As one of the many who descended on the Olympia this week I am also one of the many who took notes, snapped pictures and made various other observations along the way. It is funny to see the change at these events over the years when you get strange looks for pulling out a note book and pen as those around you zoom, swoosh and click on various tablets and smart phones.........okay I confess I used both........call it blended event attendance. Anyhoo........this week I want to look at some of the takeaway moments that stuck with me and what got me thinking for the year ahead
Now let's get the scariest question out the way first, and before you pounce, hear me out. During one of the bite size seminars I heard a question asked that left me rocking a little "what is 70-20-10" Now perhaps it is naive of me to think out of the thousands that attended that this is a question that shouldn't be asked but in a learning world that is still trying (in some quarters) to come to terms with a pace of change like it has never experienced before why not ask it? Granted I did chuckle when the person asked the question wasn't so convincing in the response they gave but lets not dwell on it.
Now the learning world is a place where operating space is at a premium. Everyone has something to pitch and an insight to share and although given some guidance to plan your visit I opted to freelance as such on day one and drop by as many stands and seminars as I could to pick up snippets for a general theme of what 2013 holds. In a snapshot, social, video, short, animate, captivate, articulate, communicate and look at me, but with each of those I took something away.
Communication - We still don't have an idea on how to communicate in the space, there were two instances where one view said, instant is dead, email is the best way to get the message across to staff while nearby the commentary was that email is ineffective and we should instant and social every message. If we have people still grasping at informal, versus formal versus on the job how can we expect them to single out one form of communication versus the other. Time and a place for each still exists.
Buy in - There are those who get it and want it and those who want it and don't get it and there are those among you who are going down the wrong thought process with this but anyway I shall continue above the gutter. You see, I get it..... the way learning is going that is. I embrace it, I ain't Gen Y and I ain't Gen Z and if anyone says I am old I prefer to think of it as retro. Learning is on a natural progression and developing alongside the technology evolution at a frantic pace. A story was being told by Gavin Oattes, MD at Tree of Knowledge on mindset and he perfectly summed things up when relaying a conversation with a kid who said he wouldn't understand because he was a grown up......in fact we shouldn't be called grown up's but given up's !!! Brilliant, just brilliant and it so captures why I feel some people don't want to buy in to the fact that learning is changing it's because they fear it's changing and that fear is that they may have to.
Video and animate - Video killed the radio star in 1979 and has been running free ever since. It had an internal battle with Betamax versus VHS, watched laser discs come and go, invited DVD to rule the world and now Blu Ray and Blu Ray 3D run the show as video continues to both entertain and educate. How integral it is to learning evolution was demonstrated the other day. A colleague created a little video for work using VideoScribe which is a superb and cost effective tool that allows you to build some pretty neat and fast paced infommercial's. Such was the power of this (awesome) animation is that it progressed up the food chain in a matter of hours and created a social buzz across the company. The pace of this matched what was being talked about at LT13. Lot's of companies are providing rapid video/animation tools (just like Video Scribe) and in some respects you wonder how many animated scribble you can take but used correctly you have the ability to add a different dimension to courseware, workshops and programmes. You Tube etc are common place in the day to day world and using it as a way of bridging the gap between formal and informal is an all round better way to engage learners by giving them a medium which they already use.
Making it real time, makes them learn without thinking they are learning. Of course it wouldn't be a conversation about learning video without a thought for the kings of learning video. My Video Arts experience goes back some 10 years when getting the keys to a dusty learning kit cupboard and finding meetings bloody meetings, I watched it, liked it and loathed it in equal measure, loved because it was engaging and entertaining, loathed it because it worried me what shelf life it would have without reinvention but I have a lot of time for Video Arts. For forty years they have stuck fairly well to their task and reinvented without really changing their strategy. I have to admire them for that as it shows that the more we change the more we can stay the same.
Articulate - What's the Story(line) - Tom Kuhlmann pulled the crowd in on day 2 and I made a point of getting along early to get a seat as despite playing poker when walking by the Articulate stand (no sales jive allowed) I was keen to see what all the fuss is about with Storyline, I have been interested in it for a while but never really found time to do anything about it. I am big on rapid content build and interested in finding the bit of software that is simple enough for the old skool chalk and talk squad to drop the fear and build the support content that brings their work alive for today and I think Storyline is it. Tom Kuhlmann demonstrated three simple core elements for good quality interactions and I was pleasantly surprised at how good this was compared to other tools I have been using in recent years. If I add this session to the one viewed on day 1 with Helen Tyson from Omniplex on Software simulation using Storyline then I think I may have found a new toy.
There is a lot to take in at these events and I think I will still be working through my notes for a few weeks to come but for now I need to look for a better hotel for next year.
That Learning Dude @learningxdude
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