).  I also broke up the sections into two pages that fit within a compact Franklin planner.  39 pages later I cut out the new workbook sections and laminated them.  Then I punched holes to clip it in the planner.  Now I have a nice and compact workbook for my son that will travel nicely.  

So, that’s the workbook I have.  There are still some small details that need to be finished with it, but all in all it’s a functional workbook.  I can set a schedule for my son, have him match some skills together, and even start to learn how to tell time.  Needless to say, I’m quite happy with this workbook project, and look forward to augmenting it with new skills as we find that my son needs them.

This was a comment I left on Jon Mott's blog post, Getting From Here to There. Jon is an Academic Technology Strategist here at BYU who shares my enthusiasm for using web2.0 tools in the classroom.

I think a critical tool to have in building and proselytizing learning 2.0 tools is a key metric. This metric would be used to guide building decisions and to measure success.

In the book "Good to Great", an important event in the transitions of good companies to great companies was identifying a key metric or denominator as the book calls it.

The process of picking and using this denominator served as a mechanism to push deeper understanding of the company's economic engine. The companies asked themselves this question "If we could only pick one and only one ratio -- profit per x -- to systematically increase over time, what x would have the greatest and most sustainable impact on our economic engine?

Wells Fargo went through this process during bank deregulation:

"Consider Wells Fargo. When the Wells team confronted the brutal fact that deregulation would transform banking into a commodity, they realized that standard banker metrics, like profit per loan and profit per deposit, would no longer be the key drivers. Instead, they grasped a new denominator: profit per employee. Following this logic, Wells Fargo became one of the first banks to change its distribution to rely primarily on stripped-down branches and ATMs."

Because Wells Fargo understood their key economic drivers, they were able to a) encapsulate this logic through identifying a new denominator and b) use this logic to make many highly successful changes.

So my question is what are the key drivers of BYU's (and other school's) learning engine? What denominator or key metric offers the best insight as we plan / build / measure / proselyte new online technologies in education?

My suggestion would be conversations on learning topics per student per day.

I love Robert Scoble's (social media figure) goal to have an interesting conversation every day. Conversations with others seems an important key to learning almost anything.

My best educational experience by far here at BYU was the Information Systems Junior Core -- It's 24 credits over two semesters. I was placed in a group of four and spent eight hours a week sitting next to my group members. Almost all of our projects were group projects and those that weren't we often ended up working together anyways. Everything about the core was designed to push us students to talk to one another. A mailing list was set up for the ~110 students in the core. It saw heavy usage with students asking / answering questions about all sorts of class / ISys related questions.

The effect of all this was conversation, lots of it. Because of these conversations (and great professors / projects) I learned far more and I had much more fun than in other classes here. We talked so much about ISys / non ISys topics that many of us became good friends. I looked forward to class because I was going to see my friends.

By comparison, in most other classes I learn in isolation. I don't get to know other students very well so I don't talk much with them about the subject so I learn less and the class is much more boring.

My take on all this is we learn best with friends who are striving to become what we are striving to become.

Obviously not every classroom experience at BYU can hope to replicate what's done in the ISys Junior Core but I think much could be improved. The types of assignments given (e.g. more group work) and the integration of social software tools that make it easier for students and professors to connect online and offline would do much to help more conversations happen at BYU which would dramatically increase the quality and quantity of education.

What do you all think?

This week I finish up with my T3’s for Apple with Advanced Server Administration.  This class is focused primarily on running the ADDIE process (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) throughout the IT  infrastructure of a company, and build it up using both the GUI and Command Line tools.  Because it is assumed that you have been learning the GUI tools up to this point (this is the capstone course), it primarily focuses on the command line tools available to the Mac.  

I’m not sure when we will offer the class at the U, as much depends on other training offerings and any additional infrastructure we would need, but I already have a lot of people interested in this class.  Most of them are Linux administrators who are going to be supporting the Apple platform, and want to do so with SSH (just as they would with Linux).  I already have a list of people who would love to take that class.  

Anyway, it all hinges on whether or not I’m judged “good enough” to train.  Partly judged by my peers, partly judged by the Master Trainer, my fate rests in their hands.  At this point, however, I’m less concerned.  I’m rather more concerned with how my family is doing back home.  I’m literally counting the days until I fly out.  But I will miss the Chicago area.  

Anyway, more details on the classes I attended during this trip sometime next week.  I’ll give a teaser for the classes, and give you my opinion of the materials and flow of the class.  

