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Trends at Learning Technologies 2018

Podcasts and Audio | 20.02.2018

As the dust settles on Learning Technologies 2018 the team discusses what caught their eye, key themes and what they want to see at next years’ show.

Paul Westlake  0:00  

Welcome to Kineo stream thought. I'm Paul Westlake solutions consultant at Kineo. And today we'll be reviewing Learning Technologies 2018.

I'm pleased to say I'm joined by 

Andy Costello  0:17  

Andy Costello account director,

Seth Dickens  0:19  

Seth Dickens, senior lead learning designer,

Tom Duffelen  0:22  

Tom Duffelen learning platforms consultant.

Paul Westlake  0:24  

So I guess the best place to start is explaining what learning technologies 2018 is, for us, it's probably the biggest week of our year, but aware that people from maybe overseas won't be fully aware of the show. So, Andy, maybe you want to give us a quick potted history of what learn tech is?

Andy Costello  0:41  

Thank you. I'm pretty qualified for the history having been in the industry for far too long now. So yeah, I joined Learn Technologies about sort of 18 years ago, actually. So 2000, my first learning technologies was probably about nine years ago, it has grown massively. So it's a, it's our biggest international conference. It's also a floor of exhibitions and stands where learning technology providers will get together and demonstrate and talk about their latest innovations and, and really see and start to steer where the industry is going.

Paul Westlake  1:11  

And I guess we sort of split that into a few parts, don't we? So we have the main exhibition, if you like, where, as you say, people show, not just what they've been working on, but maybe where they think things are going and and showcase some of their previous work. But also, there's a sort of parallel thread where there's sort of a conference upstairs. I know, Seth, you went to some of the conference sessions that maybe we could talk about a bit later on.

Seth Dickens  1:32  

Yeah, yeah, sure thing that there's quite a few really good sessions upstairs that are separate to the stuff downstairs. They have kind of invited speakers and stuff who are giving some really great forward thinking ideas to get you considering ways to keep on developing the sort of learning and things like that that we're making here.

Paul Westlake  1:54  

Yeah, it's always interesting when you've got the upstairs talking about what might be coming almost what we're going to see on the exhibitions next year, or maybe the year after that. So I think sometimes people come down and look at the exhibition and think, Well, I'm not seeing what they're talking about upstairs. But that's kind of natural, I guess.

Seth Dickens  2:08  

Yeah, I think I think one of the things about it is, is this idea that it's giving you a bit more, it's broadening your horizons, rather than what's what's happening right now, or what what is immediately coming up, they have downstairs, this is more, opening your mind getting you to try and creatively think about new things to offer in perhaps the medium term.

Andy Costello  2:27  

Yeah, I was gonna add that sometimes they never do see what they're talking about upstairs. Because of the nature of the business. Sometimes, you know, there are great ideas that spring from upstairs, but it just never able to, to be come to fruition because of you know, the industry moves on or it doesn't move on, or there are different advances in technology, or innovation or budgets just aren't there. And it's interesting to see that in some in many ways. The conversations I was having with clients with a lot of people say just nothing has changed. Because ultimately, learning is learning. It's just how people are learning, which has changed. I think that's what we're going to talk about more today.

Paul Westlake  3:02  

Okay, so let's get on to that. Now then. So what did we see that was maybe fresh or new, maybe if we pick maybe one thing each that we picked up on or interested us, I'll give it a go only from layman's terms, because you're far more technologically savvy than I am Tom. So please shut me down, correct me if I'm wrong, for my temptation of an ecosystem is that it's a it's a connection of an array of anything and everything, interconnected resources, of which one thing may be a learning management system. And other thing might be a library of assets. And other thing, maybe whole CSM system, whatever it might be. The ecosystem is basically a place where people learn and what it is doing. It's it's hopefully trying to bring learning on demand into the workplace. So it's not about having a destination, people go to and are therfore tracked and forced into mandatory learning or pushed information. It's giving them the ability to come and pluck information and learning when they need it as they need it From the very nature of what you've just described there. Surely many of our clients already have parts of an ecosystem in place. Are you saying that maybe they just need to think about how they map out and identify what's missing? 

