MakingBetter

Strategy. Ecosystems. Meaning.

Aaron

This Week in MakingBetter: #xAPI Camp Sells Out; #LScon DemoFest

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It’s been a quiet few weeks while our heads have been down getting things done, but this week has been something special.

xAPI Camp FTW!

Craig Wiggins put together a Storify that really captured the heart of the event we’ve been planning since March 2014. Here’s how it played by some numbers:

  • 101 Participants (21 over capacity)
  • 125 Sandwiches consumed.
  • 15 unique presentations focusing on real-world solutions enabled by xAPI.
  • 87 Cups of Coffee consumed (36% of capacity)

We are blown away by the amount of interest in xAPI, and so are many others. We’re happy to announce there will be an xAPI Camp coming with DevLearn 2015 in Las Vegas, NV, at the MGM Grand (details forthcoming). We are planning events with the eLearning Guild (and with other partners) through 2016 and we’ll have an event calendar up in the next few weeks.

MakingBetter @ DemoFest

 

 

PDF Annotator Visualization
This isn’t a mock-up — this is a screenshot of RISC, Inc.’s new PDF Annotator Visualization in full action.

The timing worked out just right that as we’re wrapping up our first project with RISC, Inc, not only was xAPI Camp happening, Learning Solutions was, too. Art Werkenthin and I will be at DemoFest on Thursday, March 27, to talk about “PDF Annotation in the Cloud: A Real-world Application of the xAPI” The story behind it is simple. The request from the client goes back years and simply could not be realized until the advent of xAPI. With Float Mobile Learning and RISC, Inc’s collaboration on their PDF Annotator app, we worked with the data to visualize the aggregate use of these important support documents so the client can improve their various documents and therefore improve safety and compliance in some of the toughest jobs in the energy industry. We are incredibly excited to illustrate just what can be done with xAPI that makes a real difference in organizational performance. Talk to us at DemoFest on Thursday!!!

Managing Data-Driven Projects

Megan Torrance, of Torrance Learning, collaborated with Megan and I on a presentation where we dished on what Learning & Development departments might want to know about managing different kinds of projects when data joins the fray.

This Week in MakingBetter: Teamwork and Tough Questions

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As a Packer fan, I can relate to the angst of the 12th Man. Still, though, you have to admire the team spirit.

There’s a lot of team spirit about the xAPI community. The third xAPI Design Cohort kicked off, but there’s still time to sign up by February 5. Last week, our friends across the pond hosted a literal “bar” camp for xAPI — over forty people talking xAPI at a pub in London after the Learning Technologies UK conference. If the blog posts, tweets and pictures are any indication, a good time was had by all. Two weeks ago, Rustici Software shared a number of case studies presented during a webinar debuting a first glimpse at the work we’re doing with RISC, Inc. creating custom reporting and data visualization to go with the PDF Annotator Application they developed with Float Mobile.

The Tough Questions Are the Good Ones

Meanwhile, a couple of great questions have emerged over the past week. Our friend, Joe Fournier, wrote about his questions about privacy with xAPI (and other forms of data). This Thursday, we’ll record a chat to go deeper on this issue.

Mark Spivey has been asking a lot of questions on Twitter and LinkedIn about xAPI, its potential utility with linked data, and concerns about xAPI’s ability to work at “webscale.”

Site Updates

We’ve gotten wonderfully busy with client work. Kicking off new projects this week makes for a very fun start to the year. In the next couple of months, however, we not only will work a lot with our clients, but between Learning Solutions, xAPI Camp in Orlando, Up to All of Us and the forthcoming xAPI Summit in Spring Arbor, Michigan we have a pretty full slate. We took a cue from Duce Enterprises and started working on our events calendar to make it simpler for you to find us — not just at conferences, but in webinars, hangouts, workshops and local meetups. We travel a bit and we love meeting people, geeking out about learning and making new friends. I hope you’ll look us up.

We clarified what it is we do through MakingBetter, and who we help. With the work we’ve been doing for different kinds of clients, be they individuals or organizations, one thing has become clear. Our clients believe learning and organizational development are levers for growth. They rely on us to help them elevate their game with innovative learning technology. Our clients want to make a dent in the universe. We provide coaching and consulting: needs analysis, architecture, design, procurement, development and implementation.

Go ahead and read more about what we’re doing.

