Last updated on November 5th, 2019 at 09:49 am
Keynote Augmented Human: How Technology is shaping the new reality
What might not be clear from the title is that this session was all about Augmented Reality (AR). This was presented by Dr. Helen Papagiannis who is author of the book Augmented Human.
I didn’t take a lot of notes during this session so I don’t remember too much about it – other than some of the discussions around the social impacts of Augmented Reality. I think this is a technology that is just starting to become more available – and so it will likely become more prevalent in the next few years.
Best Practices for planning, developing, and implementing serious games
This was an excellent session put on by Andrew Hughes (Diigo public library and presentation slides) from Designing Digitally. In the session he outlined several best practices including (these are from my notes, which aren’t the best):
- Use badges only for competencies not just completion.
- Show relative leader boards only – leader boards that show only the top scores can be demotivating. A relative leader board shows you how you can incrementally improve.
- Provide continuous challenges.
- Use compelling stories (this is an interesting link to the storytelling workshop I did on day 1).
- Create parallel branches – that is that branching doesn’t work like a “tree” where each branch ends in a unique leaf, rather, the branches come together so that there are limited number of paths to the same one or two endings.
- Give immediate feedback.
- Show tangible results.
- Fun is a metric. I really like this one. In addition to measuring success, you also need to measure whether or not students are having fun with the game.
- Game play is important.
- Theme does not matter.
One thing that I noted from this session was a link to a question that a student had asked me. The student had asked me about how to assess a lesson that uses connectivist learning theory. Yes, that statement has a lot of challenges in it – first, is assessment something that is counter to connectivist learning theory? and second, is connectivism even a learning theory? But putting both those questions aside, I saw a link between assessing connectivist learning theory and serious games. If the games involve challenges that require collaboration, and require the need to reach out beyond the classroom, then the game itself could be a method of assessing a connectivist lesson. Maybe serious games is the answer to that problem?
One statement that was mention has stuck with me – that is not to confuse compliance with performance, and don’t try to use compliance training/assessment to teach/assess performance. We all cringe when we think of the compliance training we are required to complete each year. Some of it is getting better – or at least is a little entertaining – but most of it is dry and boring, but a requirement none-the-less. However, performance training is different, because it is job-specific. The goal of performance training/assessment is to help employees be better at their jobs and improve performance. The goal of compliance is to check a box and not get a fine. The different purposes are important, and lead to very different types of training. Serious games align with performance improvement, not compliance.
L&D Mystery series: The case of the disengaged learner
This was an interesting presentation that followed along with the idea of using gamification as a way to present. The presenter, Cara North of Ohio State University, presented a bunch of techniques for engaging learners during presentations. She used Poll Everywhere well – as well as slides with hidden “easter eggs” to help the audience solve the mystery. It was an interesting technique to watch – although I cannot imagine how long it would take me to put something like that together.
One of the features that Cara showed was the use of live Close Captions with Google Slides – she shows you how to enable it here. It is amazing how well it works. I just tried it out – and I encourage you to try it. I wonder how it would work with a screensharing tool like Zoom – if I share my presentation via screenshare on Zoom, would it also show the live captions? I’m going to have to test that.
From start-up to global leader: Scaling training at the speed of business
This was a different type of session that I found rather fascinating, not really because of the topic but because of the company that was presenting. The presenter was Elizabeth Wisch from The VOID. It was interesting seeing pictures of what their company does, but also hear about how they go about training when a new location is coming online. Next time I’m around one of these adventures, I’m now very curious to see what all the fuss is about!
Better audio and video on a budget
I attended this session because I do a lot of synchronous online video as well as recording a lot of online lessons. I wanted to hear what the presenter had to say. This session was presented by William Everhart of e-Learning Uncovered.
The first comment he made, is one that we learned very quickly with our work with Virtually Connecting – that audio is much more important than video. It is a common mistake when doing Video Conferencing, is that everyone wants to focus on where the camera is pointed; however, if the audio is poor, then it is an impossible experience for the remote participants. This is also true for video – viewers will be much more tolerant of poor quality video than they will be of poor quality audio.
I was glad to learn that the microphone that I use, although old, is still considered one of the better microphones out there – the Yeti Blue.
One of the other things I learned that turned out to be very helpful for me a very short period of time later, was the direction of microphones. I attend virtually a design workshop where those who are onsite use a microphone. The session at DevLearn made me realize a common mistake people make when talking into the microphone – and that is that the microphone needs you to talk into the top of it, not the side of it. Once I remind people of that, they hold it appropriately and our audio quality is a lot better. There is a lot to be said about not just having the right equipment, but also knowing how to use that equipment properly.
This reminds me of an equity issue regarding microphones. Anytime someone says “I don’t need the microphone, I can speak loud enough” they are actually making it difficult or impossible for some people to hear. If their are remote participants, then they definitely cannot hear anything that isn’t said into the mic – especially when the mic is directional. The mic is designed to not allow for any other sounds, and so the person shouting a question from the back of the room can be heard in the room but not online. Also, if anyone is using a hearing device, the microphone might be the only thing that is allowing them to hear what is happening. So, if the room is equipped with a microphone, and especially if you have remote participants, use the microphone. It doesn’t matter how loud your voice is!
Tech Humanism: Shaping the future of meaningful human experiences
To cap off the conference, the final keynote was about tech humanism and was presented by Kate O’Neill – Author of the book Tech Humanist.
I recall at one point she pulled out a pair of augmented glasses (similar to Google Glass) and took pictures of the audience. One thing that was important here was that the glasses showed that she was taking a picture – in that as could see a blue circle flash like a camera lens when the picture was taken. Unlike Google Glass, those not wearing the glasses know that a picture was taken. There was some talk about how Google Glass lacked some of the important social cues that are needed for the technology not to feel creepy. I still felt that the AR glasses were creepy!
One idea that I did take note of was the concepts of Privacy by Design. I have a vague recollection of having heard about this before. I think defining the principles is all well and good, but expecting people to follow them is a whole other issue. Call my cynical, but I don’t have a lot of faith in tech companies to protect my privacy.
Impacts on my teaching and practice
I found these two days to be very interesting, but will there be a direct impact on my teaching and practice?
I don’t use gamification in my teaching – but my students do sometimes like to do a module on gamification. I think that I will encourage a group to do a presentation on gamification but rather than calling it gamification, I think I’ll reposition the option as “serious games” as I think that is something that causes deeper thinking.
I’m also going to do some minor upgrades to my microphone setup to help improve the audio. I am planning on creating a scenario or two using Articulate Storyline 3, and in doing so, I think that improving my audio quality will help. This will also bring in some concepts from day 1 – specifically around using storytelling techniques to create compelling scenarios.
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