Andy Costello  4:08  

Yeah, I think it's more about how we learn in everyday life. And yet there is a distance between some reason how we learn everyday life and how we do it in the workplace. I was in a job some years ago, and we were on a work bonding session. And the team were tasked to do an activity and there was collective groan when all of us realised we couldn't do it. And then the newest member of the team went on Google found out how to do it. And we won the task. And of course, we do this everyday at home, we forgot something we need to do mend leaky chat, whatever it is, we go on Google, we find out how to do it. And in the workplace. We go, Oh, I haven't done anything about this. I don't know. I need to go on a course or I need to, you know, and actually, if you can somehow replicate, im not suggesting you can replicate an internal Google into workplace but yes, have an intelligent connection of all your learning assets and resources. And we start thinking like we do outside of work, which is an easy information out, let's get it then you get it and you'll better do what it is. 

Paul Westlake  4:56  

Is that the sort of thing you were saying, Tom?

Tom Duffelen  4:58  

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people wanting it to be done within systems. I saw a cracking talk on the learning ecosystem. And I felt it looked at it from a much more holistic point of view rather than a single piece of technology point of view, or a joined up piece of technology point of view. And I think it's very interesting when a large part of my job is to gather requirements from customers, when we create a new learning management system for them. And part of gathering that requirement is fully understanding their current learning model and learning ecosystem, if you like. Now, I think a really good way of explaining it is a lot of a lot of clients, certainly not not all clients, but a lot of clients might see their learning, comprising of, you know, their internal company learning comprising of elearning, and instructor led training. So web based training, instructor led training, 

Paul Westlake  5:51  

and they trying to shoehorn in social because that was a  cool thing two years ago, 

Tom Duffelen  5:54  

yeah, so they they kind of a shoehorn social maybe into that, but, but generally, people would look at stuff as in leave a web based or instructor led. And I think that goes back to the start of web based training. And I suppose, typically, we've seen a balance of that go from instructor led to web based over time. And I think an ecosystem actually is looking at at the whole model and looking at how you incorporate every single bit of learning that people do into one system. And I think looking at that, just from an understanding point of view from from a holistic point of view is really interesting, because you mentioned googling stuff. I mean, especially can't formalise, googling something, but it is part of an ecosystem, using using a search engine is part of somebody's learning, you know, if I have, if I'm going to formula, you know, formula in Excel document at work, and I don't know how to put a certain formula in, I'm just going to Google how to do that. 

Andy Costello  6:48  

But isn't that the whole point of what of how people are learning, which is people are wanting learning on demand at the point of need, and I know  that's often been talked about for many, many years, we just haven't been able to provide an ecosystem is, it's about giving that so people are coming into work into the workplace. Now the industry now these guys and girls, they're going to be experienced and used to finding information as and when they need it when whenever they need it. That's not traditionally how people have learned in the workplace. And that's what I think people need to now recognise, and therefore hopefully replicate.

Paul Westlake  7:17  

Yeah, I mean, if I can, if I can come in there, because one of the key topics or key threads that I saw throughout learn tech this year was very much talk around artificial intelligence and machine learning. Which, if you take what Tom saying there about how many different parts or components there are this whole ecosystem, put it all together? And you've said about searching? And how do we find this stuff? Well, this is almost the layer above that, which is, well, we know there's a load of information there. How do I find the learning that's right for me. And that's fine. If I'm just playing devil's advocate here. But you said about Google, Google's fine if I know what I'm searching for. But I think what these guys are trying to say is, well, what if that person doesn't know what they're searching for at this point? How do they find it? How do we deliver the training out for them? So i watched a really interesting presentation by the guys at IBM, talking about Watson. So I don't pretend to know exactly how this technology works. But ultimately, it's a machine learning engine that sits in the background and does a whole load of number crunching based on information it's got and then almost offers up personalised training for people. And what I found really cool about it was that, you know, it doesn't matter which LMS you've got which system you've got, how your what your ecosystem looks like, the Watson engine could sit in the back of that and do all of that thinking, if you like for everybody. And I think what was quite interesting was that the second you say AI, it was it was almost a word association game. We mean like Alexa. I mean, like Amazon, when it tells me I've ordered a pillow, therefore in need to order a pillowcase. That wasn't what they were talking about at all. They were saying that stuff is so shallow, branching if you like, it's not actually that intelligent. See talking more about a curation tool almost as curating relevant information, not not talking about those the aggregation tools that are out there that sometimes claimed to be curation tools. It's actually more intelligent. Yeah, yeah. So if I could give you an example. So what I saw was, if I've been in industry for I dont know 15 years, and I've gotten it, I've got my account on the LMS. So it knows all of the training I've done. Okay, that's great. But what it then did was, okay, here's your current job, what your aspirations are, where do you want to actually try and get to, and obviously, it knows what skills I need or credentials, I need to be able to hit that new role. But then it says, Okay, well, you're on Twitter an awful lot as well, though, and you do lots of Google searches. And you do this Oh, and in your previous job, you did this, this, this or this. So he knows a lot about  everywhere I am, and import all of that information together. And it creates a learning plan based on that and then go further than that. It then says, Well, actually, based on your previous five courses you did you tend to get better results first time when you watch the video first. So for you, I'm going to serve up the video first. Seth, I know you get better results when you read something. So you know what for you, I'm going to give you a document to read instead, which really quite fascinating. 