What We’re Into

Dave Gray wrote about “How to Create Your Future Self” – key quote there is “By paying attention to your experience, as it happens, in the moment, you can find that there are many other possible ways of being and doing.” This reminds me a lot about advice I’ve taken to heart — “Be deliberate.” Being deliberate is tough, though. It requires making choices. Matt Cross had some good advice recently on “How to Choose.”

Brandy Agerbeck began her Kickstarter campaign to fund the release of her second book on visual thinking. Brandy’s incredible and one of the people we’d really enjoy working with. The Idea Shapers is going to be a great book and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Our friend and one of our extended teammates at MakingBetter, Dustin Updyke, has been building quite a following on LinkedIn. His latest post highlights the difference between maturity and startup is one of mindset.

This TED Talk is so meta that it requires sharing.

This Week in MakingBetter: Our Presentation on Adaptive Learning, LEGO and Caricatures

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Aaron, Megan and Sarah Gilbert at the RISC booth #atdTK
Sarah Gilbert, Megan and I got our caricatures done, courtesy of our good friends at RISC, Inc.

Wow, last week a doozy. ATD TechKnowledge had us giving presentations, participating in panel discussions, connecting with old friends and making new ones, too.

ATD TechKnowledge Recap

We presented twice last week. Our presentation on Content Strategy remained basically in-tact from DevLearn this last year with some expansion on granularity, modularity and discreteness. No need to re-download a new slide deck, though. Those details are also included in a new presentation we shared on The Big Picture of Adaptive Learning.

For more than 30 years, the Artificial Intelligence community looked at pre-determined, logic-based approaches to static maps of domain knowledge (that’s a mouthful). In the last five years, there’s been a bit of a shift to make data-driven recommendations and personalized content a reality in the near-term. The technology, math, and science that makes this possible is pretty crazy and how well it works is completely dependent on the design of the content (which informs our approach to content strategy). How well it works also depends on the quality of the data and the accuracy of a learner’s experience with the content, compared to what that content is designed for.

These technologies aren’t ready for enterprise learning yet, for reasons we expose in the presentation — chief among them is that enterprise really doesn’t have enough content to cover the bases. That said, some technologies are here now. The design practices needed to make use of adaptive learning now and into the future represent the best practices you should be applying in your organization’s information and content management practices.

And yeah, that includes using xAPI to collect analytics on how content is used in context. Then compare that to the design goals of that content. Then… continuously improve the content experience to bridge the gaps you discover.

Where Did We Get All Those LEGO Pictures?

You’d be surprised how difficult it is to find straight-up illustrations from one source of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but as soon as I looked on Flickr, Barney Main‘s pictures showed up. We reached out and he was very kind to give us permission to use his images, and we found others online as well. People like Barney are doing some great stuff with LEGO and we were just glad to be able to share some of that with y’all.

What’s Our Content Strategy Presentation Like?

I hadn’t had the opportunity to formally meet Dan Steer before last week. He had some very lovely things to say about our presentation on Content Strategy.

Read here.

What We’re Reading…

What We’re Listening To…

  • Megan has the new Mark Ronson album on repeat.
  • I’m digging the new Belle & Sebastian album.

This Week in MakingBetter: An Interview, ATD TechKnowledge & More

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It’s a packed week this week. 🙂

ATD TechKnowledge

We’re pretty happy about getting back together with some of the gang this week at ATD TechKnowledge. We have two presentations this year, some panel sessions (“TK Chats”) and I’m sure there will be more than a few meetups.

There are a few other sessions we’d check out:

Interview on E-Learning 24/7

4550700_sCraig Weiss is an e-learning analyst who consults through his firm, E-Learning 24/7. His focus is on buyers and suppliers in the eLearning industry. We’ve bumped into each other over the past year at a few events, including Docebo’s dConf User Conference in 2013 and again at the Next Gen LMS conference last summer.

In December, Craig reached out to me with some questions about Learning Record Stores and how they relate to the xAPI specification. In answering them, Craig asked if I’d be interested in a more detailed interview. Over the holidays, Craig asked me some excellent questions about the history of xAPI, what’s the deal with its name, how does xAPI fare in terms of interoperability, security and privacy…

Craig asked straight-up questions and I gave him straight-up answers.

It’s long, but I think the interview turned out to be a good read. I hope the responses I gave are helpful. Truth is all in the telling, and I tried my best to tell it in a way people could follow — especially those who aren’t involved day-to-day with xAPI’s development.

Read here.

What We’re Reading…

What We’re Listening To…

Details Announced for xAPI Camp

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Connections ForumLast week, I wrote a little bit about the xAPI Camp we’re putting together through Connections Forum. Today, details about xAPI Camp are online including our initial set of speakers, sponsors and an agenda.

