I'm Bianca Woods and This Is How I Work

David Kelly (@LnDDave) recently did his own fascinating version of the Lifehacker feature “How I Work” and challenged the rest of us in the industry to do the same.

What can I say, David? Challenge accepted!

I'm Bianca Woods and this is my bear hat!

Location
The Great White North (AKA: Toronto, Canada)

Current Gig
Instructional designer/technologist at BMO Financial Group

Current mobile device
iPhone 4S

Current computer
Work:

A terrifyingly slow Lenovo

Home:

A 4-year-old MacBook Pro that is somehow substantially better than my work computer despite being substantially older

One word that best describes how you work

Playfully

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

Oh boy, I could write about this practically forever. To spare you hours of reading, though, here are a few of my favourites as of this very moment.

• Post-it Notes: I may be head over heels in love with technology, but not a project goes by where I don’t find that the humble Post-it is the right tool for part of the job. They are, by far, the best early storyboarding/drafting tool I’ve ever used. Plus they come in a variety of shades, so I can be all fussy about colour coding things. 
• PowerPoint: Hear me out on this one. I know we all hate the typical “thousand bullet points in 7-point font” nonsense PowerPoint deck, but if you actually take the time to apply design principles you can produce some beautiful presentation decks. Plus, PowerPoint is delightfully easy to MacGuyver. I’ve used it to create such non-standard offerings as vector graphics, animated videos, and branched simulations. It’s an underrated workhorse if you ask me. 
• Twitter: My much-loved personal learning network is there. What more can I say. 
• Bloglovin’: It’s the worst named service I use (Seriously? No “g”? I feel ridiculous every time I have to refer to it by name.), but out of all the Google Reader replacements I’ve tried it’s the best suited to my needs. If you like skimming tons of RSS feeds then I recommend ignoring the terrible name and checking it out.

What’s your workspace like?
Wow is it messy right now. I’m creating several branched simulations and I always start by mapping them out with Post-its first. As a result, my desk has three poster-sized maps covering it right now. I also like being surrounding with things that fuel my creativity, so there are infographics, random images, books, duct tape (don’t ask), and toys at my desk. It’s one of the odder-looking work areas in my building, but it feels like home.

Cubicle, sweet cubicle

What’s your best time-saving trick?
Remember to talk about what you’re working on to others (both in your office and in your industry) and get them to do the same. It’s amazing how often we take the difficult path, reinvent the wheel, or use the wrong solution simply because we didn’t know the person sitting next to us had a better solution all along.

What’s your favorite to-do list manager?
I tried to go all high tech with this but in the end found that the best solution for me was just a notebook. That said, I did enjoy using the EpicWin app a lot.

Good advice if you ask me!

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?
The general consensus seems to be that saying “iPad” is a bit of a cop out (although in my case it’s true. I love you iPad!), so I’m going to instead say my fabulous iPad keyboard.

I seriously injured myself last year by live tweeting a conference on my iPhone and iPad. As it turns out, typing directly on touch screen devices for over 8 hours a day, 3 days straight isn’t so fantastic for your body. Go fig.

After way too much physical therapy I’m finally starting to get better, but I promised myself I wouldn’t let that same injury happen again. As such, I picked up this Logitech iPad keyboard and have been entirely impressed with it. It’s comfortable to use (note: Your mileage may vary on this one. I have small hands), keeps a charge forever, and is super lightweight.

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?
Planning trips. Seriously, I am the master of creating detailed and efficient travel itineraries. I’m actually quite flexible about changing plans when I get somewhere, but I get a large amount of satisfaction in knowing I have a well-researched itinerary to use as a starting point. Nothing would make me sadder than wasting a ton of travel time because I hadn’t researched what subway stations I needed to use or how to get from the airport to my hotel.

Side note: TripIt is my go-to tool for this, although I’ve also used Google Docs for collaborating on group trip plans.

What do you listen to while you work?

I listen to a series of curated stations on Songza, and choose which one depending on my energy level. If I’m awake I like the Sunshine Indie Pop and Blogged 50 playlists. If I’m groggy, then it’s all K-Pop Party-Starters, all the time for me.