Andy Costello  10:07  

I think it's really powerful, I think as well, that can be really useful for career development as not just learning development. But, you know, imagine if you could then plot your career path and say, okay, you want to get to this level of the business, you need to get to be doing this, this and this, and I would really recommend you do it in this order, whatever.

Paul Westlake  10:23  

And if I can just almost like you're planted there. But that was another level of it. So what they had on there was, here's my role, I'm hearing lots about these roles. So I'm, I don't know, let's say I'm an HR manager, and I want to move into the training side of things. It knows what skills I've currently got, it knows what skills I currently need, it told me how close I was to those skills, and recommended other courses or other bits of learning or other assets I'm wanting to look at that helped me move towards aspirational role. And in IBM's case, I took it one step further, because I then actually linked that off to live job postings great where people can actually apply for a role within that company. And they said that their attrition rates are dropping through the floor, because people are thinking, Well, I'm not bored in my job if I am lets find another role in the same company. 

Andy Costello  11:10  

I remember being involved in a project two years ago for another company, creating something from scratch for a large financial organisation that did this. And it was excruciating, expensive and painful to do, because of course, you're hand crafting everything. And this sounds like it does all that for you. So yeah.

Paul Westlake  11:25

Just just one final thing that I would add to that. And I think it's quite key. And that is, this isn't about buying another system off the shelf and dishing everything you've got exactly what was really cool was, this is a technology that will enhance what you've already got. So if we go back to the idea of what Tom said about ecosystems, you know, this is just one of those pieces that sits there and serves some of this stuff up. And I think that's kind of key, because every time I go to learn tech year after year, it's, here's the learning system management system you need. So chuck everything else in the bin, lets start again, people don't want to do that theyve invested a lot of time and energy and money into that, where we can add value to systems that people already have in place. I think in a lot of cases, that's where that's what people are winning. It's very similar with the I know, there's a lot of talk about off the shelf content. Which which is interesting. Because, yeah, last year was all around people developing stuff in house. So

Andy Costello  12:19

yeah, well, just go back to what you're saying, Yeah, the learning management system, it's they don't want to buy another destination, the learning management system may be one part of an ecosystem of the shell content, maybe another small part of the ecosystem, it's all about creating or curating these things you've already got integrating them and maybe getting more but providing a system where people can go to very, very quickly, very intuitive and get everything they need.

Seth Dickens  12:43  

There's a big company that we're working with here, actually Kineo who are doing exactly that they're not ditching all the amazing learning that they've developed over the previous few years, they've got a new, a new system to kind of wrap it all up. And they're developing new little bits of content to then tie it together, build a really nice kind of flow all through the the really good stuff that they've built over the years. You know, what, what's the point of ditching it because actually adding to what you're saying, Paul, I think it's exactly that it's it's getting new ideas in influencing what you've got already, because the searching for a formula for Excel that is always going to be there that sort of need. So you know, we better recognise how things actually work in the real world. 