The full day includes two sets of Campfire presentations and two sessions for Small Group Breakouts. The Campfire presentations are short talks about how organizations are leveraging xAPI and the problems they’re solving. Our speakers are implementing xAPI solutions with healthcare providers, universities, energy companies, government services and military. Each of our speakers is someone I’ve had the honor of working with over the past couple of years in the development of xAPI. I’m very pleased we’re collaborating as an industry, with ADL’s support, to go beyond the technical “how-to” and get into “solutions.”

The Small Group Breakouts are dynamic and personal. This time will be focused on challenges in your work with help on the architecture, design and even business modeling from people who know xAPI best, and the solutions that are readily available. Our speakers will facilitate the groups with support from ADL and other xAPI expertise. Our goal is straightforward: we want you to go back to the office with ideas, solutions and/or next steps. We’ll spend time talking about what xAPI is — and even more time helping you understand what it can do, how it works, and how you can use it.

This opportunity to support the industry is possible because of the generosity of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation & Training for hosting us, as well as sponsoring organizations.

Institute for Simulation & Training IEEE ADL Float Mobile Learning ht2_small OnPoint Digital Problem SolutionsRISC, Inc. Rustici Software Saltbox Yet Analytics O'Reilly Media Rosenfeld Media

xAPI Communities of Practice

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Last year, ADL began organizing Communities of Practice around the design considerations and implementation of xAPI in different contexts. There are many ways xAPI can be applied — how one designs and develops best really depends on the use case.

Advanced Distributed Learning Communities of PracticeYesterday, Ben Betts announced his leadership of a Badges Community of Practice, and I was both surprised and elated to see all the different groups coordinating with ADL.

The outcome of this work likely achieves similar goals as what Rustici Software demonstrates with “Recipes” — coming up with more common ways of implementing things that would be really challenging to put into the xAPI specification itself, but are the kinds of things we, as an industry, want everyone to be doing similarly.

This work is important as it informs xAPI’s current refinements as a specification. It’s value is multiplied as the different ways in which these Communities of Practice use xAPI become explicit. The overlaps in vocabulary inform what we should maintain or reinforce going forward. The things that distinguish one practice from another will inform the standardization and stewardship, pointing to areas where education around xAPI or evolution of the technology require development.

The organizers of each of these communities of practice are great people who will appreciate use case scenarios, case studies and ideas. Since they’re volunteering their time, I speak from experience in saying they would also appreciate any help one can lend even with meeting minutes, reviewing community documents and staying organized. 🙂

Click here to learn about ADL’s Communities of Practice for xAPI

 

xAPI's Tipping Point for Both Community & Industry

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Since last year, I worked with IEEE to standardize the Experience API (xAPI) specification. Most of my work is with the IEEE-LTSC  but recently a few other IEEE standards groups expressed interest in using xAPI. These groups focus on developing personal health devices as well as the Internet of Things. They’re looking at xAPI because it provides a way to share data across devices, related to people, in a way other systems can understand. This can happen, potentially, with zero configuration. Right now, these groups don’t have a way for devices to talk to each other that all the different players can agree on. They’re not interested in reinventing the wheel.

This is exciting stuff for everyone with a hand in making xAPI what it is. What it could mean is a tighter relationship between learning activity and its outcomes. Meanwhile different needs among xAPI adopters in the learning technology business are becoming clearer. Many products today provide solutions for experiencing content on a variety of devices. Specifically, devices that were never supported by SCORM. Some products offer solutions that analyze xAPI data. A few products focus on content management. Others track activity on websites, simulations, and sensors. What’s emerging are learning activities that look a lot more like work or straight up computing.
[Read more…] about xAPI's Tipping Point for Both Community & Industry

Case Study: Community of Developing Practice

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In our last post, I mentioned that “we have a few things that are finally getting ready to come off the grill.”

Heh, no sooner did I write that than ATD published an article I wrote with Sarah Gilbert, the Director of the Informatics Academy at the Public Health Informatics Institute — an initiative of the Task Force for Global Health. Sarah engaged MakingBetter, starting in summer of 2014, in what’s become an amazing collaboration. This project stands to help a large number of Public Health Agencies improve their capacity for managing IT projects with measurable outcomes.

We’ll go into it more later. For now, read the article, “Learning Communities With Purpose,” which should be featured in T+D Magazine this January.

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