DevLearn 2015

DevLearn 2015 filled my brain with so many great ideas and new tech information! Here are my thoughts:

xAPI Will Be Transformative…

…but to have the chance to use it, we need to educate others on the benefits. L&D is just beginning to figure out how to use it. All I know is that I’d like to be in on the ground floor. One of my goals for this conference was to decide on next steps for learning more about xAPI. By Friday morning, I had my direction:

L&D Should Always Have An Ecosystem Perspective

The concept of xAPI has a natural tie-in with the concept of thinking about L&D as a part of the larger organization ecosystem. Steve Foreman’s session, MB11—Learning and Performance Ecosystem: Making It Happen, included some great discussion.  We continued that discussion through the conference app, where Steve gave some advice I plan to use:

“Implementation can happen one project at a time. Building on one success after another, you gain sponsorship, momentum, sills, platforms, and processes for scaling up and doing more in each of these areas.”

I like the idea of testing an xAPI implementation on a small scale, and showing the benefits as a way to educate management about the need to use this technology.

Andy Johnson, Craig Wiggins, Steve Foreman, and Peter Berking walked us through an excellent case study that emphasizes the use of xAPI data as a tool for performance improvement initiatives. Check out the article on which session 809 Analytics and xAPI: Measure Your Way to Success was based.

Digital Badges Have Great Potential

…but will they catch on? DevLearn 2015 included a special Badges Unlocked program to explore “the power and potential of digital credentials for learning.” During session 117 Unpacking Badge Analytics: What Metadata Can Tell Us, Sheryl Grant and Anh Nguyen had some great ideas for using badges, both internally (employee motivation and reinforcement) and externally (endorsements, evidence of skill sets). The session didn’t speak to xAPI directly. But considering that, at the technical level, a badge is a JSON, it seems logical that organizations should be able to use xAPI and open badges together easily.

During session 517 Where Digital Badges Work Better, Kellie Kalish made the point that we need to educate people that badges include useful metadata. For badges to motivate people to want to earn them, I agree that we absolutely have to show the benefits of the metadata that is stored that pretty badge image.