Dad How Do I?

My friend Andrew wrote about how he goes about studying. I stopped and did a double take when I read this in his post, "and have my computer read me the passage." What the what? Really? That is so cool? 

When my organization develops our eLearning here we have to ensure we both write out what is being said, say through audio narration what is needed, and provide a visual representation. I love the fact that Andrew does this? How does he feel it changes the nature of his studying? What and when does he decide, "that's a passage I need to hear!"

Secondly, like that he finds himself hunting down YouTube videos to help explain concepts and procedures. There is a huge press in our industry for content libraries that can be immediately accessed in the field by our learners. Think about it, when your garage door breaks, the first thing most of us do is go to YouTube and find someone who has shared their own problems with their own garage doors and shared it with the world. I think back and can easily remember my pool, my garage door, my wi-fi light switches (which I still think should be termed li-fi or wi-li), my sons basketball goal, all of these have been YouTube searches for me in just the past three months. 

I find it also very interesting to judge each content creator. I like to see how they breakdown complex procedures for their audience. I like that some of them have nothing to advertise, they're just being helpful and generous with their time and work. I like watching camera angles and whether or not they have specialties or if they're just all around handy folk. The best I think . . . in terms of content creation, philosophy, etc . . . is this one aimed at people who need fatherly advice called Dad How do I (see here).

This Years Ridiculous Bet

 Three years ago my wife and I made a bet. Whoever could pick the Super Bowl winning team before the season started would win a ridiculous bet. I said the Patriots. She said the Seahawks. The payoff for me was that she would have to buy me a motorcycle. The payoff for her was that I would have to get a tattoo. Turns out I lost when the Eagles won over the Patriots in that strange Super Bowl that everyone thought the Patriots would win. 

The next year we did it again. I picked the Patriots again. That year I won. 

This time around, the bet is slightly different. I think if I was going to pick the Super Bowl winner I might pick the Bucs again. They're bringing back all of their starters. Instead the bet is about our Houston Texans. 

My bet . . . they don't win a single game. The payoff . . . she has to buy me the Jeep she made me get rid of so many years ago. I used to have a '97 Jeep Wrangler rag top with a manual transmission. I loved that sucker. We got rid of it when we had kiddos. If the Texans go 0-17, then she has to go get me that Jeep again. 

I think the Texans can do it. I put my predictions here (see here) so I remember them, well, consider this a stake in the ground. They have absolutely no stars player anymore, no Watt, no Watson, no Hopkins. They have no heart or soul in the team, it's a team made up of older journeymen trying to prove something. A bunch of individuals. They do have quite a running back corps, but they're all old. 

I think the key is that first game against the Jags. If they lose that I have a chance. That's the one game I'm worried about . . . even then I think the Jags are favored (see here). CBS has predicted the Texans go 1-16 (see here) . . . only winning against the Jets. My prediction is that the team will get worse and worse so that by the time they get to the Jets in Week 12, the team will be decimated. There has been a lot of chatter about the Texans O-line and the Texans Defense. I'm not buying it. I think my team can implode and be the first team ever to go 0-17. 

And if they do? Well then my garage will get even more crowded with trophies. 

Tools for Facilitation and Learning

As always, my friend Les came into our discussion with a unique and well considered rebuttal. His point was that it's better to allow learners to find their own associations between modules than it is to force them to see the connections. 

I take his point about forcing linkages and allowing them to become known by the learner innately. One of the characteristics of using the videos was helping the learner see that links might exist. In the safety and compliance world even trying to promote the existence of a relationship or tie in is unique.

So often these 18 year old guys who have fallen into the industry as a requirement not a chosen career path just want to get the course under their belts and move on that "understanding" and seeing relationships is difficult to inspire. That being said, you're exactly right, and many of our other classes, especially those for senior leader, focus on allowing the learner to learn at their own pace and in their own way as you mentioned. I wonder looking back now if we had been less focused on the directive perspective and more focuses on developmental perspective.

There is a wonderful book that I am sure Les has read called Make it Stick by  Roediger, McDaniel, & Brown where in that discuss the testing and retrieval practice as a part of study as you mention. Smith and Perez (2020) write that the book "recommends frequent, low-stakes quizzes and other activities that require active, effortful recall. Both teacher- and student-generated quizzes are effective, and the authors recommend students adopt a reading practice of generating possible test questions as they read and use these as a study aid" (see more here). Great resource on retrieval practice and reinforcement. 

