Showing posts with label TwoBrains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TwoBrains. Show all posts

October 18, 2007

TwoBrains "Pick of the Day"

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We are honored to be Jane's pick of the day. Jane Hart highlights sites and applications that are interesting to the elearning community. TwoBrains is an experiment that we put together a little over a year ago. It provides the ability to identify and/or share a learning goal and associate resources to it from around the web.

In what was one of my less stellar moments, I changed the brand from LearningFlow to TwoBrains, so that we could use LearningFlow for a variety of services. The change was necessary, the new branding was the issue. It is exciting to see that we are up to 187 users, and although we are probably not really ready to sell to Google yet, I am planning for a huge increase in traffic once it goes mainstream ;).

We know there are a lot of changes that should/could be made to the TwoBrains service, "groups" is probably the most needed. If we can find some resources to make these changes we will. It would also be great to be able to show some content around the goal and sequence the content resources.

One thing that I hope will happen from this exposure is that we get some feedback from our users. I am always interested in new ideas about how to improve. Ultimately, I think we were on the right track, this type of system should allow learners to organize resources and benefit from the network effect.

Thanks Jane!

UPDATE: The power of Jane's pick pushed us to 200 users. One of which entered learning goals. I am working on adding resources for those posting goals.

July 11, 2007

Voice Thread Presentation

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In order to experiment, I just created this VoiceThread presentation. It worked really well. The presentation is about TwoBrains and matching learning goals with educational resources. Let me know what you think. Tip: when you scroll over the images you can zoom in on them.


June 5, 2007

Creating Learning Goals in TwoBrains

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I shared the overview screencast for TwoBrains earlier, now I have created a short video that shows you how to create a goal.





The idea is to allow you to identify what it is you want to learn and share that goal with others.

May 31, 2007

TwoBrains Overview

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I put this together to provide a brief overview of TwoBrains. It is really short and sweet, but it might help a little if you have no idea what the service is about.



I'll try to do a few more when I can. Notice, I skipped the loging details. I'm learning.

April 6, 2007

Bad Name for eLearning?

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So recently we decided to change the name of our elearning experiment formerly known as Prince LearningFlow to "twobrains". Based on the traffic flow and a recent comment in the blogoshere it appears I may have made a mistake. So I will provide a public explanation of why the change and why the name and let you know, we are open to suggestions.

Why the name TwoBrains?
It is based on the idea "Two brains are better then one." I thought it kind of captured the spirit of the service. Sure it doesn't make you Google or shout Yahoo!, but it was a name.


Why the change?
We are going to be releasing some new light-weight web-based services in the near future that directly support the elearning industry. We love the name LearningFlow and what to use LearningFlow.com as the primary site that is basically a mashup of web-services around elearning. LiFTLabs.com is a domain we are using to host our services. There will be more in the new future.

A Challenge?
What do you think we should call a web service that allows individuals to identify their own learning goals, match web-based resources against those goals, and collaborate with others?

By the way, I think it is great to get this kind of feedback. I hope that by putting something out there and letting people make comments and pushback we just get better at offering services. Our lesson here is that without the resources to make needed changes in a timely manner, we can't keep our audience engaged. It has been and continues to be a great experience.

Thanks. Lee (with just one brain if you don't count the one in the jar on my desk.)

December 19, 2006

LearningFlow still Growing

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While I haven't had much time to chronicle the experience our web application, LearningFlow has continued to grow. We currently have 71 users with 121 goals. The down side is that we aren't seeing a lot activity, but the good news we plan to be able to get back to making LearningFlow better real soon. If you are someone interested in the changes in LearningFlow, stay tuned. We are excited about the new year!

November 8, 2006

LearningFlow Feedback from Dave Lee

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This is a cross posting from the LearningFlow blog concerning an email exchange between Dave Lee and myself. Dave was kind enough to go through our service and provide detailed feedback and he is our exchange.

DL: Congratulations on your first launch of LearningFlow. It looks very
promising.

