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DevLearn 2009: Building the Future of Learning

December 2, 2009
DevLearn 2009 featured experts and experiments, development tools and design strategies, lessons learned, and peeks at what is yet to come in e-Learning. Here's a summary, including video recaps, Twitter streams, and links to Weblogs that recorded and analyzed the event as it happened. Enjoy!

The DevLearn 2009 Conference & Expo in San Jose, California, November 10–13 turned out to be a week of many highlights. The first of these, considering the economy, was the total attendance: 1,346 people, including attendees from 18 countries other than the United States.

Other highlights included sneak peeks from Adobe and Google, the three special programs (Serious Games Zone, Social Learning Camp, and Mobile Learning Camp), the large Expo, the incredible DemoFest, and the Zombie Apocalypse Alternate Reality Game (ARG).

Read about all these in this article. But first, get a sense of the tempo from this video recap.

 

 

The week's events

It was a busy, exciting week, difficult to summarize in a brief article. Beginning on Monday with the third annual Adobe Learning Summit, co-located with DevLearn 2009, events included pre-conference Certificate Programs, three extraordinary keynotes, over 100 concurrent learning sessions, over 30 Breakfast Byte sessions, and 52 extra events in the Social Learning Camp, Mobile Learning Jam, Serious Games Zone, and Master Classes. The Augmented Reality Game, DevLearn 09 Zombie Apocalypse, which began a month before DevLearn, continued throughout the conference. The Expo, with 40 exhibitors, was a key attraction on Wednesday and Thursday, as was DemoFest on Thursday night.

Before the Conference

The Adobe Learning Summit

The Adobe Learning Summit attracted several hundred attendees, who came to get the latest information about Adobe tools, plus "sneak peeks" at new products and tips from Adobe team leaders and from other users. Highlights included a great keynote on social media and collaboration by author, consultant, and digital guru Clay Shirky, and comments by Adobe Systems, Inc. president and chief executive officer Shantanu Narayen. Sessions during the day were offered by experts such as Joe Ganci, Dr. Carmen Taran, and Josh Cavalier. Product team leaders led additional sessions during which they provided insights and previously unpublished information about impending releases. The day concluded with a panel discussion and Q&A session, featuring RJ Jaquez, Randah McKinnie, Peter Ryce, Shameer Ayyappan, Suresh Jarayaman, and Andrew Chemey.

Here are some links to content from the Summit:

 

Pre-conference Certificate Programs

DevLearn offered a total of 14 day-long Certificate Programs to attendees who registered separately for them. (See Figure 1.) The most popular of these was Joe Ganci's “Creating Outstanding e-Learning with Adobe Captivate.” Other programs that shared top attendance were Ruth Clark's “Designing Scenario-based e-Learning” and Mark Oehlert's “Making Social Media Work with e-Learning.”

 

 

Figure 1 Karen Hyder's Certificate Program, “Producing Successful Synchronous Online Sessions” included practical demonstrations of techniques to improve learner engagement.

 

Keynotes

Andrew McAfee, “Enterprise 2.0: The State of an Art”

Andrew McAfee is Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also the author of Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges , as well as the author or co-author of more than fifteen scholarly articles and ninety case studies and other materials for students and teachers of technology.

In his keynote, McAfee addressed the ways in which writing Enterprise 2.0 challenged his assumptions, updated the tips he offered in the book, the factors that make Enterprise 2.0 (which he defined as “the use of emergent social software platforms by organizations in pursuit of their goals”) work, the benefits of turning on the 2.0 toolkit, and his observations about “how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” (See Figure 2.)










Figure 2 Andrew McAfee delivered the opening keynote

 

 

 

You can read reviews of McAfee's keynote by attendees at:

 

Eric Zimmerman, " Meaningful Play: Serious Game Design for Serious Learning″

Eric Zimmerman, co-founder and chief design officer of Gamelab, delivered a fast-paced and energetic look at what he sees as " the Ludic Century″ – the Age of Play, in which games have a growing and special relevance. Zimmerman's keynote summarized the key lessons in the book he co-authored, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals , which is intended as a textbook for game designers.

He supported his keynote with two Massively Multiplayer Games: Massively Multiplayer Rock-Paper-Scissors (MMRPS) , and Colors (a Massively Multiplayer color-matching game). (See Figure 3 for the exciting conclusion of the game – the two players who prevailed over the other 1,000 in the session.) These illustrated how rules create both relationships and experience through play (free movement within a more rigid structure), and how the experience creates new meanings for the players. Play itself is innovation, and play transforms thinking. Games are context, designed to support meaning. Zimmerman asked, in closing, whether we have room for play in our systems? Are we creating structures in which information is put at play to result in learning?

Several present live-blogged or summarized Eric Zimmerman's keynote, and I recommend you read their comments:

 

Figure 3 Eric Zimmerman and the last move in the Massively Multiplayer Rock-Paper-Scissors game: the two players who beat the other 1000 people.

