After some eighteen months, it was great for the Near-Life team to be at DevLearn last month and finally be back at a real-life conference and exhibition. This was actually our first visit to the Las Vegas event, which is one of North America’s leading learning technology occasions. We’d originally agreed to sponsor the 2020 conference but when it was called off completely last year, our involvement was pushed to this October.
Although, as we understand it, the event was scaled back slightly from its pre-pandemic levels, it was nevertheless well attended and it was interesting to see what the emergent trends appeared to be. From immersive learning to content authoring trends, these are our top five takeaways:
1) Remote working – and learning – is here to stay
Although it was great to meet people in person, it’s clear that most learning professionals have accepted that there has been a seismic shift in terms of how the world of work…well…works. Remote teams mean the need for more remote engagement and an acceptance that face to face activity will be more focussed and infrequent. That means that ALL remote activity, including learning, has to up its game – how can content consumed remotely be more engaging? From colleges and universities to global corporations, this was a challenge at the forefront of many minds.
2) Empower the learner
As consumers, we have more choice and more flexibility than ever and are used to seeing content that is focussed on us and reflects our goals and needs. Learning needs to keep step with this. Having access to learning in a convenient, relevant way is continuing to increase in importance. This trend spans from learners looking to curate their own ‘playlist’-style content, through to being recommended targeted learning via AI-powered algorithms. But a learner-centric approach is what it’s all about.
3) We are all creators now
The learning-supply chain is being disrupted. Whilst there are still many specialist roles in the learning space, what is also clear is that in learning, as with many other areas, everyone is being encouraged/ empowered to create and share their own content. Tools such as Canva and VYOND, even our own interactive video authoring tool, have been enthusiastically adopted by the learning community – making good, more engaging content, quickly and easily, without being a technical specialist seems very much to be the direction of travel. Certainly, for us at Near-Life, the aspiration to support this democratisation of creativity and make it more accessible is why we adopted our strapline of ‘Interactive video and VR authoring for everyone.’
4) Immersive learning is on the rise
There have been issues around scalability with technologies like VR. Do you need to invest in the hardware, how can it integrate? Does it not cost too much? For a while, it seemed like VR could be the new 3D – holding novelty interest for a while but with people soon growing weary. But no, it seems like immersive is here to stay and there is real momentum in people looking to trial and test their own VR and immersive initiatives. At Near-Life, with our VR authoring tool, we’ve been obsessed with making VR scalable and cost-effective. It seems that, now technology is making the barrier to adoption lower, we could be entering a golden age of more immersive learning, which, as research has shown, can improve knowledge retention by as much as a whopping 90%.
5) Learning is the place to be
We may be biased, but by the enthusiasm and genuine interest shown by the attendees at DevLearn, it’s clear to see that those working within learning, by and large, seem to love their work. To be able to help others grow and develop and to promote and share knowledge is obviously a nice position to be in. It was great to be around so many like-minded people who want to continue to improve how we share and exchange knowledge. And given the rapid innovation that’s happening, it’s also a very exciting sector to be part of.
So that’s it. Thanks to the team at DevLearn for having us and thanks to all our fellow learning professionals who made it such an interesting event. And for us travelling from the UK, it was also nice to enjoy some Autumnal sun before the full onset of Winter. We hope to be back next year… and the year after that… as the saying goes – you never stop learning!
If you’re interested in creating your own interactive presentations, videos and VR, or if you’re curious to find out about how Near-Life can help you make your content more engaging, click here to learn more, or click here to book a demo with a member of our team.