Quiz: What is the most horrible customer service experience known to man? I'll give you a moment to think about it.
…
The DMV, right?! It’s almost a joke, but I distinctly remember that the last time I was at the DMV, not only did I wait for hours, but when I finally spoke to someone, they treated me like I was an imposition on their time, and that they hated every second of having to talk to customers. I have been saying for years that the people at the DMV just hate their jobs and it shows. Going to the DMV is far worse than going to the dentist.
Since then, however, someone in California has been innovating. Last week, I discovered that I had been driving around with a license that expired almost a year and a half ago. I had to go to the DMV. I went to a new DMV License Processing Center in San Jose, which was recommended to me by a friend. It was a revelation.
This DMV was huge, and the entire mega-center was devoted to one thing: driver’s license processing. Right inside the entrance, several people are cheerfully greeting people who come in. “What can I help you with today?” I explained to the man what I needed, he pulled a form out of his mobile file cart, and told me which line to take it to when I was done with it. That line had no wait. That person processed my form and gave me a number.
In the waiting area were several large monitors that showed which numbers were being served at which windows, and what upcoming numbers were. This was very reassuring. And in less than two minutes, my number was up. The next person processed me, I paid the fee, read a few lines on an eye chart. Then I was given a slip of paper with a barcode on it and directed to the camera line. Again, there was no wait. I took a picture, and that person directed me to a bank of computer carrels to take my “written” test. Each computer had a barcode scanner, so I scanned my paper and used the touch screen to take the multiple choice test. Once you chose an answer, it indicated whether it was right or wrong. When I was done, I stood up and someone was there helping people. He directed me to the next line, where I handed my form in and got an interim license. The whole process took about twenty minutes.
As I was reading The Ten Faces of Innovation, I realized how much of what we read about was implemented in this new DMV center. Compared to the old centers, this place was not even recognizable. This is the DMV?
Look how many innovations were made:
-Set Design: OK, it’s not a spa, but it’s huge and spacious and clean. And since this center does only one thing, the whole place is more efficient.
-Caregiving: People at the door to greet you! Oh, you need this form, I’ll just whip it out here. People at the computers to help you!
-Caregiving: If you have to wait, at least you can see what the status of the wait is.
-Experience: I was bounced to six different stations, but each had almost no wait and seamlessly got my information and did what I needed. It felt very efficient.
-Experience: Computers were used very effectively. Remember the days when you were handed a paper test and a clipboard? They didn’t try to computerize the entire process, just the part that made the most sense and produced the most efficiencies for everyone.
Some wonderful Anthropologist fixed almost everything wrong with the old DMV. This experience has made me completely change the way I think about the DMV. Not that we have any choices, but now if I have a license issue, I will totally not dread going to take care of it.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
When a Problem Isn't a Problem
How did you feel reading the article about MOOC success and intrinsic learning? How does it compare with the kind of formalized online learning that you're doing in your SJSU program? How do you compare it to a traditional physical classroom.
I thought the article we read very clearly discredits a problem that I was not even aware was a problem! I never knew that MOOC success was measured by completion rate. I was not aware that people were alarmed when a completion rate dropped after a wave of new learners signed up. It seems to me that this is just a matter of simple math and common sense.
This problem is only a problem if you think MOOCs are like traditional classes. They are not. They are more like web pages. Which they are. In the new culture of learning, people learn from many different places. Just because they didn’t complete an entire online course doesn’t mean they haven’t learned anything. (Conversely, just because someone watched twelve videos doesn’t mean they have.) The beauty of the MOOC is that people can choose where, when, and how much they want to learn. And even if one person watches one “Justice” video, isn’t there that much more justice in the world?
Program completion, certificates, and degrees in formalized learning (on- of offline) have a few purposes that go beyond mere learning. They are a marker that the person who holds the degree has completed a certain amount of learning, with a certain understanding for professionals in the field of what the person has learned. For example, if you hold an MLIS degree, an employer could be reasonably certain that you have learned about the ALA Bill of Rights. If the entirety of our MLIS program were available online as a MOOC, and you told an employer you completed some of it, how would your employer know which parts you knew and which you didn’t?
In this respect, formalized online learning is like physical classrooms. That is to say, they are formalized. There are third parties that accredit the programs so that everyone has an understanding of their scope and quality. As a culture, we all agree to these standards.