You asked for suggestions, so here's a pile of them in no particular
order:

* I found Learning Flow through Learning Flow Blog from a blog
reference (Lee Kraus' Learning and Technology blog) but once I got to Learning Flow Blog it
took me forever to find a link that got me to Learning Flow
itself. You should have a link, if not a button, at the top of
the Sidebar saying "this was to Learning Flow."

LK: I added a link. This was kind of a bonehead move on my part. Sorry.

DL:I'd say more doing a million things every day is to blame than
boneheadedness.

DL: * rethink linking to basecamp. I fell for the hype on basecamp,
convinced a team in my Masters program to use it and was nearly
lynched by mid-semester. Some key things missing from basecamp
include:

LK: We have used Basecamp for some time now and the experience has been
positive.

DL:
o the inability to assign multiple people to a given task

LK: I have on occasion wanted to do this, but not often and having a
"lead" might actually be the way to go.

DL: o there is no means of tracking dependencies between tasks
(ie, task b can't be started until task a is done)

LK: We don't really have a need for this type of complexity. My team
knows when tasks depend on other tasks. When I have used this in MS
Project it often turns complicated fast.

DL: I agree with the complicated aspect of dependencies, but with a team
like the one I was working on when we used basecamp, and many teams
I've worked on in the past, as much as you might want to communicate
more, time and other commitments often down let you stay in constant
contact. That's when a tool that tracks them helps by being a central,
authoritative source.

DL: o you can't order or re-order the tasks.

LK: Yes you can...

DL: If you can't track dependencies, then how can you say task a must now
happen before task b?

DL: o tasks are not time related in basecamp

LK: If you associate your todo list with a Milestone they become time related.

DL: Do all the subtasks of a milestone then carry the milestone's date, or
do they get assigned intermediate dates building to the milestone? I'm
not sure I get the use of all tasks carrying the same date as the
milestone, if that's what happens.

DL: o milestones have dates associated with them, but if you move
a milestone (I know, it never happens) you have to manually
update all the other milestones.

LK: This is true... but again, the dependency thing adds so much
complexity that it can take as much time to understand the
consequences of moving one milestone. I think this is really a
preference thing.

DL: Agreed, and likely has a lot to do with collocation or previous work
experience amongst a team. if I've worked with you on 5 projects and
our cubes are next to each other, I can probably predict your steps as
well, if not better than you can. But if this is the first time we've
worked together and we work in different offices across the country from
each other the complexity of dependencies becomes vitally important.

DL: o tasks are not tied to milestones

LK: They can be...


DL:I take that back, but isn't it sort of like tying a blog post to a
category?

DL: o there is no way to understand where you are in a project
(ie, 12 of 50 tasks completed or 24% done)

LK: I guess this is true, but not a really critical number for us so far.
Maybe I would like it if we had it.

DL: It sounds like you have an awesome team there!

DL: o the messaging system is a blog with categories. There is no
RSS so you have to go into basecamp, into the message blog,
guess which category there might be a message for you and
then comment back to you colleague.

LK: If you subscribe to the Project RSS feed you can monitor the messages.
I think maybe they have made some of these changes since you last used
Basecamp? We like it and use it to monitor over 12 projects.

DL: they probably have changed it. The RSS didn't work when I was using
basecamp. you got the title of the message, but had no idea of who it
was written by or to whom it was addressed. You basically had to read
every message. Most of us abandoned it and went to email.

--------- End of Basecamp ----------- (almost got whiplash there!)
DL: * add a cancel button to the add entry section - I had added an
entry to one of my goals, got thinking about a different goal, hit
add an entry thinking I was in the second goal, but I was still in
the first. Escape didn't work so I tried backspacing. it backed
up to a point before I made my first entry on the first goal.

LK:I agree this is needed. You can click the Add Entry button again to
toggle the form, but this isn't obvious.

DL:I would have never guessed that.

DL: * similarly, a "back to goals" button would be helpful when you are
in the detail for one goal. (I know the goals tab at the top of
the page worked, but that wasn't the first place I looked)

LK: I'm not sure if adding another link on the page is the best way to
handle it. We'll have to test that out. I'd rather not put another
link on the page unless it is absolutely necessary.

