In spite of the problems with the economy, hundreds of e-Learning professionals came to Orlando for the Annual Gathering 2009 Conference & Expo, March 11 to March 13. Many of them arrived on Monday in order to attend Articulate Live ’09, or to take advantage of the opportunity to attend a pre-Conference Certificate Program.
This was the first eLearning Guild conference for well over half of the attendees. Many were experienced designers and developers, as well as many managers. The fact that so many attended, despite the current economy and reductions in spending by many organizations, demonstrates the value that decision-makers apparently see in e-Learning.
Capturing a live event
It is difficult to capture a conference of this scope in an article. My intent is to give you a snapshot of the activities, and to provide you with links to some of the content and comments generated by the presenters and those who attended. As you will see in the section below on Social Network Support and in the sidebars, Annual Gathering 2009 was a well-documented event – perhaps the best of its kind to date for support and use of social media by attendees. These on-the-spot reports will give you a much better sense of the excitement that so many of us at the Conference felt.
Individually, the attendees to whom I spoke were mainly there in order to network with others and to:
- Identify best practices for the use of e-Learning to supplement or replace more expensive delivery modalities;
- Gain more expertise in instructional design, especially to make use of newer modalities, such as collaborative learning and mobile delivery; and
- Improve their skills in the use of authoring tools and learning management systems.
The pattern of heavily attended sessions bore out these intentions. Other interests included rapid development techniques, immersive learning (games and simulations), virtual worlds, and performance support.
Social network support
As with last year’s Annual Gathering and with DevLearn 2008, The eLearning Guild provided significant social network supports for learning at the Conference. These included a comprehensive portal based on Ning, and use of Twitter hash tags (#ag09). These features were still “live” and active for several days after the end of Annual Gathering. At the Conference itself, a Twitter Board displayed the running stream of comments from attendees.
Many attendees blogged their experiences at the Conference. In fact, blogging and Twitter use virtually exploded at this year’s event. Sidebar 2 lists some of the more outstanding blogging efforts.
Articulate Live ‘09
Recap, photos, and videos on the official Articulate Weblog: http://www.articulate.com/blog/articulate-live-09-recap-inspiring-informative-outstanding/
Erik Jagger’s notes on Articulate Live 09 (three parts): http://vislearn.blogspot.com/2009/03/articulate-live-recap-part-1.html
http://vislearn.blogspot.com/2009/03/articulate-live-recap-part-2.html
http://vislearn.blogspot.com/2009/03/articulate-live-recap-part-3.html
Annual Gathering 2009
Shared Items from Google Reader (Blog posts from a great many attendees, not in any particular order): http://www.google.com/reader/shared/16292881896793555897?hl=en
Angie Torres’ notes: http://angiemtorres.blogspot.com/
Catherine Lombardozzi’s conference summary: http://learningjournal.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/not-quite-live-blogging-from-elearning-guild/
Claudine Caro’s notes: http://idsharespot.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
Ellen Wagner’s conference summary (ID tough love): http://elearningroadtrip.typepad.com/elearning_roadtrip/2009/03/ids-its-time-for-some-seriously-tough-love.html
Rachel Vazquez’ notes: http://rachelvazquez.blogspot.com/
Shawn Rosler’s notes: http://idsharespot.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
Tracy Hamilton’s notes on multiple sessions and the keynotes can be read at http://discovery-thru-elearning.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
Attending a conference “live and in person” is still important, even in the digital age. There is no substitute for networking at an event. Not only can you see the person you are talking to, you can overhear what others are talking about, you can ask questions and contribute ideas to the discussion in the moment, and you can form important impressions of products, demonstrations, and ideas.
However, online social networking supports are important in at least three ways. First, for participants, they supplement (and in some cases, replace) note taking on paper. This can make it easier to share content with co-workers and bosses who were not at an event. Second, this online documentation may also improve the value of the Conference to organizations, by documenting what took place, in the words of participants, not of organizers. This may make it more likely that someone from the organization will be able to attend the following year. And finally, because all of this content exists online and is freely available, colleagues and fellow professionals can gain some benefit from the event even though they were unable to attend.
