Top 7 Takeaways from LearnX Sydney #eLearning

The #LearnX conference was on this week (June 9th – 10th) in Sydney at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre and was keynoted/opened by Lrnchat‘s very own Jane Bozarth, which was a real treat.

I only attended the first day but found it to be action-packed with keynotes, breakout sessions and a great expo area. I was disappointed to see how few people there were tweeting, but I did manage to meet almost all of those who were. It just goes to show Twitter is indeed a very social tool! I recommend following these fantastic people: @ryantracey @rhysatwork @MarnieBristow @roseg @mdoriean @mylearningspace @Janebozarth

So, here are my top 7 takeaways from Day one of the LearnX Conference:

  1. Dr Jane Bozarth: “Social Media for Trainers: Extending learning, building community”  

    • Environmental scans are great because people do not argue with their own data
    • Traditional model of learning = structured events: It’s vain and naive to think this is what makes a difference in an employee’s career
    • As much as 80% of learning seems to occur outside of the classroom
  2. Adobe Team and Philip Roy: “Delivering engaging eLearning to your organisation with best practices learnt from experience” 

    • Massey University are migrating from WebCT to the Moodle LMS and are using Adobe’s Presenter and Acrobat for asynchronous content design and Adobe Connect Pro for synchronous web conferencing with students.
  3. Les Lisz: “Running L&D like a business”

    • Ask yourself – could your people do their jobs the way you want them to if their lives depend on it? If the answer is ‘yes’ it’s not a skills gap and you shouldn’t be looking for a training solution.
  4. Ian Whitehouse and Chris Toselli (GlobalNet ICT): “Design and development strategies for engaging programs, including m-learning” 

    • Design – use iconology, don’t push the content out there let the participant pull, use rich and visually appealing content, make it personal, foster a culture of innovation and improvement.
  5. Tania Tytherleigh: “Learning Leaders – Build and maintain learner connections” 
    • ‘Connection’ is most important to being a great trainer: likeability, being connected with your content and showing passion
    • Connect with learners in session using music, props, matching body language, matching tone and language, experiences, skills, stories and beliefs
  6. Rhys Moult: “DIY ID: Releasing your inner Instructional Designer” 
    • Explore and make use of free tools – Rhys mentioned Google Drawing, part of Google Apps
    • Learn some html
  7. Dr Helena Popovic: “The X Factor for Xcellence” 
    • Every event in our lives is neutral until we apply a label to it ie. a good event or a bad event

I’m looking forward to LearnX 2011!
@Schnicker