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I was thinking about the context for this, and I realized the

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perspective from cognitive science, from understanding how our brains work,

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uh, cognitive science was an integrative, uh, way

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to start pulling together different people thinking about thinking— philosophers,

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neuroscientists, uh, cognitive psychologists, anthropologists—

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more learning science emerged from that, similarly

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trying to pull in instructional design and, and educational psychologists

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and cognitive researchers. And that perspective

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isn't, I think, well known and used enough. And yet it gives us

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insight that's really powerful like that, the properties of media.

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And so that's the broader perspective I'd like to share is that this is coming

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from a way of thinking and looking at the

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world that gives us really useful handles. And I found it extremely

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useful. I have the ability to give people insights that

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they wouldn't have gotten in other ways just because of that understanding how

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our brains work, which I think is, increasingly going to be important because that's

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where things are going. We're going to find out what technology can do, what brains

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can do, and we need to understand that really well to figure out where we

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fit in this continually evolving world.

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Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from.

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We're revisiting an episode we recorded 2 years ago with Clark

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Quinn. When we recorded this episode, AI video

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tools weren't creating content in seconds. Today you can

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generate a video with a prompt. You can clone your voice. You can

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build an entire training series without ever even turning on your

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camera. Pretty amazing. Maybe. But it also

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makes this conversation even more important. Just because you can

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generate video in seconds doesn't mean video is always the right

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medium. And I say that as someone who loves video. I

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work at a company that builds tools for video. I

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believe deeply in its power. Video connects, it

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teaches, it builds trust in ways few mediums can.

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But it's not the only tool in the toolbox. Screenshots

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matter, images matter, diagrams matter. Sometimes a

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static visual communicates something faster and more

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clearly than a 5-minute video ever could. And today,

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with short-form video dominating feeds with reels and shorts and constant

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motion everywhere, The question isn't just, should I use

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video? It's what kind of media best supports learning?

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And even more specifically, what kind of video best supports

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understanding? And that's why this conversation with Clark

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Quinn feels even more relevant now than when we recorded

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it. Clark challenges us to think beyond format and into

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cognition, how our brains actually process information.

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Static versus dynamic, concept versus context,

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diagram versus animation versus video. In a

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world where creating content has never been easier, choosing the

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right medium has never been more important. So

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hopefully you'll listen with that lens, not just how do I make more

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video, but how do I help someone understand better?

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With that said, here's our episode with Clark Quinn from

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February of 2024. Uh, Clark, I, I, we always like to start

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the show with a kind of the practical approach and you know,

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you obviously you're not necessarily a media creator. I'm sure you've created

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media in throughout your career, but as you think about from a learning

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perspective, what's, what's a tip you would give to folks out

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there who want to use video? They want to use it for helping people to

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learn. Is there a tip that you would give them to help them to be

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maybe more successful or, uh, maybe have that hit the mark a little bit

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more? I guess my

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perspective is don't use video

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for video's sake, for making it more compelling or

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more interesting. What you should be using video for

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is to convey dynamic stories.

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Um, too often we use video when we don't have to, and it's a

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high bandwidth and high production cost, uh, effort in many

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times, in many cases.

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So, I would like to reserve using video for

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when it makes the most sense, not as a panacea and end-all.

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We'll talk today about the specific ways in which certain

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different media most opportunely support

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certain types of learning outcomes and cognitive outcomes,

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and then we can dig into, you know, How can you swap them in and

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out for variety and a variety of other things? Well, I, I

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appreciate that as someone who, uh, you know, I use a— I make a lot

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of videos. I work for a company that promotes tools that you make videos.

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I, I appreciate the advice though, because I do think there's, there's this balance there,

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kind of time, cost, effort, and always, I, you

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always got to ask, is it the right medium to deliver the

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message? So I appreciate it. No worries.

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And it's just our brains have evolved to, uh,

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collect certain types of information in certain ways and process it in certain

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ways. And we want to

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ideally match for that, particularly when we're, you know, trying to convey

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the most important message. There are, you know, video can

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capture us talking like I'm doing right now, and we can

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communicate thoughts and elegantly And, but

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too often we can overuse it. We can use it without

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controls. I just saw an example of this the other day where

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they were providing things and they didn't really give you pause and restart

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options. You could go back, play the whole thing, but

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it didn't automatically just say pause it because, you know, somebody's

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just come in the door or something. We need control over the media.

