It’s been a mad week (not going to change for a couple of weeks, yikes), what with presentations and breakfast bytes and events and… It was a great conference (people are even raving about the food)! Some quick thoughts while I spend time with family before my upcoming 1.5 weeks away:
There was a consistent theme in the keynotes, ones I naturally resonate with: creativity, change, and innovation. Sir Ken Robinson opened with a witty conversation on creativity and how we all need to cultivate it. It’s one of the elements in my notion of what a future curriculum needs to include. Paul Saffo talked about the changes that are occurring (and really suggested elearning is poised to be a real factor). Finally, Frans Johannsen talked about generating innovation from diversity.
Mobile is where games were 2 years ago, just at the top of the hill and gaining momentum for that downhill roll. The pre-conference symposium was great fun, listening to David Metcalf, Judy Brown, and Ellen Wagner showing great examples, talking about great principles, etc (and Steve Wexler and Brent Schenkler in there for the research). The audience really pitched in asking tough questions, coming up with great ideas, and really getting into it. While I underestimated the timing on my mobile design exercise, it’s one I think I can refine and have great fun with in the future.
Games are really steaming along. People are getting that learning has to have engagement, contextualization, be focused on meaningful change, etc. My session on the emotional side of elearning went well, the Immersive Learning Simulation challenge organized by Mark Oehlert was a hoot, with great stuff by Brent Smith and Anne Derryberry. The goal was to design a game to help convicts survive on the streets and not return to prison. It was really interesting to see how what we presented all mutually reinforced. It’d be a great team! More will be happening on this, such as Clive Shepherd taking a shot at it on Monday supposedly. When I get a moment, I’ll post my thoughts and approach. We’re hoping others will take a shot and start a discussion. Not necessarily on the particular topic, but using that as a way to catalyze discussion about how to design and implement serious games, er, ILS.
My session on elearning tools went really well, I thought, generating discussion about what purposes the tools serve. This despite the fact that the handouts were missing some graphics (grr), which I didn’t know about ’til afterward. People were so into it that they asked if there were a way to continue. I”ll be talking to the Guild about doing that.
There was a blogger’s bash Wed night, and Jay Cross invited some Knowledge Management bloggers from the KM World conference going on down the block. Had a very interesting conversation with Dave Snowden who has some rather revolutionary ideas that resonate, but I’ve got to digest them a bit more. Short version: all our categorization is useless, live in the moment ad hoc.
There may be more, but I’ve off to kid’s soccer tournaments, etc.
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