I am now a freelancer (after 12 years employed by Hyper Island in Singapore) and this gives me the freedom to question everything anew. Why did we do things this way? How was our business structured and funded? And how could we have scaled what we did without scaling people (which is always very difficult)?… Read More Are we investing enough in learning design?
I’ve been busy writing, (having Covid), thinking and changing my job role at Hyper Island; going independent will allow me to work for a wider range of clients and educational organisations. It’s been a scary change but also a good opportunity to reflect on what I have been doing and to focus on what I… Read More Creating magical meetings and workshops
I’m trying to document some of my thinking around active constructivist learning for adults. In my experience everyone appreciates the idea of learning by doing but many find it hard to imagine the range of sessions that can be designed. Many learning designers fall back on talking and telling, and relegate making and reflection… Read More Designing active learning sessions
Every organisation is being affected by digitalisation as technology transforms how work gets done, consumer expectations change and new ways to create value are devised. For more than twenty years I have worked with a wide variety of companies from banking to retail and from pharmaceuticals to luxury wines and spirits. Each has it’s own… Read More Building worlds for digital transformation
When we construct sessions for learners we should borrow ideas from a wide range of different creative industries. Harnessing the skills, tools and practices from a completely new field gives a group new perspectives and helps them make new connections between ideas. In this post I want to describe the process I have used… Read More Think, make and reflect like a board game designer
When we build worlds we populate them with characters, and give those characters challenges to allow stories to emerge. To create interesting stories, the world must fit the characters and the characters must fit the worlds. At the end of this post I will share an activity to help you design both. There are many… Read More Design for your heroes
I am fascinated by learning, by how we learn, by what might be going on inside my head and inside my mind, and how experimenting and making things might be at the root of all of these. I would call myself a constructivist educator. What is constructivism? This is a theory of learning that comes… Read More Learning through making has been a powerful force in my life
Here is a way to generate a new world that will get you started with world building: imagine that we start with a world just like our own and make a small change. It can be anything from a technological invention to a trend that sweeps across the globe. Write it down and then… Read More One small change can build a new world
A gardener is a world builder in the real world; a maker of fruit, flowers, vegetables, landscapes and views, who works within the rules of climate, weather, insects, biology and time. Gardeners experiment and learn; constructing and refining models of what works and what does not but aware of the randomness of outcomes and the… Read More Data voids and #thetalentedgardener
I am still in the South West of France after Monday’s visit to Cognac and Hennessy’s Maison and today we went to Bordeaux’s flagship wine production museum Cité du Vin. It is interesting to compare the visitor experiences. Cité du Vin combines fantastic modern architecture with video, projection and interactive exhibits to present the whole… Read More A world of wine at Cité du Vin, Bordeaux