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But think about, Um, Ken Burns and the

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Civil War, uh, movie he made,

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it was a whole bunch of static images sequenced together.

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Those static images were what they had at the time, but they also communicated

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in powerful ways when he sequenced them together. We don't— we can

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communicate those stories in multiple different ways. We can use graphic

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novels, we can use narrative prose, we can use

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sequences of images linked together with audio or

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text, or we can use video. When does each make sense?

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That's the important issue for me. Yeah,

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I love that. And, you know, I mean, we, we often refer to Ken Burns,

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and he's such a master of doing those things, right? But those are not,

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uh, not outside the scope of anyone's capability. People can use imagery and they

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can tell stories, and that— so I love that. Um, and we could probably talk

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about just that alone for a long time, but I want to get into this

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idea of cognitive properties, because when you— when you— we—

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I connected with you and you said, hey, here's some things that we talk about

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this, and I'm No, um, but I think we need to do a

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little defining up front because my guess is most people listening to this

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are saying, cognitive properties? What

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does Clark mean? And so lead us down this

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path of like, what is this idea of cognitive properties

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and as it relates to, to media, right? I was

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actually thinking you were going to ask me to define the different types of media

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because people describe those differently. Oh yeah. So I actually

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want to start with that because it's at the front of my mind right now.

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What— I have left of one. Um, when you think of,

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uh, diagrams, and that was one of the things we talked about discussing,

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they communicate conceptual relationships via

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spatial relationships. So when you say

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up here is this and down here is this, and we have a linkage between

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them, and the other things are linked this other way.

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We are communicating information. That's not video, that's a

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static image. And two things, um, cognitive properties I want

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to separate out now are static versus dynamic.

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So there's information that exists, you know, the relationship between,

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um, roots and, and branches. There is

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dynamics that the roots feed up and grow the branches, but the static

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relationship is that, you know, the roots are the nourishing from the

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groundwater, whereas the branches are exporting the leaves, which get energy

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from the sun. And together they put those together.

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Then we have the more dynamic story of an environment

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where, you know, the, the water cycle, uh,

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evaporation, condensation, precipitation,

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and whatever the word is for where it

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flows down the hill and gets up in the, in the body of water to

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evaporate again. We have that. Cycle. That's dynamic.

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And sometimes we need to communicate one, and sometimes we need to

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communicate the other. When do— so

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I like to distinguish between diagrams and

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animations. And when I say animation, many people think about, you know,

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cartoons moving around. I'm thinking specifically of animating a

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diagram. Mm-hmm. And then we have

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photos which capture context. And

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videos which capture dynamic context. Then we

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have text, which captures, uh,

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prose, you know, is a narrative, and then we have audio, which is also

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a narrative, and each of those are different.

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Diagrams and animations capture the conceptual.

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They're not tied to real context, they're an abstraction,

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whereas videos and images capture the actual

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context. So you can see behind me what my room looks

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like because it's actual context.

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We could just have an abstraction— I mean, a cartoon with a blank background

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or some arbitrary abstract background which could communicate something

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different. There, what I begin to talk about the

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cognitive properties, and when you want to communicate

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context, a photo or a video makes sense.

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But when you want to communicate a concept, you may be better off with a

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diagram or an animation. —and when you want to communicate

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narrative, you may want to tell a story. You can— now, the

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point I mentioned earlier about, you know, having still photos together become

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a, an, a story, um, video can be used

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to communicate narratives and is— why do we watch movies and

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TV series? But we're showing the context

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as well, and we don't have to infer the concept.

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Unless we were laying it over. So, from

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a learning perspective, the cognitive properties we're talking about are: we

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communicating concept or context? Are we

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communicating it dynamically or statically?

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Relationships? Those are the things— the cognitive properties I'm

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talking about. And then we need to start thinking about which

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we need to communicate and what media makes the most sense. And then, of

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course, we then think about And then how do we mix it up so it's

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not completely dull and boring the whole time?

