By design, DevLearn 2008 was (and is) the single most comprehensive event addressing the use of technology in training and education for learning professionals in the last half of 2008 and early 2009. The content addressed every aspect of e-Learning initiatives, including the latest uses of social learning and immersive simulations and games.
The subtitle of the conference was “Learning in a Web 2.0 World,” and there is nearly unanimous agreement that DevLearn 2008 delivered the desired focus on the potential that these technologies offer. Over 1100 learning designers, developers, and managers attended DevLearn (see Figure 1), and hundreds of them came early in order to participate in the Adobe Learning Summit, the eight preconference workshops, and five management symposia.
Total attendance was 30% larger than last year’s, in spite of the downturn in the economy. My take is that this demonstrates the belief that organizations in all sectors around the world “get” the strategic and tactical value offered by e-Learning.
What motivated all these participants to travel to San Jose, and to spend as much as a week there? It goes without saying that they came to network with their community of practice, of course. Looking more closely at the best-attended sessions, it is clear that there were four specific outcomes that delegates wanted:
- Improved execution skills in design, development, and management of e-Learning;
- Best practices for use of new tools, especially social software, video, and new releases of key tools they already use;
- Insight, from the latest research, into how people learn, and how to use these findings to guide their design work and their use of technology; and
- Strategic vision around the role of technology-supported learning in the challenging times expected in the next eighteen to twenty-four months.
Attendees were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about what they saw and heard, and about the people they met at DevLearn 2008. The vast majority went home tired, happy, and filled with ideas they were excited to put into action. In the pages that follow, permit me to give you some sense of what they experienced.
Learning 2.0 exemplified
In keeping with this year’s theme, The eLearning Guild started using a number of “2.0” tools well ahead of time to support learning at the conference. In August, DevLearn 2008 Live! appeared. This Web page incorporates a portal (Pageflakes), social networks (Guild groups on Facebook and LinkedIn), a Twitter feed, LiveBlogging, and TokBox. (See Sidebar 1 for links to DevLearn content in some of the 2.0 tools.)
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In addition to DevLearn 2008 Live!, The Guild used YouTube and Guildcasts to provide information about DevLearn, about the QR codes containing contact information provided to participants and those displayed on signs at the conference to provide session information, and about the speakers. There was also a Learning Video Competition, in which entrants posted their videos on YouTube and Guild members cast votes for their favorites. Sidebar 2 lists the winning videos from the Competition, announced at the DevLearn opening session.
View the winners online at http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.1017 |
The learning started before DevLearn itself
This year, the Adobe Learning Summit and DevLearn repeated their co-siting, as in 2007. In addition, there were Workshops and Management Symposia before DevLearn began. In fact, coming to DevLearn 2008 made it possible to attend three conferences: The Adobe Learning Summit, Training Magazine’s Technology in Action (a conference-within-a-conference) and DevLearn.
Adobe Learning Summit
On Monday, Adobe welcomed several hundred attendees to a day’s worth of sessions that focused on new product releases, and on tips and tricks for using Adobe’s tools. There was a great deal of excitement over some “sneak peeks” and a hint that Adobe will be releasing a new e-Learning Suite in 2009. This may involve a product known as “Thermo” (do you think it might have something to do with Flash?), in development, that will smooth the transition from design to development. Unfortunately, Thermo is not in Alpha testing yet, and there wasn’t much more information forthcoming about the e-Learning Suite.
Another sneak peek involved the soon-to-be-released addition of an auto-panning feature in Captivate. This will make it possible to display Captivate movies on tiny mobile device screens. Finally, there was a tantalizing hint (one sentence from a presenter under pressure from the audience) that Flash for the iPhone may be coming.
In other news, Adobe was able this year to demonstrate embedding of Flash and Captivate movies in PDF documents. This capability should have almost immediate application to performance support and learning aids, as well as to eBooks and documents. Another demonstration showed how to use Adobe AIR to support cross-platform communication with subject matter experts who are using Macintosh OS X or Linux-based computers. This solves a long-standing problem with trying to use Captivate to do this job, since Captivate does not run under OS X or Linux.
Other sessions highlighted Director 11 as a tool for designing 3D worlds and serious games, Flash Lite for mobile learning, management topics around ROI and enterprise e-Learning deployment, and best practices for virtual classrooms.
About 80% of the Learning Summit attendees went on to attend DevLearn.
The optional pre-conference sessions
On Tuesday, The eLearning Guild sponsored eight workshops and five management symposia. The 300 attendees at these sessions came mostly from the traditional DevLearn audience: developers and managers who are already very familiar with e-Learning, who are interested in the details of current technology and its applications, and designers who want the latest knowledge and best practices for creating effective learning with technology. (See Figure 2.)
