Learning motivation

Learning motivation 

I've been using a smartphone app to learn a new language but I'm considering giving it up - the app, not learning the language. Already my frequency of use has dropped so low that the app is giving up on me: it no longer sends me regular motivational messages.
Ironically, it's exactly this motivational approach that's getting on my nerves. In general, I can live with the learning approach of the app and its limitations. I've nothing against the repetition of words and phrases or the abrupt introduction of new stuff that reduces me to guessing, although the further I go, the more evident it becomes that the underlying database of the app is rather limited. I can also tolerate the adverts, even when they interrupt the flow of a lesson. What irritates me is the constant game-like urging to achieve high scores, to compete for a high listing, the silly rewards and the nagging reminders.
My objection is that all that amounts to noise that distracts me from learning and discourages me from using the app. I'm not learning a language to show off by collecting virtual rewards; I want to be able to speak the language. My true reward would be the ability to read or listen to something and understand it. Why not treat me to an interesting short story or a humorous dialogue that I could appreciate with my current, limited appreciation of the language?
The same silliness extends to all kinds of learning, I fear. Rather than empowering the learners and letting them realize it, there are always some trivial pursuits that supposedly modernize learning but in fact distract from the purpose and effects of learning.

Metrics

Metrics 

"I've measured out my life with coffee spoons" T.S. Eliot, The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock

"Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." reported RKO Radio Pictures screen test report on Fred Astaire 

Can we reduce potential, capacity and achievement to a few numbers, however meaningful and validated by scientific research? Does Messi's physique explain why he can be fascinating to watch? I'm sure that there have been earnest explanations of his success on the basis of some physical capacities but equally certain that they don't tell the whole story; they just isolate some features and promote them over others. How about Best? He managed rather little, yet he's remembered as one of the greatest. Which metrics explain his popularity?
Academic life abounds with metrics. Even worse, people take them seriously;  they start from some index of a researcher than from a publication that appeals to them. It's easy to play the game, just like in social media: recirculating trending stuff and connecting to mutual admiration groups does the trick. Having large numbers of PhD students who routinely cite you is quite handy.
My problem is that most heavily cited publications and highly indexed researchers hold little appeal as fundamental sources. They are useful as reference points, as indications of the state of the art, existing tendencies and dominant approaches but they tell little that's new, although this may be an unfortunate side effect of their success. In the end, I have to dig deep to find something I can really learn from. Its metrics are secondary; it's quality primary.

Communication and orthopraxy

Communication and othropraxy

I was listening to the audiobook of a good novel from the beginning of this century while doing something on my smartphone, when the realization struck me. One of the characters in the novel had left a message to another character, announcing a visit. The message was left in an unspecified manner that clearly didn't involve the expectation of confirmation or other direct reaction. If the recipient objected to the visit, he should made it known somehow. That was how we used to communicate before mobile phones and the Internet. In shorter than two decades, new technologies have altered our possibilities but more significantly our attitudes. Communication has become more efficient and transparent but also more demanding: we feel obliged to announce many things and respond to probably even more.

One of the striking things is the multimediality of our communication. Some had expected that the Internet would promote literacy and verbal expression. Others have lauded texting language as a renewal. It turns out that text is less important than they thought. Images and pictorial symbols, from memes to emojis are taking over, turning most forms of communication into something akin to a comic book. Given my love for comic books, I should be glad about this development but I'm rather worried.

The likeness of our communications to comic books is not accidental. There's a combination of economy and expressiveness in comic books that makes them so readable but also rather easy to write (not draw). Telling something in a text, either short or long, can be a daunting task for many. Compiling a comic-book-like sequence of ready-made elements removes much of the difficulty of verbal expression, moreover in a way easily adaptable to the latest vogues - something with obvious appeal to avid users of the new digital media. It's also quite democratic: one doesn't need special skills to use emojis.

The problem is exactly that: it's easy to avoid developing any significant skills in expressing oneself and still be quite active in communication. In many cases, it just amounts to effortless and uncritical use of clichés. People don't learn to write, draw or invent; they just learn to follow.