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Well, okay, so there's, there's a lot here and, and those are—

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I think we're, you know, you're doing a great job at simplifying what is

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a very complex kind of concept in terms of,

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you know, there's these properties, these media, this media, these types of media that are

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good at typically doing. So if I, if I'm at

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the, the, you know, I'm the instructional designer or I'm thinking about

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creating media for, for learning,

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I'm hearing what you're saying. And so now I'm thinking like, okay,

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what are maybe the questions or decisions that are going to

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help me down that path? Because like you said, I— if I'm always using a

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diagram— diagrams are great, they do a great job with the thing. But if I'm

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always trying to use a diagram, it feels like, like you said, the— you

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get fatigue. Like, I— we actually struggle with this in video, right? If

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I see— put a video up online and it looks the same as every other

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video, people say, I've already watched that video. Or,

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you know, so I'm curious from your perspective because there's the, the

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practical application here going from this like understanding of these cognitive

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properties to now I've gotta, I gotta make stuff. Like

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a lot of our, our, a lot of our roles is as instructional designers, particularly

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if you're doing, uh, really good in-depth design is say

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understanding those things, but then Now it's like, okay, what do I do with it?

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So what, what would you say? How do we translate this to— what,

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what can someone do now if they understand these things?

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Well, two different takes on that.

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So let's talk about the traditional instructional experience first. You

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should be presenting an underlying model. Cognitively, models

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give us good basis for, uh, comparing our performance to

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what the model predicts. It gives us a basis to make decisions You know,

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models help us explain what happened, uh, or predict

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what will happen. And then we can say, if I did X, the model says

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this would occur, and if I do Y, the model says that will occur, and

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this is better than that, so I'll do this. The model tells us that.

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So we want to communicate a model, and the diagram makes sense, but then we

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want to show how that plays out in context. We have evidence,

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research-based evidence from cognitive load theory and the like, that

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showing examples before we give people opportunity to practice

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makes it easier to then take it on yourself. You

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see and abstract a few examples and it gives you some guidance.

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Examples need context. They show how the model

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plays out in the real world. So suddenly we're talking about watching a video or

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seeing a static image or a sequence of images telling a story.

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Examples work best 'cause they really are stories that show,

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I faced this problem, I applied this model, and this was the outcome.

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That's a story, that's a narrative, and we could use video

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or, or st— sequence of static images to convey that.

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Then we need practice. We need to immerse the learner into

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an environment and give them opportunity to make choices. Interactivity is something

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I haven't mentioned in terms of the cognitive properties here. This is

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more for the media instead of the interactivity, but then we need to allow the

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learner to make choices and see the consequences of those.

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So suddenly we're switching again to— and we might— one

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of the things I didn't talk about in my elicitation of the types of media,

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I talked about, you know, video and our,

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you know, context with photos or video. And I talked about concepts with diagrams or

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animation. I talked about narrative with prose or audio, but I didn't

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talk about graphic novel formats and comics and those

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types of things where they're semi-conceptual and semi-contextually

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because they strip away some of the details of context.

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And yet provide enough that the learner can recognize the context, but that

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allows the opportunity to layer the concepts on top of it as well.

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And so we might mix this up. We might have a graphic novel

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format of an example and a video for an example, and then we put the

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learner, and it might be photorealistic, or we might start with a graphic novel. So

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we're mixing up the media to tell the story. Now, I said

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sort of two different pedagogies. One was sort of the traditional, you have a model,

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example, practice. The other one is you put the learner in the situation.

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This is more a problem-based type of approach where you specifically

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chosen an important problem and you provide scaffolding. You've simplified it in

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certain ways early on, and later on they take on more capability.

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But we might make resources available in the environment so you can

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pull up a diagram or you can pull up a little

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example. We might embed that in the story. So there—

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the environment in which you're performing in might have a library

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of, that has the diagrams, and it might have

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a history of case studies that the organization has done in the past that

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you pull up that are really examples. So we are mixing

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up media to meet different needs because for

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learning purposes, we have different cognitive roles at different points in the

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experience. So we avoid boredom in that sense, but

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then we should be thinking about how are we making sure we're communicating each at

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the right point in time.

