LSCON 12: Trends
Looking back on the Learning Solution conference and digging through the back-channel, twitter and Map-Deck I tried to discover the latest trends that emerge from these tons of data. I’m afraid it is not a scientific research, but just me reading a lot of information and picking up some signals.
The art of leadership, vision and choosing
A clear trend set by the guild. Three keynotes about three specific arts, all interesting in their own right. For me a confirmation on another trend: There are always great keynotes at LSCON.
Storytelling
This year I noticed a lot of sessions, blogs and tweets about storytelling, gamification and scenario based learning. They all have the story element in common. A great trend as far as I’m concerned. Stories are a great way to involve your learner in the learning process usually it leads to far more attractive and interactive forms of learning. When you start out with a great story, it is hard to and up with a dull PowerPoint like course!
Social learning
Another buzzword at LSCON. I noticed that more and more people are aware of the fact that they do have to address the rise of social media and the impact of it on learning one way or the other. I heard and read a few times that e-Learning could become obsolete if we don’t find a way to use this or at least incorporate this in our learning. The good news is that the new SCORM standard (based on project TinCan) will actually make this possible.
HTML5 – mobile learning
Were mobile was the buzzword at DevLearn, it was replaced by HTML5 at LSCON. There were a lot of sessions about this topic, or mobile publications, because we all want to include flash like elements in our IOS publications. Last year at LSCON people where a bit in disbelieve (flash dead, no way!), this year I didn’t hear anybody about Flash. It seems acceptance of HTML5 is on his way.
Data mining
In the e-Learning world we don’t analyze a lot of data. We report some progress and result information to a LMS that usually has bad reporting facilities, let alone analyzing tools. I can see a new trend that will change that. Imagine information on the usage of your course is available in your authoring tool. You can actually see what content is used, by whom, which question are answered correct and which path people have taken through your learning content. It would be a valuable source for any developer and it would make it possible to improve the learning experience of the learner. I believe this trend is emerging and again project TinCan will play a big role.
Scorm dead?
In previous conferences you could pick up the sound of people who where proclaiming that Scorm is that or at least would die. It is strange indeed to have a standard in this fast developing world with the name Scorm 2004. But again there is project TinCan, it will be the new Scorm standard. And I was really surprised by the pace ADL is moving forward with this. I believe this is the development that will have the biggest impact at the end of the day, supporting almost all trends I have mentioned before.
The Learning 2019 conference
I have been to a ton of learning conferences but this will be my first time at #learning2019. I’m looking forward to it and I’m planning to report on all interesting sessions via this blog.