The symposia addressed topics that included Learning 2.0 and serious games/immersive learning simulations (ILS) (these were the two best-attended), learning management systems (LMS), mobile learning, and measuring e-Learning success. The workshop topics included Adobe Captivate 3, scenario-based learning, video and audio production, virtual worlds, project management, synchronous e-Learning, and Flash.
Key learning from the keynotes
Three keynotes provided specific perspectives on the “2.0” world, on the use of visuals to present ideas, and on the latest findings of brain researchers relating to how people learn.
Tim O’Reilly: Web 2.0 and the enterprise
At the opening keynote of the conference on Wednesday, Tim O’Reilly (founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media) gave a fast-paced summary of how we came to today’s interactive Web, how enterprises are using it, and where we are headed. (See Figure 3.) Tim’s key challenge for us in e-Learning was two-fold. First, he says that our job, like his own, involves changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. Furthermore, as social media grow, we can contribute to the growth of knowledge and learning simply by finding people who belong together and introducing them.
At the same time, it is important to remember that these social applications are not the heart of Web 2.0, they merely demonstrate how to use it in order to increase value. Being better at data, and at extracting meaning from that data, is what differentiates Web 2.0 from Web 1.0. And that is the key to understanding the new competencies that we must develop in our organizations:
- Extracting meaning from data
- Understanding data and collective intelligence
- Using statistics
- Understanding design as architecture, not as “prettiness”
- Incenting user behavior: getting people to participate and collaborate
How do we teach these skills? O’Reilly had six suggestions, beginning with “Watch the Alpha Geeks.” Follow your own pioneers and alpha geeks, because they know things that everybody else needs to know. Second, turn your alpha geeks into mentors by partnering with them. Provide self-starters with access to the best online references. Fourth, take a lesson from what brain researchers have learned about mirror neurons: People learn when they watch with the intent to repeat what they see. In other words, “Show, then do, with reinforcement from frequent small successes.” Fifth, Study success stories, but don’t assume that they are easy to emulate. His suggestion is to study how Wikipedia actually works, through community involvement and granularity. And finally, O’Reilly says, “Stop fondling the hammer and focus on the house.” Training must look at the whole employee from the business point of view.
Where does Tim think we need to go next? He observes that enterprises do not do with their employees what they do with their customers: Listen to them, and learn from them.
Dan Roam on the back of the napkin
On Thursday, Dan Roam, founder of Digital Roam, Inc. and author of The Back of the Napkin, one of the current top-selling business books on Amazon.com, told us that, “We can solve our problems with pictures.” (See Figure 4.) Which problems? Any problem.
Through a series of demonstrations and exercises, Dan presented his “Unwritten Rules.” The first rule is the one to remember, though: Whoever best describes the problem is the one most likely to solve it. Dan made this rule memorable by restating it as, “The one who draws the best pictures gets the funding.”
One of the best ideas Dan presented was the “eNapkin.” This is using PowerPoint, running inside virtual meeting software (WebEx, Adobe Acrobat Connect, and many others) to explain your concepts, with the added bonus of being able to collaborate at a distance.
Kevin D. Jones provides an excellent summary of Dan’s keynote at
http://engagedlearning.net/post/devlearn-keynote-dan-roam-back-of-the-napkin/ . Tony Karrer also offers his notes at http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/11/enapkin.html .
John Medina lays out “brain rules”
On Friday, John Medina’s closing keynote was both incredibly informative and wildly entertaining. (Jay Cross said it knocked his socks off: http://internettime.com/2008/11/15/brain-rules/ and he included a video in the post to make the point.) Medina is a fast-paced presenter, and in his hour on the stage, he managed to cover two of the twelve points of his book, Brain Rules. (See Figure 5.)
Brain researchers and instructional designers don’t get together very often, and it is clear from Medina’s talk that we ought to do something about that. For one thing, instructional designers think of the brain as a kind of video tape recorder. Medina says the brain actually functions more like a food processor. Ask an instructional designer how long it takes the brain to create a long-term memory, and you will probably hear a figure between “10 seconds” and “a week.” Brain researchers have found that it actually takes about 10 years before the brain moves learning to long-term memory. (Google “systems consolidation” to find out why.) Not only that, there are certain key things that must happen in order for learning to survive that ten years. And there is, as well, a connection between physical exercise and learning — because the brain evolved to support survival under conditions of near-constant motion.