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Wow. Uh, you know, what I'm thinking about is, uh, so I've noticed this trend

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and, and, you know, obviously we can talk about instructional designers, corporate learning all, all

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day long. I've noticed in, in the world of non-instructional

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designers, there's a lot of people out there making training content.

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It's, you know, we would, we would probably balk at it a little bit what

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it is and, you know, but they're on YouTube, they're YouTube creators, they're

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teaching, uh, cooking or fix a car.

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But what I— in that first, particularly in that model, right, where you've got, uh,

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you know, you got— you're gonna put these things together, right? Model, example,

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practice. What I've noticed that they're really good at on YouTube, if they're doing

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well on the channel— so not everybody's good at it, but you know, the ones

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that are really good, they, they, they hook you with

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that. Here's the problem, right? They somehow draw you in, but

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then they, in a lot of ways, they're essentially doing this, right? They're modeling something.

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They're Showing the example, but it's not a linear boom, boom,

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boom. They— it's almost like a lot of loops because they're coming back to

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the, like, the thing. Here's the problem. Here's, here's something you could do that

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then the next thing. Um, and I'm

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curious if you thought about how you might like, because obviously you could say

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like, do these 3 things and that's all you ever do. Is it something that

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we should be looking at if we're creators? So we're creating instructional

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content. To like build this into, you know,

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almost templates that we could then repurpose? Or is that

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too structured and it's like everything is going to just— because a lot of times

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it's like, well, it's so specific, it's going to just be different every time. But

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are there kind of general frameworks that you, you've built out or you think we

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could build out from, from these kind of this

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approach? Um, there are templates that, you know, there are

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structures for what good instructional design is. Saying, giving the model, then

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give examples, then give practices emerged from empirical

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research, and that serves as a good template. We want to avoid too

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much templatization. I remember a company, uh, many years

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ago was following David Merrill's dick tips, and they created this

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very rigorous system that you talked about the type of objective you had, and then

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it limited the types of things you could do all the way through. And it

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made really rigorously accurate instruction, and

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you'd rather pull your eyes out than actually go through

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it, or That was unpleasant.

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So, um, but you have to be careful because some of the—

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you know, I repaired my dryer with a video from YouTube. I have

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no idea what I had. It wasn't a learning experience, it was performance

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support. It led me through the steps and diagnostic and figure out what to

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do. And then— but I didn't— I haven't had to do that again for years

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and years. It would have been silly for me to learn anything from it. It

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was just perfectly propor— sport. And

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you pointed out a bit of a, a

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evolutionary selection process going on, that the good

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videos are the ones that get viewpoints because there are people who naturally

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draw upon some of these principles, um, and, you know,

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that iterative cycle you were talking about. They're showing this step and talking

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about what leads to it, and in their narrative they talk a little bit about

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the models that gave them the guidance. And Andrew

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Schoenfeld at Berkeley did some of the greatest stuff of

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talk— actually going down the way and talking about the thinking

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behind each step, which experts often don't have

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access to. Um, cognitively, the research at the University of Southern California's

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Cognitive Technology Group by people like Richard Clark showed that 70% of what

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experts do, they don't have conscious access to, which is really

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problematic for instructional design because you've got these experts doing things and they don't even

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know what they're doing. They can tell you what they but they struggle to

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tell you what they do and you really have to work hard to pull it

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out. These people, somehow, the best YouTube

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providers are managing to articulate the underlying thinking and then showing

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how it plays out in context, step by step by step through

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a process. And you may learn something from it if it is something you

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do frequently and you go back and view it several times each time until you've

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sort of internalized it.. But we have to think

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a lot about what is the context, what is the need, how frequently— when

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you look at the principles of, you

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know, designing instruction, the criteria that determine how much practice you need and

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how much articulation tend to be, it's how inherently complex is it, how frequently

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you perform it in the real world, um, how important is it

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if, if you get it wrong. That will determine a lot of

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these factors that are sort of not

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articulated explicitly in these YouTube videos and the selection between them, but

