On Friday, newly formed, LEO Learning (created by the merger of Epic and LINE Communications) and Towards Maturity hosted an event in London on ‘How to transform learning’.
Breakfast
The day started off with some breakfast and coffee. Then when we were fed and caffeined we moved into the conference room.
First we discussed, ‘What words describe successful learning transformation to you?’ We each wrote a word on a post-it note and then shared our answers. Answers ranged from; ‘engagement’, ‘achievement’, ‘blended’, ‘unique’, ‘digital’, ‘seamless’ to even a very excited ‘sexy’.
Vision for the future
Piers Lea, Chief Strategy Officer at LEO and Learning Technologies Group plc, then gave a speech on ‘vision of the future’. He talked about speed and complexity and asked ‘How fast are things moving?’ (Turns out – pretty fast!)
He also discussed the importance of measuring the impact of our e-learning courses. Piers used BA as an example. He explained BA saw a 73% behaviour change due to their e-learning
We were asked to interactively vote on the question ‘Do you agree the performance indicators with your business sponsors up front?’
- Always
- Sometimes
- Rarely
The majority of people went for ‘sometimes’. Piers informed us however, that 70% of the top e-learning companies have this conversation up front.
LEO Panel: What does learning transformation look like?
Three of the LEO learning team discussed, ‘What learning transformation means to me’.
They discussed how learning was changing (for the better). There is now an appreciation that people change at an individual level.
There was more discussion of the need for ‘meaningful measurement’. Not just focusing on whether learning packages can be delivered on mobile devices and focusing on how big the budget is.
We briefly discussed many learning trends; blended learning, informal learning and social learning. We were informed that Towards Maturity found that 95% of L & D leaders want to help people to share good practice and 84% of learners are willing to share learning.
We then looked at engaging learners and how we aim to ‘create a moment of magic’ for learners. In order to show this, there was a demonstration of an interactive geometry game.
This game took inspiration from an actual demonstration used in school classrooms. The premise being that you take a 3D shape and ask the audience to guess what 2D shape would be created when you cut open your 3D shape at different angles. The vertical game took inspiration from this ‘moment of magic’ in classrooms and made the same game possible on screen.
Working groups
We then had a quick coffee break. When we came back we split into three working groups. The one I joined was ‘Beyond the formal course, what can L & D do?’ There was another on gamification and another on measurement.
After these discussions, we finished the formal part of the day by talking about ‘the next step’. We discussed how learning innovation done well delivers bottom line business results. Although, Laura Overton, Managing Director at Towards Maturity, joked that she once heard it said that L & D professionals are ‘very good at swapping recipes, but very few actually cook’.
We then had a nice lunch, which provided a good opportunity to meet and chat with other L & D professionals.
My thoughts…
The day was a well organised, enjoyable event. It had a nice balance between speakers and group discussion. I met some lovely people and had a great lunch! The main points I took away from the day were:
- We need to make sure that we have effective procedures in place to measure the impact of learning programs
- And that these performance indicators are discussed up front before the creation of courses
- The increase of social and informal learning works because of the learners willingness to share knowledge and content
- Games and vertical learning can seek inspiration from real classroom examples to create ‘moments of magic’ for learners
- Learning innovation can deliver bottom line business results