Are you more of an introvert or extrovert?
I’m the bizarre combination of a shy extrovert. That means if we’re at a conference I’ll likely be too shy to just walk up to strangers and chat with them, but I’m practically giddy when people take the time to talk to me.

(Big thanks to everyone who’s ever gone out of their way to introduce themselves to me at a con. You are all fabulous.)

What’s your sleep routine like?
I have a long morning commute, so my intention is always to get up early so I can scamper out the door before traffic really hits. Alas, my body rarely wants to play along with this plan. That’s mostly because I typically have trouble getting to bed when I ought to (I have a horrible habit of falling down a Pinterest-Geek board rabbit hole when I’m trying to wind down at the end of the night). Damn you internet for being so interesting!

Fill in the blank. I’d love to see ______ answer these same questions.
Can I say “everyone in my personal learning network” (I’m dying to see your desks)? Beyond that, I’d also like to see Nancy Duarte and pretty much anyone who works at Valve answer these same questions.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

If the job you want doesn’t exist, go out there and create it. 

Advice on choosing typefaces

A few months ago I created a presentation on graphic design tips for non-designers. Happily, as a result I've gotten some fantastic questions from people who have gone through the presentation materials and want to know even more.

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As anyone who has seen/read my presentation (or, let's be honest, just spoken to me for more than 5 minutes) knows, I have some pretty strong feelings about the usual default typefaces Arial and Times New Roman. To summarize: they are undeniably boring. As a result of this stance, I was recently asked about how to pick new default typefaces (in particular, "fancy" typefaces, but I'll cover that part of the question in a second post). While I didn't recommend any specific typefaces in particular, I did share a few basic tips for deciding on just the right typeface.

In short, what you have to figure out first is whether you're looking to use the typeface that come pre-installed on your computer or instead want to pick up some new typeface options.

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Using what you've got

Assuming you're going with what your computer came with, it's important to know that not all computers/software have the same library of preinstalled typefaces, in particular Mac vs Windows. Here's a handy list of what typefaces are available on what operating systems/software.

If you create a document with one typeface and then move it to a computer that doesn't have that typeface installed, then the new computer will try and substitute a typeface it DOES have, which leads to all sorts of wacky and/or ugly messing with your layout. This is one of the key reasons people use Arial and Times New Roman so much: they may be boring, but every computer has them.

My slide, exactly as designed, viewed on my lousy Windows work computer

And the same slide viewed on my Mac at home. Kinda the same, kinda not so much.

So, when you're choosing what typeface(s) to use, try one of the following: 

• make sure you know what operating system people will be viewing your project on and design for that system's typeface libraries 
• or publish the file as an image or PDF (these file formats don't depend on the viewing computer's typeface library)

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Using something new

So you've decided to go with a typeface that doesn't come preinstalled. But don't forget: the more you go custom, the more work you have to do.

To begin with, you need to find (and possibly pay for) your fancy new typefaces. But where to look?

If you've got any sort of budget, My Fonts is a good place to start. It has a great selection, you can browse their typefaces in a number of ways (including by typographic style!), and most of what they have is at a reasonable price. Other similar option to check out is Veer .

If your budget is next to nothing, don't worry. You've still got options. Check out Font Squirrel for a large collection of free (yet still attractive) typefaces. Also, typeface designers sometimes release a few of their creations for free as a promotion. Keep your eyes out for those as well (I've been collecting every one I can find in my free design assets Pinterest board). If you choose a free option, always be careful to read the licensing requirements. Some typefaces are free, but with a limited license for use. Someone's giving you a typeface for free... the least you can do is use it the way they asked you to.

Anyway, once you choose your shiny new typeface, you then need to install it on your computer. It's pretty easy. Here's the instructions for Windows and OSX. 

Also, don't forget, the rules for displaying new typefaces are the sames as pre-installed ones: unless you're sharing your file as a PDF or image, you'll need to install the typeface on any computer you want it to display on.

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But how to pick which specific typeface to use?