Andy Costello  13:24  

So are they calling that an ecosystem? Because this is the term the buzz phrase of the industry the moment and that's what this all comes down to for this? 

Seth Dickens  13:30  

Yeah, you know what, actually, I've never heard that mentioned by them, but it's doing that sort of thing. 

Andy Costello  13:36  

Yeah, great. It just shows you there are buzzwords that stick and some that maybe aren't as usual,

Paul Westlake  13:40  

Seth, maybe we will bring you this point, because you you've probably spent more time than maybe the other three of us, literally looking around and sort of feeling the the vibe of the place what people are talking about what the buzz was, and certainly you're upstairs in the conference as well. So what what tended to be stuff that peaked your interest upstairs?

Seth Dickens  14:00  

Well, upstairs, I I went there, to be honest with a bit of an open mind. It's always so good. There's always so much stuff to take, take in and show over. What I saw that there was a real sort of emphasis on evaluation this year, which is really interesting. Personally, you know, I think for a few years now, I've been wondering, you know, why don't we actually test and figure out if this stuff is that we're building is actually kind of hitting the nail on the head and, and getting those results that companies are investing so much for. And so recently at Kineo, we have been looking into doing a new way of evaluation, you know, actually getting evaluation into courses. And there was an awful lot upstairs about that one talk in particular, had some really interesting things, talking about the whole kind of Kirkpatrick stuff and you know that to be honest, that it's time to ditch that we've tried, we've been hitting away and nobody is doing it. No one's going above that first level of, you know, are the learners happy or maybe you know other people who are commissioning the learning happy. So there's a whole new, quite good practical way of, of actually getting evaluation into the learning, which is something that we're now going to be looking into, to rolling into a lot more of our standard courses that we're building.

Paul Westlake  15:18  

I was just going to ask you that, So tell me they're moving away from Kirkpatrick levels three and four? And if so, how are they? Are they're examples of how they're, they're measuring a return on investment. That's the big one. People, as you say, people can easily measure whether a learner is happy or impressed by the learning, you can also tend to measure how speedily somebody, you know, raise their competence level. And you should probably be able to measure long term performance. But the big one everybody talks about thing is number four, which is, you know, business interest. return on  investment. Did they talk about that?

Seth Dickens  15:48  

Yeah, they did. And actually, one of the things they said, like with any model, but I thought was really interesting that we shouldn't be ditching Kirkpatrick because it's useless, or we or old, or whatever, we should be ditching Kirkpatrick because it's not happening. So the those same four levels, they're important and in like with any model, you need to have the levels are there almost as kind of a label. So you know, we have that ADDIE model, which is the instructional design model. And that's because you've got to do a bit of analysis, you've got to do some design, etc, etc. And the, the Kirkpatrick levels are there to say, it is important to check that the learners are happy, it's important to check that you're you're getting improved performance. So all of those things need to stay behind. But what they've done is a far more granular way, far, far easier to sort of apply to each stage, I can't remember it was maybe even 72 little things that you've got to do. So obviously, in a standard for 70. There's a big box at the end. 

Andy Costello  16:49  

But I think there's a really good point you're making is that that those levels of evaluation are now inherently put into the learning design as they should be. So we are looking at measuring that we're ensuring that we follow those guiding principles, when we design something, we make sure that the learner is going to be happy, exactly measurable things, we can get the benefit back of it. But therefore, retrospectively, people are doing these things, because there's a need, and that we're saying is that there's now another kind of guiding principle to help them.

Paul Westlake  17:18  

If I could chip in at that second. Maybe pick up something you just said there Andy, it's all about, we should have in mind, you know, what we are trying to achieve what difference we're trying to make what changes we're trying to make in people's behaviour. For example, one of the things that I noticed, and I know, Tom you might want to come in at this point as well, was that there was an awful lot of VR, again this year, and what in inverted commas, the cool stuff. I wonder if I actually saw anything that was meeting those needs that you're talking about? Andy rather than just lots of examples of, doesn't this stuff look cool?

