Most of the time, we work more or less in isolation from the rest of the e-Learning profession. When there's time to keep up with our own professional development, we read an article, scan some weblogs, and update our Facebook or Twitter comments. We stay pretty focused on the work at hand, and it's easy to lose sight of everything else that goes on in the e-Learning world.
But sometimes, we find ourselves in a place where we can feel the currents of change. There we can see all the paths that e-Learning is taking as our colleagues find new applications of technology that help people increase skill and knowledge and improve performance. This year's DevLearn was such a place.
With significantly more participants compared to last year, over 100 presenters, dozens of DemoFest projects, dozens of Breakfast Byte sessions, dozens of vendors in the Expo, and three great keynotes, the sense of opportunity and dynamic change was at times overwhelming. However, I will do my best in this summary to give you an overview of what we saw in San Jose during the week of November 5.
DevLearn at a glance
Over a thousand people attended DevLearn in total (see Figure 1), including those who came just for the Expo. Since DevLearn was in the heart of Silicon Valley, many who came were local or from the nearby San Francisco Bay area. However, there were participants from around the world, including Australia and India as well as from Canada and countries in EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa) and Latin America. Vendors in the Expo also came from many different countries. Two of the sessions in DevLearn and the co-located Adobe Learning Summit were led by speakers via satellite from locations that were far away from San Jose.
Figure 1 Attendees ready for the start of the opening General Session.
Networking
At all conferences, many of the best learning opportunities happen in hallways between sessions, at meals, and in events (whether planned by the conference organizers or not) outside of the sessions themselves. (See Figure 2.) DevLearn was no exception. For example, attendees could choose from informal opportunities, such as the popular dinner groups on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Figure 2 Delegates network informally during the Expo Reception.
Breakfast Bytes were another opportunity for networking. These 42 informal morning gatherings were led by experts who gave short presentations and then led discussions among the participants. The groups included:
• Nick Floro on Quick Prototyping Techniques
• A discussion led by Silke Fleischer about whether rapid e-Learning gets a bad rap
• Clark Quinn helping participants identify the opportunities and pitfalls of m-Learning, and how they might use it
• Moodle discussion by Maggie Martinez and Michelle Moore
• Brent Schlenker on beginning podcasting
• Dan Carr sharing tips and tricks for ActionScript
• Clive Shepherd on Facebook and its relevance (or not) to e-Learning
• Joe Fournier offered his expertise in Articulate
These networking events and others helped participants to begin and end their day, and to thread their experience together with the experience of others. While some might dismiss networking as idle chatter, in fact such periods of active reflection are known to improve learning and to lead to innovation in applying new ideas back on the job. That's why opportunities for networking are a key part of DevLearn's design.
Learning before the program
Participants could choose to attend pre-conference workshops and symposia. This year, a fourth of the attendees took advantage of these opportunities. Heidi Fisk, The Guild's Executive Vice President, explains the difference between pre-conference workshops and symposia. "Pre-conference workshops are taught by one or two key experts, and they focus on 'how-to' knowledge and skills. They are not research-based, but they are very practical and grounded in practices that the experts have found to work. These sessions are didactic in nature. A symposium, on the other hand, is led by a team of four to seven experts who worked on a Guild Research Report. Attendees, who are mostly managers, receive a copy of the Research Report that the symposium addresses. These sessions involve dialog between participants and the teams of experts."
This year, the symposia on Learning Management Systems and on Mobile Learning were filled to capacity, reflecting the most pressing current concerns among managers. You can view a short video of part of the Mobile Learning symposium, including a presentation by Judy Brown and comments by David Metcalf and Ellen Wagner (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XggONvXan0). All of the pre-conference workshops were well-attended and a number of them also sold out.
One of the more unusual pre-conference workshops (in terms of the results) was "Practical Video Production for e-Learning," led by Steve Haskin. The 20 participants, in two teams, created two instructional videos as a three-hour project. These videos took center stage to great acclaim at the Wednesday morning Opening Session. You can view them on YouTube as well, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXUdYQ2KQB8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHjN0J2mE0. (If these links do not work, search within YouTube by using the keywords “DevLearn 2007”. Please vote for both of these videos – we are attempting an experiment in viral distribution.)
Learning beyond the program
In addition to the program sessions (which I will cover later in this article), participants had a number of other choices.
Master Classes
Regular conference delegates and Expo-Only attendees could choose to attend any of 13 vendor-presented "Master Classes." (See Figure 3.) Each Master Class was an interactive learning session lasting 40 minutes, presented in the back of the Expo Hall. Every time I passed by, the Master Classes seemed to be full, and comments from those who attended were positive as to the value they received for the time spent. Some Master Classes were demonstrations that provided fundamental instruction on use of a particular product. Others were intermediate-level tips and tricks sessions. A third category provided advanced instruction covering high-end and undocumented technical product information.
Figure 3 Vendors presented Master Classes on their products.
Serious Games Zone
Since Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS) and e-Learning 2.0 were the topics of a number of sessions, the Conference included a Serious Games Zone (see Figure 4). This area included several real ILS so that attendees had the opportunity to see and use them. Predictably, Wii Bowling and Halo were big attractions for those who had never used a game system before, or whose last exposure was PacMan.
Figure 4
In the Serious Games
Zone, Steve Wexler watches
a DevLearn delegate
make a strike in Wii
Bowling.
Adobe Learning Summit
This was the first year that Adobe Systems, Inc. conducted a separate Summit focused on the company's tools and technologies as used for e-Learning. They chose to co-locate this Adobe Learning Summit with DevLearn, running it on Thursday afternoon and evening and on Friday morning following the Guild's conference.
Much of the Summit featured Adobe executives and product managers explaining Adobe's view of the e-Learning space. Ellen Wagner chaired a particularly important session for Authorware users. She and a panel provided a report on Adobe's evolving six-point plan for support of Authorware customers going forward following Authorware's EOD (End of Development) announced earlier this year. This plan includes support both for extending the value of the investment customers have made in the software, and for conversion of files and migration to other platforms.
As part of this plan, Adobe is making two important moves toward re-engaging the user community. First, Tom King is now an advisor to Adobe in the process (Tom is the AICC Communication Chairman and a long-time leader in the Authorware community). Second, Adobe has restarted engineering efforts focused on the Authorware player, with particular attention paid to known issues with Internet Explorer 7 and Vista. This should extend the life of Authorware Web-based content by about two years. Adobe will be publishing more information about these efforts on its Web site and on the AWARE Listserv, the primary online Authorware Professional discussion forum (http://ls.kuleuven.ac.be/archives/aware.html).
The DevLearn Expo
Vendor exhibits in the Expo are an important part of the DevLearn experience. Many delegates come to the conference specifically to talk to vendors, to collect product information and ask questions, as well as to get a better idea of what the vendor's products and services can do for them. (See Figure 5.) This year's Expo featured over 35 vendors.
Figure 5 DevLearn delegates watch a product demonstration in the Expo.
DevLearn creates events, such as the Expo Reception shown earlier in Figure 2, specifically to facilitate contact between delegates and vendors. Attendees also find these events worthwhile as an additional networking opportunity.