As promised, here is my review for the Mac OS X Deployment 10.5 T3 that I attended this last week.  

First, the location.  Of course I’m biased, but I have always loved Chicago, and as such enjoyed the trip Villa Park and Oakbrook Terrace.  The hotel was nice, and the location of the training facility was fairly easy to get to.  The only problem:  no sidewalks.  It makes it difficult to walk when you don’t have sidewalks, and there isn’t enough room to walk on the street (without getting hit).  Other than that, the location was nothing to complain about. 

The materials:  There are quite a lot of material for this class, and I was a little concerned that it would be impossible to fit it all into a 2 day training.  Luckily, that was the thought of the course developers as well, and as such the training was extended to 3 days.  That fits in perfectly with my training schedule I have planned for the University, so I didn’t complain. 

The Subject Matter:  There was still a lot that I wanted to cover but couldn’t in the class, mostly those focusing around the command line.  But then, there is a separate class for that, which I will be attending in two weeks.  ^_^  But those important topics, such as deploying through the command line, and imaging through the command line, were covered in depth.  Also planning, scaling, and third party utilities for managing a deployment option was well covered.  

One really nice thing I liked about the class was a mandate for the student to immediately apply what they have learned to a real world situation.  They do this through a Deployment planning sheet, which the trainer should have printed out for each student.  We didn’t have it, but it was made available to us in PDF form, and there is a link that comes with the learning materials to PeachPit’s website for the same PDF.  Once the form is filled out, the last chapter talks about real world solutions in many large companies, school districts, and training centers, and gives the student time to go through their document to see what they find useful, and what they don’t need, in their deployment of OS X.  

The Requirements:  It is essential the student have a command of both the Mac OS X GUI and have command line experience before starting this course.  Basically, students would need to have completed at least the Server Essentials course, and be able to manage a UNIX command line experience.  Why?  Because at the beginning of the course you are just expected to set up your computers with little assistance from the book.  At this point, it is expected that the student knows already how to set up a brand new install of Mac OS X. 

The command line experience would be more along the lines of familiar with syntax of commands.  Most, if not all, of the commands used are Mac OS X Utilities and not your typical UNIX commands, yet the syntax is the same and therefore the student needs to be familiar with that syntax.  There may be some situations when troubleshooting is necessary, and as such the student will need to know how to get to the man pages.  

Something else that would be important before taking this class is having troubleshooting knowledge, and an understanding of what you are being prepared to learn.  This way if something doesn’t quite work they way it’s written in the book, you can step outside of the given examples and find alternatives.  That’s part of learning, something that many students I have had in the past didn’t quite understand.  It requires reading/studying ahead of time, asking questions, and being attentive.  

The Pace:  Unlike both Support and Server Essentials where we pend a lot of time trying to catch the class up after some really long first setup exercises, this class is paced just right for the materials.  We as a training class (of 10 trainers) finished with plenty of time on the last day to cover some topics more in depth, and that was with us doing the majority of the optional exercises.  So with a typical class at this level, the pacing will be such that students will have some time to play with some configuration, or perhaps have a long lunch as a thank you for coming to the class.  

Overall, it is the best designed Apple training course I have attended so far.  The materials are well designed, the pace is just right (low to medium cognitive load), and the course talks well to adult students (through Constructivist methods).  This is a class that may not run often here in Utah, but will most likely be a well attended class when it does.  It is by far my most favorite class to date.  ^_^  

Also, I’d like to say thanks to everyone that attended, because they gave me some very welcomed constructive criticism, and the Master Trainer was a great host.  If only the Cubs could have won all three games I was there, rather than just one of the two.  Oh well, there is always next time.  

Education is an interesting beast.  There are so many different needs and environments that it often can become expensive to provide a comprehensive, controlled platform for students to work.  As such, often topics are ignored or just not offered.  

Case in point:  We have two closed computer labs here at the Annex that we use for teaching.  Both are Windows labs, because the primary platform our software classes run on is Windows.  To become a Mac lab required an investment in Apple hardware and software, which represented a huge cost on our part.  And now we are running Linux classes, thanks to our good friends at Guru Labs.  But we ran into a problem running the class in a semester-long format:  How do you keep the environment static for one platform while teaching in another platform?

The eventual obvious answer was using a Virtual machine.  With a virtual machine we have the ability to keep a separate image for each class (or series of classes) run, and continue to teach Windows software without having to re-image the lab every day.  