This reveals a dangerous conflict. On one hand, we are challenging many orthodoxies and asking people to open up their minds, remove prejudices and go beyond old beliefs in order to understand and live harmoniously with each other or to advance science and technology. On the other, we are promoting orthopraxy in most of its forms, not only reducing creativity but also tacitly subjugating thinking to old and new conformities. It's not a new conflict but that it persists despite brave claims about the potential of new technologies for human society is telling.

Dutch balconies

Dutch balconies 

Two Dutch news items on balconies in two days - that must mean something. First, we had a reasonable recommendation to make balconies compulsory for health reasons (https://nos.nl/artikel/2239652-verplicht-balkon-in-zorgwoning-beter-voor-de-gezondheid.html). Then yet another balcony collapsed (https://nos.nl/artikel/2239824-balkon-valt-van-appartement-in-groningen.html).

Neither surprised me: balconies are a luxury item in Dutch architecture (the climate doesn't really favour them but if the weather it's nice ...), therefore are both highly prized and among the stuff that gets easily economized; and if one has seen how balconies are attached to the façade of Dutch buildings (to avoid thermal bridges), it's a miracle that any of them stay up.

The combination is arguably indicative of the inability to achieve the functional and technical performance required in today's society. On the one hand, lifestyle quality has added to the requirements on a building. It's not enough to provide a roof over people's heads; the cost and impact of that roof and the rest that goes with it are such that people rightly ask for better and more. On the other hand, the established solutions may not be good enough: in order to improve thermal performance, stability is jeopardized. Rather than relying on the daily dynamics of temperature change to reduce thermal bridges, architecture seems to have adopted a static, questionable approach.

So, what can one expect from the proposed proliferation of balconies? More disasters? There is a fundamental conflict that remains to be solved.

BIM and smartphones

BIM and smartphones 

Another frequent question (and complaint) about BIM is about learning it: when can one find the right training programme? I often hear of expensive courses for employees of design, engineering and construction firms, as well as for students (universities don't often care for the development of some practical skills). Which one of these courses is the best?

My usual answer is that one should take a BIM course with the same people who gave them their smartphone training because they appear to have made an excellent job of it: practically everyone uses a smartphone nowadays, most to the best of their ability and, perhaps equally significantly, most seem happy with what they can do with it. People think I'm joking but I'm not.

What makes self-education and training so effective with some technologies? Does it apply to all things? Leaving aside a ubiquitous companion like the smartphone, which one inevitably learns to use as well as their pens and pencils (i.e. with variable yet generally adequate results), everybody seems able to work with text processing software like Word but quite often I realise that some of the key facilities may escape them. For example, even young people, seem unaware of page breaks and use instead long sequences of hard returns to move to the next page. Why haven't they learned or discovered it?

In general, becoming a good user of something complex like a smartphone or a computer program is a combination of understanding their fundamental principles and having extensive experience with their operation (and one many need more experience than another). We can teach the former and initiate the latter but one has also to keep coming back to the principles as experience grows to extend understanding of principles into a transparent framework that guides and explains operation. This is something that even university education fails to offer; what are the chances in a work environment?

In conclusion, anyone can learn BIM by spending time with it, trying things out and communicating to other users and experts. I'm not sure how far one can go without support in the form of theory and feedback from theory. What I do know is that smartphones have become so easy to learn not only because we use them all the time but also because they have developed interfaces and apps that are very limited and therefore easy to comprehend without much understanding. By contrast, BIM or text processing software are behemoths with interfaces that try to do too much and may consequently obscure many critical facilities or even intimidate users. Dissolving such software into a myriad of small apps may not be the solution but learning from the success of smartphone can only help.

Skilled BIM workers

Skilled BIM workers 

In discussions about BIM I often hear complaints that to use it properly we need extensive cultural change, especially concerning the habits and capacities of people who should work with it. People are accused of being negative and incompetent concerning innovation. It seems that it's quite hard to find people willing and capable of fully utilizing new technologies. Where does one get the skilled BIM users?

