Daily Archives: July 19, 2010

Bogus website reviews

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I was sitting watching Click, the BBC’s flagship technology programme, the other morning where they reported on bogus reviews on some websites (Websites take on bogus reviewers).  It was saying that although customer reviews on websites can be valuable to us when deciding on using a business or service, there has been a spate of spam reviews potentially damaging firms’ reputations.  I have certainly found reviews very useful when booking hotels, buying a new Bluetooth headset or deciding which car to get next.  It is easy to focus too hard on a bad review and let that cloud our thinking even when there are a great many great reviews for the same business.

There was a good piece of advice at the end of the article on the TV programme which isn’t reflected in the web article here that advised to ignore all the excellent reviews and the extreme bad reviews and concentrate on the middle ground.  Something that I am careful to do.   It doesn’t take away the upset for the businesses or person targeted however.

The article brought back thoughts of what it is like when you put your all into delivering an engaging training course and everyone has enjoyed themselves and accomplished what they set out to do with no indication of anything being wrong and then when everything has been packed away and you receive feedback –one person appeared to have been on a totally different course.  It may be one in a thousand that may call your reputation into question and it is human nature to dwell on that one in a thousand rather than the other 999 satisfied learners.  We forget that external fears, problems at home, work politics etc can influence a person’s experience not forgetting how our own moods can affect us when reading reviews.

Not that we should totally ignore poor reviews – there may be something that needs to change – but we do need to put them in perspective or suffer sleepless nights and questioning of our own abilities. Remember the majority not the minority and to take criticism as an opportunity.

Does this ring a bell with you?  What are your experiences?

Can Milo be the future for Virtual Learning?

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Meet Milo

Milo is the brainchild of Peter Molyneux, a UK games designer and Milo was introduced to the world at the recent TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference held in Oxford. He is Microsoft’s virtual child . He appears so realistic that player’s react to him as if he were human as he reacts to their movements and voice commands all done through an infrared sensor. This brings artificial intelligence to the gaming world as Milo has been designed for the hands-free 360 motion controller Kinect.

The story behind the invention was Peter Molyneux’s disappointment with the blandness of films, TV and books in that they were all a ‘one-way’ experience. After 45 minutes or so, Milo starts to recognise the player’s voice and will react to questions and movements and respond with his own facial expressions and emotions – even to the point of blushing with embarrassment.

Although in its early stages, this is a very exciting time for the gaming world.

As with the world of gaming and fun – the world of learning may see a use for this in the future. As with Second Life that is already being used for effective learning and collaborative activities – how interesting could this new technology be used learning. I can already imagine it being useful in child protections scenarios where a learner has to develop special interviewing skills. Once this technology has grown into a community of artificial intelligences there will be plethora of opportunities.

I acknowledge that we need to be mindful not to use technology for the sake of it but I do believe that we can no longer be stuck in the past – the future of our workforce will be switched off by those old fashioned tools we are still using. We need to think about how we can immerse our learners totally in a truly engaging learning experience. Gaming already does that for our youths – let us reach out and harness that power for learning (and our inner child).