DL:I'm with you there on the few buttons the better. I figured it out,
but it took a bit of time. Maybe have the goals tab change color or form?

DL:* what does "I'm no longer learning this mean" - I gave up? I
completed it? both? I'd argue against it serving both
purposes. I'd suggest that you have two buttons here -
"completed" and "delete". Clicking complete would leave the
goal on the list but marked complete somehow (a big green check
mark, crossed out, a discrete icon saying "completed" or
"accomplished" with any of these, you could include the completion
date). Leaving completed goals on my goal list is a positive
motivator for me and those who may have helped me in the
process. The delete button would be for goals that for one
reason or another are being abandoned - bad idea, time has made
the goal obsolete, project or I have been reassigned, etc. There
is no reason for the goal to hang on my list like an albatross.

LK:For right now it means, take this off my list. We have plans to add
"status" to your goals. We are thinking "Completed" and "I give up".
The completed goals would become visible on the right side of the page.
cool on the completed.

DL: I'd argue against the "I give up" because there
are other reasons someone might take a goal of their list then giving
up. For instance, what if I decided that my goal of getting to 200
posts on my blog just didn't fit because it's really not a learning
goal? I probably would still have the goal in my personal list of
goals, but not the subset of learning goals. In that case, I'd just
want to discretely remove it rather than admitting failure.

DL:* I like that you have comments on the entries, and not the goals.
this is where people can really help each other - at the task level.

LK:Thanks. I noticed that sometimes that's not obvious, but I like it as
well.

DL: * why call them entries and not tasks?

LK:We call them Entries because they are for comment and collaboration.
I think of tasks as a list of thinks to do to complete the goal. That
wasn't our intention.

DL:I guess I'm too schooled in the process of breaking down goals into
tasks that I just went there. So you see them more as a group of ideas
regarding the goal to then get feedback on? interesting.

DL:* why do you insert the "and" in the tag list before the last tag?
(I know, good grammar. but nobody has worried about good grammar
on the web so far!)

LK: Very funny. We did it to try and make the site a little more
humanistic. I think that this helps people be more social on the web?
but it goes against the very dominant paradigm of tagging that
de.lic.ious an the others have created for better or worse.

DL:* I assumed that because you add commas between tags, that commas
were necessary when adding multiple tags. so the second time I
was entering tags I entered
# work, money, jobs and my tag list now reads
work,, money,, and jobs

LK: Actually, I'll have to check with my team on this one. We discussed
comma delineated versus spaces. I can't remember where we landed...
I'll let you know.

DL: * why do I have to enter my de.lic.ious user name and password for
every goal?

LK:You don't have to. Once we have it we should probably remove the
option. Thanks.

DL: * when I go to my goals list, there is a link that says I have "2
notifications" I'm not sure what a notification is, and when i
click on the link it doesn't go anywhere. Don't tell me I have 2
whatevers, if i can't go look at them!

LK:This is a non-functioning component of our site that we didn't get
removed before we launched. There will be an internal notification
system for learners that allows for collaboration without email. I
know... shouldn't be there. It will get fixed soon.

DL:lol...I warned ya, straight up and honest.

DL: * it's not clear that company groups are going to be private or
public or if that's a choice the owner will make. you just need
to state what it's going to be.

LK: That's because this is still an internal discussion. We are
considering both. I am leaning toward allowing the owner to make that
choice, but we are also considering having private groups be a premium
service? It will be January before we get to implement the
functionality, so we are looking for input. Would you pay for a
private group on LearningFlow?

DL: Well, today? No. Hypothetically in the future, possibly. A lot of
that decision will be determined by whether or not you have any
competition and what they do. The success or failure of other web
based applications in penetrating the enterprise market will also be a
bellwether for you. There are some indicators that "free" may be a bad
thing to corporate IT groups and a nominal fee legitimizes an application.

You'll also likely be asked to sell an Intranet hosted version. Which
of course can carry a nice price tag, but will raise versioning issues
due to both access and customization. It's not a bad idea to think
about this issue early and often.

