Devlearn 2020 Day 1 Recap

Devlearn will always be my favorite learning and development conference. I will never forget the feeling I felt after I presented at Devlearn for the first time. It’s a special memory that I will always cherish. This year Devlearn moved online and since I won’t be able to have those hallway conversations I enjoy so much, I plan on sharing my takeaways from this year. Please note that sadly I didn’t get to see a session for each timeslot as I was multi-tasking throughout the day. I did also “flip” through some sessions so here are some of my observations.

Session 113 - Case Study: Building a Digital Escape Room Joseph Vajda

Any time I can get a look under the hood of how someone builds a learning experience, I’m going to take them up on it. This session reminded me of a long Demofest pitch. Joseph walked through the use case for building an escape room, some of the key decisions made, and screenshots of it. It’s clear he did a lot outside of Articulate Storyline to make this escape room including using Vyond characters, some 3d modeling, and coding. Since I was mostly curious about the tools I ended up going over to Nick Floro’s session but this was a nice look at a creative project. 

Session 115- Trends in Learning Today: Where Should I Focus? Nick Floro

If you ever have the opportunity to hear Nick Floro speak, do it. Seriously. Not only is he one of the nicest people I’ve ever met but he also works with so many learning technologies. In this session, Nick actually sorted the learning technologies into categories such as content, gamification, personal learning network, personalization, experiences, and beyond the screen. In each one of these sections, Nick does what he does best, explain a learning technology and show you how he uses it. 

One of the highlights for me was Nick sharing a look at how he used feedback in a project he did for an organization. Feedback doesn’t get enough love and attention and it’s great to see something this robust out in the wild.

One last mic drop from Nick:

“Technology is a tool, use it to connect the dots and create experiences.”

Nick was kind enough to share his entire presentation

Session 123- How Scenarios, Assessments, and Feedback Can Reduce Learner Overconfidence Bryan Smith

So last year Bryan almost made me cry before my Devlearn presentation. Let me explain. He came in as I was prepping for my session and told me I was one of the people he was most excited to meet at Devlearn. Me. I couldn’t believe it either but since then, I’ve enjoyed getting to know Bryan better and following his L&D journey. When the proposals to speak at Devlearn were open for this year, I told Bryan he should get on it. He shared his proposal with me and I gave him some feedback and was super excited when he got accepted. As a first time Devlearn speaker, I wanted to show up to support Bryan plus I thought his topic was interesting. The theme of Bryan’s presentation was about overconfidence in learning. How do you know if someone really “knows” something or they “think” they know something? Bryan did an incredible job engaging with the audience as well as fielding questions about feedback and assessment. I appreciated what he said about the beginner’s bubble, as illustrated in this screenshot:

After the presentation, I recorded myself clapping and standing up and sending it to Bryan. I know how hard he and other presenters have worked on these presentations. I also will never forget the feeling when I received a standing ovation at my Devlearn presentation and I wanted to give Bryan the same.

Session 134 - ON-DEMAND: The Things You're Doing in Your vILT Are Making You Hate Your vILT! Kassy Laborie

Like Nick Floro, if you ever have the opportunity to hear Kassy speak, DO IT! Not only is she one of my favorite people to giggle with, but I walk away from a Kassy Laborie session with something I can take immediate action on. Today’s big takeaway has to be about clicking on the features while communicating. It’s something so simple but something I’ve never considered.

By clicking on features while you communicate, it reinforces what you are doing. Thank you as always for such great nuggets, Kassy!

Networking via the conference platform

So I'm a little bit weird but I did pick up some new connections during Devlearn today. An interesting one is Carol North, whose almost my name twin! How did we become connected? I told her we should be friends :)

On tap for tomorrow more awesome sessions. If you are attending, please pop into my After Hours Buzz Session on Accessibility and Inclusion. I haven't done one of these sessions since Learning Solutions 2019 but I'm excited to chat with folks about this topic and learn with them. I've also put together a resource table that I'll be sharing after the session :)

So what about you? What were your #DDX takeaways? Share them below or even better, write your own recap. Since we aren't able to have hallway discussions this year, let's share what we learn together :)