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end up playing a big role in whether you're talking about performance sport

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or act— you know, are you happy leaving the information in the world? Did

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you absolutely have to put something in the head? And if so, what and

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how? Well, I, I appreciate that distinction because I think it is

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one that, uh, and it's not as nuanced, but it becomes kind of— is this

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learning? Is this performance support? And there is a lot of things that

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are just performance support, right? Just show me how to do it. Don't— I don't

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have to, I don't have to know it. I don't have to, you know, draw

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on that knowledge at a later point or build necessarily build

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from that, that framework to understand this other framework. Um,

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so I think I want to call that out because I do think that

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is a really insightful point. And I, and I, I know

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the difference, but like hearing you say it's like, oh yeah. Duh, a lot of

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this is not instruction. It's, it's really that. So,

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um, I'm, I'm curious because we've covered— I feel like we've covered a lot, but

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what else are we missing, or what else do we need to know to, again,

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to kind of keep us moving forward here with this understanding of the,

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you know, cognitive properties of, of, of using these things in

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a way, uh, because I, I do think we sometimes get into

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this cycle of it, particularly instructional design world where it's, you know,

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there's an academic field for a reason. And it's— academics are good, I think,

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and we need those, we need that work, that research.

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But oftentimes then, uh, you know, just in even my own experience, I'll be reading

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a paper and saying, okay, these are good things, and I— the application of it

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is like, well, I don't know, it doesn't maybe try to make the bridge

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the gap to like what I actually can do, or how would— how I do

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it, or even how my audience responds comparatively to

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the, the the study, you know, the body of the study of the people that

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went through it. So is there other things we need to understand

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as about cognitive properties?

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Yes. So I, um, suggest that, uh, really

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learning science is, is rocket science. So the brain is

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arguably the most complex thing in the known universe, and

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trying to systematically get changes in it by, you know, you know, sort

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of random perturbations is not the way to do it. We have The

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research you're pointing to, we have very good prescriptions in general

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that have teased out the importance of practice and the importance of

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deliberate practice and spacing of practice and a whole bunch of nuances. But

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putting it together for any specific circumstance that you're

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designing to support, there will— won't be one study that tells you how

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you should do that. What you're doing is putting

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together different aspects. Which is why, by the way, you're starting to see also

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a move towards more iterative approaches. Um, so

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you need to create your best first guess, but then you should test it

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and say, oh, this part's working, that part's not, let's tune it

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a little bit. Okay, it's working better, let's

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do it, you know, but fine-tuning this thing, look, it's doing

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it. And you look at Michael Allen's SAM, Successive Approximation

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Model, or the Megan Torrance's LAMA,

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lot like agile management approaches. They're

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moving to more create a first draft. Even David Merrill

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has moved from, uh, bone splay theory to ID2. Now his Pebble in a Pond

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is very much, you know, focus on the core practice first,

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get that right, to— testing and tuning, and then add

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other stuff around. So, you know, the point I'm trying to

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make is that research gives us good prescriptions. We need to apply it

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in a creative way. Focus on engagement as well without violating

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the principles, and then test it and tune it to see

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what's happening. Um, because we're not like concrete, we don't

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have totally predictable properties. Our brains can even change, you know, a little

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bit of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, right? Uh, when

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you're observing people doing things, it changes their understanding of what

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they can do. Many people have created— built technology solutions and tested

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it and found that the people go, oh, well, now that I can see this,

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I want you to also do this and get rid of that. I don't need

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that now that you can do It's like, whoa, this is

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a dynamic process. That's cool, but it does

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require paying attention. Yeah, I, I feel like the, the pushback

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that then comes— because I, I completely agree, and I can remember being

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in my master's program, you know, working a lot of theory, a

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lot of study of, of different models for learning and things like that. And of

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course, uh, you know, one of the— we had a journal we had to keep

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and we'd write ideas, and so Very— this great process, but I

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remember trying to create my own models, thinking, how am I gonna create my own

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models? You know, but I, I remember one thing that is, is common is that

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kind of that iteration, right? That there is, there

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is no real learning process without like getting better