DL: * I notice that the one resource I added to one of my goals is now
at the top of the recent resources list. I didn't know it was
going into a big public bucket. You should warn folks of this
fact and or give them the chance to make it private. De.lic.ious
finally learned that they needed to offer a private setting.

LK: Good point. We have the private setting, but a warning would probably
help a lot. We have had others think the same thing.

DL: I didn't see the private setting or do you mean it's in the program, but
not in the interface?

DL: * I also noticed that my goals were not added to the recent goals.
Seems odd.

LK: The idea was that you are only seeing others, you know what your goals
are, but I'm thinking that we might change that so that users can get
that feedback.

DL: Yeah, it just feels weird. Plus, we all like to see our names (or our
goals) at the top of the list. Blogger has had to deal with this issue
constantly it seems when it comes to there "recently updated" list of
blogs. From what gather from their various posts and messages about
it, people will update their blogs and then go out to the entry page to
see if they can see it scroll through the list. People are the silliest
creatures on Earth at times!

DL: * How can I view all the resources or all the goals on the site?
We are planning to implement a page that allows a high level view of
Goals and Tags.

LK:Currently, you have to click the "View the Existing
Goals" link just above the Add Goal form.

DL:Ah, I missed that link. I like the high level view page concept.
43Things/People/Places does this and I've found it a great way to get
the juices flowing about my things/people/places. There's nothing wrong
with "borrowing" and existing goal either.

DL: * what about tag clouds?

LK: Coming soon... as we like to say.

DL:I figured.

DL: Well, I hope this is all helpful.

LK: Tremendously!

DL: I really think you have the start of
something very good here.

LK: Thank you!

DL: I'll be a regular visitor and
user. Awesome. If you need anyone to help with user testing along the way, I'd be happy to
help out in that arena as well. Oh, one last thing. this is Web 2.0,
attach "beta" to your name. You have lots of work to do and people
don't mind ongoing betas when they know it's going on.

LK: It's a
perpetual Beta, I'm not sure about this.

DL: Actually I like flickr's
approach the best. Aren't they in Gamma now? LOL.

Best of Luck,
Dave Lee

October 18, 2006

Learning Goals and Loosely Coupled Artifacts

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Jeremy, who mentioned LearningFlow in his blog last week talks about how people using 43Things are not necessarily looking for other people. I tend to agree with this view point, given my own behaviors with 43Things. He writes...


Most people sharing a learning goal in 43Things aren't necessarily looking for people to collaborate with (although there is functionality to form explicit groups to pursue a goal together). It could be used as a sort of recommender system for finding people ("I'm looking for people sharing my goals"), but it looks to me like it's being used more as a recommender system for things you might like to do or learn. The network that emerges around a goal does loosely connect people to each other, but that may not be as valuable as the connections between the artifacts themselves: the entries outlining what their experiences have been in pursuing the same goal, why they decided to pursue it, what they hope to accomplish, how the learning helped them, pitfalls to avoid, etc.

Perhaps it's more important as a way of finding content (advice, resources, opinions, possible applications) than as a way to find like-minded people. The primary "pivot" is the goal itself, with the people associated with each goal as secondary pivots. It is interesting to find out what other goals someone is pursuing besides the one you share with them -- that function is more exploratory than the process of figuring out if you want to pursue a specific goal.

Jeremy Hiebert's headspaceJ -- Instructional Design and Technology

This connection to artifacts is a key design consideration around LearningFlow. We came to the idea through a pretty practical approach... In a small business like ours we are constantly sharing ideas, books, and websites that offer great information on a given topic that we are interested in. Naturally this led to our use of del.icio.us and more recently the network feature of the social bookmarking site to share these web sites. So we decided that being able to identify those topics or goals that we want to learn, then adding our bookmarks, (we changed the name to resources because it better captures the meaning in this context) we could easily share key information around that goal. So now, we still capture our sites through del.icio.us, but we use "Add from del.icio.us" feature to associate those resources with a goal. So far, it has been pretty effective approach internally. We have been able to share some great stuff, but we haven't gotten enough volume yet to get the network effect we are anticipating.