Summarizing John Medina’s talk would take far more space than we have available in Learning Solutions. I recommend reading his book if you weren’t at his keynote, or take a look at his Web site (http://www.brainrules.net/ ). In addition, Clark Quinn has an excellent summary of the key points, including a mind map, at http://blog.learnlets.com/?p=540
An action-packed schedule
With 114 concurrent sessions, DevLearn was already a challenge for any conference-goer. But to that, conference designer Brent Schlenker added:
- 19 Serious Game Zone Activity sessions (see Figure 6)
- 13 Master Class Demonstrations and Tips & Tricks sessions (See Figure 7)
- An Expo with 50 exhibitors (See Figure 8)
- DemoFest with 38 demonstrations (See Figure 9)
- Thirty Breakfast Byte sessions (See Figure 10)
Is it any wonder that attendees were tired by the end of each day? What was it like? Here are a couple of videos of some very engaged conference attendees:
- A walk through the Expo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLKgRqYXqAY
- Walking into the Demo Fest: http://s519.photobucket.com/albums/u354/bill7b/DevLearn08/?action=view¤t=Nov132008-DemoFest.flv
A few words about the Concurrent Sessions
Rather than try to describe all of the main conference sessions, here are the comments of attendees and presenters about what they saw, selected from the many blog posts which appeared during and after DevLearn (and which are still popping up a week after everyone went home):
- Mark Oehlert’s summary of The Great ILS Challenge: http://blogoehlert.typepad.com/eclippings/2008/11/devlearn08-the-great-and-communitypowered-ils-challenge.html
- Awesome and extensive session notes from Wendy Wickham: http://in-the-middle-of-the-curve.blogspot.com/search/label/dl08
- B.J. Schone’s summary of three sessions on Wednesday: http://elearningweekly.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/devlearn-2008-day-1-recap/
- Doug Welch on Podcasting: http://welchwrite.com/cip/2008/11/18/douglas-speaks-on-new-media-at-devlearn2008/
- Laura Kratchovil on Cinematic Techniques in eLearning: http://www.slideshare.net/multistorymedia/the-making-of-a-blockbuster-using-cinematic-techniques-in-elearning-presentation
- Slideshare from sessions, including the ILS Challenge: http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?q=devlearn&submit=post&commit=Search
- Broad recap of DevLearn 2008 from a participant’s (Chad Udell) perspective: http://visualrinse.com/2008/11/18/devlearn-08-recap/
- Another summary of several sessions, by April Lynn Sheninger: http://www.personal.psu.edu/azs2/blogs/instructional_designer_in_student_affairs/2008/11/web-20-and-the-enterprise-with.html.
Many Twitter and blog posts relating to DevLearn contain links to presenter slides and to other blog posts summarizing individual sessions. Session handouts from presenters who provide them will be available to registered attendees for the first six months after the DevLearn. All attendees will receive an e-mail this week to remind them to fill out the overall evaluation form, and this e-mail will contain the link to the handouts. After six months, handouts will be available to Guild members.
DemoFest winners
During the DemoFest event, attendees voted on the best demonstrations in each of several categories, and for the Best in Show. Here are the results.
Best in Show, and Winner, Product and Service Providers Category
“Business in Balance: Implementing an Environmental Management System,” presented by Stephen Davies, DISTIL Interactive.
Immersive Learning Simulation (ILS), created with Flash and proprietary toolkit.
Winner, Non-Product/Service Providers Category
“Speaking the Language of Electricity in Sales and Service,” presented by Dawn Orem and Sharon Boller, Ingersoll-Rand
Asynchronous delivery, created with Flash and XML, SCORM-compliant
Winner, Blended Learning Category
“Bonneville Ethics Boot Camp,” presented by David Richards, e-Mersion
Asynchronous delivery, created with Articulate Presenter
Winner, New Technologies Category
“The World of Makrini,” presented by Kevin Corti and Richard Smith, PIXELearning
Immersive Learning Simulation (ILS), created with Flash
Winner, Asynchronous Category
“Law Enforcement Response to Terrorism,” presented by Steve Lee, Allen Interactions, Inc.
Asynchronous delivery, created with Flash and XML
Winner, Synchronous Category
“Developing Interactive Courseware to teach Physics in the Malaysian Classrooms,” presented by Subha Ramiah, LinkQED LLC (see Figure 14)
Synchronous delivery, created with Flash, SCORM 2004-compliant
Summary
Although I’ve rambled on for several pages, this article contains nowhere near the totality of the DevLearn conference. I hope, however, that you find the linked resources useful, and I encourage you to make use of Twitter and The eLearning Guild’s groups on LinkedIn and Facebook to contact presenters and attendees with your questions. The learning has not stopped just because the conference ended!