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at developing without iteration. And I think I wanna draw back to the, the conversation

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with the creators as well, because I think that's where they get us. They're really

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good at this. They, they are testing stuff all the time. Whereas I think in

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a corporate setting particularly, or even maybe in an educational setting,

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it's really hard to do that. And I know just from my own experience, if

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I have to make a video or some kind of piece of media

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that's gonna go out, the, the, the cycle time for me to

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come back to iterate on that is probably

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not very quick. It might be a year, it might be 2

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years. And so, you know, from a practicality standpoint, What advice would

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you give to folks who are saying like, yeah, I love this idea of iterating,

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but I can't iterate that fast because all— there's,

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you know, 400 courses that they want. There's these pressures, that

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pressure, you know, it's just the reality of, of the work is that these

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things take time, cost money, things like that. So I'm not expecting

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like for you to have a silver bullet because I don't think there is one,

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but I'm curious, what, what advice do you give to folks like

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in that situation? I, I give a varied forms of

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advice. The, the problem is, is we put ourselves in this position or allowed

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ourselves to be put in this position where this expectation where if

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we give you PowerPoints and PDFs, you can pop it in this program and turn

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it out on the web with a quiz and we're done. They have

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unrealistic expectations of what learning is. They have unrealistic expectations of what the

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process needs to be. And they have unrealistic expectations of what

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learning can do. If we give people information, they'll change their behavior and

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we're done, right? Which empirically isn't true.

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We're not formological beings. Otherwise, if we get— got new information, we change our

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behavior, but we don't. It takes practice. It takes a lot of development.

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It takes getting rid of old things. We don't unlearn them. We

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learn over them. Uh, sorry, can't resist addressing a myth along

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the way, but

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we need to Uh, change the perception, and that's going to

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be hard. So I've told people, you know, do a little

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bit of— it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

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Focus most on making more meaningful practice. Just make

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a better written multiple choice question that's

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just a scenario, mini scenario, where there's a situation they

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have to make decisions instead of asking them to respond

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to pull out new information. We actually

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have evidence that, um, just pulling out information doesn't lead to behavior, but

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actually making decisions. You don't even need— there was always this belief you needed

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to make sure you knew the information before you applied it. It turns

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out that requiring people just to make the decisions requires them to pull that

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information out of memory and supports the learning as well. So you only need

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the high-level questions. So it's, it's a dual

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our, our multiple front attack. We need to change people's

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expectations, help them understand what learning is better, why we need to put less in

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the head and more in the world when we can. That's a much more effective

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solution. And we need

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to be subversively, um, creating, uh, learning that's more

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effective within the constraints we work in, but also start

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measuring and showing that by making these changes, we're making a bigger impact. I

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know we resist evaluation a

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lot, and yet it's going to be the key towards

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moving ourselves forwards. Well, I, I've got a quote for my, for my day: less

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in the head, more in the world. I love that. That is,

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uh, that is— that's, that's, that's a great statement. So, uh, no,

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thank you for that advice. And I think that, uh, what I

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think we'll, we're gonna— we'll end our formal conversation on that. I want to get

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to speed round here in a second, but I just want to say that I

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love that, right? That there's this process that we've got it, we've got to just—

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you got to do it, ask for forgiveness and otherwise we'll never move forward and

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we keep— we'll keep delivering the same things. And I, I love that advice because

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I think it applies to this conversation. I think it applies to a lot of

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conversations I have around video and what's true about like how

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people are making video, what types of videos they're making. So, uh, Clark, thank

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you for that good, good piece of advice.