Tom Duffelen  17:56  

Yes, I agree. I saw plenty of companies offering VR. And I actually had a go on a couple and one of them was exactly the same as they were doing last year. I mean, actually the same  demo, which which was a good demo, but it just shows that perhaps it's not moving on that quickly, 

Paul Westlake  18:15  

or the industry isn't looking at that demo. Okay, for my business, I could do something similar to achieve x.

Andy Costello  18:22

Yeah, well, isn't it more that there were there's always been for the last few years a stand with some VR on it, which has been the thing to be fair, which has enticed a lot of people onto those stands to have a play on something. So a lot of the traditional providers have had a VR provision on the stand. But what the difference is this year is that there are actually VR companies that are now demoing an exhibition exhibiting at learning technology. So they have they have now entered into the Learning Technology Industry themselves, rather than just sort of partnering somebody up. And

Paul Westlake  18:48

yeah, kind of I'll play devil's advocate a little bit there, because I would, I would argue that I would put that I totally agree with what you're saying. But I would put them in the same bracket. As for example, this year, something I saw, I thought was very different was lots of animation companies, lots of video production companies, not training companies. They were companies that offered an element that were probably really difficult for people to do in house. So there's a lot of talk about in house development teams taking learning back in house. In fact, I watched an excellent presentation from three companies in the conference upstairs, which is exactly about that. In every case, all three of those companies identified. Yes, we don't do it all in house, but we know our limits. We know we can't do the high end, high end video stuff, we wouldn't know where to start with VR. And we probably bring someone in to do animations for example. So I think the VR companies that are there have the technology and are showing off the technology but don't necessarily at this stage have the learning designers is that unfair? 

Andy Costello  19:49  

Yeah I think so that you're right. They're they're experts in their own field and I know 

Paul Westlake  19:52  

which is great for us because it means we can partner with those companies

Andy Costello  19:55  

this is it and two the to the you know, the big learning providers that I know of With personal experience have done that they've either acquired or have partnered specialists in that in that sphere rather than necessarily investing in the capability and serving themselves. It's a big, expensive thing to do to get rights. But yes, I think you're right. I think that people that do that maybe don't necessarily specialise in learning design, it's about creating the asset.

Seth Dickens  20:18  

 And you know what, I don't want to be the doom monger here, guys. But I took a look at some of the VR stuff that was going on. There was one guy in particular that was demonstrating a really kind of cool bit of VR stuff, you could see what was going on. But it was really weird as an outsider to look at this guy rolling around on the floor with a conference full of people all walking around, it's like, hey, there's real human beings here that you could be learning from, you could be chatting to connecting with, and yet you're in this kind of otherworldly state. And I wonder, actually, if this could ever take off in the real world

Paul Westlake  20:53  

I think there are clear examples where I can absolutely see it being the only option, for example, you know, I'm fixing an undersea oil rig. You know, it's very hard to do that you say for safety is an issue. And obviously, if you look, historically, you've got flight simulators, realistically, what they are is almost a big virtual environment, a big simulation without a headset on. So I get your point. However, it can feel a little bit stilted at times where it's, this is cool, we need to try and make it fit rather than how can we not solve this problem well, maybe VR can solve that for us. 

Seth Dickens  21:28  

Yeah. So you don't, you don't want to be kind of thinking of the the the everyday soft skills training, where you can have some really cool stuff happening with video with and with all sorts of other ideas. But you know, disconnecting people sticking a set of, of goggles on them to Yeah, to remove them really from the actual reality.

Andy Costello 21:47  

I think that's right, just just to finish off that point. We've got our partners, we partner, Macromedia, whove done exactly that with a big energy firm, when you're working on a nuclear reactor, perfect, safe. And it's realistic. And I remember seeing a piece where the nuclear reactor itself is vast, or that the piece of work they were doing as a piece of vast machinery, and actually they're working on something very small. And then when they see the final piece, it goes to its normal size. But so to back to your origional point, yes. Was it more of a kind of a VR that was there at attention grabber getting people onto the stands, getting people talking? But how much worth Is it really have in  learning provision at that event?