The second most obvious answer would be to use VM Ware.  Why?  Because it’s free and easy to use.  Now, we could opt to use Xen (and will eventually), but the base install for these systems needs to be Windows.  Why?  Because it’s the lowest common denominator when it comes to user experience.  This way people don’t panic when they see something other than a Windows XP login screen.  

Another reason to use VM Ware is the availability of VM Ware on the Mac (via VM Ware Fusion).  It’s easy to use, and allows us to use multiple OS distributions on the Mac machines without difficulty.  That means that the Linux class can now be mobile.  ^_^

So that is a current solution.  But what of the future?  There is a lot of potential for the Virtual machine setup in education.  Distance education becomes possible with a completely controlled environment, as long as one has a significant internet connection.  That, and some well organized VPN settings can make a remote Technical education setup quite possible.  

So, what makes virtual machines useful in an educational setting?  One distribution of an application, free of any potential conflicts, that can be distributed across a network through a mounted file system.  And all you have to do is double-click to execute.  

Have any of you used Virtual Machines in the classroom?  Which of you find it useful?  Which of you don’t?  

Researchers have shown that the distribution of many natural and social phenomenons follow what's called the power law. Power laws are known by other names such as the 20-80 rule (80% of wealth is controlled by 20% of the population), the long tail, Winner-Take-All, etc.

Here is an example power law graph from Wikipedia:

Many have written that almost all measures of web site usage follow the same pattern whether that be page views, in-bound links, etc.

This past semester I built an e-learning site for two sections of an upper-level university course at Brigham Young University. Now that the semester is finished, we've started to analyze the data we've collected on how students used the site.

And what did I notice when I started to graph the data? Why the power law of course.

So onto the graphs I made.

First is a graph of the number of comments each student made on the class website throughout the semester. This is a good measure of their engagement with the online community. You can see that some students left as many as 40-60 comments throughout the semester and others left as little as 1 or two:
Another graph which follows the power law. This time a graph of the number of visits to the class website per student. Again we see a wide disparity between students. One student visited the site over 400 times! Which in a four month semester means they visited the site on average 3 times a day! And on the other end, a number of students only visited the site 5-10 times the entire semester.

Why the Power Law?

So why does this happen? Why do some students participate on the class website so much more then other students? I'm not sure I know the answer to that. Why do some people write blogs, participate in Wikipedia, upload their photos to flickr, etc. and many others don't?

Do some students just not see the value of blogging? Are some students more comfortable interacting online for whatever reason? Or on another tact, does it matter if some students participate more then others? After all, in any community, there's always a core group which cares much more then others about the success of the community (read about the power law of participation). What type of participation in an online learning community meets the learning goals for a classroom?

There's a host of other ideas rumbling around in my head about power laws, the three types of networks (political, social, creative) and how all this relates to creating effective online learning/collaborative environments. But that will all have to wait for another day. In the meantime, here's some links.

Extra Credit Reading:

Read these two articles by Ross Mayfield, first this one, then this one.

Then two by Clay Shirky, "Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality" and "Social Software and the Politics of Groups."

And one more on building vibrant communities.

I've been putting some final touches on a website I built for a class running at BYU this semester on web analytics. You can visit the site here. I did a write-up about the site for Drupal's education working group. I discuss the design principles that guided my construction of the site.
A bit from the write-up:

We recently created a community learning space for a web analytics class at BYU. We directed students to create individual blogs on commercial blogging platforms such as blogspot, wordpress, and elsewhere. We are then using FeedAPI to aggregate the student blogs and comments (see list of student feeds) into the community site. In addition, we're aggregating blogs from prominent web analytic experts (see list of expert feeds). A wiki and spot for announcements round out the list of features.

Link to the write-up
Link to the web site

For quite a while I have been looking for a hosting service that will give me a large amount of flexibility in what I want to accomplish.  Namely, I wanted to find a service that will allow me to host my blog, set a home page, link in a site for my book when I finally get it ready for publication, set up a learning management system for my classes, and allow me to start a collaboration project with my family on genealogy.  

most options out there were fairly expensive, or didn’t provide the level of reliability that I was looking for.  What to do?  Well, I finally found Dreamhost.  

Now, I’m not saying that Dreamhost is the end-all beat-all, but it had a great offering for the price, with 500 GB of storage and tons of bandwidth, both of which continue to grow as the site grows.  I can also host as many domains as I wish, as many websites as I like, and even have ssh access to my server.  This means I can use sshfs to upload my site files, while also using my server for some much needed storage.  