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I, Appreciate it. No worries. Okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna jump into speed round

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questions. If you're new to the show, these are quick, uh,

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fast answers to questions that we decide by rolling a dice. So we're gonna play

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our stinger and we'll see you in

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just a second. All right, Clark, here we go. We're gonna bring up our dice

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cam because that's right, we have a dice cam and we're gonna roll for— we

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got a 12-sided die, 12 different questions. And the first

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question is number 7. So here we go. Question

number 7 00:30:16

What's a hobby or interest you've always wanted to pursue but haven't

number 7 00:30:20

had a chance to as of yet?

number 7 00:30:25

Oh my goodness. Um, you have so much free time with all the things

number 7 00:30:29

that you're doing. Hey, um, hobby I've always wanted to do but

number 7 00:30:33

haven't had to— I don't know,

number 7 00:30:36

it might be, um, Uh, paddleboarding. Oh. Because I'm kind of old to

number 7 00:30:39

jump up on a surfboard anymore. Haven't done that in a while. And I'm thinking

number 7 00:30:43

maybe moving to a paddleboard would be a good

number 7 00:30:47

way to keep the ability to go out in the ocean and ride without having

number 7 00:30:50

to paddle and jump to my legs anymore. But I haven't had a chance to

number 7 00:30:53

really give that a go. Yeah, that's— it sounds super fun. Got a

number 7 00:30:57

friend that does it on Lake Michigan and she, she absolutely loves it. She'll

number 7 00:31:01

go out though sometimes. She actually tries to surf in Lake Michigan. Last time I

number 7 00:31:05

knew it was like October, November, and

number 7 00:31:09

it was cold. So— very cold. But they do get some waves there. So they

number 7 00:31:12

absolutely do. So, all right, let's go back to our dice cam. Here

number 7 00:31:16

we go. Second, second roll. And the dot is at the bottom, so we know

number 7 00:31:20

that's a 6. I'm teaching people dice— what it means, how to read the dice.

number 7 00:31:24

So number 6, uh, share a piece of advice

number 7 00:31:27

that you've received that has had a lasting

number 7 00:31:33

impact on you. I'm impervious to advice.

number 7 00:31:40

I just do it. Uh, I guess it's to—

number 7 00:31:44

I try really hard at this and I'm not good enough at this, but this

number 7 00:31:46

is, I believe, really important and lasting advice

number 7 00:31:50

is to talk less, listen more, ask

number 7 00:31:54

more questions. Sure, I care about

number 7 00:31:57

learning. I just sometimes get so tied up in my head that I forget to

number 7 00:32:01

stop and go, wait, let's check the context. So that would be my—

number 7 00:32:04

the advice that's persisted with me, although it's more a case of do as

number 7 00:32:08

I say, not as I do. I love it. It's another, it's

number 7 00:32:12

another great, great piece of advice because it is easy, especially

number 7 00:32:15

when you're— your expertise is in an area, it's easy to,

number 7 00:32:19

to run. All right, let's do one more here. So

number 7 00:32:24

dice towers up. And we're going to go to question 4. So your last

number 7 00:32:27

speed round question. Ooh, this is a fun one. What's a

number 7 00:32:31

guilty pleasure song or movie that you secretly

number 7 00:32:34

love? Is there something that you, you love

number 7 00:32:38

music-wise or movie-wise that maybe we wouldn't think about? Oh,

number 7 00:32:42

movie— rennity. I love the TV show Firefly. It was a

number 7 00:32:46

mashup of West and sci-fi, and the movie is one of

number 7 00:32:49

the ones I keep on my iPad to watch if I have a long flight,

number 7 00:32:52

which I haven't had in a long time. And now they have movies Sprout's easily

number 7 00:32:56

available on planes, but it's just, to me,

number 7 00:33:00

fun. Uh, it's not high cinema, um, but I love the

number 7 00:33:04

message. I love the story. I love the, the humor.

number 7 00:33:07

I just— it's fun. It's my guilty pleasure. Perfect. I love

number 7 00:33:11

that answer. Great answer. Well, Clark, it's always a pleasure to

number 7 00:33:15

talk with you and, and, and learn from you. I mean, I've, I've

number 7 00:33:19

enjoyed many, many sessions sitting in your session, just picking up tidbits

number 7 00:33:23

and ideas and being— having my own concepts challenged. So if

number 7 00:33:27

someone else wants to learn from you, connect with you, where should they look? Where—