Paul Westlake  22:21

So just obviously bring this back to sort of learn tech overall. So it felt much busier, busier and bigger than normal to me, Andy, do you, would you agree with that 

Andy Costello  22:32  

 Its vast, it's getting bigger and bigger, bigger. And of course, that's, that sort of kind of suggests certain things. One is that the industry is getting more competitive than ever, which is a challenge for us. But one I think we thrive on and we look forward to, but there are means there were other people kind of there. And I know there was there was more kind of presence of recruitment agencies there this year, which I think says you know,  growth industry, talent acquisition, people are looking now to recruit within these conferences, whereas before, I know we would sit in the stand, we will stand on the stand and people come up and say, Hi, can I give you my CV? Are there any jobs going and it was kind of a one of those conversation we go, not really, what we're here about now you've got stands with recruitment agencies that are actually spending a lot of money going there and seeing it as a,

Paul Westlake  22:33  

 and teams that are bringing recruitment staff along with them. I mean, that might be something we want to consider in a future event, you know, you've got those people there. It's a captive audience. They're looking for that job, let's just talk directly to them. 

Seth Dickens  23:27  

And you know, what, with the size of it, actually, I think if anyone listening to this is planning on going to one of these events next year,

Paul Westlake  23:33  

 don't don't go to where it was this year, because it was now there thats the first thing 

Seth Dickens  23:37  

I think it's always good to go there with with a purpose, you know, to not just go down, go around and sort of baffled look at everything. I went there trying to look out for stuff to do with video this year, because it's you know, it's a, it's a specialism that we're, we're really working on here. Yeah, it's a personal passion as well. And I think that that, but you know, not, not the video for me, but necessarily, but just going there with an idea to go and look out for that, because it is so huge, you can just get lost wandering around otherwise. So if you go there, searching for something specific, you can actually get a bit more out of it. So for example, I found a couple of video providers that I thought were really was a really good example of the good and bad way of doing video for learning. So there's this one company, that's a specialist video company, they just make it they just make video for learning. had some really great ideas. You know, it was again, it was all about the human. It's all about that kind of anthropological connecting with people getting some emotion interfit stuff the guy was talking about, you know, we should be you know, so much of the video that we're making is all about the head, but actually you got to get the heart into it. You get that? Yeah, it was great stuff. On the flip side of that, I saw another company making interactive video, which, in all honesty, it was shocking. It was really it was just poor kind of a bunch of flashy things thrown together. A bunch of buttons that would come up on screen and kind of interrupt the whole flow of the learning. It was like an old fashioned page turner course but done in video,

Paul Westlake  25:08  

I'm just going to say you what you're describing there was the page turner course with, we need to make this interactive. Let's Chuck a drag and drop in. Yeah. And it felt but that was, you know, that was the early days. You know, look where we've got to now. And I think you're right, I think video will go the same way. There'll be lots of trial and error. And I mean, actually, why are we doing this? Yeah. 

Andy Costello  25:26  

You know, bells and whistles for bells and whistles sake

Paul Westlake  25:29  

yeah. I mean, and I don't think we should lose sight of fact, with any piece of video really, if you look at if you look at the news, even these days, so there's a lot of footage on there. Is shot on video, Is shot mobiles, excuse me, not great quality. It's all about the sound because people have got to be is the sound is isn't as important as the visuals.

Andy Costello  25:50  

and dare I say it's about this is a cliche. It's about the storytelling, isn't it? Yeah. Like Yeah, getting that emotion, the hearts and minds. And you can do that. Through a lot of media, not just also fairly expensive, relatively expensive. Video Production is know somebody that's just released a movie shot entirely on iPhone. Yeah, it is now but that'd be interesting

Paul Westlake  26:08

not a shot on iPhone, but it was edited on the iPad. So

Seth Dickens  26:10  

there you go. That is exactly what we're doing here as well, you know, and this, this guy from the good video standards was also saying you don't always need us, you know, you don't always need this 1000s of pounds worth of video, something that we're doing here is actual like little one minute bits of video speaking to key people in the company, encouraging our clients themselves to go, you know, to go and chat to people getting little snippets and wrapping it in. 

Paul Westlake  26:36  

Okay, well, obviously this conversation going a long time, we could go around every stand and say what we didn't didn't see and what we would like to we didn't like, I think maybe it'd be really nice for us to end. Sorry to put you on the spot here, guys, but maybe end with one message or one theme did you pick up on this year that you expect to see maybe as a real growth for the industry, maybe excel next year, maybe the following year. Andy maybe you want to take that first. 