But that’s all the reasons why I moved to Dreamhost.  Let’s talk about the actual move.  The domain creation was all really easy.  Each subdomain is free, which is very convenient.  The Mail, Calendar, etc. is all hosted through Google Apps, which is very convenient in that it saves space on my server.  If only I could get the GCALDaemon working properly…  Anyway, setting up the domains was very painless.  

Next, the services.  I started, of course, with the blog.  They had WordPress available as a one-click install, which worked beautifully.  It was ready for me to set up and configure almost immediately.  I then selected the current template because it was very light on the visuals, and soft on the eyes. 

The second service I set up was PhpGedView, which I set up on <a href=”http://gedcom.robbclan.com”>gedcom.robbclan.com</a>.  Then I tried to upload my families gedcom file:  it failed.  Why did it fail?  The program was set up for up to 7 MB files, and my family has a gedcom file that is 65 MB.  It would have been a problem, but I just uploaded it with ssh, and got it installed.  The only problem now is tweaking the program a little bit to allow updates to such a large file.  But that’s something I will be working on later.  

The last service I set up was my Moodle server.  I love Moodle:  It’s an open source version of Blackboard or WebCT, and is arguably better in many aspects.  It set up quickly, and I chose a theme that was very telling (brushed metal).  Yes, I chose it because it’s a popular Mac theme.  But as the majority of classes I teach are Mac classes, I thought it would be appropriate.  

I then set up my classes, or I should say supplements to my classes.  They are mostly discussion and quizzes that I use for my For-credit students, and will allow students in the non-credit course to access and use if they so wish.  It’s not meant to be a replacement or attempt to teach the class online at all.  I then set up the outline for an online course on how to Learn to Cook.  It’s currently closed as it isn’t nearly as ready as I would like, so don’t expect to access it or use it.  

Now, the only thing left to do is to create a real website.  Currently I have a placeholder with very little code, using the template for the blog.  I also properly cited the theme creator, as he deserves all the credit for the theme.  The website will be changing as I get more time to work on it, but for now it’s enough to explain what the domain is all about, and has links to the various programs I’m working on.  

So, that was my adventure so far!  Right now I’m getting my work machine ready for a reinstall, and then I will be working more on the site.  I also need to get my blog published and out there.  I don’t expect I will be getting as many hits as I did from my Blogger account, but it will be interesting from an SEO perspective to see how the hits change.  

This week I have been teaching Mac OS X Support Essentials, and I’m really excited with this group. I have two students from New Mexico, one from Idaho, one from Wyoming, and the final student from Park City, Utah. It seems that our Apple classes are starting to draw a lot of students from across the West.

The class is moving along nicely, though the content is still really high. The poor students are hitting their cognitive load rather quickly, and so we can’t move more than a couple of chapters at a time. Unfortunately, that leaves us with about half the curriculum left to cover today. Luckily there isn’t a lot that the students need to learn at this point because all the heavy learning happened at the beginning of the course. Now we are just covering Networking, Peripherals, printing, and the startup sequence. But the students already feel overwhelmed.

Looking at the materials again, while I still contend they are better than the 10.4 materials (by a long shot), the course should have been made a 4 day course. Of course that brings up a whole different concern about the price tag on the course which most students and their employers already consider too high. It’s an interesting balancing act, particularly when you think about what is required, or expected, for this level of expertise.

Perhaps, when I have time, I’ll run through the materials with my magnifying lens, and see if I can’t find a better design for the course. Perhaps there are exercises that are redundant, or perhaps there are topics that are not that important. This all comes after I have finally had the time to write the testing software that I intend to create.

Finally, something that I would love to see from Apple, is a Learning or testing platform that could be run within a Virtual Machine and distributed through a network. Something like LivePC (more on that platform later, which has really impressed me!). It would make testing easier, and even easily distributed (though controlled through an access platform), so that more Apple Professionals can be out there. Perhaps if the requirement for the software to work would be to have it run on Apple hardware…

We have all had that one experience, I’m sure. Sitting in a meeting or classroom, listening to a presentation or watching a demo, and the brain starts to wander. It can happen to different people at different times and have different initial factors, but the reason is the same: cognitive load has been reached.

The Effects of HIgh Cognitive Load
So what is Cognitive Load? Basically, it’s the amount of working memory the brain uses to perform tasks. The more tasks you perform, the more cognitive load you heap on your brain.

