Learning Technologies Show 2014 MOOCs, Mobile's Moment is NOW

In the Editor’s comments for the Special Show Guide issue of Inside learning Technologies and Skills Donald Taylor summarises

“The classroom is no more deceased than the paper magazine. But like contemporary publishing, learning is now a wider, more electronically enabled, more powerful field.

This magazine , the conference, the exhibition and the Learning and Skills group all celebrate learning’s  wider reach. Long may it flourish..."

The dreadful  unceasing cold rain on the Wednesday of the show did not put off the visitors to Olympia 2.

 Indeed Plastic bags for your wet umbrellas were provided on arrival  most welcome!

The technologies section seemed somewhat busier than the skills section.

For Report on Day Two of LT14uk

Thomas Weber and
 Joanna Koni  TATA TOPSIM

The free lectures throughout the day in the ten bear-pit theatres were full. 

The first of three I attended was Thomas Weber and Joanna Koni  of TATA TOPSIM  entitled Blended Business Solutions on a flipped learning approach.

The Pedigree of the Flight simulator as a learning method is well established in the Aero industry:

Thomas argued that Learning business by doing business  is best learned by practice of decision making through a simulation where consequences of the learner's decisions could put to the test and the consequences revealed through a simulated cased study whose model is continuously updated from experiences of TATA’s case work.

Thomas Weber 

Different approaches could be tested out by the learner. This was illustrated on a Change management case for a newly appointed manager 'Natalie'.

  Based on a change management model 1. Contentment 2. Denial 3. Confusion 4 .Renewal integrating day to day management of the team learners act as ‘mentor /adviser’ guiding the new manager ( Natalie) through and suggesting decisions.

Change challenge for a Sales Team

Thomas mentioned the TATA Topsim simulation approach had been adopted by a healthcare company in the States. An established sales team had to engage in selling a new range of products unfamiliar to them. In addition the new range had to be sold in a limited selling window of six weeks. 

This simulation model enabled the team to hit the ground running after the training interaction.

The blend of case studies, videos  fast tracked their learning time.

There has been much of a buzz about MOOCs recently – As I know little about MOOCs I took advantage of Ben Betts  of HT2’s excellent introduction on the subject. 

Ben Betts of HT2  in fervent epiphany enthusiam of things MOOC

Ben’s direct, lively and knowledgeable presentation aided by two guys who had set up a Curator MOOC was excellent.

Ben’s  3 Cs model Connect – Create – Curate looks interesting and simple to apply

 Ben Betts  said he measured the effectiveness of MOOCs  mostly by new ideas generated or ‘epiphanies’ , learners' personal development as much as traditional sign-up and stick- with-the-programme metrics. 

This open and democratic approach may go against conventional  current ROI learning metrics.

Ben’s counter was that Drop Out rates don’t necessarily tell you all. After all , plenty of folk learn by aredropping in and out of You tube or Wikipedia and learning loads.

Game-ification- rewarding learners for reading content ( e.. 3 points, and submitting answers 5 points and leader boards  are used to encourage active contribution and sharing behaviours.

This something I am going to look into more  Do I feel a selling MOOC rising to the surface.

The third session I attended was Alex Mackman of CG’s  Pactical Mobile learning.There were some interesting case studies on Luminosity shared by Alex .

Mobile's  Moment is NOW

2014 is a particularly apt time for mobile learning. Platforms such as I pads I phones etc , Androids and Windows 8 are well established in the market. The improvements in bandwidth and connectivity over the last year along with improved HTML5 authoring tools and delivery via the cloud or Experience API / Tin Can make this the Mobile moment

Alex Mackman  of CG group downloading
 from a QR code  live on Luminosity

Alex courageously finished with a  alive system  QR code download of an App to a mobile.














Related Links

Report on Day 2 @LT14uk