Lectora User Conference ’06: Friday
The second day of the 2006 Lectora User Conference was a half day, ending after a full lunch and awards presentation. The gang of guys from the user community (and I noticed it was completely male) that helped with bug testing were all given certificates, which was a nice gesture. Trivantis also gave out iPods. Sadly, I didn’t win. But I did enjoy a session or two before the lunch. Learn more after the jump.
Friday started out slow. Most folks seemed to have had a late (or early, depending on your viewpoint) evening and a lot of people were dragging. The sinus infection that had been slightly bothering me all week came on full force after a night of very little sleep. However, I was there bright and early, at the first session on video. This was a great session – especially if you have the budget to hire a professional production company to create the video for your eLearning session. My attention span wavered though, and I snuck out the back door midway through. Sorry gentle readers, but I just needed some fresh air.
The next and final session I attended was given by Neil Lasher, of UK’s Trainer 1. This was a hard choice for me, as a representative from Cingular was also giving a more technical presentation. In the end, instructional design won out over technical tidbits. Neil is a great speaker. I came away from last year’s conference raving about him. He’s on my list of Instructional Design gurus you must hear if you’re involved in the industry. He has very strong opinions and will not hesitate to tell you that you’re wrong. I know. I talked with him a lot this trip. But regardless of whether you believe he is right or wrong in his theories, you will be forced to think about how you approach elearning design after you listen to him speak.
To begin with, Neil asserted that we are not trainers, but change behaviour specialists. He then proceeded to tear down several of the maxims surrounding instructional design, including Gagne’s 9 Events of Instruction, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and Keller’s ARCS model. His points were valid – the old way of instructional design does not necessarily apply to eLearning. I’ve always said it was a major paradigm shift and that bad eLearning is flat. Good eLearning designers can think multi-dimensional.
The Training Department, stated Neil, is simply the Performance Support Department, which is another thought-provoking turn of phrase if you’re in a large organization. Neil believes that rapid development is not of the material, but of the learners. As Change Behaviour Specialists, we need to rapidly develop our learners and support them in their learning with different just-in-time delivery methods. Of course, he had those handy. As he did last year, he talked about his InfoLearn tool. A nifty little gadget that acts like an interactive form of context-sensitive help. (As a help developer, this is the closest analogy I have.) He also mentioned some other great little tools, including Raptivity and Sculptoris Voices Lite.
Neil’s theory of ISD for eLearning is that the learning must first be attractive. It must then be highly focused, have "continuability," and provide the learner with the motivation to apply the knowledge.
After that, lunch and the rush to catch flights home. I know my notes can’t possibly communicate the impact of some of these speakers, most especially Bensoon and Neil. Can’t wait for next year!
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