Of course, there are levels of brain activity that utilize your working memory, and it differs based on the need for understanding. The less you need to assimilate within a given time, the less cognitive load you need to use. It seems like a simple concept, doesn’t it? Focus on what you are doing, and eventually you will get there.

Unfortunately, in the world of Professional Training, this is a luxury you can’t often afford. People are required to assimilate a lot of information in a very short amount of time. Because their cognitive load is really high, they are less likely to understand the topics that are being discussed. Consequently the learning experience is diminished or negative, leaving the learner confused and even a little scared.

An excellent example I saw was a student that had taken my Excel 2003 Level 1 course. Normally, this would be a very simple class to take, and I like the design because it takes Cognitive Load into consideration for the majority of students. This student, however, was new to Windows platform entirely. So not only was the student trying to understand the Excel interface, but also the Windows interface. The student locked up, and took my entire lunch time to start to feel more comfortable.

Fighting High Cognitive Load
So, what is a course designer to do? You have a high cognitive load requirement to finish the course material in as little time as possible. How can you be sure that your students are maximizing their understanding?

The first thing I would recommend is checking for those peak times when Cognitive Load becomes an issue. The number one cuplrit: Lunch. After lunch, the learner’s blood rushes to their stomach to digest their food. As a consequence, the learner’s brain has less blood to process information. I call this the Lunchtime Lull, which is best fought by having a less-taxing assignment or fun game that reinforces your principles for the students at a high level, letting their minds rest a bit.

Another problem is all lecture and no practice. While some learners are excellent at auditory learning, most need to apply the lecture at least once to cement the concept in their brain. The process of going through exercises fires additional synapses in the brain, thereby increasing the entries and imprints of the concept within the brain. Of course, the other result is a break between lectures and concepts. Once one principle has been assimilated and applied, the brain feels comfortable enough to move on to the next subject.

The last problem for Cognitive Load that I will point out is overwhelming media. In the world today we have several media outlets that allow access to just about every form of media, and it’s not uncommon to see people try to deal with more than one media outlet at a time. How many students do you know do their homework while the TV is on? How about the radio, with non-instrumental music playing?

The brain isn’t able to multi-task very well, and will latch on only one function at a time at a high level (processing information). All other functions at that point are placed within the low level functionality, running basically the same level as riding a bike or balancing. As a result, only one media type can be utilized to “learn”. Any other media is either a distraction, or is being processed at a low level and not assimilated within the memory.

“But.” I hear you say, “I have read a book and watched TV/listened to my favorite lyrics at the same time, and I get by just fine!” Ask yourself how many times you were thinking of the story within the show on TV or listening to the lyrics when you should have been reading. Happen very often? Probably. Another basic concept of the brain is that, just like most forces in nature, it will take the road of least resistance unless forced otherwise. That means that your “distractions” are just your brain telling you it’s easier to process the distraction than the material in front of you.

How do you fight this? Well, the first and perhaps most difficult for the learner is to remove the distraction. Have the learners turn off their cell phones while in class, avoid texting someone when they should be working on an assignment, and not sit there and work on their My Space/Facebook page when in a lecture (it’s a pet peeve of mine!). If they focus on their work and what they are learning with no distractions (including audio), their cognitive load is decreased.

Something else you can do is just increase your concentration. This is physically more difficult, because it requires a lower Cognitive Load on the material. Why? Because the student needs to increase their cognitive load to increase their concentration. Concentration requires a conscious commitment by the learner to block out any and all distractions. The fewer actual distractions in the room, the more likely it is a learner will be able to learn.

How Does This Affect Me?
We all assimilate information every day, whether it’s conscious learning or basic observation. That means we all need to watch our Cognitive Load. Ever wonder why people vegetate in front of a TV? TV shows and commercials are geared to take most if not all of your cognitive load to keep your attention. That way you are less likely to change the channel, and more likely to increase their ratings and ad revenues.

So look at your own life, and see where your Cognitive Load is peaking. Is there a way to reduce it, so that you can maximize your learning and observation? You may be surprised how much more productive you will become if you don’t try to multi-task quite so much.

This week I have been teaching Mac OS X Support Essentials, and I'm really excited with this group. I have two students from New Mexico, one from Idaho, one from Wyoming, and the final student from Park City, Utah. It seems that our Apple classes are starting to draw a lot of students from across the West.