Resources

Smith, R., & Perez, E. (2020, February 19). Takeaways from make it stick: The science of successful learning. Retrieved May 23, 2021, from Apaonline.org website: https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/02/19/takeaways-from-make-it-stick-the-science-of-successful-learning/

Wall Flowers vs Weeds

We have a common problem in many of our leadership classes, the strong ones leading while the weaker learners just coast along. As facilitators we can almost see the learners who have been forced to be there vs those who are excited to be there. 

Those who have been forced become wall flowers and lean too much on those who are excited to be there. One of our facilitators finds that mixing up the groups frequently, and even placing those who are wall flowers together forces the issue and makes wall flowers unite to solve problems. 

In Ranger School we were forced to implement the worksheet rating approach that you mention in your post. At the end of each session we had to rate everyone in the squad from 1-8 and no number could be re-used. Ergo, the people who were ranked last were re-organized into a new squad to see if it was a personality issue with the team. If you were ranked 8 twice you had to recycle and try the entire session again. This was brutal in many respects as each session someone would be ranked last, invariably, no matter how hard you might try, but as we all knew the risk of the rating, we were all striving constantly to do our best. 

One thing we found about the rating system it that it led to a network or alliances. Rangers would link up with buddies and do their best to be their safety net against being rated too low. The Ranger Instructor's countered this by forcefully breaking up alliances and intervening as they saw fit subjectively. Sort of like the facilitator I mention at the beginning of this post. 

There’s So Much to Say

I post a lot of these right? (See HERE). But everyone of them is meaningful to me in some way. Each is a snapshot of how I feel. And expression of my inner soul. Valerie wrote this first one.

you push away love as it's all

you've known; abandonment

and homes of bones. but,

when true love knocks to 

enrich your soul, will you

answer the call and say hello.

Don't we all do that? Push away love? It takes confidence, daring, and a leap of faith to answer that call when it comes right?

Even More From My Faves

It's hard to find titles and things to say about these (see more HERE), other than just saying that . . . wow these speak to me. all for different reasons, but these are those that hit me.

Eileen Jan writes this first . . . 

Have no hesitation to unload those who didn't know it was a luxury to have your attention.

A "luxury to have your attention"  . . . what a wonderfully transient line. Well done Eileen for expressing my thoughts.

Leadership and Mentorship

My colleague John said something interesting the other day. In my organization and in the industry I support, on the job training is also a huge part of the learning and growth experience for the field technicians and operators. He wrote: "To put it simply, learning from experience must be a deliberate act that involves much more than simply having an experience and storing that moment away for future recollection.  Dewey promotes the "active participation of the learner" by creating processes by which the experience is reflected on, comparisons made to prior experience, options are considered, and a deliberate approach is prepared for the next attempt. Like you, they (and I) believe that this is the route towards career growth and safe operations, and like you mentioned, there is no specific framework but rather a loose undefined pathway that may or may not be successful for the learner."

One way we are working to address this is through developing our supervisors, crew leaders, and leadership personnel through a series of leadership classes. Through these classes we discuss how important it is to mentor and facilitate the learner of new employees in our field.

So often the new employees are left with nothing but abrupt lessons (that are rarely actual lessons), watching others do the work, or being yelled at and told to do work that they don't understand and are not motivated to do. It's a recipe for disaster. Many of our leaders don't realize they are supposed to act as mentors to others, but that it's just a hardship they must endure.

Imagine a world where the mentor designs classes and courses and modules for their new employees rather than just yelling at them and expecting them to understand what to do next through a series of nearly silent grunts and confusing hand motions. We hope that by changing the dynamic of a generation of leaders we might help the next generation through better role-models and better mentors. This is directly related to what you mention in your post, a "circular approach"  -  but where yours looks at the learning through experience to reflection, the circle we are hoping to create has more to do with generational leadership. 

We Look Away the First Hundred Times or More

 

MicroLearning Panel

Recently I had the opportunity to be a part of a panel discussion for an international conference in petroleum refining and manufacturers. The panel discussion was focused on "establishing long term memory via microlearning training. Sorry I couldn't get a better pic, but in that image I'm at the top left. We had about 50 folks attend and in terms of microlearning it was fun and hopefully engaging.  

I have a strong history in microlearning training courses, and thanks to the classes I'm taking to get my PhD my experience and understanding is growing. I've set up microlearning modules and courses both for intial training and for reinforcement training. I've set up "passive" microlearning systems and more "active" microlearning courses. I've set up microlearning for various and disparate audiences via multiple different platforms. In my industry, I'm quickly becoming a bit of an expert in microlearning, so it was fun to be a panelist for this international conference.