My reaction is that they should employ postal workers. When this is met with puzzlement, I explain that postal workers are fantastically good with new technologies: when I receive a package, they not only ask for confirmation of reception by offering me a mobile digital device to sign on, they also manager to process the confirmation in real time, on the cloud and in real time: within second, my confirmation appears on an online, shared information system that connects the postal services of different continents and notify every stakeholder of the action and of the new state of the project. Could one wish for more?

I hope they get it: the answer to most of our problems with new technologies and their utilization lies not in imposing new obligations and additional processes on people but in creating new, natural working environments, where on does their usual stuff with more ease and without confusion. The postal workers just deliver the package and get my signature. What happens with the delivery confirmation may be beyond their comprehension but by using the right tools, they ensure that the right thing happens. And it happens because the overall system, including the parts about human interaction, are adequately designed and implemented in an effective, efficient and generally reliable manner.

Had the postal worker been obliged to print paper forms according to some standard from the beginnings of the previous century, get signatures, dates and other processing or delivery data on them, then transcribe the data from the forms back to a computer system, we wouldn't have real-time postal tracking systems on the Internet. Many more mistakes would have been made, the personal capacities and habits of each postal worker would bear on the operation of the systems and there would have been widespread complaints from every stakeholder about the technology and its deployment.

So, how about freeing ourselves from outdated conventions and focusing on doing our jobs beyond such confines? Surely these conventions had been established to ensure that these jobs were properly done with the technologies available back then. Shouldn't we now examine what these jobs entail and how they relate to the new technologies and the societies that are already accustomed to them?

Schools, performance and policies

Schools, performance and policies 

In the news on schools one reads in Dutch media, among the many items on ICT possibilities and dangers, the scarcity of teachers and the financial relations between schools and municipalities, the physical environment makes regular recurring appearances. The latest is again about poor interior climate and its influence on teacher and pupil health and performance: https://nos.nl/artikel/2224225-slechte-ventilatie-veroorzaakt-hoofdpijn-op-tientallen-scholen.html.

It is not the first time schools have been observed to perform poorly in this respect or that poor building performance has been linked to poor user performance. Eleven years ago, three Dutch ministries were already concerned with the matter and stipulated policies that should solve all problems (http://www.co2indicator.nl/documentatie/Scholen_richtlijnen.pdf). The big change since is that one of the ministries has been dissolved; the problems with schools persist.

One can interpret the recurring news similarly negatively and dismissively:

1. They don't tell us something new: anyone with some experience with educational buildings (i.e. teachers, students, pupils, parents - practically everybody) is familiar with these problems, only we tend to brave discomfort with buildings, relying on our adaptability and tolerances to compensate for shortcomings in our environments. As a result. we tend to forget not only that buildings may underperform and that this certainly affects our performance and even wellbeing but also that we pay a lot to maintain buildings in such poor performance. 
2. Design and management of the built environment are far from holistic or even balanced. Attention and priority switches too easily from one thing to another (e.g. energy consumption to interior climate), ignoring interdependencies between aspects and consequences of partial solutions. So, today we may focus on air quality and raise classroom ceilings, as easily as we lowered ceilings when we were trying to economise the heating bill. Other factors and relations, from overcrowding to expansive glazing in classrooms are not taken into account. 
3. Policies are similarly partial and geared towards short-term goals. When energy is the issue, we promote measures that only economise consumption, disregarding the rest. The effects of a policy are often not explored in full beforehand and certainly not monitored or evaluated after deployment so as to adjust the policies or improve our understanding of the problem and its solutions. 

The bottom line is that when it comes to architecture and buildings, we are primarily geared towards making (designing or developing plans and policies). The customary solution is to make something new or even just more of the same, not use and real performance and how to analyse and evaluate them. Consequently, we keep on wasting money and tolerating poor built environments.