The class is moving along nicely, though the content is still really high. The poor students are hitting their cognitive load rather quickly, and so we can't move more than a couple of chapters at a time. Unfortunately, that leaves us with about half the curriculum left to cover today. Luckily there isn't a lot that the students need to learn at this point because all the heavy learning happened at the beginning of the course. Now we are just covering Networking, Peripherals, printing, and the startup sequence. But the students already feel overwhelmed.

Looking at the materials again, while I still contend they are better than the 10.4 materials (by a long shot), the course should have been made a 4 day course. Of course that brings up a whole different concern about the price tag on the course which most students and their employers already consider too high. It's an interesting balancing act, particularly when you think about what is required, or expected, for this level of expertise.

Perhaps, when I have time, I'll run through the materials with my magnifying lens, and see if I can't find a better design for the course. Perhaps there are exercises that are redundant, or perhaps there are topics that are not that important. This all comes after I have finally had the time to write the testing software that I intend to create.

Finally, something that I would love to see from Apple, is a Learning or testing platform that could be run within a Virtual Machine and distributed through a network. Something like LivePC (more on that platform later, which has really impressed me!). It would make testing easier, and even easily distributed (though controlled through an access platform), so that more Apple Professionals can be out there. Perhaps if the requirement for the software to work would be to have it run on Apple hardware...

We have all had that one experience, I'm sure. Sitting in a meeting or classroom, listening to a presentation or watching a demo, and the brain starts to wander. It can happen to different people at different times and have different initial factors, but the reason is the same: cognitive load has been reached.

The Effects of HIgh Cognitive Load
So what is Cognitive Load? Basically, it's the amount of working memory the brain uses to perform tasks. The more tasks you perform, the more cognitive load you heap on your brain.

Of course, there are levels of brain activity that utilize your working memory, and it differs based on the need for understanding. The less you need to assimilate within a given time, the less cognitive load you need to use. It seems like a simple concept, doesn't it? Focus on what you are doing, and eventually you will get there.

Unfortunately, in the world of Professional Training, this is a luxury you can't often afford. People are required to assimilate a lot of information in a very short amount of time. Because their cognitive load is really high, they are less likely to understand the topics that are being discussed. Consequently the learning experience is diminished or negative, leaving the learner confused and even a little scared.

An excellent example I saw was a student that had taken my Excel 2003 Level 1 course. Normally, this would be a very simple class to take, and I like the design because it takes Cognitive Load into consideration for the majority of students. This student, however, was new to Windows platform entirely. So not only was the student trying to understand the Excel interface, but also the Windows interface. The student locked up, and took my entire lunch time to start to feel more comfortable.

Fighting High Cognitive Load
So, what is a course designer to do? You have a high cognitive load requirement to finish the course material in as little time as possible. How can you be sure that your students are maximizing their understanding?

The first thing I would recommend is checking for those peak times when Cognitive Load becomes an issue. The number one cuplrit: Lunch. After lunch, the learner's blood rushes to their stomach to digest their food. As a consequence, the learner's brain has less blood to process information. I call this the Lunchtime Lull, which is best fought by having a less-taxing assignment or fun game that reinforces your principles for the students at a high level, letting their minds rest a bit.

Another problem is all lecture and no practice. While some learners are excellent at auditory learning, most need to apply the lecture at least once to cement the concept in their brain. The process of going through exercises fires additional synapses in the brain, thereby increasing the entries and imprints of the concept within the brain. Of course, the other result is a break between lectures and concepts. Once one principle has been assimilated and applied, the brain feels comfortable enough to move on to the next subject.

The last problem for Cognitive Load that I will point out is overwhelming media. In the world today we have several media outlets that allow access to just about every form of media, and it's not uncommon to see people try to deal with more than one media outlet at a time. How many students do you know do their homework while the TV is on? How about the radio, with non-instrumental music playing?

The brain isn't able to multi-task very well, and will latch on only one function at a time at a high level (processing information). All other functions at that point are placed within the low level functionality, running basically the same level as riding a bike or balancing. As a result, only one media type can be utilized to "learn". Any other media is either a distraction, or is being processed at a low level and not assimilated within the memory.

"But." I hear you say, "I have read a book and watched TV/listened to my favorite lyrics at the same time, and I get by just fine!" Ask yourself how many times you were thinking of the story within the show on TV or listening to the lyrics when you should have been reading. Happen very often? Probably. Another basic concept of the brain is that, just like most forces in nature, it will take the road of least resistance unless forced otherwise. That means that your "distractions" are just your brain telling you it's easier to process the distraction than the material in front of you.