If you're an expert there's a ton of information out there about the design philosophies you can use to sort through the world of typefaces and find what you need. If you're just a beginner, though, you can probably get away with just looking at the examples of good typeface choices all around you, flipping through your options, and then picking something that you feel works with the mood you're trying to create. Just remember to always do the following:

• Go with a sans-serif or serif typeface if you're using it for a large amount of text.
• Make sure the typeface is readable at the size you need to make it.
• Really examine if the mood the typeface creates matches to mood of your project.

Review: Cognitive Surplus

It's book report time again!

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Title: Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers Into Collaborators
Author: Clay Shirky

What's it about?

Did you read Shirky's first book Here Comes Everybody? This book is basically its unofficial sequel. While HCE discussed how technology is enabling people to create organizations and movements via social media, this book focuses instead on the power that this same technology gives the average person to both be a media creator (rather than just consumer) as well collaborate in new ways with others.

What's so great about it?

Shirky claims, rightly so in my opinion, that we're in a media revolution of the same magnitude as the invention of the moveable type printing press. The internet, smart phones, computers, social media, and the like have all lowered the bar for creating and distributing content. In addition, they've also made it exceptionally easy for people to collaborate regardless of location, occupation, or traditional hierarchies.

He spends this book outlining how these lowered barriers for content creation combined with increased ability to collaborate is allowing us all to pool our combined knowledge and build on it in ways that would have been previously impossible. He also breaks down the "hows, whys, and whats behind cognitive surplus" and walks through the wide variety of content it's created, from things as inconsequential (but fun) as memes to accomplishments as important as civic movements.

What's going to drive me nuts about it?

The organization of the book content is incredibly tight through most of it. The tail end of the book, though, reads like it was just a collection of the leftover snippets of info that didn't fit neatly into the previous chapters but were too interesting to leave out. It's not bad content, but the randomness of it compared to the tidy order of the rest of the book is a bit jarring.

Anything else?

Do you already participate in Twitter chats, edit Wikipedia, record your own YouTube videos, collaborate via Google Hangouts, or have an online personal learning network?  Chances are you already know the basics that Shirky is covering here. It's still worth reading this book though, if just to give you successful examples to share with others.

In addition, while this book is an enjoyable read for experts, it's also quite accessible to people who don't know much about online collaboration as well. That's a huge plus as far as I'm concerned.

I'm too lazy to Google the book. Where can I buy it?

*sigh* Here you go:

• Canada
• US
• UK

PAX East 2013 - Gaming & Education

March was a busy month for me convention-wise. I got home from Learning Solutions and then a handful of days later I was back on a plane heading out to Boston for PAX East. For the non-gamers in the audience, PAX East is a 3-day convention devoted to all things gaming, from console and PC videogames to board games. For me, this trip was mostly just for fun, but there was a professional connection as well: PAX tends to have sessions on gaming and education. I managed to fit two in my schedule and thought both were worth sharing.

Also, thanks to one of the con attendees who sat near me at both sessions (@lordsillion) you can watch footage of both of them. Bonus points if you can find me in each video.

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In which I sidetrack to rant about how gaming & education is discussed at conferences

Before I start on the actual content of the sessions I saw, I just needed to get a bit of ranting out of my system.

I've got one foot firmly in the world of education and training, the other in gaming. Alas, at both learning and gaming conferences this doesn't appear to be commonplace. Conference sessions on gaming and education, as a result, tend to be in one of the following two frustratingly basic flavours:

Learning Conference:
"You wouldn't believe it, but those games your kids waste their time with and that you use to kill time while waiting in line CAN ALSO be used for learning too! Fancy that!"

Gaming Conference:
"OMG! There are totally people using games to help people learn stuff. Let's now talk for an hour about games only meant for elementary school students."

I am so tired of seeing yet another session where the content is all for newbies. So why do I keep attending these things? Because once in a blue moon one of these sessions actually bothers to go beyond the very basics.

