Conference 2008 >
Plenaries
| Learning: all change
|
|
|
Jay Cross, CEO, The Internet Time Group |
Time once rolled by at a leisurely pace but now rages along ever faster. There's always more to do and less time to do it. We can't plan ahead because the future is no longer predictable. Technology changes more in a month than it used to in a decade. A torrent of information and email impede progress and clog organisational arteries. Once-stable organisational structures are coming un-glued as the bottom takes over the top. Intangibles have become far more valuable than assets you can see. Young people entering the workforce have no patience for training or delay or irrelevancies.
Little wonder that three out of four organisations think their current approaches to learning and development are inadequate to keep workers knowledgeable and competitive.
The organisations that will thrive in the future are re-thinking how employees learn. They are taking control by giving control, becoming more limber, fostering collaboration, shortening cycle times, embracing network technology, and opening up learning opportunities to partners and customers.
|
| How the digital workspace will revolutionise learning
|
|
|
Nigel Paine, Managing Director, NigelPaine.com |
In this thought-provoking closing address, Nigel Paine, former Head of People Development at the BBC looks at how the e-learning model of the past decade is dissolving before our eyes.
The first wave of e-learning was based on a centralised model: people created content; it was allocated as a curriculum, and tracked and monitored by a central learning and development department. Even if that was not what actually happened, it was the aspiration: a digital analogy of the traditional physical training world.
In this world, the user accessed learning through a proscribed set of discrete, closed learning tools, each with its own aim. Basically the learner did what he or she was told.
But the digital workspace changes all that.
|
| Designing e-learning? Don't leave your brain at home!
|
|
|
Dr Itiel Dror, Senior Lecturer, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Southampton
|
If you want people to learn, you need to understand how they learn (that is, not only acquire information, but remember and use it!). In this stimulating presentation, Dr Itiel Dror demonstrates how the brain's cognitive architecture underpins learning. The lesson? Optimise your learning by fitting it to the brain.
Now, more than ever, argues Dr Dror, an understanding of this is essential in learning design. New learning technologies make it possible to deliver a great deal, but they also make it possible to fail spectacularly, especially if we focus on the technology rather than on the learner. He will show how seemingly small differences in the way learning materials are designed and delivered can make a huge difference to their effectiveness.
Dr Dror will cover:
• Key principles of how the brain encodes, remembers and uses information
• How to hit the learning nail on the head by focusing on the learner's perspective
• Avoiding cognitive overload by utilising correct mental representations
• Applying the theory: from PowerPoint to Serious Games
• Producing more learning with less effort from learners and designers
|
