As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was asked for my responses to questions about trends. What emerged in the resulting article, however, was pretty much contrary to what I said. I wasn’t misquoted, as I was used to set the stage, but what followed wasn’t what I said. What I saw was what I consider somewhat superficial evaluation, and I’d like to point to new school thinking instead.
So the article went from my claim about an ecosystem approach to touting three particular trends. And yet, these trends aren’t really new and aren’t really right! They were touting mobile, gamification, and the ‘realities. And while there’s nothing wrong with any of them, I had said that I didn’t think that they’re the leading trends.
So, first, mobile is pretty much old news. Mobile first? Er, it‘s only been 8 years or so (!) since Google declared that! What‘s cool about mobile, still, is sensors and context-awareness, which they don‘t touch on. And, in a repeated approach, they veered from the topic to quote a colleague. And my colleague was spot on, but it wasn’t in the least about mobile! They ended this section talking about gamification and AR/VR, yet somehow implied that this was all about mobile. That would be “no”.
Then they talked about users wanting to be active. Yay! But, er, again they segued off-topic, taking personalization before going to microlearning and back to gamification and game-based learning(?). Wait, what? Microlearning is an ill-defined concept, and conflating it with game-based learning is just silly. And games are real, but it‘s still hard to do them (particularly do them right, instead of tarted up drill-and-kill). Of course, they didn‘t really stay on topic.
Finally, the realities. Here they stayed on topic, but really missed the opportunity. While AR and VR have real value, they talked about 360 photography and videography, which is about consumption, not interaction. And, that‘s not where the future is.
To go back to the initial premise – the three big trends – I think they got it wrong. AI and data are now far more of a driver than mobile. Yes, AR/VR, but interaction, not just ‘immersion‘. And probably the third driver is the ecosystem perspective, with systems integration and SaaS.
So, I have to say that the article was underwhelming in insight, confused in story, and wrong on topic. It’s like they just picked a quote and then went anywhere they wanted. It’s old school thinking, and we’re beyond that. Again, my intention is not to continue to unpack wrong thinking (I’m assuming that’s not what you’re mostly here for, but let me know), but since this quoted me, I felt obliged. It’s past time for new school thinking in L&D, because focusing on content is, like, so last century.
Leave a Reply