number 7 00:33:30

what would you point us to? Um, I'll, uh,

number 7 00:33:33

point you to quinnovation.com, which is fortunately under my name there

number 7 00:33:37

on the— in the video. Um, and I think

number 7 00:33:41

out loud, as you mentioned, at learnlets.com. That's

number 7 00:33:45

my blog. And, um, I try and— I've now pretty

number 7 00:33:48

much devolved to posting once a week Tuesdays, uh,

number 7 00:33:52

there. And it's sort of my random thoughts, but it tends to be what I'm

number 7 00:33:55

involved in, what it's going— and sometimes it's more theoretical and

number 7 00:33:58

sometimes it's more pragmatic. But, um, those are the two

number 7 00:34:02

places that are best track me. I'm on LinkedIn as

number 7 00:34:06

well, um, so that I'm somewhat active there

number 7 00:34:09

in multiple forms of my activities. Perfect.

number 7 00:34:13

I definitely recommend people go out and follow you, find you, read your stuff. It's

number 7 00:34:17

always good. As we wrap up today's show, we always ask our guests Clark for

number 7 00:34:21

our fi— their final take. So Clark Quinn, what's

number 7 00:34:24

your final take? My final take is I was thinking about the context for

number 7 00:34:28

this and I realized the perspective from

number 7 00:34:32

cognitive science, from understanding how our brains work, uh, cognitive science

number 7 00:34:37

was an integrative, uh, way to start pulling together different people thinking

number 7 00:34:40

about thinking— philosophers, neuroscientists, uh,

number 7 00:34:44

cognitive psychologists, anthropologists— more Learning science

number 7 00:34:47

emerged from that, similarly trying to pull in instructional design

number 7 00:34:51

and, and educational psychologists and

number 7 00:34:55

cognitive researchers. And that perspective isn't, I think, well

number 7 00:34:58

known and used enough, and yet it gives us insight that's really powerful,

number 7 00:35:02

like that— the properties of media. And so that's the

number 7 00:35:06

broader perspective I'd like to share, is that this is

number 7 00:35:09

coming from a way of thinking and looking at the world that gives

number 7 00:35:13

us really useful handles. And I found it extremely useful. I have

number 7 00:35:17

the ability to give people insights that they wouldn't have gotten in

number 7 00:35:20

other ways just because of that understanding how our brains work, which

number 7 00:35:24

I think is increasingly going to be important because that's where things are going. We're

number 7 00:35:27

going to find out what technology can do, what brains can do, and we need

number 7 00:35:31

to understand that really well to figure out where we fit in this

number 7 00:35:36

continually evolving world. Love it, and excited to see what we continue to

number 7 00:35:40

learn because the brain, like I said, is— it is more complex

number 7 00:35:43

than rocket science, I'm pretty sure. But, uh, It's good stuff. So Clark, thank you

number 7 00:35:47

again for joining me on the Visual Lounge. A pleasure, Matt.

number 7 00:35:51

Thanks for having me. Absolutely. All right, everybody, you heard it.

number 7 00:35:54

Clark drops new content on Tuesdays. You can go read and

number 7 00:35:58

learn, become a better creator of

number 7 00:36:01

instruction, understand these processes so that you can develop training that has

number 7 00:36:05

better impact. You can create a better message. If you're not an instructional designer, you're

number 7 00:36:08

saying, oh my gosh, there's so much out there. Absolutely. There's— there's people who've

number 7 00:36:12

learned about this and you can apply it to your stuff too. So with that

number 7 00:36:15

said, you know, we love it if you like or subscribe to the show. Of

number 7 00:36:18

course you can leave comments and reviews that helps us to know what we can

number 7 00:36:20

do better. And if you've got suggestions, you can email us, got an email,

number 7 00:36:25

old school, thevisuallounge@techsmith.com. We're also now on TikTok, which is crazy. So

number 7 00:36:29

you can see some of the great quotes if you just want to follow us

number 7 00:36:31

over there as well, because we'll take these— this shows, get some of

number 7 00:36:35

the best quotes, put them up there. Uh, makes it easy to stay in touch

number 7 00:36:38

if you don't wanna watch all the entire show. With that said though, we

number 7 00:36:42

hope that you take the things that you're learning and apply it to your lives,

number 7 00:36:45

apply it to your practice, get better at what you're doing, and take some

number 7 00:36:48

time to level up every single day. Thanks everybody.