This was 2012

In all fairness, I thought 2012 was going to be yet another year where all sorts of things but nothing in particular happened: mobile learning would break through (again), LMS and talent management vendors kept consolidating, cost pressure continued, anything would add the label "social", etc.

But it turned out to be quite an interesting year in learning land. For one, the entrepreneurs entered the learning space. Over the years, our field of technology enhanced learning was joined by the pedagogical folks (although their voice could be louder), education folks, corporate L&D folks, not-for profit folks, the IT vendors, the publishers, etc. They have all brought their mindset and angles to the this highly cross-functional field. And last year Silicon Valley entered the space in a big way. Time will tell if they'll stay or not (that will depend on finding money fast enough), but their contribution cannot be undone. They brought rapid experimentation, crowd- and other funding, disruptive innovations, business model canvas and more with them.

I've seen together with you how the MOOC phenomenon became thé big disrupting force in the education space. I have very high hopes for the Tin Can API, now the official successor to both SCORM and AICC and in version 0.9 - getting ready for 1.0 as we speak. The struggle between open and closed continued (and for once Apple didn't conquer a market by storm - their ebook announcement didn't get them the textbook market - that's probably still Pearson's turf.). Tracking (the 'other' learning technology) is on the move. It was an interesting year indeed. We also together saw how Pearson and Skillsoft continue on their path to world domination in respectively the worlds of education and corporate training. Blackboard made some weird moves. Mergers and acquisitions continued. (I'm still wondering what Microsoft will do with Yammer.)

Here's an overview of 2012

I just changed the tag line of my blog to 'reflections of a serial learner'. Over the past years, I followed a my interests and reported out in this blog. I'll continue to do so. (And I removed the ads from the blog - they disturb and never generated anything.)

Trends

I started the year like many do: with predictions for the year ahead. Let's find out how good or bad they were. My '5 in 5' (5 learning trends for the next 5 years) were:

• Striptease of the LMS: Still think it is irreversibly happening. The Tin Can API breaks away from the chains of the LMS. MOOCs are open for anyone (although I think many LMS vendors will try to capture MOOCs in their LMS walls in the next year to monetize the hype). 
• Diminishing hurdles for technology : ongoing, but slower then I would like to. We rarely still speak of 'e'learning, but just about learning in general. Then again, the field I'm working in (leadership development) is probably the last bastion with so much resistance to 'e'.
• Merger of elearning 1.0 and ebooks 2.0 : this has not materialized as of yet. I still think that a lot of content snippets that are now burried in old elearning courses may get 'upcycled' (yes, it's a word) into modern ebooks.
• Positive learning: I might have been too positive on this trend. The HR mindset is still very much on 'fixing' and 'upskilling'. Then again, there is a growing strenghts movement. (as a side note, I got accredited in StrengthScope this year.)
• Democratization of non-mass learning: slowly this is happening, and I have my money on some startups here

Learning scenarios 

Learning scenarios: In December 2011 at the Online Educa Berlin conference, 4 future learning scenarios were developed. I created fictional newspaper articles to illustrate them.

OLD BOY : Guild Tournament Final Airs Tonight

INCROWD : IBMzon launches Talent Cloud

QUANTIFIED SELF : "Did you thank someone today?" asks Otto, the self coaching app

BIG DATA : Noogle's decline caused by Predictor bug?

Later, I also used the same scenarios to reflect on leadership development in particular. As part of those posts, I tried out animation software GoAnimate and Xtranormal. You can see the movies here.

Unstucking learning

By far the most popular article I wrote in 2012 was Learning got stuck in itself. Building further on the earlier scenarios, I realized that no major disruption or evolution would take place without a fully fitting business model around it. Could it be that we have all elements in place now, but what we really lack is the proper business model?

• Learning got stuck in itself
• Unstucking: in search of new dominant designs
• Unstucking: the state of the model
• Unstucking technique 1: flipping
• Unstucking technique 2: change the vocabulary
• Unstucking technique 3: metaphors
• Unstucking technique 4: through the eyes of ... (change mgmt)

I might pick up on this series again. I really think our field would benefit from a good look at our business models.

The other learning technology: tracking

Then I moved my interests to immerse myself in the world of Quantified Self and how to learn by tracking personal data. It became a very popular series too, and I presented my findings at Online Educa Berlin.

• Tracking: the other learning technology (overview article)
• Review of FitBit
• Review of myZeo
• Review of Lumosity brain games
• Review of 23andme.com personal genome service
• Review of Life Mash
• What I learned from a year of tracking.

Neuroscience

Professionally, I set my teeth in the promising field of neuroscience. Ever since we can live 'see' into the brain with cheap technologies, we are discovering a lot of how it functions. I presented "Mind your mind" with my CCL colleague Monica on this topic. I also started a curation experiment on grey matters.



Along the way I also discovered the true meaning of hacking at the Fosdem and TEDxBrussels events.

You probably noticed I also had a 'writer's block' this year and did not post any articles between June and October. In spite of that, the readers of my blog have multiplied this year, and I thank you all for sticking.

The world didn't end.

This was 2012.

Have a happy one!

Bert