Every other type of learning we do is still learning, though it is more personal. It is usually not done to fulfill job requirements. However, it is informal learning in our new culture that is how most of us get information and experience. Employers would do well to remember that, because your degree is really just a baseline of knowledge, not a whole picture of a person’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and talents.
I thought the article we read very clearly discredits a problem that I was not even aware was a problem! I never knew that MOOC success was measured by completion rate. I was not aware that people were alarmed when a completion rate dropped after a wave of new learners signed up. It seems to me that this is just a matter of simple math and common sense.
This problem is only a problem if you think MOOCs are like traditional classes. They are not. They are more like web pages. Which they are. In the new culture of learning, people learn from many different places. Just because they didn’t complete an entire online course doesn’t mean they haven’t learned anything. (Conversely, just because someone watched twelve videos doesn’t mean they have.) The beauty of the MOOC is that people can choose where, when, and how much they want to learn. And even if one person watches one “Justice” video, isn’t there that much more justice in the world?
Program completion, certificates, and degrees in formalized learning (on- of offline) have a few purposes that go beyond mere learning. They are a marker that the person who holds the degree has completed a certain amount of learning, with a certain understanding for professionals in the field of what the person has learned. For example, if you hold an MLIS degree, an employer could be reasonably certain that you have learned about the ALA Bill of Rights. If the entirety of our MLIS program were available online as a MOOC, and you told an employer you completed some of it, how would your employer know which parts you knew and which you didn’t?
In this respect, formalized online learning is like physical classrooms. That is to say, they are formalized. There are third parties that accredit the programs so that everyone has an understanding of their scope and quality. As a culture, we all agree to these standards.
Every other type of learning we do is still learning, though it is more personal. It is usually not done to fulfill job requirements. However, it is informal learning in our new culture that is how most of us get information and experience. Employers would do well to remember that, because your degree is really just a baseline of knowledge, not a whole picture of a person’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and talents.
Monday, September 14, 2015
The Parenting Collective
Have you personally benefitted from learning in the new cultural environments discussed in A New Culture of Learning? What did they provide that an in classroom or one-on-one educational meeting could not?
For our game assignment, I have been learning how to play Minecraft. As I was thinking about that experience, I thought to myself, playing video games is like having a baby! It doesn’t matter what you’ve read about beforehand, or what tutorials you’ve watched, once you start playing, you’re all, “AAAAGGHHH! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING!!!” And then, of course, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get and the more confident you are.
Now that I think about it, parenting is probably the area in which I benefitted the most from the new culture of learning. I didn’t take any classes (traditional learning) on how to take care of a baby before I had one, and all the material I read could not really prepare me for the actual job of Keeping a Small Human Alive. Everything I know about parenting comes from new learning collectives and hands-on experiential learning.
The internet is a great source of information. I consult babycenter.com for a lot of questions I have (Is it okay that my newborn slept for 20 hours today? At what temperature of fever do we need to call the doctor?). I also google questions and read answers that others have posted in forums (How do I get my 4-year-old to put on his clothes in the morning?). Through our doctor’s website, I can also ask our doctor questions directly (What should I do about the baby’s rash?).
But the internet is not the only collective in our lives. We have a great network of friends and family who can also offer insight. I have friends with older children who share their experiences. I also have friends with younger children with whom I can feel like an expert.
The intersection of these is Facebook, where I socialize with my friends and family online. People like to post parenting articles, and I have a bad habit of reading a lot of them. I share funny stories of my kids, and read what others post about theirs. In this way, we are all learning from each other.
The reason this new culture of learning is so beneficial in the area of parenting is that learning how to parent never ends. From the moment a baby enters our lives, we will never stop learning about being a parent. Because of this, the amount of information to learn is infinite. A classroom setting could never cover everything you need to know. Also, the information that we are learning is both ever-changing and different for every child. As our textbook points out, this is the type of information that the new culture of learning handles best. And finally, the only way to truly learn how to parent is to do it. It is only through hands-on experience that we figure out what method of discipline works best for our child, or simply which brand of lotion doesn’t give him a rash.
For our game assignment, I have been learning how to play Minecraft. As I was thinking about that experience, I thought to myself, playing video games is like having a baby! It doesn’t matter what you’ve read about beforehand, or what tutorials you’ve watched, once you start playing, you’re all, “AAAAGGHHH! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING!!!” And then, of course, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get and the more confident you are.
