I think I have figured out the problem with computer-based education: it’s the computer. Computers are designed to do many things to a satisfactory degree, rather than doing specific tasks well. It reminds me of a conversation I had several years ago with Don Norman when I worked in his usability group at UNext.com. He had his Palm device, which stored contacts and kept his calendar, I had a fancy new Windows Mobile device, which could do all sorts of things. As we stood comparing devices, he panned my Windows device but not because he thought it was incapable, it was too capable.
Don wanted a device that did one or two things very well, not a device that could do everything. He qualified this desire in the following way: When I am camping, I want a pocket knife that can help me do a great many things. When I am in the kitchen, however, I want my full complement of cooking implements that can each do a specific task very well.
While all computing devices (not “computers” per se) today do many things, the newer devices tend to focus on a niche capability or at least allow the owners to focus on a niche capability. My iPod™ can be used to read ebooks, for example but it is much better at playing music and watch video on the go. My Kindle™, on the other hand, has completely changed my reading habits almost overnight as a fantastic e-reading device. Even though I can upload music to my Kindle, I choose to let my iPod handle this task.
Our online and computer-based courses, however, still force us to endure all aspects of content on a single device. Perhaps a podcast is offered to provide access to a lecture, but courses are generally designed to put everything within the context of a laptop/desktop. As a result, the better designers among us try to limit or eliminate longer text passages from online courses. Videos and audio tracks are severely curtailed as well, since most people don’t want to sit and watch or listen at their screens for that long. What are we missing as a result of this? Are we losing potentially rich prose simply because the device we are using is ill-suited to reading?
Text is still valuable, and I agree with Jeff Bezos, who noted that most current technology is designed for what he called "info snacking" and not deep, meaningful understanding (part of the logic behind Amazon’s development of the Kindle).
At the Co-lab, we have a new XML schema we have created to allow courses to be easily re-skinned or deployed to different devices. I have asked our lead technician whether we can take that technology a bit further and allow it to parse text to go to one device, one-way media (audio or video) to go to another, and finally to leave multimedia or interactive components on a desktop/laptop. The key is that I also want the course to be able to reassemble into a “pocket knife” version that can be fully taken on a single device.
Using only a single device to instruct is a relatively new concept. I think we need to reconsider a return to the use of many devices for teaching (like we did when it was a blackboard, books, lecture), but let’s update the concept for e-learning.