video diary


business is the goal. But the answer isn’t always to champion more loudly the latest technology. It needs a mindset change and not least a new focus on ‘learners as consumers’. Dave Buglass, head of Organisational Capability and Development, Tesco Bank, explained his interpretation. “My view would be that suppliers could still probably do a little bit more to help companies understand more how the technology can benefit us. I still think we deploy content and platforms but don’t really understand what the learner consumer wants out of it. We don’t design experiences, we just design content and we chuck it out. We need to change that and think about what people actually want from us.”


Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of Learning Technologies, Plymouth


University, took the ‘consumer’ notion on a step. “Technology just being thrown in without changing the way we teach or instruct is a big mistake, you have to think about the new pedagogies. One of the new approaches I’ve started playing with is the idea learners can produce content and knowledge, they don’t just receive and consume it, they are ‘pro-sumers’ if you like.” Wheeler discussed how tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and social media, enable content sharing and crystallisation of knowledge. Through producing content, an individual is using and showing what they have learned, which through the process of sharing gets an audience, who contribute feedback to take the learning forwards. “People who read the content might comment and those comments might


include something the producer can learn from. It’s a cyclical process; sharing of knowledge is producing new knowledge, and then getting feedback. It becomes very discursive.”


Busting out of the silo Silo thinking still exists within the L&D, HR, Talent, Learning Tech space – businesses still aren’t talking to other areas of the business, never mind ensuring the user experience (UX) is seamless when it comes to the technology. ‘We only look after HR’, ‘Someone else manages the LMS’, ‘That’s the talent team’s role’, ‘Compliance take care of their own content on a different platform’…etc. Tesco Bank’s Dave Buglass believed such attitudes need turning on their head with learners as consumers. He continued: “Colleagues are the most important asset in any organisation. At the moment we have recruitment proposition, learning proposition, rewards and benefits, and work needs to be done to learn how these things connect up better. “People have phones and mobile devices, they come into work with these things and I don’t think we truly understand the impact that has on their working lives. My dream would be I can be coming into work and on my phone I can book a day’s holiday or check the latest courses or apply for jobs, it needs to be consumerised.” How do you achieve this though? Laura Overton, CEO and Founder, Towards Maturity, insisted it comes down to focusing on the business problem, and through understanding what top performing organisations do well, the silo mentality, almost unconsciously, gets phased out. “Top performing organisations don’t get captivated by the latest fad,” she said. “It isn’t the technology that is making the difference, it’s how people are thinking about the business needs and then using the right technology in the right place.” She identified four characteristics such organisations do well – focusing on the business need, being proactive in understanding how their staff learn, transforming learning and putting it at the heart of workflow and building the skills of their L&D teams – and urged companies to pick one as the corner of their L&D jigsaw. “You have to start somewhere. Focus on one and the rest will start to make


sense.” e.learning age april 2016 29


Playing a game is going to be just one aspect that drives a learning experience. The fundamental of our background is bringing engagement with content. The principles are exactly the same with learning games.


Dive in As ever, the importance of engagement, personalisation and immersion were never far from everyone’s lips, whether in terms of content or delivery. But the inexorable rise of mobile devices has transformed the focus Games were the biggest buzz this year – applying game design and


gamification principles to learning is going to revolutionise engagement and you couldn’t miss the games vibe, whether companies offering to gamify learning management, create learning games or both. However, the stampede to get into games has left varying degrees of credibility. Here are some expert views from industry leaders in games. Juliette Denny, MD, Growth Engineering, warned: “Gamification isn’t a


new thing, we’ve been playing games since the dawn of time. There are many companies now adding badges to things, but it’s really important you apply gamification in a way that’s right for your brand, what you stand for, your cultural goals, your visions and your values. I’d like to think moving forwards people were really trying to think about making a connection with learners to make a measurable difference in their lives.” As Adrian Smith, head of Production, Amuzo, Unicorn’s official games partner,


concurred, “Playing a game is going to be just one aspect that drives a learning experience. The fundamental of our background is bringing engagement with content. The principles are exactly the same with learning games.” Games are just another mechanism to make emotional connections in learning


and that is the key. As the two keynote speakers, internationally renowned training designer Cathy Moore and job improvement guru David Guralnick , agreed, connection and challenge is about generating intrinsic motivation in learners. In discussing ‘action mapping’ Moore said: “It would be more efficient and respectful to the learner to give them a challenge that has within it links to optional information so they can look at the information for help if they want, they can also just plunge in and sink or swim, it’s their choice. I’d like to see understanding of how adults work can be transferred into learning and development so we realise we don’t have to carefully feed them every little bit of information.” Guralnick added: “I do think we’re at the beginning of a good point of change.


We’re moving away from traditional methods of education where you’re repeating and memorising information. Really we want experiences people care about and will help them apply what they know on the job. We’re seeing more and more of that.”


So the e-learning industry is thriving but L&D is struggling to keep pace with technological change. Is the danger more faster horses, or is it now the risk of driving off in the flashiest new motor, that turns out to be expensive, impractical and spends most of its time in the garage? As Growth Engineering’s Denny concluded: “Next year I’d love to see more


innovation, more excitement, more emotional connection with the audiences and technology that’s really made a difference in terms of learning and behaviour. That isn’t what I saw this year.”


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