Feature
In search of the future
How Phil Reddall’s experience with VR made him reflect on the way innovation is introduced into learning and development
driving sports cars around a virtual world. It was truly immersive, but then, quite suddenly, I began feeling very ill. I was effectively suffering from travel sickness. I felt so bad that I decided to go for a walk along the beach to try and clear my head. I started to refl ect on the experience and the parallels that we face as learning professionals. Part of my day job is to bring learning innovation into the business, and that is often full of challenges: data protection, security concerns, learner readiness, cultural fi t, simple resistance to change, and even a simple lack of understanding can all be barriers to trying something new. Much like my experience with VR, what seems like an obvious improvement suddenly presents challenges. As learning professionals, I think it’s how we approach these challenges to new ways of doing things that will help us be successful and help us innovate. Change is said to be constant and I’d have to agree. Pressures on businesses, the needs of learners, and wider political and economic factors are all driving change at work. Translating that within the context of workplace learning is a challenge for
I
went to visit friends on the Isle of Wight recently. One of the things I got up to there was ‘experimenting’ with virtual reality (VR) technology, including spending some time
us as learning professionals and the ‘right’ answer will be different everywhere. In reacting to this change, and perhaps in some cases instigating it, I think we need some sort of framework if we are going to innovate. Let me offer an analogy… I need a reason to go and play a VR game again. Why would I play again when I felt so ill last time? What is it that will drive me to think that playing again and tackling that nausea is something worth doing? I think there are three simple factors that can help guide us: 1. What are the pressures on the business (our customer) is facing?
2. What are the emerging approaches to learning (within the full learning cycle)?
3. What is the business trying to achieve?
It may seem overly simple, but I’m a
great believer in that it can be far too easy these days to get lost in the complex language of our working lives. So now I have a really straightforward way of keeping an eye on what the future of learning might look like for me. You may already be starting to answer question two. But my advice is this: don’t ignore the other questions.
Not everything new comes easily and not every new approach immediately shows its value – you have to work at it. There may be barriers like the ones I mentioned earlier, and you’ll be better equipped to work through the challenges if you’ve answered questions one and three and know why you are looking to innovate or change something. For me, it won’t be my last experience of VR. As the chair of the eLearning Network (eLN), I’m keen to have personal experience of a technology with such potential, and through my network I know of businesses that really need highly engaging, immersive, realistic experience- based capability like that. So, for me, the ‘why’ is clear.
What about you? Change is constant, but do you know why? If you are at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition on 17 and 18 October at NEC Birmingham, then why not come along to the Learning Design Live Lounge and explore that question with the directors of eLN?
If you do that, I strongly believe you’ll make the most of your exploration of the emerging approaches to learning and development. n
Author
Phil Reddall Chair of eLearning Network
elearningnetwork.org
Learning Magazine | 15
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