What surprises me is how worried I get before panel discussions. 

I'm not a newbie at presentations. I give presentations quite often. I think the difference is that panel discussions are so freeform and can go in so many different direcitons that there is alot of variability and you have to stay on your toes. The good news about panels is that whenever things feel like they might get off track it's as easy as pie to say, "Hey Vince, you care to field that question first?" So it's easy to stall for time. 

In the last three panel discussions I've had I have been thrust into the role of moderator too. In most cases this happens naturally, in that the moderator just doesn't show. In the one I had today the moderators system reset and he was absent for the first five minutes. So, up steps Dick to ask questions and answer them at the same time. 

All in all it was great, and several people in the audience reached out to let me know they really enjoyed the discussion. So, alls well that ends well. Plus it keeps me on my toes for my comprehensive exams that come at the end of my PhD course work!

Always Hit Me

These always hit me. I read them and my heart drops just a bit cause someone is saying exactly what I think.

This first one is interesting. I like the rewind portion. Makes me think of pause. On our old VCR if you held pause too long it turned into stop.  

Enjoy every moment you have.

Because in life, there are no rewinds, 

Only flashbacks

Asynchronous Learning

When I read my colleague Liz's statement, I stumbled. She wrote that “online courses are typically asynchronous” . . . I say that  that may be dependent on the audience type. 

I know for our learning cohort in the refining industry our online learning is broken into CBTs (which could be considered asynchronous but really are more one dimensional “fire and forget” style learning) and Live Virtual Online learning that is synchronous.

I see more and more of our members turning to the synchronous learning model especially during the changes forced on us by the Covid virus. 

I wonder to what degree our learners are “encouraged” to learn has to do with this. Many of our courses are provided as a pre-req for our learners to do their jobs. Before they can go to work at the plant, they must take and pass the plant’s training and be able to pass their safety and skills training. Again, this is very “fire and forget.” Quick CBT’s designed to be taken quickly and prove their expertise and check a box (I’m working to change this model btw).

Our learners would not gravitate to long courses or programs that took many weeks and included discussion forums, assignments that went beyond that day, or group work, etc. Perhaps this is historical or traditional, or perhaps they don’t gravitate toward course work in general. One thing I would like to do, and strive to do, is link courses to career paths and career goals to that learning can be continual and relevant for our learners and they might want to engage in more extended courses and programs. 

I know you don’t have much to go on regarding my particular learning cohort, but what advice might you have to help me design things that would help change this dynamic for our learners? In what ways can I help promote continuous learning and asynchronous courses that last longer than a few hours our days?

More on My Learning Style

 I've written about learning styles before (see here). As a learner the Concrete Sequential (CS) learner is the one that resonates with me most. I have been called, and I think I can be called a realist. 

I like to think that I view the world through a perspective where my physical senses play a large part in in my solutions to problems.  The fact that I cut my teeth on writing procedures and creating processes with sequential steps plays into this as well. I'm results oriented and enjoy proof which also conforms with CS learners. 

In my field we deal with shade tree mechanics, people who enjoy tearing things apart just to see how they work and to see if they can put them back together again, and sometimes to see if they can do it better, faster, or more effectively than the next guy or the guy before. Most of the training I produce plays to this type of learner so it's not strange to see that I gravitate towards this.

Concrete Sequential Leadership

 My friend Troy and I were discussing leadership training the other day. Our talk reminded me of one of our instructor-led, face-to-face courses on leadership (see here, here, and here). 

In this course we review and determine the learner's personality and help them understand how they can look at others and determine their team's personality types. By knowing their own personality type and being able to identify others we hope that they can better interact with their teams and lead them more effectively. 

Similarly, I think about how I may be a Concrete Sequential style (see here), but my son who focuses on observations of others learns in other ways. Knowing this I can change or model my discussions with him so that they appeal to him more. 

A Couple More Today

So as a part of the ongoing series (see HERE), I ran into these in my string and thought I'd share. It's amazing just how many show up, but these are the few that hit me the most. 

My head . . . in your lap . . . please!

From Darkonicle. Who wouldn't love this one? Who hasn't had that feeling with that special someone and a lap is the perfect place?

Last for a While

I know I promised last time that I wouldn't do this much more often (see here), but I predict I won't have as much time to go find and post about review in the near future because my classes will begin again soon. Still, I wanted to take this opportunity to share these two new reviews for my book On the Edge (see here).

