If you saw an image of yourself as an older person would you change your behavior and start saving more for your retirement now? A research study was done showing people an age-morphed photo of themselves at a retirement age, 65. The study found that when individuals were presented with an older version of their likeness their attitudes change.  After seeing an older image of themselves, they were more likely to put a savings plan in place today for tomorrow’s retirement.  This potential change in behavior is pretty powerful.  So, what makes this work?  How could this type of effect be used in a learning environment? Breaking apart the experiment. What makes these altered photos…

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo. What will books of the future look like?  How will we store them?  Will there still be libraries?  How “social” will books become?  As an avid reader these are a few questions I have pondered.  IDEO has provided a great visualization of books of the future. Three eReader prototypes: The Debate and Opinion eReader: Here an informational layer(s) is envisioned to future books that feature ongoing discussions, fact check and current media links as well as historical debate time lines and visualization of the arguments.  This type of reader would be a great support of developing critical thinking skills. Professional Development eReader, supporting learning in the…

I picked up Nina Simon’s delightful book “The Participatory Museum” as something different.  Nina’s work focuses on Museums, not corporate learning or learning in school environments.  However, the mission of many museums is at least partially to support learning. Design Overlaps There were places though out the book where best practices in participatory design for museums mirrored best practices for designing on-line learning environments. Notice how the following two quotes parallel each other. “There are two counter-intuitive design principles at the heart of successful participatory projects.  First, participants thrive on constraints, not open-ended opportunities for self-expression.  And second, to collaborate confidently with strangers, participants need to engage through personal, social, entry points.  These design principles…

People want to know the work they do is meaningful. People want to be empowered to fix the problems they encounter at work. Never underestimate the power of personally connecting with people (your employees and peers). These were a few of the insights I gleaned from the Business Book Club (BBC) discussion.  For our first book we read “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson.  The book uses a metaphor, mice and little people in a maze, to represent different perspectives people take towards change.  Because the metaphor is fairly open, it enables readers to see different things in the book.  This made the book work well as an introductory book for our group. Many…