Quick Conference Thoughts
I promise I’ll blog more about the conference and my favorite sessions next week. Right now I’m still in Las Vegas, looking forward to a Super Bowl party at the Mirage. However, I wanted to get some impressions blogged before they leave me and I need to start referring to notes.
First off, ASTD TechKnowledge went out of its way to hit you over the head with two things: Informal Learning and Web 2.0. These aren’t new concepts for me, and I pretty much evangelize both whenever I can. I don’t think the Informal Learning concept is difficult either. But I think that when you have a bunch of people who are finally adapted to our current world of eLearning, telling them they need to move forward to Web 2.0 tools and let the learner take control, well … it’s going to sink pretty darn fast. It’s just too much information at once.
I cannot tell you how many times I was stopped in the hallways and asked to define Web 2.0. The concept of the Web evolving and moving forward is getting tangled up in all sorts of other things. I’ll define it in another post here in a minute.
I will say that my two favorite speakers were Jay Cross (& Company) and Lance Dublin. I’ve never heard Lance speak before. He didn’t say anything I didn’t already know, but I was blown away by his in-your-face presentation style. I was incredibly disappointed in Bob Pike, who attempted to tie his wonderful public speaking skills into a webinar demonstration (presumably to fit in with the Tech of TechKnowledge) and sank like a lead balloon. The Thursday morning keynote was an academic-type speaker who referenced, among other things, his thesis. Quite boring. The Learning Labs, which I helped lead, seemed to go over well, at least for the eLearning Developers and Instructional Designer sections. (To all those in my ISD Learning Lab, I will update the Wiki when I’m back in the real world on Tuesday. I promise.)
So, I’m off to see desert-loving penguins at the Flamingo and then head on to the Super Bowl party. May your favorite team win!