It's nice to get these reviews for a book I wrote so long ago . . . almost ten years ago now. And it's also nice to see that many of the same themes in the reviews are what I hear and read from reviews about Vapor Trail (see here). 

Mind Map Exercise

After reading an article on concept mapping and technology in online learning I was firmly set on developing a mind map/concept map on the different innovative, interactive tools we have been using and we hope to use to support our synchronous online learning courses. 

However, when the pen hit the paper something else entirely came out. Lately, we have been struggling with the challenge that so many of our courses within our 40 Hour Hazwoper course are disjoint and don't lead one to the next smoothly. We teach fire safety as a module. 

We teach first aid as a module. We teach emergency action plans as a module. In past discussions when this came up I wrote about our work with using video scenarios to help create a bridge between these disparate modules. 

My mind started chewing on the problem and wondering what more could we do to help bridge the disparities. What if the videos alone don't do the trick? What else can we rely on? This was the focus of my Mind Map (see above pic or here) . . . wondering in what ways we could help make our modules in our courses more whole, rather than disparate. 

Leadership Groups

I really like the idea of using leadership groups for social learning. I didn't think I would pick this one when I went to the resource page of the Wegner-Traynor Community of Practice website (see here), but the more I read it, the more I thought it might be a good idea. 

I think I like the idea of empowering and inspiring the learners in a classroom as a group to become experts in some form or some nuance of the training. In my organization we provide Leadership training for supervisors. We have several main themes to include Situational Leadership, Feedback Loop Model, and Conflict Resolution. 

Then we have secondary themes like On-boarding and Retention, and Reporting to Management and Making the Transition. It might be fun to segregate the entire class up into smaller groups to become experts on those different secondary themes that way if there is a moment in the class where we make a tie into that theme we can call on that group and ask for their thoughts on it. I think it would instill in them a sense of ownership, and if we segregate the learners based on their past experiences and link them to the secondary themes, then they would have a basis of knowledge and be able to make associations quicker. 

Another One for the Morning Label

Long time readers will know that often when reading novels I'll catalog and note when I see a description of a morning in a novel. Particularly if it's a good one (see here).

I found one in the novel I'm currently racing through . . . trying to finish before my next class starts. 

As usual on a fine morning, the air and the view were exhilarating. The sun was no more than a promise on the far distant horizon and there was a beginning-of-the-world quality in the light. I watched the shadowy shapes of the horses ahead of me curving around the hill with white plumes streaming from their nostrils in the frosty air. As the glittering rim of the sun expanded into full light, the colors sprang out bright and clear, the browns of the jogging horses topped with the bright stripes of the lads’ ear-warming knitted caps and the jolly garments of October’s daughters.

Francis, Dick - For Kicks

Back Again

I have two more weeks to cram in some more fun reading (see here). I have class starting up again in two weeks . . . two classes actually, so I'll be back to writing more about adult learning then (see here). But until then I'm going to push hard to get in more leisure reading!

To that end I went back again to an old favorite. Milo Talon by Louis L'Amour, wasn't bad, but it also wasn't good. A bit of a puzzle in the plot arena. Fun characters and an easy read, but not exceptional. I can't remember if I've read this one before or not, but we shall see!

The Earl of October drove into my life in a pale-blue Holden which had seen better days. 

Syncrhonous Online Learning

Having provided synchronous online learning courses for years and now having taken several asynchronous courses, I think that asynchronous is more beneficial for the learner. 

I am a avid proponent of microlearning, or chunking large, blocks of learning into smaller courses or modules that make them more palatable for the learner. In the synchronous courses that I led we provided online learning 8 hours a day for 4 days straight. I could tell in many cases that the learner hit a limit on their capability to stay focused every few hours (or less). 

We had to build in activities that would re-engage them and bring them back to the present. We were forced to provide this style of training by the demands of the contracting companies and the compliance mandates of the industry. We were always searching for ways that we could spread out the learning over days, weeks or even months. Most of the asynchronous courses I've been a part of allow the user to work at their own pace, move from the shallow end of the pool, rather than throwing them into the deep end, hoping that that can swim. Asynchronous seems to allow for a slower more managed pace, which lends itself to smaller more manageable intake of information. This is what I think the benefit of asynchronous over synchronous course delivery.

Technology in Online Education

My colleague Aaron made a good point about technology in online learning environments the other day. He was discussing how new technology is coming online so quick, that it's hard to keep up. 