In the second paragraph above Jeremy hits on the idea of exploring someone elses learning goals beyond just the initial goal that is shared. I do this on 43Things. I love to explore what other "like-minded" people are setting as goals. This activity probably has a lot of deeper meaning, but I think it allows us to build a suttle connection to others and begins building a trust in a relationship between you and that person or group of people. If you think these new goals are "cool" or interesting then you are likely to subscribe to their activity feed or even add them to your network of people.

That is the interesting thing about networked learning, there are practically unlimited ways to enter into the learning activities and equally as many ways to exit. How deep I dive into the learning is completely up to me.

In LearningFlow, we have yet to explore these deeper capabilities, but its coming. We are going to enable a lot of "pivots" including goals, tags, activity, and workflow tasks through third party project management software. I remember when I first started using other social software it took awhile to explore around and find the artifacts, but once I did it was really cool.

October 10, 2006

8 Things you can do with LearningFlow

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This is a cross post from the new LearningFlow blog.

1. Capture your Learning Goals for the Year


LearningFlow is all about capturing your learning goals. They can be professional or personal, serious or fun. The important thing is that they are your goals that you have identified.

2. Engage in "Collaborative Learning"

This means that you can share a goal that others also want to achieve, like learn how to coach youth soccer practice. A lot of people learn better when they know others are involved in learning the same things. They like to share ideas and swap stories. Learning with others is more productive and more fun.

3. Import your Del.icio.us Bookmarks

LearningFlow allows you to import your bookmarks from del.icio.us and associate them with a learning goal. This will allow you to keep tagging those great sites on the web, but easily get back to them when you want to learn how to create a cascading style sheet or learn to do basic cost accounting.

4. Subscribe to a Learning Goal

LearningFlow allows you to subscribe to a learning goal that you have identified. This means that you don't have to come back to the web siteevery time something new is happening with that goal. You can simple subscribe to the goal via RSS and the learning activity will come to you.

5. Invite others to Learn

LearningFlow has an "Invite a Friend" function that allows you to easily email a friend and suggest that they learn something with you. This is a great feature to invite your office mate down the hall who is on your team (thus effects your bonus structure) or to invite Aunt May to learn about web design (given that you actually have an Aunt May).

6. Rate a Learning Resource

Let say you know of a great web site about monarch butterflies and you added it to your "Learn more about Butterflies" learning goal. LearningFlow lets you rate that resource so the next time you come back or if others are there looking at all those resources it is easy to see which sites are the best for learning about butterflies.

7. Make Searching For Information on the Web Way More efficient

LearningFlow allows you to improve your efficiency on the web by creating a collaborative filter based on an identified learning goal. This is will making learning much more efficient on the web then just using traditional search engines by adding a pre-filter to you focus and a peer support network in gathering resources.

8. Imagine all the additional things that LearningFlow could do for you

Yeh, we know. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that LearningFlow could do for you. Associate Learning Goals with Organizational Projects, allow sorting by tags, allow the creation of learning meta-data to be associated with the learning resources, allow the mp3 files to be streamed as a dynamically generated podcast based on a learning goal.... Yeh, we know, and we are working it.




October 6, 2006

LearningFlow

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I wanted to share some of the slides from LearningFlow. We still have a lot of work to do, but the site is open and usable. Go check it out. I have posted some screen captures here so you can get a preview of the site. The basic functionality is free.

Some of the ways that I have been using LearningFlow within our company is to basically capture some of the key areas that we are trying to get better about and by capturing a few personal goals in the system as well. We only have 32 people currently in the system and just a few of them are active, but I am still seeing value in the site. Most of the current users are much more guarded then myself, only entering a single goal or no goal at all. Unforetunately the benefits will come slow, the less you participate. I guess they are thinking, "I'm not going to invest my time in this system, until it shows me the value." Fair enough, we have to show value, quicker.

Interesting...