Alas, this was not one of those times. So if you already have a sense of how gaming and education fit together, I'm not going to have anything new to tell you here. Feel free to run away... or, better yet, tell me about some conventions that consistently talk about gaming & training at a more advanced level that I can show up at. For those of you not thoroughly entrenched in both worlds, though, you might enjoy this writeup of the PAX East sessions.

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Session: Saving Education With Game Design

Speaker: Steve Swink

Video: Click here

Apparently the original speaker for this session got tripped up at the Canada/USA border, so this guy, an independent game developer who has created multiple educational games, was brought in to cover for the session. Thankfully, it was a decent substitution as I wouldn't have guessed he was a last minute replacement if he hadn't mentioned it himself.

His session started started off like so...

I know, not my best photo.

Point 1 was frustrating as I felt Swink used it as an opportunity to paint all education with the same lousy, unnuanced brush. He constantly tried to make the point that schooling is all recall and regurgitation of information, which I'd absolutely disagree with. Based on some of the stuff he mentioned, it's clear HIS experience with school wasn't great, but he made way too much of a jump in assuming his experience is everyone's. So yeah, he irritated me a bit here.

He did win me back, though, when he started talking about the power that immersive simulations have in teaching people how to interact with real situations and understand how smaller actions can chain together to have larger effects. His example was the game Civilization, a sim that manages to encapsulate the basics of how civilizations grow and decline all within highly amusing gameplay. What do you think teaches the general concepts of civilization building better: reading about how it's done or actually doing it yourself? My money is on the latter every time.

So Swink has, as a result of this thinking, been working on creating games that use the power of simulations to help kids learn two real-world skills: persuasive writing and critical thinking. These games include:

• The Doctor's Cure: Users play as an investigative reporter trying to solve several town mysteries. They talk to townspeople, collect evidence, and then write news articles based on their research.
• The Mystery of Taiga River: A park is experiencing a rapid decline in their fish population and it's up to your friendly neighbourhood water quality scientist (the user) to find out why. Players work to examine water quality, analyze evidence for what local groups may be contributing to the problem, and come up with a hypothesis for why the fish are dying and how it can be stopped.

"All your fish are dead"? You monster!

There are some core factors in both games that help them work as effective learning tools:

• They immerse players in a realistic scenario where the skills they're being asked to practice would actually be used. Players can see that they're not learning content for the sake of learning; it actually connects to the real world. 
• They also create a safe place to practice and experiment using their skills. People can learn both through successes AND errors. 
• Player choices have consequences, most of which aren't obvious. This helps players feel the choices their actions in the game are meaningful. 
• The games aren't stand alone pieces. They are tied in to the rest of the school curriculum.

Did these games actually work? An initial test with at-risk students in Arizona indicates yes. While playing The Doctor's Curse, these students wrote more than they ever had in the past and at a noticeably higher skill level than they had prior to playing.

So, to summarize, sims can be a useful way to help prepare learners to interact with complex systems and experiment with the content they're learning in a safe place that provides useful feedback.

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Session: Gamification and Learning: Does Anyone Need Some "Stinking" Badges

Speakers: Sam Abramovich [Researcher, University of Pittsburgh], Peter Wardrip [Researcher, University of Pittsburgh], Yoon Jeon Kim [Researcher, Florida State University], Ross Higashi [Roboticist, National Robotics Engineering Center], Meghan Bathgate [Researcher, University of Pittsburgh]

Video: Click Here

So yeah, a session entirely on badges as gamification... a contentious issue these days. Honestly, I felt like the panel did a good job of explaining not just what badges are, but what makes a badge worthwhile and what makes it a waste of time.

Can badges really be this helpful? Yes, if you use them in ways that aren't idiotic.

Is a badge something these speakers thought would magically make people do tasks they were otherwise disinterested in? Not a chance. And if this is the view people have of badges, then it's no wonder people have been dissatisfied with them.