One thing that I'm always reminding our trainers about is to not use technology for technology sake. Sometimes new technology has the opposite effect of what we intend. Lately I proposed that we begin sending recorded, video, introduction messages to our Leadership Students. 

I thought it would help them get to know the facilitators to see a welcome message about their resumes, hear what they are about to get into, and maybe even set the stage for the first learning objective by discussing the expectations for the training and the trainee. Video and delivering pre-recorded introductions is nothing too new. We could have provided the same introduction to our students ten years ago. I've asked the project sponsor to stop constantly looking for the next new thing and be sure we do the "old" things well. 

More Self Promotion

The other day I was discussing self promotion with someone at work. If we don't promote our wins, no one else might. It's up to us, I told her, to let people know when we've done a bad job, but also when we do good jobs. 

So, although I might have said I wouldn't post many more reviews of my work, this one hit me and I thought I would share (see here). 

Cowboy Sunrise

 For a long time I've been cataloging and grouping quotes from novels where the author writes about the morning or the sunrise. It's quite prevalent when you look for it (see here). I just ran into one in the book I'm currently reading (see here).

AT DAYBREAK I went down the street to Maggie’s. The horizon was lifting yellow into the sky, but in the west a few laggard stars remained stubbornly in place. My boots echoed on the boardwalk.

L'Amour, Louis - Milo Talon

Learning Journal Reflection: Effective Online Teaching Strategies in Online Education

Introduction

Last year, my organization's leadership asked me to develop an easy memory aid that they could all use to help sell the idea that our organization's learning design was superior to our competitors. As a result, we developed what we call the R4 Learning Retention Model, which focuses on; a) relevance, b) rigor, c) reinforcement and d) reflection. This is our organization's model for designing learning content and ensuring the transfer of the learning objectives and retention of the material over time. I have referenced this throughout the discussion posts for this class when considering effective online teaching strategies in adult education and have realized that the R4 Learning Retention Model offers both a structurally sound basis for face-to-face development as well as online education. 

Relevance

Wlodkowski and Ginsberg describe Relevance in adult learning as a characteristic of learning that promotes curiosity which gives the learner the impetus to "search existing neural networks to find a place for the information" (p. 92). Thus, relevance leads to associations and deeper, more resilient learning. My organization provides a virtual reality course where we place the learner in a virtual refinery environment. We hope to have them associate this training with other work they might have done in a refinery setting and inspire them to remember this training later when they are surrounded by the setting in the future. Scenarios, discussions, and problems posed both in an online learning environment, and face-to-face can help inspire this association as well. Another way to ensure that the content is relevant to the learner is to allow the learner to establish goals relevant to his work, his life, and his learning. This ensures that the learner, although constrained by the limits of the course, has the freedom to shape the training to their own needs and make it more relevant to them. 

Rigor

Challenging the learner leads to greater engagement from the learner. To put this in a simple analogy, a well-educated adult learner would hardly be challenged if they sat down to take a course on the alphabet; their mind would wander, they might complete the training, but not with the eagerness a young learner might, because the adult learner is not challenged. Understanding and ensuring that learners are learning information within their zone of proximal development (ZPD) ensures that the learner is challenged. "Students should be encountering problems, and concepts beyond that which they already know, which is their actual development level (Boettcher & Conrad, 2016. P. 36). Ensuring that courses push learners to learn helps establish engagement both in a face-to-face environment and an online environment.

Reinforcement

Hintzman and Block (1971) show two benefits of spaced practice, both memory strength and the formation of multiple traces. Both of these processes of reinforcement provide greater recall and retention for the learner. Having reinforcement exercises broken into smaller modules spread out over time ensures that learners are not provided too much information too fast in a massed learning environment. Additionally, the instructor creates greater engagement by providing multiple touchpoints instead of just one long training course. Boettcher and Conrad (2016) discuss many options that effectively spread out information and make it easier for learners to assimilate and engage in a community, but also provide evidence that the instructor being more a facilitator, can encourage learning and engagement in an online environment. As Boettcher and Conrad (2016) state, "rather than preparing fifty-minute lectures, instructors prepare short concept introductions and challenge, concept-focus discussion, monitor discussions" (p. 8) to become a facilitator or guide in an online environment. These reinforcement techniques offer multiple opportunities for the instructor to interact in small ways in an online environment and create the engagement and presence that would have been created via physical interaction in a face-to-face environment while making the course more manageable for the learner.

