Learning Technologies celebrated its Tenth birthday this week. Held at Olympia 2, this year saw record number of delegates for the conference and exhbition. Each day was really busy with the seminar sessions being really well attended on both days. Walking around the event and talking to other people it was clear that there is a renewed interest in e-learning and learning technologies.

There was a healthy interest in game based and simulation learning. Second Life was well represented alongside bespoke game based learning tools. I attended the final session on Friday which looked at how Imperial College London had developed a virtual hospital in Second Life. The session opened up by looking at how games based learning offered an immersive experience for learners. It went on to show how Second Life has been used in an experimental and diagnostic manner.

Adobe had more of their cool badges (which they also had at Bett). I managed to catch a demo of the e-learning suite which included a showcase of the new features within Captivate 4.

The Royal Navy held a seminar on their mobile learning project which uses PlayStation Portable Devices to deliver learning content. I’d first seen this project at Bett so it was very interesting to see how the project had been developed. The use of the PSP to engage with ‘generation y’ had proved a huge success with recruits and had delivered results the the Navy.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be working through all of the documents and bits of paper that I collected and we’ll add a few more thoughts!

Last week the Bett show took place at London Olympia, before setting out I’d been thinking about whether the show could get any bigger. Well, after a first walk around Olympia which seemed to take hours, I found that it had grown! The side hall (Olympia 2 I think) was used to house many more exhibitors. The sheer size of Bett must make it difficult for anyone to get round in one day.

Some of my favourite things were:

Microsoft Surface and the SMART multi-touch table

Ed and I were able to get a demo of the SMART table and tried many of the applications that were available. SMART told us that they were currently working on new development for the table and that the initial cost was over £4000 but they said that this would come down once it went into full production. There was a very neat addition activity where you are asked to sum 2 numbers and the users provide the answers by making contact points with the screen.

Surface uses similar technology with Microsoft also demonstrating its authentification process which can be used by placing a card on the table.

Garageband Live Demo

Apple had a great stand featuring live demos on all days of the show. James and I both watched a great session with Joe Morreti of makemoremusic. Joe did a session showing the new features of Garageband 09 including how to use the app as an applifier. With a guitar and a sax his session provided a great insight into online digital music education.

I also spent time talking to Sony about how the PSP is being used in Education and also by the Navy to deliver e-learning. Becta had a lot of information regarding next generation learning, including information for suppliers and developers which was great for us. Many of the hardware suppliers were showing off new notebook machines with one stand having their laptop section virtually ignored when I was there.

The standard of visual and interface design was very impressive with some of the primary content showing some fantastic graphic and character design.

As we work through all of the material that we collected we’ll share some more of our thoughts about the show….In 2 days we are heading to Open Innovation in Norwich and then next week it is off to Learning Technologies.

Hello to all of our friends that we managed to meet and bump into at Bett!

After talking to the team at Norwich University College of the Arts we are close to setting up a link with the Games Degree. I’ve been interested in Games Design and how the skills of games developers might transfer to e-learning for some time. I’ll have more news about what we are planning in the next few weeks but the RP team and NUCA are excited about the link up. Thanks to Rod Green over at NUCA for helping to get everything set up!

More news on this soon….

It is the day before Bett and I’m getting a list of stands that I want to visit, near the top of the list is the SMART stand where they are demonstrating

“the world’s first multi-touch, multi-user table for primary education”

I’m really interested in seeing this technology as I’ve read a lot about touch-screen tables in the press over the past year. The Microsoft Sphere also generated a lot of interest and media buzz so it will be interesting to see the effect that the SMART table has.

SMART are on Stand G40

Writing in the Guardian, Julie Ferry has looked at the increasing number of students who are choosing to study and travel at the same time. The article looks at 3 people who have successufully combined their studies and travel. With a number of companies offering paid sabaticals to try to avoid redundancy and an increasing number of training grants on offer could we see more people escaping the british winter to travel and study online overseas?

Liverpool University already offers an online MBA and there are many other online courses on offer. E-learning and learning technologies allow learning and academic institutions to offer online courses and open up their courses to a whole new audience.

Norfolk County Council has already implemented an e-learning programme that lets children who are not able to get to a school to sit their exams at home. The programme allowed nearly 100 children to sit their GCSE’s in 2007.

The technology and programmes have fantastic potential to help a wide range of organisations from hospitals, schools and colleges to businesses.

Working in e-learning I’m often asked by people what the benefits of e-learning are. This can lead to quite a lengthy discussion covering Rapid development, induction modules, animations, instructional design and many other areas of e-learning.

E-learning and learning technology covers so many elements it can be difficult to cover all of the benefits and some of the issues that also arise.

After talking to some of our clients, friends and colleagues we’ve listed some of the benefits that they have come across!

Learning from home
Courses can be deployed over the internet and via a range of devices from Blackberry to a PC allowing the learner to access the content at a time that is suitable for them. Access to online materials also allows part-time, job share and employees who work from home access to training material.

Handheld devices are opening up e-learning to a new user base, check out the blog post on e-learning on a blackberry.

Reduction in travel time
The use of online learning can lead to a reduction in travel time and associated costs, one of our clients reported that they were able to reduce the number of training classes that were held each year. Team members were also pleased that they could reduce their personal travel time.

Deployment across multiple locations
For businesses with multiple locations, e-learning allows for multiple location deployment. It also allows learning to take place in environments where getting trainers and holding training courses may have been difficult. At Real Projects we developed an e-learning course that was used by employees on offshore installations which could only be reached by helicopter and had no internet access. We used a cd-rom to allow learning to take place on the installation.

Learn at your own pace
Many e-learning courses and modules allow learners to work through modules at their own pace. A well constructed module will also take the learner through all of the learning outcomes and ensure that they have covered all of the subject material.

Fast and effective content updates
e-learning content is often stored on a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows learners to access content from a PC, Mac or other device. The content is in an electronic form which means that updates can be performed quickly and effectively with new releases being deployed across an organisation in an instant.

This is not an extensive list, just a few of the benefits that we’ve come across over the past few months when talking to clients.

Every year we get back to the office and it’s right back into things. Bett, Open Innovation and then Learning Technologies - 3 exhibitions in 3 weeks. It makes for a great start back to the year as we always have a number of projects and demos to get ready for our clients.

Bett appears to get bigger and bigger every year, I wonder if it is actually possible to visit all of the stands in one day! There is normally a great buzz surrounding Bett and it is always good to meet old and new friends and look at new and interesting innovations and technology. The RP team will be at all 3 exhibitions so if you’d like to meet up please give us a call on 01603 762772 so we can arrange to meet.

I’m really interested to see how handheld learning and SMS devices are being used and I’ll be on the look out for innovations at Bett and Learning Technologies. Jack Schofield has published articles on the handheld culture in the Guardian this year and I’ll be looking out for content being delivered on anything from an ipod to a playstation portable. In an earlier blog post I wrote about e-learning on a blackberry. I’m really interested to see how these devices and other handhelds are going to be used in the next couple of years.

After each exhibition I’ll be updating the blog and I’m also planning to talk about some of the most exciting things that I see at the next norfolk e-learning forum