Un-Conference features
In addition to co-location with Articulate Live ’09, and to almost 100 concurrent sessions and the ID Zone, those who attended the Conference had many more opportunities to learn. Breakfast Bytes on Wednesday and Thursday, and Espresso Learning on Friday, added over 50 small-group sessions in a “un-conference” format. A group leader facilitated the conversations, but the agenda and the discussion was up to the group members. This isn’t exactly a “bar camp” (the sessions were 40- to 60- minutes long, rather than open-ended), but the idea is similar.
Getting a picture of the Conference
You can get a much better flavor of an event from photos than from text alone. The Portal for the Conference (see Sidebar 1) contains photos and videos, but here are a few more candid shots.
While Figure 1 doesn’t show the entire crowd that filled the ballroom for the opening general session, what it does show is the engine that powered Annual Gathering 2009: people talking to each other. This exchange of ideas is the key to the value of live, in-person events.
The blog entries in Sidebar 2, especially Tracy Hamilton’s notes, provide more depth on the keynote speakers (see Figures 2 and 3) than I could include in this brief summary. In addition, there is a brief video of the opening of Jeff Howe’s keynote on the Conference Portal (Sidebar 1).
The ID Zone (Instructional Design Zone) gave attendees the opportunity to explore dozens of examples of e-Learning and to learn from other’s great designs (and from their mistakes). (See Figure 4.) The ID Zone provided short-format sessions all day throughout the Conference, and was hugely enjoyed by many.
The Expo (see Figure 5) is always important to e-Learning producers who are evaluating products, services, and applications. This year was no exception. Over 50 exhibitors were on hand Wednesday and Thursday. Traffic in the Expo was generally heaviest between session blocks, but there were always people in the hall talking to exhibitors about a range of offerings, from digital character solutions and authoring tools, to consulting services, outsourcing solutions, and off-the-shelf courseware, as well as many other categories.
Notes from the concurrent sessions
Many of the session presenters have made their handouts, slides, and so on available online. (See Sidebar 3.) The remaining sessions will be available in the near future to Guild members, from the “Past Events” link on the Conferences pull-down menu, at http://www.elearningguild.com.
One particularly interesting group of sessions was the Executive Insights Track. These were mostly expert panels (see Figures 6 and 7), and they primarily focused on “leading edge” technologies and delivery modalities. These included:
- The new blend of learning (moving from “push” models of instruction to “pull” models of self-directed learning),
- Mobile learning,
- Methodology selection in high-stakes situations and when dealing with limited resources,
- The use of “serious games,”
- The effects of recession on e-Learning,
- Increasing learner productivity with new technologies, and
- Decision support tools.
ID Zone Resources Page (all the visuals and examples from the ID Zone – Thanks to Jean Marrapodi for putting the Zone together and Holly Creel for building this Resources Page!): http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.1180
Kevin Thorn’s ID Zone “handout” on graphics http://www.delanotho.com/ag09/idzone/index.html
Koreen Olbrish’s slides from Improving Learning Outcomes With Virtual World Technology: http://www.slideshare.net/TandemLearning/improving-learning-outcomes-with-virtual-world-technology
Kristen Cromer’s slides from Master Class on Virtual Worlds: http://www.slideshare.net/TandemLearning/harnessing-the-power-of-virtual-worlds-for-learning
Tracy Hamilton’s slides and notes from Learning From Blogging: Creating Your Own and Learning From Others: http://discovery-thru-elearning.blogspot.com/2009/03/learning-from-blogging-creating-your.html
Walter Wimberley’s slides and handout for Free and Low-Cost Alternatives for Developing e-Learning: http://www.lowcostelearning.com/ag09-presentation-slides/
Summary
No article, especially not one in a linear format, can hope to capture the totality or the excitement of an event such as The eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering 2009 Conference & Expo. You can probably get a better idea from the blog entries and Twitter links I’ve provided. I encourage you to make use of these links and the links that you will find in the presenter handouts (when available) to contact presenters and other attendees. The Conference has ended, but the learning has not. We hope to see you at DevLearn 2009 Conference & Expo November 11 to 13 in San Jose – come catch the excitement in person!