Andy Costello  27:04  

I new you were going to say me, I don't know whether this is going to be true. But what I would like to see refreshingly is a little less so less about the thing. You know, the gimmick dare I say the the next big thing less of that a more about guys, what is it, this is about what people learn, we talked about emotion quite a bit. Today, we talked about giving people learning at the point of need, when they need it. You know, performance supports how we learn in real life, how we learn in real life now is about using a search engine, we don't need masses of expense VR simulations. So I'd like to see more of a focus on the learner. And I know what we do here, we take very seriously is putting the learner at the heart of the learning, it's going to be the learner that's driven and inspired. Do you need masses of expense and investment and technology to do that? I'm not so sure. 

Seth Dickens  27:53  

So I'm really gutted. Because Andy has said more or less Exactly what I was thinking. So what I'm going to say instead is that evaluation. So obviously, we've got to make sure it's not all about the flashy, flashy bling bling. It's not it's got to be about the learner. And to do that, we've got to set out thinking right from the very beginning, you know, how are we going to make sure that this great idea focused on the learner is going to work? So thinking about a bit of evaluation, thinking about what are the real aims and objectives and making sure that at every step of the learning journey, it's measurable. And you can see, yes, someone someone's achieved something, and they're able to, to show that

Andy Costello  28:32  

And  measurably show that demonstration that. Yeah, sorry. Seth inspires me. Sorry to Tom 

Tom Duffelen  28:37  

so yeah, my biggest takeaway, I think, was, this is a bit left field from some some stuff we've been talking about, but the app based app based learning, right, so we're I'm working on app projects, selling app projects. And I think typically, the app projects I'm getting in at the moment, are people who are putting their own content that they've had historically onto an app. And I think the thing that I'm anticipating changing is how people consume learning on that, it's gonna be a lot shorter, I think no more than five minutes for a video no more than 10 for a piece of learning at maximum. If you're then having such short bits of content, we have to be thinking about how we dish out that content. Which brings us all the way back to the ecosystem back to the stuff you're saying Seth and Andy, where we're, we're personalising it for people, you know, we're delivering it to people maybe delivering it just to the app rather than in any other learning management system.

Andy Costello   29:26  

So just stay close to the phrase micro learning, which is all about 2017. But we've moved on.

Paul Westlake  29:32

So for me, I think that where the real growth area is going to be is around actually putting into practice the machine learning and the AI stuff that I saw this year. So as I said, I got an idea of where this could go. But imagine this going full full circle and going back to making truly personalised learning. I don't just mean suggesting courses to people, if you broke those courses down into almost chapters or even smaller segments than that, where it's dynamically creating content based on the way you learn and what you need to do. The guys at Filtered are working on something very similar. But imagine people being able to do exactly that and creating courses for you based around your specific need. And I think that for me is something that I'm going to be watching very closely next year.

Paul Westlake  30:23

If you'd like to carry on the conversation, you can catch up with us on twitter where we're @Kineo. I'm pleased to say the following on from learn check, we will again be offering a week of webinars this year, they run from the 26th February to the 2nd March, feel free to sign up on kineo.com

Seth Dickens  30:37  

I'm doing one of them as well.


Your speakers are


As Head of Customer Solutions, Andy leads the Kineo EMEA sales team and brings a 20-year industry track record of Learning Technology expertise. Andy is passionate about driving exceptional customer service and develops close partnerships with clients, ensuring they achieve success not only for standalone projects but long-term strategic goals. Andy also plays a key role in consulting on projects and account relationships across Kineo, is regularly featured on our podcasts, and is a sought after speaker at industry events.
Paul was previously a Solutions Consultant at Kineo.
Seth has been creatively using technology for training since 2002. As a Lead Learning Designer at Kineo, he tries to give people control of their learning experience. A big fan of constructivist and humanistic styles of training, Seth facilitates learning through discovery, collaboration, learners’ own stories and discussion.
With a background in education, Tom implements effective Totara Learn solutions across a broad range of business and government sectors. He also provides onsite Totara training.