How do you fight this? Well, the first and perhaps most difficult for the learner is to remove the distraction. Have the learners turn off their cell phones while in class, avoid texting someone when they should be working on an assignment, and not sit there and work on their My Space/Facebook page when in a lecture (it's a pet peeve of mine!). If they focus on their work and what they are learning with no distractions (including audio), their cognitive load is decreased.

Something else you can do is just increase your concentration. This is physically more difficult, because it requires a lower Cognitive Load on the material. Why? Because the student needs to increase their cognitive load to increase their concentration. Concentration requires a conscious commitment by the learner to block out any and all distractions. The fewer actual distractions in the room, the more likely it is a learner will be able to learn.

How Does This Affect Me?
We all assimilate information every day, whether it's conscious learning or basic observation. That means we all need to watch our Cognitive Load. Ever wonder why people vegetate in front of a TV? TV shows and commercials are geared to take most if not all of your cognitive load to keep your attention. That way you are less likely to change the channel, and more likely to increase their ratings and ad revenues.

So look at your own life, and see where your Cognitive Load is peaking. Is there a way to reduce it, so that you can maximize your learning and observation? You may be surprised how much more productive you will become if you don't try to multi-task quite so much.

Researchers have shown that the distribution of many natural and social phenomenons follow what’s called the power law. Power laws are known by other names such as the 20-80 rule (80% of wealth is controlled by 20% of the population), the long tail, Winner-Take-All, etc.

Here is an example power law graph from Wikipedia:

Many have written that almost all measures of web site usage follow the same pattern whether that be page views, in-bound links, etc.

This past semester I built an e-learning site for two sections of an upper-level university course at Brigham Young University. Now that the semester is finished, we’ve started to analyze the data we’ve collected on how students used the site.

And what did I notice when I started to graph the data? Why the power law of course.

So onto the graphs I made.

First is a graph of the number of comments each student made on the class website throughout the semester. This is a good measure of their engagement with the online community. You can see that some students left as many as 40-60 comments throughout the semester and others left as little as 1 or two:
Another graph which follows the power law. This time a graph of the number of visits to the class website per student. Again we see a wide disparity between students. One student visited the site over 400 times! Which in a four month semester means they visited the site on average 3 times a day! And on the other end, a number of students only visited the site 5-10 times the entire semester.

Why the Power Law?

So why does this happen? Why do some students participate on the class website so much more then other students? I’m not sure I know the answer to that. Why do some people write blogs, participate in Wikipedia, upload their photos to flickr, etc. and many others don’t?

Do some students just not see the value of blogging? Are some students more comfortable interacting online for whatever reason? Or on another tact, does it matter if some students participate more then others? After all, in any community, there’s always a core group which cares much more then others about the success of the community (read about the power law of participation). What type of participation in an online learning community meets the learning goals for a classroom?

There’s a host of other ideas rumbling around in my head about power laws, the three types of networks (political, social, creative) and how all this relates to creating effective online learning/collaborative environments. But that will all have to wait for another day. In the meantime, here’s some links.

Extra Credit Reading:

Read these two articles by Ross Mayfield, first this one, then this one.

Then two by Clay Shirky, “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality” and “Social Software and the Politics of Groups.”

And one more on building vibrant communities.

I’ve been putting some final touches on a website I built for a class running at BYU this semester on web analytics. You can visit the site here. I did a write-up about the site for Drupal’s education working group. I discuss the design principles that guided my construction of the site.
A bit from the write-up:

We recently created a community learning space for a web analytics class at BYU. We directed students to create individual blogs on commercial blogging platforms such as blogspot, wordpress, and elsewhere. We are then using FeedAPI to aggregate the student blogs and comments (see list of student feeds) into the community site. In addition, we’re aggregating blogs from prominent web analytic experts (see list of expert feeds). A wiki and spot for announcements round out the list of features.

Link to the write-up
Link to the web site

From Jack Ricchiuto:

1. Get to know the strengths and passions of people in your first and second circles.
2. Make your strengths and passions more known to your 1st two circles.
3. Discover who in your 1st two circles would benefit from introductions.
4. Make high quality introductions at the best levels possible.
5. Engage your 2nd circle to introduce you to people in your 3rd circle.
6. Look for new opportunities to learn with and from your first two circles.
7. Create new opportunities to collaborate with your 1st two circles.
8. Increase your asset, positional, and generative value in your networks.
9. Help other people increase their value in their networks.
10. Built trust and help others build trust through promise making and keeping.