Now that I think about it, parenting is probably the area in which I benefitted the most from the new culture of learning. I didn’t take any classes (traditional learning) on how to take care of a baby before I had one, and all the material I read could not really prepare me for the actual job of Keeping a Small Human Alive. Everything I know about parenting comes from new learning collectives and hands-on experiential learning.
The internet is a great source of information. I consult babycenter.com for a lot of questions I have (Is it okay that my newborn slept for 20 hours today? At what temperature of fever do we need to call the doctor?). I also google questions and read answers that others have posted in forums (How do I get my 4-year-old to put on his clothes in the morning?). Through our doctor’s website, I can also ask our doctor questions directly (What should I do about the baby’s rash?).
But the internet is not the only collective in our lives. We have a great network of friends and family who can also offer insight. I have friends with older children who share their experiences. I also have friends with younger children with whom I can feel like an expert.
The intersection of these is Facebook, where I socialize with my friends and family online. People like to post parenting articles, and I have a bad habit of reading a lot of them. I share funny stories of my kids, and read what others post about theirs. In this way, we are all learning from each other.
The reason this new culture of learning is so beneficial in the area of parenting is that learning how to parent never ends. From the moment a baby enters our lives, we will never stop learning about being a parent. Because of this, the amount of information to learn is infinite. A classroom setting could never cover everything you need to know. Also, the information that we are learning is both ever-changing and different for every child. As our textbook points out, this is the type of information that the new culture of learning handles best. And finally, the only way to truly learn how to parent is to do it. It is only through hands-on experience that we figure out what method of discipline works best for our child, or simply which brand of lotion doesn’t give him a rash.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Raising Kids in the New Culture of Learning
I’m surprised to find myself relating a lot of what we’re learning in this class to parenting. As a parent whose first son has just entered the public school system just a few weeks ago, I can say that I am a bit apprehensive about the education he’s going to get over the next thirteen years. I’m not worried that he won’t be taught reading and math and science, but will he be taught to be a strong, resilient, creative problem solver who seeks to make the world better through kindness and empathy?
In our reading in A New Culture of Learning, what really resonated with me was the dichotomy of traditional learning vs. new learning. To briefly summarize the Thomas and Brown’s definitions, traditional learning is when a teacher imparts information to students, and students prove that they have learned the information by taking a test. New learning is when a community of like-minded people learns from each other. Thomas and Brown suggest that optimal learning is a combination of the two.
The article we read in week two, Good Video Games and Good Learning, also spoke to me in the same way, where Gee specifically talked about video games and what players can learn from well-designed games, and especially from interacting with other players. This is precisely the type of new learning that Thomas and Brown are talking about.
I don’t know much about the curriculum of our public school, but let’s just assume that public school is traditional learning. That means our children will be fairly competent in learning facts that are unchanging. But what about everything else? It makes me start to think about how we as parents can steer our children and in what areas we can best support them. Maybe I’m not going to let my five-year-old play World of Warcraft yet, but armed with this knowledge of different ways people learn, I might be more inclined to support his ideas when he wants to make ridiculous projects. When he’s older, I might encourage him to join clubs, find groups online where people share his interests, and learn things through participatory channels, no matter what the subject is.
In our reading in A New Culture of Learning, what really resonated with me was the dichotomy of traditional learning vs. new learning. To briefly summarize the Thomas and Brown’s definitions, traditional learning is when a teacher imparts information to students, and students prove that they have learned the information by taking a test. New learning is when a community of like-minded people learns from each other. Thomas and Brown suggest that optimal learning is a combination of the two.
The article we read in week two, Good Video Games and Good Learning, also spoke to me in the same way, where Gee specifically talked about video games and what players can learn from well-designed games, and especially from interacting with other players. This is precisely the type of new learning that Thomas and Brown are talking about.
