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Most
often when we think of optimizing e-learning, we focus on instructional
design and content, or basic access issues like bandwidth. But perhaps
we should be focusing more on the delivery platform itself.
“Doodleschweet!” exclaimed
my six-year-old daughter in what I assumed was a positive affirmation.
She was instantly hooked on her new gift, a Leapster Multimedia
Learning System, made by a company called LeapFrog. Not to be confused
with a Gameboy, Leapster is a handheld educational game console for
kids aged four to eight. Games come on separate cartridges covering
topics like math, reading, logic and art.
There were two things that
immediately caught my attention and imagination when I saw the
Leapster: how easy it is to use and how affordable it is for a
rich-media experience.
At first glance, the
Leapster is a bit odd-looking. It’s smaller than a laptop, but at 10
inches wide it’s much bigger than a PDA or other handheld game systems.
It includes a 4-inch color screen, a couple of buttons, a navigation
pad and most uniquely, a plastic stylus for pen-style input. With the
color screen and clear audio, it offers a presentation quality much
greater than any PDA I’ve seen. This design seems to have captured the
important balance between being small enough to be portable, yet big
enough to be usable.
The list price for a
Leapster is about $80, which is expensive for a toy, but cheap when
compared with the other employee gadgets we routinely buy, including
cell phones, PDAs, laptops and other tools. Each software cartridge
retails for about $20, but probably only costs a couple of dollars to
manufacture.
Today e-learning is
deployed across a wide spectrum of digital devices, including desktop
and laptop computers, tablet PCs, PDAs and soon, even cell phones.
While most pundits are predicting a convergence of these devices (so
one day we’ll just have a single phone/organizer/computer), others are
suggesting that having separate devices for distinct uses is a better
idea. The Leapster is a good example of a device that does only one
thing, but does it very well.
So let’s wave our magic
wands and pretend that we all had a personal, learning appliance. It
would be an adult Leapster-like device—let’s call it LearningBuddy.
What might you do with your LearningBuddy?
You
decide to lose weight and get into shape. In addition to a gym
membership, you purchase a $20 cartridge on the diet plan of your
choice. Your LearningBuddy then teaches you how to cut carbs or count
points, lets you look up dietary information and even enables you to
track your progress toward your health goals.
Your doctor tells
you that you have high cholesterol, or diabetes, or something worse.
She “prescribes” a disease-specific cartridge to immediately teach you
about the condition and how best to manage it. Your financial planner
urges you to accelerate your savings for college education and gives
you a cartridge that describes Section 529 plans.
As CLO, you make sure that
every new hire gets a library of cartridges covering must-have topics
like financial fundamentals, diversity and computer security.
As you
read these examples, you might be thinking, “I can do all that stuff on
my PDA or on the Internet.” What’s different is having the mobility
with quality that’s better than a PDA. What’s interesting is that my
children still do play games on the Internet using our desktop
computer, and they play Playstation games wired to TV sets at their
friends’ homes. But there seems to be something magical and special
about their little Leapster. The explanation might be as simple as its
rugged mobility; they bring the game unit along in the car, up to their
bedroom at night, on the couch in the day, in a suitcase on the way to
Grandma’s house. But I suspect that they’ve also developed a
psychological bond to this reliable little friend.
Maybe the e-learning
“killer app” we’ve been waiting for isn’t an application at all, but
rather an appliance. Maybe we need a device that is affordable,
easy-to-use, always there and a little fun.
Kevin Kruse is a president of AXIOM Professional Health Learning and facilitator of www.e-LearningGuru.com. For more information, e-mail Kevin at kkruse@clomedia.com.
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