Some 60 L&D practitioners and thought leaders will be addressing the Learning Technologies Conference 2014, which takes place in London’s Olympia on 29 and 30 January.
The opening keynote will be given by Brian Solis, a digital analyst at the Altimeter Group in the US.
Solis has spent years studying the effects of digital technology on the way we consume media and will be bringing his thinking to bear on how this impacts on workplace learning. We’re very excited to see Solis talk as he brings a broad perspective on emerging technologies.
With five conference tracks running concurrently over the two days, it is hard to decide what sessions to go to. The tracks cover a very wide range of topic areas from learning technology and culture to learning evaluation. Dr Jim Kirkpatrick will be looking at how the Kirkpatrick model has evolved – an interesting session whether you use his father’s model or not.
Whether you are looking to dig deeper into compliance, performance support, disruptive technologies or mobile learning, the conference provides a mixture of thought leaders and practitioners showing not only the possibilities but also the real life experience of implementing learning initiatives.
Last year, we attended a session by Elearnity analysts David Wilson and David Perring and they will be returning this year to give their perspective on the European learning technology market. Outside of vendor produced content on the market, there is relatively little independent, and European focused, analysis of learning technologies, so this is one to consider attending if you are looking to purchase new tech. Better still, attend this session and then head to the exhibition floor and use your newly-acquired market intelligence to grill the vendors.
This year there is a strong contingent of speakers from the US including David Kelly looking at (or should I say through) his Google Glass experience. Jane Bozarth is teaming up with Jane Hart to discuss all things social and Julie Dirksen will be looking at how to do effective instructional design.
Speaking of which, we would highly recommend Chris Atherton who will be talking on interface design. Atherton spoke at Learning Live a couple of years ago where she provided delegates with great insights on how to design user experiences that will get your users doing what you want them to do.
Day two features sessions on neuroscience with Itiel Dror and an opening keynote on how the brain learns from Beau Lotto, an examination of the MOOC phenomenon (excuse the pun) and sessions on behaviour change.
If you can’t get to the conference then make sure you come see some of the speakers at our conference fringe event Learning Tech InsideOut (it’s free). More here.
Make sure you check out the exhibition hall too. As well as the annual bun fight to get to talk to exhibitors (it gets so busy), check out the free seminars here.
There are great speakers covering a vast range of topics. We’ll be talking about MOOCs in the exhibition hall as well as doing an Ignite talk on curation skills.
The conference and exhibition is co-located with the Learning and Skills exhibition, which means you also get access to a vast range of free seminars – more here.
And if you can’t make the event then dip in and out from afar on Twitter. There will be a team of Twitterers covering the event so keep an eye on the event hashtag #LT14uk