I don’t know much about the curriculum of our public school, but let’s just assume that public school is traditional learning. That means our children will be fairly competent in learning facts that are unchanging. But what about everything else? It makes me start to think about how we as parents can steer our children and in what areas we can best support them. Maybe I’m not going to let my five-year-old play World of Warcraft yet, but armed with this knowledge of different ways people learn, I might be more inclined to support his ideas when he wants to make ridiculous projects. When he’s older, I might encourage him to join clubs, find groups online where people share his interests, and learn things through participatory channels, no matter what the subject is.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Making What's In Your Head or What's In the World Already
I totally agree with Adam Savage that when it comes to making something that emulates pop culture or making something you’ve thought of on your own, neither is better or worse. I do, however, think that the two processes are different, and the creative and problem-solving processes are different between the two.
The differences are so fascinating to me. My older son will be five in a month, and he has recently become really into what he calls “art projects,” and what often turn into elaborate “makes.” What is most interesting to me is his process of coming up with ideas, and what he, of limited physical competence, can do with his ideas. A few weeks ago he got it into his head that he wanted to make a helmet out of paper. He had a VERY definite idea in his head of what he wanted it to look like. He tried drawing the shape on paper, but got so frustrated that he couldn’t draw what he was picturing in his head, and neither could he articulate it for someone else to help him. There were tears.
After Daddy helped him calm down and used the computer to help him draw a perfectly symmetrical shape, he wanted to punch holes on either side of the bottom edge and tie a string through that would go under his chin. He didn’t realize that if you do that the paper will bend and the hat will site flat on top of your head instead of perpendicular to the floor. He’s four! He clearly wanted the hat to look a certain way on his head, and came up with a plan to execute it, but it didn’t work. There were more tears. But then he said, okay, wore it for a second, then abandoned it. “It’s not really right anyway,” he said.
I think about this because I think the visualization of what you want the finished product to be is the key difference between your own ideas and something from pop culture. When you are emulating something you’ve seen before, someone else has done that visualization already, and your job is to execute. You want to reproduce something as faithfully as possible, in all its physical aspects and capabilities. Your work is, in effect, limited by what someone else previously visualized.
When you make something of your own, you do the visualizing yourself. But then the execution can be much more flexible, and if something doesn’t work you can always change it. Or change your mind halfway through about what you wanted it to look like or do. This flexibility allows you to be more creative from a design perspective, but doesn’t necessarily challenge you in the same way with restrictions. You may actually be more creative in your problem solving when your final product must look a certain way or do a certain thing.
So I think that both types of projects challenge the maker in different ways, and allow the maker to be creative in different ways. Either way gives makers abundant learning opportunities. Either way lets makes be creative problem solvers. And even better? Do both!
The differences are so fascinating to me. My older son will be five in a month, and he has recently become really into what he calls “art projects,” and what often turn into elaborate “makes.” What is most interesting to me is his process of coming up with ideas, and what he, of limited physical competence, can do with his ideas. A few weeks ago he got it into his head that he wanted to make a helmet out of paper. He had a VERY definite idea in his head of what he wanted it to look like. He tried drawing the shape on paper, but got so frustrated that he couldn’t draw what he was picturing in his head, and neither could he articulate it for someone else to help him. There were tears.
After Daddy helped him calm down and used the computer to help him draw a perfectly symmetrical shape, he wanted to punch holes on either side of the bottom edge and tie a string through that would go under his chin. He didn’t realize that if you do that the paper will bend and the hat will site flat on top of your head instead of perpendicular to the floor. He’s four! He clearly wanted the hat to look a certain way on his head, and came up with a plan to execute it, but it didn’t work. There were more tears. But then he said, okay, wore it for a second, then abandoned it. “It’s not really right anyway,” he said.
I think about this because I think the visualization of what you want the finished product to be is the key difference between your own ideas and something from pop culture. When you are emulating something you’ve seen before, someone else has done that visualization already, and your job is to execute. You want to reproduce something as faithfully as possible, in all its physical aspects and capabilities. Your work is, in effect, limited by what someone else previously visualized.
When you make something of your own, you do the visualizing yourself. But then the execution can be much more flexible, and if something doesn’t work you can always change it. Or change your mind halfway through about what you wanted it to look like or do. This flexibility allows you to be more creative from a design perspective, but doesn’t necessarily challenge you in the same way with restrictions. You may actually be more creative in your problem solving when your final product must look a certain way or do a certain thing.
So I think that both types of projects challenge the maker in different ways, and allow the maker to be creative in different ways. Either way gives makers abundant learning opportunities. Either way lets makes be creative problem solvers. And even better? Do both!
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