What badges are great for, they stressed, is this:

• Providing a means of showing you accomplished a task/skill: This is much like how badges in Scouts/Guides work. The badge itself is a way of noting your achievement and showing it to others, much like a certificate or degree. It could also be used as an alternative to traditional assessments.
• Showing others what you're interested in: The specific collection of badges a Scout/Guide might have varies from person to person. That's because kids get to pick from a large number badges that are possible to achieve. By choosing what badges to try and earn (and which to put off or even ignore completely) they curate data about what they're interested in. Game achievements/trophies function in a similar way. Looking at, for instance, my personal set of PS3 achievements may not encapsulate everything about me as a person, but you sure can infer a heck of a lot about who I am as a gamer from it.
• Seeing connections for how one skill leads to another: For badge systems that have badge prerequisites, a map of the progression from one badge to others (how you can "level up") can help people understand how learning one skill leads to learning others and assist them in planning long-term goals.

Oh look! None of these point suggest that badges in and of themselves are a major motivator. They also didn't suggest that that badges themselves are the way you teach information. They instead claim that badges are better at creating a portfolio of your skills/accomplishments, can be used to establish your identity to others, and help you understand how one skill can connect to others. As one of the panelists said, "Badges are not the learning themselves. They're an identification that learning has taken place."

Here's what I feel is the big gap between how badges are often used and what research suggests they're actually good for. So many of the instances that we see of lousy gamification these days involve using badges to try and motivate people to do actions they otherwise wouldn't bother with. That might work for the occasional person who's a bit completion-obsessed, but most people just can't be asked to care about badges that don't mean anything to them. And that's what makes these types of projects fail. Gamification projects (or at the very least badges) then unfortunately get unfairly pegged as a failure rather acknowledging the real problem: that gamification was used incorrectly.

So, going back to the session, the panel speakers said that you need to ask yourself the following questions when you want to use badges effectively:

• What kind of badges will your users actually care about?
• Who ARE your end users anyway?
• What situations and settings will these badges be used in?
• What ecosystem will your badges exist in?
• What set of standards will you build into your badge system?
• How can you make sure your badges are recognized for what they are by others?

That last question is the one that has broader implications for badges if, as the speakers suggest we should, we use badges as a type of portfolio of skills. If your badges follow you from school to school and/or job to job like a transcript or series of job reviews, then there needs to be some understood standard for what they mean. For instance, because of the standards in Scouts/Guides, a merit badge in Archery earned by a kid in Orlando, Florida is still recognized if that kid moves to Las Vegas, Nevada. The badge has a standard series of requirements to earn it and those standards are universally recognized (well, at least universally recognized within a particular group).

That's where I suppose broad adoption of badges might fail. While I'm actually quite attached to the idea of badges as a portfolio of your accomplishments and skills, I suspect that wrangling a single system for all schools and employers to acknowledge and grant badges where the value of each badge represents consistent achievements/skills (and is consistently recognized) is nigh impossible. Could a school system, single employer, or university pull it off to make internal transfers and class/career planning easier though? I'd say absolutely yes. In fact, if you watch the video of the session you can hear the speakers talk repeatedly about a LEGO program that did just that.

More so than any other point, in the end the most repeated theme from this session was that we can't expect badges to do the heavy lifting of motivating people to learn or do things. They're much better used to chronicle, curate, and connect instead.

Learning Solutions 2013 - Final Thoughts

Okay, so this post is LONG delayed. Would you believe I'm still sick with the sinus infection I caught at Learning Solutions? If I was a D&D character, clearly Constitution would have been my dump stat.

What? Not everyone skimps out on Charisma.

This means I have a huge backlog of things to blog about (including a whole other convention), but have only just gotten the energy back to actually accomplish writing anything. In the interests of keeping things chronological, I'm starting here and working my way forward.

So, without further ado, here are a few final thoughts about my Learning Solutions 2013 experience.

Learning Solutions vs DevLearn?

I think most people know much I adore DevLearn. It really is one of my favourite events of the year. No, not favourite professional event. I mean just plain event (other contenders, in case you're curious, are PAX and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival). I love it that much.

So how does Learning Solutions measure up in comparison? Well, both hold very true to what I'm seeing as typical for eLearning Guild events: practical, unpretentious information shared in a casual and welcoming environment. I have a strong preference for this type of event, so I'm glad to see that the experience is universal between both conferences.