From the Economist:

At some point in the decade after he moved from the farm in Nebraska where he grew up to the innovation hub that is the San Francisco Bay Area, Evan Williams accidentally stumbled upon three insights:

1. that genuinely new ideas are, well, accidentally stumbled upon rather than sought out
2. second, that new ideas are by definition hard to explain to others, because words can express only what is already known
3. and third, that good ideas seem obvious in retrospect.

A year ago in just my second blog post, I explained why I write a blog. My answer then (and now) is I keep a blog as an intellectual journal of sorts. Blogging is my way of pulling together into a coherent form all the stray thoughts rolling around in my mind. Writing helps me sift the good thoughts from all the bad and fit them all together in a logical pattern.

Keeping an intellectual journal is the main reason for writing my blog. My secondary reason is pure economics. Blogging is a loss-leader of sorts.  Through this blog I market myself and my ideas to people who I hope to do business with eventually.
Along those lines I read a blog post today from The Economist website. The author was commenting on a recent podcast on the economics of bloggin by Tyler Cowen (of Marginal Revolution fame).

While the direct economic return to authoring a blog may not appear to justify the effort, the prospect of actively demonstrating one’s skillset for an interested public, many members of which work in talent-hungry organisations that pay real salaries, is an attractive one. Why waste time submitting CVs [I had to google this one, CV is resume in American-speak], when you could cultivate an audience of potential employers intimately familiar with your talents?

Interestingly, this effect could generate a filtering effect on the blogosphere quite opposed to the market for lemon model proposed by Dani Rodrik. If blog writers generally have employment in mind, we should expect those with strong resumés but lackluster ideas to abstain from extensive blogging, while those whose critical and analytical skills run ahead of the experience and education categories on their CVs should embrace blogging as a means to signal their exceptional fitness. We would expect those with most to gain from blogging to blog more.

I’ve always found school boring and homework a less then optimal use of my time. So my grades reflect that. “Good students” use grades as a signaling mechanism. A student with good grades is telling potential employers, “I’m reasonably intelligent and can tolerate boredom” — which is what’s really required at school and most jobs.

As my grades aren’t going to impress anyone, I compensate by blogging. I use this blog to “show off”, so to speak, my critical and analytic skills, my ideas, and my passion for social software, learning, and collaboration to potential employeers.

But for now this is all theory–whether this works or not is still a bit up in the air. . . but in the meantime it’s better then homework. . . and since I’m done writing, back now to accounting homework I guess :>

Levi pointed me to an excellent article entitled "If I Wanted to Study, I Would Have Gone To A Real College". It's a very interesting read which I recommend to all teachers, students, and everything in between.

The gist of the article is, the most important thing any student in any education setting can learn, is how to learn new things on her own, and that that is not necessarily easy for a teacher to do. I count myself lucky that I learned this lesson early. It wasn't an accident, it was instilled in me from a young age by my parents, and reinforced by being homeschooled from Junior High through High School.

Homeschooling tends to get a bad rep. You hear about the freak of nature that lives in a house with 10,000 cats and never interacts with the world and becomes a supervillain, and naturally he was homeschooled. We heard it all when we decided to home school. "Think of the social interaction needs! Think of the lost opportunities in {sports, drama, chess club, etc.}!" I could think of a lot of other lost "opportunities" that I would be just as happy to forego. I had 6 siblings and two parents, plus friends through church that I saw every day at seminary; more than enough people to interact with. I was always ahead of my class and frankly it gets boring, so I took the plunge and accepted my parents' invitation.

I am glad I homeschooled for a variety of reasons, but by far the most important reason (in hindsight) is that I learned to learn. I learned by book, question, and applied thought. I spent hours tinkering with computers instead of doing inane high school homework. I read not always from the reader's digest textbooks, but sometimes also from the real books in the real world. I read American history from some old falling apart book we checked out of the library, which was intended for college students if I recall correctly. It was hard reading for a 14 year-old, but rewarding. I could go on, but I won't. When I started college it quickly became apparent to me just how valuable this skill which I had picked up really was. College was just more of the same. I was good at it, and I did well and enjoyed it.

If I can instill only one academic skill into my children, it will be to foster curiousity and an ability to learn on their own.