Monday, October 29, 2012

It's DEVLEARN Week!!! Embracing Technologies for Training and Development

 
It's monday and it's DEVLEARN week! I'm probably looking forward to this DevLearn more than any other.  Of course, it's bitter sweet since it will be my last as the program manager for the event. 
I'll be posting more on that later.

DevLearn 2012 is about Embracing Technologies for Training & Development.  Part of that also includes the fact that Technology is embracing US! The Training & Develpment industry has no choice but to change and adapt with emergence of such wonderful technologies like the iPad (and now the mini iPad), the cloud, better and smaller cameras, and video cameras, and the list goes on.

With such a massive wave of technology hitting us all, it's ALSO important that we do not forget the human elements of training and development.  It's very easy to get excited about new technologies and to see the many educational uses they provide.  And for a high tech conference like DevLearn you'd think we would fall into that trap as well.  But as the pendulum begins to swing too far towards the technology side of learning, I begin to see our responsibility as one of bringing it back to center by talking ALSO remembering the human side of learning. 

My hope for DevLearn 2012 is that we can begin to bring the communities of instructor-led learning and the communities of tech-based learning together and bridge the gap.  There is no one right answer.  We are all in this business for the same reasons.  Let's enjoy this week and celebrate the unique human elements we all bring to Training & Development.
 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Don't forget to integrate social learning: people learning from each other far from work or school. Things like MOOCs and professional associations go a long way towards enabling life-long learning. Sure, technology has a place. But learning (like soylent green) is people. Learning is people.

Ara Ohanian said...

Brent, I’m sure that despite hurricane Sandy affecting travel arrangements DevLearn will be another great success this year. I absolutely agree that in any such conference we should be talking as much about the learning and human side of our field as we do about the technological development side. Without people, technology achieves nothing. A big thank you from the learning technologies community for your part in building up this great event, and best wishes to you for the future.

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