A week and a half ago, I was very excited to head to Las Vegas for the eLearning Guild’s 10th annual DevLearn conference. I wrote a blog post wondering if I could find the equivalent of a soul mate when it comes to a single presentation that could capture my heart and set my imagination on fire.
I wanted a presentation that could “show me the ring” (because I really, really wanted to be engaged by this presentation). I wanted a pacifist type of presentation where bullets wouldn’t be used in the PowerPoint slides. I wanted a fearless presenter – confident in delivery and willing to take some risks, maybe even get the audience involved (and no, just saying: “I want this to be highly interactive, so make sure you raise your hand if you have a question” does not mean you’ve designed an interactive presentation!!).
By the end of the first day of the conference, I seemed to have chosen a string of sessions that broke my heart. Were my standards too high? I’ll let you decide. If Composure magazine was writing a “how to” column entitled “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Hours”, these are some of the strategies they would have written about:
- Talk about yourself. For an hour. I understand that real-life case studies and stories about how someone has overcome a problem are what make for good conference proposals. The problem is: your actual presentation isn’t about you. It’s about how you can help solve a problem or address a need for your audience. Spend some time setting the stage about what you’ve been able to accomplish… but don’t neglect an opportunity for discussion with the audience about how your lessons learned can be applied to their problems or needs.
- Use discredited information. If you’re going to talk about book clubs as a learning strategy, don’t use Three Cups of Tea as the central example for the success of your online program. The book has been exposed for containing lies and half-truths and the author has been thoroughly discredited as a reputable figure in the international development arena, making it harder for those of us doing good work in international development to gain the confidence of potential funders. This was a total turn-off for me.
- Take a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude. Several sessions offered “best practices” in elearning design… yet chose a lecture format by which to share those design elements. Why not model some of those best practices in person? One presenter lectured on the three basic learner needs in Self-determination Theory. One of those elements was “autonomy”. Why not model this element by asking the audience which of the three basic needs they wanted to know more about first? And then point out that this was an example of “autonomy”?
To be fair, there were several sessions which already have me thinking about ways to integrate ideas and concepts into my work, but I’d think twice before allocating professional development dollars for me or anyone else from my organization to attend this event in the future.
Anyone who has ever found a soul mate might be able to identify with the idea that they can be found in the most unlikely of places… the places you’d never think to look. At DevLearn, I was looking in the place I felt would be most logical: conference breakout sessions. The aspect of DevLearn from which I left most energized, most wanting to repeat again in the future however, was the opportunity to meet people I’d only worked with or interacted with online.
If you’re looking for some new people to follow via Twitter, I’d recommend these folks: Kirby Crider, JD Dillon, Brent Schlenker, Nicole Legault, David Andersen, Meg Bertapelle, Tom Spiglanin and Learning Rebel Shannon Tipton. Not only are they really smart and have good things to share via Twitter… they’re all pretty cool people, too!
