OEB14 - The fashion, the reality, the power, the revolution and me

This week is all about the 20th anniversary of the Online Educa Berlin conference in ... Berlin. It is also about Online Education in case the name of the conference would leave any confusion. In fact, it is Europe's largest conference on the matter, attracts a couple of thousand participants from dozens of countries every year, and I've been going for .... oh well, I lost count but it must be years. So what can we be expecting this year? Have a look yourself, will you : www.online-educa.com .

The fashion ...

Every conference is a an opportunity to see the fashion show of what's hot and what's not. What are the big trends this year? What are the hypes and promises? What's the color of learning this season?

• MOOC Alphabet Soup: Last year's big topic was undoubtedly the rise of MOOCs. So what have MOOCs done for us this year? For example, has the corporate training world taken up on this new learning format - and if it did is that still a MOOC (mainly because of the O of open) or do we need to add another abbreviation to the alphabet soup? 
• Virtual Reality is a Phoenix: Years ago at OEB we were dreaming of what virtual worlds like Second Life could do for learning and it turned out to be nothing much after all. Did Virtual Reality get a second life itself now that we are all talking about devices such as Oculus Rift? 
• Innovation in pedagogy: With all the focus on the toys and their boys we'd might forget there is a pedagogy component somewhere in the mix of Technology Enhanced Learning. So what's the fashion there? You may know reports that focus on learning technology such as the Horizon reports, but there is also one on pedagogy. (via Inge)
• ... are we still doing more with less? ... are we implementing new standards such as the Experience API? ... are we getting more clever at evaluating the impact of our development? Questions on top of questions...

It is not just technology that can be in or out of fashion. The same holds true for terminology. Certain new 'things' need to get a new name, then the name gets used, then it gets overused or gets stale... It happened to 'e-learning' which we are now calling learning altogether. So I'll be looking at the words that are in or out of fashion too... In fact, the word learning might be a stale one. Maybe the new word for learning and development is:

The reality ...

What conferences like OEB also provide on top of the dreams of innovators, is the reality check with the field. Usually there is some time gap of about 5 years between what is said by the visionary speakers and what you can buy at the vendor booths or the testimonials of actual projects that are part of the sessions.
Maybe we should look back at the OEB agenda of 5 years ago and see what is taken up by our daily work and what is standard available now.

The power ...

Technology Enhanced Learning is an interdisciplinary field if nothing else. I find OEB a very interesting conference and unique in the sense that it brings together a variety of stakeholders in online learning that otherwise not necessarily (like to) meet. You have the higher education world, corporate training, governmental organisations, technology vendors, instructional designers, edupreneurs, etc. What's interesting is that the relative influence of these stakeholders also goes up and down over the years, together with the fashions.

• For example, I found that for way too long the field of pedagogy and learning research may have been dominated by the tech vendors selling LMS systems
• The funding for a lot of technology enhanced learning projects from government bodies has decreased over the years
• Last years the edupreneurs have massively found their way to our industry and created all sorts of apps and portals - are they still patient enough to hang in our field in search of a money generating business model?

The revolution ...

You can slice and dice the OEB audience in multiple ways, but an interesting one is the ones that cry for a revolution versus the ones that are more keen on a gentle evolution. Have we all become sheep in an education system that doesn't serve its purpose anymore and is broken? Do we need to make some adjustments to adjust to the increased demands on our field? Evolution? Revolution? It will be interesting to have a temperature check on that one ...
I've just started reading Clark Quinn's book "Revolutionize Learing & Development". I'm only in the first chapters, but this book was a punch in the stomach if not a wake-up call.

... and me

So with all these thoughts in my mind I'll be heading to Berlin again this week for the 20th anniversary conference. This is the first year in a long row I won't be presenting a project of my own, but only chairing sessions and speaking at the spotlight session. This year I've been completely immersed in my work (note to self: never let work do that again) and my major accomplishment this year has be turning 40. So maybe it is mid-life speaking, but I start to have doubts about the central place learning, training and development are taking. It is so natural as an L&D practitioner to think life is all about learning - and maybe it is. But if learning is everywhere, why should it have a dedicated place, dedicated departments or dedicated professionals? It is a thought that has been nagging in my head.... Maybe the conversations at OEB will help me see the light. Or get sucked into midlife :-). Either way, this is the week!