Category Archives: Learning Technologies Conference

Tweets covering the LTSF17 live online learning conference session

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“Making the most of your live online session” was the presentation I delivered at Learning Technologies Conference Summer Forum 2017.

Click for LTSF webinar session description

LTSF webinar session description

These are the tweets that covered my session about webinars and the virtual classroom.

Ady Howes had a 360 degree camera and recorded the session. I’ll update this page when we have a video link!

My session was one of the last of the day, against stiff competition of conference Chairman himself, Donald H Taylor, as well as 702010 God Charles Jennings! I still had a packed, sold out room though.

As Kate mentions, each conference session has a person tweeting the highlights, which was the lovely Joan Keevill.

Many thanks to @Obhi and @Designs_JoanK for their tweets.

Remember to download the paper that goes with this session.

And you can also join us for the webinar version!

#LTMOOC16 Technology to enhance

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For the Beyond The Next Button MOOC from Curatr we are asked to research some technology and share about it. This is good as, to be honest, without being MADE to do it, I would have read some stuff and moved on. I wouldn’t have truly got involved. 

Periscope

I enjoyed reading about Periscope, for live video broadcast via Twitter. This has been used a lot by Kate Graham at Learning Technologies and I look forward to using this for some live events myself.

2016-04-02 12.48.02

I had a play with it last night on my iPhone and it was pretty easy to install the app, link with Twitter and start broadcasting. It took a couple of goes to play with a few basic tools, such as how to stop broadcasting!

It took a bit more looking and Googling to follow Kate Graham’s advice to save video to the device to be used later – – Periscope broadcast videos are only live for 24 hours.

I think one of the challenging things with something like Periscope is the “live broadcast” element of it. I used a Twitter account that I no longer use, so it’s basically a test rather than going out to all my followers or that of Training Journal, which is where I want to use the technology.

However there is also benefit in Working Out Loud and I will probably do this now from @LightbulbJo so that I can get feedback from my Personal Learning Network, share what I’m learning and also encourage others to do the same.

Phone technology

The other thing I’ve been playing with is a new phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 that runs on Android paying system. Great phone, love it, no need to change other than upgrade hardware soon.

For a particular client and training programme soon, I need to know the hardware they have, which is a company provided iPhone 5c. So I got one off of eBay for a hundred quid, a cheap SIM for £1 (backup phone now on a different network, which is always useful) and started playing with it.

Largely I’m  using it as a small wifi tablet and must admit is turning into my Training Journal device (I’m Deputy Editor part time).

It’s interesting to consider whether it’s useful to be comfortable using technology that’s similar but different, meaning you have to be agile and flexible in your use; or if its confusing and annoying when things are in different places!

The unexpected highlight of the new-to-me iPhone is the time lapse camera. How can I use this to record something for ages, but have a super speed version to look at? Set it up in a corner whilst I deliver a webinar to see what I do behind the scenes? Put it at a training day to show people moving around? Don’t know yet, something that has got my creative juices flowing!

Also on the MOOC…

Ian Helps shared about Biteable for video editing and I want to try this out soon.

With the amount of tools available, I love this comment:

Gosh, where to begin? I think this just emphasises the need to identify the problem first. Then maybe think of a creative solution (i.e. if tech could do anything, could it do this?). Then trial 2-3 niche tools.

Craig Taylor, who designed and is facilitating the MOOC, shared a curated list of top technical tools: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/

Right, back to the programme and learning more!

Engagement in virtual classrooms video

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It was an honour to be interviewed by Issy Nancarrow, of Nancarrow Partnerships, at the Learning Technologies 2016 conference.

I spoke about how important engagement is in virtual classrooms, as well as the importance of good design for live online sessions and that online facilitation is a new skill to master.