As far as content goes, I found that Learning Solutions leans a bit more towards the needs of learning professionals who create strategy and write content (in particular, the expo room). If you do more actual development though, DevLearn is the better place to be. That said, it's not like if you're an instructional designer who does development and you can only make it to Learning Solutions that you'll have a lack of content that applies to your work. The sessions will still be incredibly relevant. You'll probably just be less interested in the expo room.

Likely due to the location and time of year, Learning Solutions seems to attract a somewhat different batch of attendees than DevLearn, but I'd say both groups are equally worth getting to know. In terms of insight, friendliness, interest in our industry, and commitment to doing the right thing for our learners, the average attendee of both conferences is pretty much equally fantastic.

Is it worth going to both Learning Solutions AND DevLearn in the same year?

Yes.

There didn't appear to be any repeated presentations and I didn't leave Learning Solutions feeling it was just the same information I'd seen months earlier at DevLearn.

If I can make it work financially my intention is absolutely to attend both in the future.

So how was the backchannel?

Lively, as always. It felt slightly less busy than the backchannel at DevLearn, but the quality of what was there was definitely high. Once again I found it a fantastic way to share information, meet new people, and have insightful conversations. I also got a chance to finally meet several people I follow on Twitter in person for the first time, and they were all delightful.

And how did live tweeting and blogging the event go?

Thanks to wanting to let my coworkers attend the conference remotely, I once again tweeted and blogged like crazy... and once again was the top hashtag contributor... by a lot. What can I say? It turns out I really enjoy doing this.

Back at DevLearn last year, I had a great chat with another attendee about whether live tweeting can get in the way of actually experiencing and enjoying the conference material yourself. I'd agree that it takes a negative toll on how much information you take in in the moment, but the opportunity cost varies drastically from person to person. For me, while I was getting slightly less at the time from any session I live tweeted, I more than made up for it by reviewing my tweets later as I composed my blog postings. Will everyone else have this same experience? I doubt it. Is there anything wrong with that? Not at all.

The only thing I can recommend to anyone considering conference live tweeting and blogging is to try it out. If it's getting in the way of you actually getting the most out of the conference, then feel free to scale back or abandon it completely.

As for me, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, so I'm going to keep up with it at future conferences.

You live tweeted the whole conference... but don't you have tendonitis?

That is correct. Thanks to way too much typing directly on touch screens at DevLearn and a deeply unfortunate millinery class last fall, I'm currently recovering from a nasty bout of tendonitis (yup. I wasn't kidding about the lousy constitution).You know what helps (I mean, other than tons of physical therapy)? Not frantically typing directly on my iPad screen.

Because I didn't want to backslide on my recovery, I picked up this Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard cover for my iPad and I couldn't have been happier with it. Seriously, if you want a more comfortable way to type on your iPad for long periods of time, this is a great solutions. It's lightweight, comfortable, and not half bad to look at to boot.

It's not cheap, but it IS cheaper than more physical therapy appointments.

How was presenting at a conference for the first time?

I'm hesitant to write a long post about the experience until I get my audience feedback later this month. Until then I can definitely say that the experience managed to be both terrifying and invigorating at the exact same time. Nervousness aside, I'd absolutely do it again.

I'd also recommend Learning Solutions as a good conference for a first time presenter as it seems to have friendly audiences that ask good questions. Always a plus.

As a side note, speaking at Learning Solutions and sharing my session materials has netted me multiple opportunities to give my presentation to other groups within my company as well as what appears to be a regular speaking gig with another team on ID trends and technology. So one conference speech can definitely roll into some unexpected career perks afterwards.

That's all super positive. Was there anything you didn't like?

The weather was lousy. The bathroom in my hotel room was completely lame. The 15 minute breaks on the last day of the conference were way too short. That's pretty much it though.

Any final thoughts?

I just want to give one last shout out to all the fantastic people who took the time to chat with me (either in person or via Twitter). Thanks for making a shy extrovert feel welcome. Also, bonus thanks go out to anyone who came by my presentation. You were a fun audience and I hope you enjoyed what I had to share.