Choose Your Own Learning

As a child (or as an adult, for that matter) you may have enjoyed “choose your own adventure” books. These are stories that, at certain points, give the reader a choice about an action to take and then directs you to the next page you should read. Not only does this method encourage you to come back and keep reading, because you can reach a different ending, it also teaches about understanding the ripple effects of your decisions.

On December 28th Netflix released “Bandersnatch,” a movie that is part of the Black Mirror series. Let’s face it, Black Mirror can already be a little creepy, because the stories seem often represent something that seems like it’s just around the corner in the real world (indeed, some stories already seem to be coming true). But in this case, could the show be offering something useful for developing you and your team?

Many organizations are embracing not only e-learning, but also m-learning (“m” for mobile). The idea is not only to save the money associated with formal classes, but also to make development easier to pursue by allowing people to do it on their own schedule rather than on the facilitator’s. Whether they are completing training at their desk, though, or while riding the subway, one of the biggest complaints about this type of learning is that it is one-way, without any interaction, and that goes against much of our understanding about how people learn best.

But “Bandersnatch” may offer something different. While watching the movie on Netflix, viewers are given choices at different points, about mundane options such as which breakfast cereal to eat, to more important plot points such as how to respond to a threat, and they use their touch screen or cursor to choose one. If this technology could be applied to your learning programs — if you could present scenarios to your trainees — they could make choices, see the results, and have the opportunity to go back and try again, giving them the chance to identify the important factors in a decision and get more comfortable with analyzing a situation.

A lot of Black Mirror stuff is scary, but even if the story creeps you out, the technology behind it may just be something really helpful.