Reflection

Based on my learning journal notes and discussion entries for this class, there is more focus on reflection than any other aspects of the R4 Learning Retention Model. According to Merriam and Bierma (2014), "reflecting on and in our experience (our "practice"), is where learning occurs" (p. 123). I wrote in my journal that reflection is more substantial than reinforcement if only because the learner is creating the reinforcement exercise himself, internally, rather than be asked by an outside entity. Reflection is internally inspired and created by the learner and is usually accompanied by an association with previous learning. 

Community of Inquiry

All of these aspects of my organization's R4 Learning Retention Model provide presence to the online learning course. Presence and engagement can be attained in a face-to-face course by the actual physical presence of the instructor in the classroom, however, this can be lost for the learner when there is an online delivery system. By providing rigor, relevance, reinforcement, and reflection, the online learner finds a greater sense of presence via cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence, leading to a community of inquiry.  According to Orcutt and Dringus (2017), the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model establishes a framework by which presence can help facilitate online interaction and learning transfer. The "CoI defines the existence of teaching presence through the interaction that occurs between students and instructor" (Orcutt & Dringus, 2017, p. 18). 

HASC's virtual online live training has traditionally focused on a synchronous environment that provides training that lasts at the longest, just three days. Finding ways to immediately provide a CoI and engagement for the learner as quickly as possible is critical to the success of our online efforts. The R4 Learning Retention Model has characteristics that have worked well in face-to-face learning can be the key to effective online learning as well. 

 

References

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R.-M. (2016). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hintzman, D. L., & Block, R. A. (1971). Repetition and memory: Evidence for a multiple-trace hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 88(3), 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030907

Merriam, S. B., & Bierema, L. L. (2014). Adult learning: Linking theory and practice (1st ed.). Nashville, TN: John Wiley & Sons.

Orcutt, J. M., & Dringus, L. P. (2017). Beyond being there: Practices that establish presence, engage students, and influence intellectual curiosity in a structured online learning environment. Online Learning, 21(3), 15–35. 

Wlodkowski, R. J., & Ginsberg, M. B. (2017). Enhancing adult motivation to learn: A comprehensive guide for teaching all adults (4th ed.). London, England: Jossey-Bass.

Another Old Friend

 As I have a month or so to walk down memory lane before my next class takes over my free time, and as I've already read a Dick Francis, and Lawrence Sanders novels, and as Louis L'amour was also an old fave of mine from when I was growing up, I might as well give him a quick go too. 

I've selected one that I'm fairly certain I have not read. I have read a tone of Louis L'Amour books, but he had what seems like thousands, so there's a good chance I have not read this one. Also, since the other day I discussed pulp art covers (see here), I went ahead and found the most pulpy I could and posted it first.

Guest Post - Christy Herrington: What Makes a Mystery a Cozy

If someone tells you they enjoy cozy mysteries, you may find yourself asking, “What makes a mystery cozy?” The term ‘cozy mystery’ gets its name from the typical setting of the mystery: a quiet spot in the country, a seaside resort, village, etc. 

The modern cozy mystery has its origins in the Golden Age of detective novels which dominated fiction in the 1920s—1940s. Popular Golden Age authors include Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and many more.

More Online Learning Apps

 I've been posting about this alot lately, but here's another. I think the idea of an online whiteboard is pretty cool. 

A couple of weeks ago I referred to a piece about online collaboration and how people were less likely to be confrontational and abrupt if they posted videos of their ideas rather than text. 

Imagine an app that was integrated into Zoom that instead of writing this discussion would allow me to easily leave video posts that others would come back and react to with their own video posts. For example, instead of a three hour synchronous online class, it was broken into 6, 30 minute video chats that the learner could access daily. Then they would have to react with their own video chats for the class to see. This would break up the mass learning into chunks, and allow for learner reflection in that they would have to mentally script out their video and record, potentially making several attempts. Like your white board idea it would allow the learner to leave the video chat and up to be accessed at the other learners discretion. This would make it easier on their schedules too. 

Pulp Covers

 I've always been a huge fan of pulp art novel covers. I don't know why, but they've always appealed to me. I think the first I remember seeing was for Foundation by Asimov. I think I've mentioned here before (see here) that when I was growing up I would spend summers with my grandfather in the country. He was an avid novel reader and I became one as well. We would go to the paperback bookstore in the town nearby and trade in all of paperback books and get new ones for a discount. I think that might be where I first became aware of my liking pulp covers.