UnicornTrainingVideo

 

Learning technologies fringe events 2014

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News report originally published in Training Journal February 2014

The Learning Technologies Conference and free Exhibition is widely regarded as the best Learning and Development event in the UK. Something to emerge from last year’s January event was a free evening session from LearnPatch. Building on that success this ‘fringe event’ was repeated for 2014.

Last year’s theme was Curation and for 2014 it was “Inside Out” whereby it was arranged for some of the Conference speakers to be available in a pub local to the Conference and Exhibition centre to speak to people on their particular topics of choice.

With five popular conference speakers there was a round robin approach, with about ten minutes at each table with the speaker. This means that, if you were one of the 30 attendees, you got to have some better quality conversation with someone you may have seen in a room with a hundred others or previously only followed on Twitter and their blog.

All of the conference speakers were popular and appreciated. One of the most talked about was David Kelly, a Training, Learning and Performance consultant from the United States. He had bought his Google Glass Explorers with him. They were very popular, with people trying them on, having their photos taken and experiencing wearable technology with David facilitating conversation about the possibilities for the future of learning, saying “we take old methodologies and apply them to new technologies. When I’m wearing Google Glass my hands are entirely free and that’s a very different paradigm.”

Julie Dirksen, also from the United States, spoke about Instructional Design and how design principles can come from all walks of life, for example neuroscience, behavioural economics and game design, commenting that one of the specific topics is “skills mastery, how do we develop skills over time… instead of a two day workshop.” Mark Bradshaw, from Avon and Somerset Constabulary discussed from his experience as Electronic Performance Support Systems Developer. He focused on performance support in relation to improving learning in organisations. Ger Driesen, CLO of Challenge Stretching Talent in the Netherlands, focused on his energetic view about artist Van Gogh inspiring people around the world and what his legacy can mean. Andrew Jacobs, L&D Manager at the London Borough of Lambeth, had conversations focused on disruptive learning: “You can disrupt, it’s not negative and it can be very innovative”.

People who ordered their free tickets enjoyed talking to these well-known Conference speakers, especially valuable if they were unable to afford the Conference ticket. There were also lots of other L&D practitioners and experts with various areas of focus winding down and enjoying conversation after Learning Technologies. Andrew Jacobs said of the fringe event: “It was really good to meet with people and have face to face conversation and talk about what they’re doing as much as what I’m doing”.

LearnPatch is a start-up media brand in the L&D sector. Founder Martin Couzins commented after the evening, “This year’s Learning Technologies fringe event featured five great speakers talking across a range of topics, from Google Glass to performance support and beyond. There was a great turnout and lots of interesting conversation. The feedback was really positive.”

Live online learning – article links

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hI’ve written some articles about live online facilitation recently and thought I’d share with you, either for your own reference or perhaps might help with colleagues, managers and clients:

 

From the Corporate Learning Consortium, what is live online learning:
http://www.elearningconsortium.com/what-is-live-online-learning/

From Training Journal, how to facilitate a group you can’t see:
https://www.trainingjournal.com/articles/feature/group-you-cannot-see

From Learning Technologies magazine, how to design for the online classroom:
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/19787a22#/19787a22/148

From HR Zone, How can we approach live online learning to ensure good practice?
http://www.hrzone.com/lead/strategy/how-can-we-approach-live-online-learning-to-ensure-good-practice

Top Tweets for Learning Technologies 2014

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I recently attended the Learning Technologies conference and was thrilled to be Live Tweeting.

If you aren’t sure what that is, I’ve written a handy reflection on it for Training Journal: click here for the Live Tweeting feature.

tj_tweeting

Something that made me very, very pleased, was being in the top 50 conference tweets put together by HR Zone.

This was my retweet of their announcement, with my comments at the end:

This image shows my tweet as second in the list!

hrzone_tweets

Learning Technologies were complimentary:

And you can see my excited response!

I’m very grateful to conference Chairman Donald Taylor and official conference Twitter Queen Kate Graham for giving me the opportunity to shine – and I look forward to doing the same at the conference next year!