I’m still mulling over the notion of fun. It’s connected to humor, which is what you don’t have once you dissect a joke.

And, I must say, this is the way I feel about many ‘well-built tutorials’. A drop-out-to-do option should definitely be a default option. A hyperspace option would be even better. (I like the metonymy of neuron vs endorphin too.)

I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say on fun. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of months. Some recent thoughts are the latest post on my blog.

My tip for an Excel doc to .jpg is just to use Evernote. But then I think everybody should use Evernote.

One quote I’ve always liked is, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” (My take there is “as opposed to not having been done at all.”)

I’m a pushover for dimensions like the ones you mention in your model. Back in 1993, Peggy Ertmer and Timonthy Newby compared behaviorist, cogntitivist, and constructivist appraoches to instructional design in this article (PDF) in Performance and Improvement Quarterly. They chose seven questions (like “how does learning occur?” “How does transfer occur?” “How should instruction be structured to facilitate learning?”) and discussed them from each model.

Your hyperspace jump to success is critical–and as I read your comment, I thought it’s perhaps an element of training or learning that’s often neglected. Especially in organizations, my bias is that there’s a strong…um, bias…toward the body-of-knowledge point of view and the dosage theory of transfer.

In reality, those are not totally horrible for a beginner, if the beginner body-of-knowledge is constrained and if the apprentice-level skills (if you will) are mostly straightforward and procedural.

In other words: yeah, I can give you basic competency in using the reservation system with largely traditional approaches.

You’ve got me thinking now, enough that I might have to think in a post. Thanks for commenting.

(by the way, your MS Paint approach is fine, too. We ruled out grabbers, mostly because the individual in question didn’t have one.)

I’m trying to work out some skills on demand models at the moment. I’m starting to see a three dimensional quality come together that plots on an axis of behavioral, cognitive, and constructive. Where this plots depends on what the user needs.

Just to do? To understand the model? To be able to synthesize an alternate variant based on similar patterns?

Part of what you describe above seems to be ‘drop out when you have enough of a model that you can figure it out.’ I find most times all I’m looking for is a model / pattern that I can use to help align my mental model or align with what I already know – then it’s hyperspace jump to success.

I’m also seeing task support fall across two major categories – Orientation Direct Task Support – where there’s an overlap, Venn diagram style. There’s a relationship to the 3D space plot above – though I’m not sure it’s a simple relationship:)

BTW, my recommendation for saving an excel doc as an image:

1. ALT-Print Screen to save the target spreadsheet area to the clipboard.

2. Open MS Paint.

3. Paste it.

4. Crop it to the area of focus.

5. Save it.

Or grab a keen screencap utility like SnagIt or MWSnap (a freebie.)