Those of you who can't hear me should consider moving closer to the
front of the room. There are plenty of seats down here, and you'll have
a better view of the demo, when we get it to work.
Unfortunately, we seem to have some sort of problem connecting to our
site in Chicago. But I hope you'll bear with us, because we have some
really neat software that we plan to show you.
Anyway, while George is trying to make the connection, let me throw up a
couple of old-fashioned low-tech slides, to give you an overall sense of
what this project is about.
Okay, the first slide is simply the name of the project, TARGIT, which
of course is an acronym standing for Technical Assessment of Research
Guidelines for Instructional Technology. And of course the little
bull's-eye you see is our project logo, which we had an artist draw, to
emphasize that the project is aimed at hitting the target of technical
assessment.
If I may anticipate your comments, let me just go ahead and tell you
that various people have already urged us to change the word
"Instructional" to the word "Educational," so that the acronym would be
spelled correctly, so to speak. Then of course we'd have TarGET instead
of TarGIT. Although we gave serious consideration to that suggestion,
the fact is that we'd already printed and distributed quite a lot of
literature with "Instructional" on it, so we decided to leave the
project name as TARGIT. Frankly, I think TARGIT still does a pretty good
job of saying just what it is we're up to--at least in an approximate
way.
Furthermore, in our defense, let me add that we also had a more
philosophical reason for keeping "Instructional" rather than
"Educational." Without getting into semantic discussions, I would insist
that instruction and education are two different things. However, we can
argue about that some other time.
Anyway, this next slide will give you a more detailed sense of what
we've accomplished in Phase One of this three-phase project--excuse me--
four-phase project. I forgot that we'd added a fourth phase. Actually,
we didn't add a fourth, we added a third, in the sense that we added
Phase Three and made Phase Three Phase Four.
Unfortunately, this slide's not legible.
Can anyone read the numbers showing on the screen?
No?
What about the words? Can anyone read any of the words?
Not everybody, but at least a few of you can read the words. Or at least
some of the words. Great. Great!
As for those of you in the back of the room, let me say again that you
may want to come up front, where you might be able to see better. Or at
least as good as the people up front.
By the way, can you hear me in the back? No? Okay, I'll try to speak up.
Anyway, I'm afraid we let this slide get a little "busy," but we felt we
had to, because it conveys quite a bit of information. Or would convey a
lot of information, if you could read the numbers.
So let me just read you the numbers. I won't read all of the numbers,
just the top row, which I have the pointer on. Actually, I can't quite
reach the top row with this pointer, so I'm really pointing to the
second row, but you get the idea, and what I'm going to do is simply
read the numbers in the row above the one I'm pointing to.
Okay, those numbers are, for those who can't read them (and those who
can read them should do so!)--those numbers are 43.6, 49.4, 43.7, 44.5,
119.9 (which is quite a jump, when you think about it!), 91.0, and,
finally, 89.7. These are of course strictly Phase One results, but you
have to admit that they are very impressive numbers.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that 23.7 is a percentage. If you
think of that number as learning gain, you can see what it is that we've
accomplished. And if you think of 89.9 as an overall project indicator,
which is what we believe it to be, then you've got to be as excited as
we are!
But of course this project isn't about numbers. Nor is it about
technology, as you'll see when George gets the connection established.
This project is about people. People learn best when they're learning as
people. So we started with people and we'll end up with people. Of
course, when I make that statement, I'm not trying to preempt our final
report, which must await the results of the next two--excuse me--three
phases. Still, I have a sense that we'll conclude this project with an
affirmation of people, because I think, in my experience, that the data
always end up proving that people are more important than technology,
although people can use technology as tools. That's what I believe. And,
in fact, that belief is embedded in our software, which we hope to show
you, because we think it's really, really neat software.
George? Are we ready now?
Really? Oh, too bad.
George says--well, I think I'd rather not go into just what it is that
George has to say. But the bottom line is that we'll have to do the demo
some other time.
And I'm afraid that, without the demo, there's really no reason to show
you our other slides. That's too bad, because, unlike our first slide,
our other slides are readable, in the sense that you can make out the
numbers. However, the plain fact is that, unless you'd seen our demo,
you'd think our slides were complete and utter nonsense. So I won't show
them to you, because I would not want you to think that our carefully
articulated goal statements, quantified objectives, quality measures,
and project indicators are the insane gibberish they appear to be. I
assure you they are not. In our opinion.
Well, I'm sorry the demo had a problem or two, but that's how it is out
here on the bleeding edge. The good news is you still have time to scoot
over to Ballroom B, for another interesting session. I know many of you
share my vision, and I would like to establish communications with you,
so please send me e-mail. My address is [email protected]. Thank you for
coming!
John Gehl is editor and publisher of Educom Review, [email protected]