 

Leo LaPorte: " Why New Media Matters″

Leo LaPorte, Chief TWiT of the TWiT Netcast Network, is known and loved by millions of digerati and ordinary online citizens alike for his print, radio, television, and online productions over the years. (See Figure 4.) Leo summarized what he has learned in 32 years in mass media, why mass media failed, and why new media took over. He also related the story of the evolution of his programming, the technology he uses, and what he sees as the future as well as the challenges to that future.

 

Figure 4 Leo LaPorte (right center in gray jacket) talks to attendees after his keynote.

 

You can read weblog summaries of Leo's keynote here:

 

Concurrent learning sessions

How many sessions can a conference manager crowd into two and a half days? How about 113 concurrent sessions, plus 36 Breakfast Bytes, plus wall-to-wall special programs (Master Classes, Serious Games Zone, Social Learning Camp, and the Mobile Learning Jam).

Among the concurrent sessions, several drew very large shares of participants across all session blocks. Most popular was "Catch the WAVE: Google Wave and e-Learning Applications," which was presented by Adam Lasnik, Google's Search Evangelist and one of the leaders on the WAVE team. This session drew a SRO crowd, all of whom received much-sought-after WAVE invitations. Other very large sessions included:

  • Ruth Clark, "Evidence-based e-Learning: Beyond Fads and Fiction"
  • Ethan Edwards, " Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Creating Meaningful e-Learning Interactions″
  • Carmen Taran, " Better Beginnings: How to Capture your Audience in 30 S econds″
  • The Research Panel (Kevin Martin, Aberdeen Group; David Mallon, Bersin & Associates; Colleen Carmean, Sage Road Solutions/ eLearning Guild Research; and Janet Clarey, Brandon Hall Research), " Emerging Technologies and the Future of e-Learning″
  • Cammy Bean and Steven Lowenthal, " Moodle: How it's Changing the Face of Corporate e-Learning″
  • Chris Ayers, " Learning Reinforcement 2.0: How to Strengthen Learning after Course Completion″
  • Lance Dublin, " Overview of Latest Learning Trends: What's Hot, What's Not, and Why″
  • Dave Ragan, " Learning Outside the Bun: Designing Scenario-based Experiential e-Learning″
  • Panel discussion (Bob Mosher; David Metcalf; Joe Ganci; Lance Dublin; Ruth Clark; Tony Karrer; Tridib Roy Chowdhury), " From Learning to Performance – Using Technology to Make it Happen″

 

Many thanks to all the great presenters who helped to make this conference such a success!

Extra events

DevLearn 2009 had a different energy, in a positive sense, from previous conferences. Much of the excitement came from interest in emerging areas of e-Learning: Mobile Learning, Serious Games, and Social Learning. These three channels each had a special series of sessions devoted to it, and those sessions were conducted in three areas out in the wide passageways of the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. The sessions were well-attended, drawing up to a hundred attendees each at various times, and they contributed greatly to the buzz at the conference.

The Serious Games Zone had two objectives, related to helping attendees discover how to solve corporate learning challenges through the innovative use of games and simulations. First, the Zone gave everyone an opportunity to see and to play some of the latest and most instructionally-sound serious games. Second, it delivered information about how game design strategies can impact learning in a positive way. Dr. Alicia Sanchez, Games Czar at the Defense Acquisition University, hosted the Serious Games Zone.

The Mobile Learning Jam provided a venue where participants could explore mobile learning opportunities and potentials. Those who attended saw examples of actual mobile learning applications, learned how to get started, found out about the available tools, and discussed future directions for mobile learning. Judy Brown hosted the Mobile Learning Jam. Judy is focused entirely on the mobile learning area, working with ADL on the Immersive Learning Team, and also with the Army Education Advisory Committee. She coordinates the mLearnopedia.com and cc.mLearnopedia.com sites.

The Social Learning Camp (see Figure 5) was attended by many who came to the conference. Here, participants got " up to speed″ on the latest social media technology. They were able to think through ways that they could incorporate this technology into their e-Learning applications. They learned about available tools, explored best practices, and got their questions answered by experts. Mark Oehlert, Innovation Evangelist at the Defense Acquisition University, hosted the Social Learning Camp, where he brings his unique insight as a trained historian and anthropologist.

 

Figure 5 The Social Learning Camp ran for the duration of the conference, and the chairs were generally full, all of the time.

 

Zombies!

 

This year, DevLearn 09 featured an alternate-reality game (ARG) that ran throughout the conference ... a zombie apocalypse game. The goal of the game was for teams to learn how to more effectively use social media tools for collaboration, communication, and learning, while fighting zombies together. To play, teams had to find and log clues hidden throughout the conference and on affiliated social media sites. Each clue was a piece of data or metric related to social media.

The game had its own social networking site ( http://za.hybrid-dev.com/za/default.aspx ), where players could connect with each other, add associates, view profiles, and send short messages to each other. There was also a DL09 Zombie Apocalypse Channel on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/user/DL09ZombieApocalypse#p/a/u/1/MgaKvOrKOcM ) that was used to further explain the game to players.

By the end of the game, 195 players had formed 18 teams. The Cerebral Corps had accumulated the largest number of points. During the debriefing session held at the close of the conference, about 30 of the players gathered to compare notes and lessons learned. All agreed that the game had reached its objective, and that the experience illustrated that an ARG resulted in a considerable amount of team-building. There seemed to be a consensus that ARGs are a good vehicle for e-Learning, and many of the players said they intended to create their own as part of future projects. In view of the success of the game, you can probably expect to continue to see ARGs as part of eLearning Guild and Learning Solutions conferences. (And thanks to Koreen Olbrish, Brent Schlenker, and the crew at Hybrid Learning who put the game together, as well as to all the players who made it a highly engaging, successful experiment!)

Expo

The Expo at DevLearn 2009 showcased 40 exhibitors, offering a wide range of development tools and other products, as well as services and consulting. (See Figure 6.)

 

Figure 6 The Expo Reception Wednesday night made for an enjoyable evening, and lots of opportunity for attendees and exhibitors to interact.

 

DemoFest

DemoFest has been an extremely popular feature of DevLearn conferences for several years. It is a response to what eLearning Guild members asked for: " Lots and lots of e-Learning examples!″ This year, there were 31 demos of many different types of e-Learning shown by their developers. It was a fun evening of sharing and discussion about choices and challenges, and those who participated came away with expanded e-Learning design and development horizons. (See Figure 7).

 

Figure 7 Milo Dodds, eLearning Developer and Video Specialist at Cisco Systems, demonstrates an Augmented Reality application at DemoFest.

 

While all of the DemoFest contributors showed outstanding applications, The eLearning Guild staff and a small group of e-Learning experts would like to recognize these four as having been exceptional in content and execution ( listed by table number at DemoFest – the order here does not imply any sort of ranking):

  • Cammy Bean, Kineo: Nikon Dealer Training, for Nikon (built with Moodle and Flash!)
  • Teri Gutierrez, Oregon Center for Applied Science, Inc.: iPhone App – Helping Parents – Grades K-5, a mobile application created as an enhancement for the Center's Web-based parenting program (tools included Django 1.1, Apple iPhone SDK, X Code for Web version, Apache Server, MySQL Database, Javascript, Flash!, Python, Ajax, and JQuery)
  • John Gillmore and Andrea Stone, University of Central Oklahoma – Center for Professional and Distance Education: Using Green Screen Video to Add Personality to Online Courses, created for instructor use at the University (tools included Adobe Flash!, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver; Boris FX Chroma Key Plug-in; prosumer - quality digital video recorder, lighting kit, wireless lavaliere microphone, portable green screen, laptop, and external monitor)
  • Nick Floro, Sealworks Interactive Studios: Connect Writing, designed and optimized for McGraw-Hill's development programs (tools included Adobe ColdFusion, Flash! and Air for delivering the content; audio was mastered in Logic and Peak; interactive exercises were developed in Flash!)
Be sure to join us on Wednesday, December 16, at 10:00 am Pacific Time for the DemoFest Highlights online event, where the developers of some of the best entries will show their applications! Registration is required, but it's free. Go here for details: http://www.elearningguild.com/surveys/?sid=137&selection=doc.1462

 

Breakfast Bytes

Breakfast Bytes have always been an important part of eLearning Guild conferences. These are facilitated discussions among colleagues in a relaxed, open environment, around topics of common interest. (See Figure 8.) Participants share best practices, tips, and insights as they learn from each other.

 

Figure 8 Heidi Fisk facilitates a Breakfast Byte session for first-time DevLearn attendees.

 

Social networking

Social networking, especially Twitter and Weblogs, has now become a normal, and essential, part of the DevLearn experience. Substantial information is recorded in tweetstreams and in Weblogs, useful both for participants who were at DevLearn and for those who were not able to attend. Here are links to some of the most significant comments.

Twitter-ing away

For the last three years, Twitter has been a constant companion at DevLearn, with more and more participants contributing to a rich collection of in-the-moment observations and insights. These are displayed on the Twitterboard, a large display in the Registration area. And this year, during the DemoFest, a number of Twitter-ers took part in the weekly #lrnchat (see Figure 9).

 

Figure 9 Several people took part in the weekly #lrnchat from the floor of DemoFest

 

The Tweetstream from DevLearn

You can review the DevLearn 09 Tweetstream at these sites:

 

Weblogging DevLearn 2009

Like Twitter, Weblogs are a key part of DevLearn. Some who attended were live blogging throughout the conference, while others chose to reflect on their experiences in Weblog entries made after the fact. Here are links to a number of these.

Weblogs to read

 

Close

Each year, DevLearn gets better because of the speakers, sponsors, and participants. On behalf of everyone at The eLearning Guild , thanks to all who were there!

This recap has been my best attempt, however inadequate, to capture the excitement and the learning that were the common experience at DevLearn 2009. All of us at The Guild are looking forward to seeing you at The eLearning Guild's Learning Solutions Conference & Expo in Orlando, Florida March 24 – 26, 2010 (register by Friday, December 18, 2009 and save $200!) and at the next DevLearn Conference & Expo November 3 – 5, 2010 in San Francisco, California.


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