2024 Session Sampling – Learning DevCamp 2024

We are still programming and selecting our sessions, but here’s a sampling of concurrent sessions for 2024. More session announcement for our “You Build It”/Pre-Camp workshops along with our BreakfastBiz coming soon!

These 50-minute sessions cover a wide range of online learning topics.

with Monique St. Paul

No learning designer wants to intentionally exclude one learner, or worse, a whole section of individuals. This session focuses on people-first language to limit making participants feel disengaged or frustrated because they don’t feel included when the room is addressed or they don’t see themselves reflected in the content. Participants will review resources on all-inclusive words to use as well as where to find assets. Lastly, participants will discuss how to highlight the benefits of making this a priority in programs.

with Matt Shell

In this session, Matt would like to share media innovations in audio, video, and AI has well as how he currently uses instructional and visual design within the music industry. As a musician on a Grammy winning album, he uses Camtasia/other tools to design promotional materials and videos for courses on professionalism, songwriting, career development, and other subjects geared to up-and-coming music industry professionals and his team at the Federal Reserve Board. With his practical award winning experience, learn tips, tricks and innovations for audio, video, and AI.

with Sarah Mercier

with Vincent Han

Unleash the power of chatbots as part of your learning team! Chatbots on platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack are transforming L&D by proactively nudging, reminding, and engaging you in micro-learning challenges. Imagine receiving personalized content, answering quick quizzes, and getting feedback – all within your usual chat flow. This session dives into real-world examples, showcasing how chatbots boost retention, drive continuous learning, and make L&D fun. Join us and unlock the secrets to building your own bot-powered learning revolution!

with David Kelly

Technology continues to advance rapidly, changing how we live and interact with the world around us. Today’s learning & HR professionals face the challenge of staying ahead of this curve and tracking the technologies that are shaping the future of organizational learning while simultaneously recognizing technologies that may be more of a passing fad.

In this session, you will explore the changing face of the learning technology landscape. You will discuss the various technologies that have shifted the landscape of organizational learning. You will examine the common characteristics of these shifts so that you are better equipped to recognize which emerging technologies have the potential to disrupt organizational learning, as opposed to those that are just hype. You will leave this session better prepared to stay ahead of the evolving technology curve.

with Jane Bozarth

For years L&D has measured things that are convenient, like completion rates, quiz scores, and satisfaction ratings. But few of those things directly connect to improved performance. And other measures, like the familiar 5-level evaluation taxonomy, only gives us information about outcomes, not causes, of problems in our training programs. In this session Jane Bozarth, Director of Research for the Learning Guild, offers conversation around some truths about data collection: What you measure is what you get; there is danger in letting measures become targets; and bad measures can be worse than no measures. Then we’ll take a look at more meaningful measures and some ways we can use data to improve performance.

with Matt Pierce

Eager to make high-quality videos but working on a shoestring budget? This session will introduce you to a few theories for how to make your video content better and you’ll walk away with actions you can take today to create world-class videos in common tools like PowerPoint and Camtasia.

with Debbie Richards

Immersive learning has the potential to significantly impact both organizational success and individual professional development by improving engagement, efficiency, customization, and flexibility in training and development programs. As technology continues to advance, embracing immersive learning can be a strategic choice for organizations and a career-enhancing decision for professionals. For example: Immersive learning techniques, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), can make training and development programs more engaging. When employees are actively involved in realistic simulations or interactive experiences, they are more likely to retain information and apply it effectively. Join this session to gain valuable insights and practical knowledge through hands-on immersive learning activities. You’ll also receive a checklist with key takeaways, action points, and next steps to serve as a practical guide for implementing immersive learning in your organization and continuing your professional development.

with Matt Armstrong

Learning experience design has its roots in instructional design, user experience design, and a variety of other influences, depending on whom you ask. However, the field of Experience Design is often overlooked as a source of inspiration in our design practices. There is a lot to learn from the field that focuses on making an experience more memorable, meaningful, and transformational. This session will share several theories, frameworks, and resources used by experience designers that can be applied to our work in learning design.

with Megan Torrance

Let’s take a look at what it takes to get started with learning data and analytics. In this session you’ll have an opportunity to explore a process for using data in your organization via several case studies from real world implementations. After a brief introduction to the xAPI data standard, we’ll explore creating a data strategy, identifying questions to be explored, instrumenting for data, storing & working with data, and ultimately analyzing and visualizing the data as part of a process for making change. You’ll see the tools needed to send, store and analyze data, and several templates, tools & documents to make getting started easy.

with Debra Brown

Being creative isn’t always easy. This session will bring out the creativity and innovation in all of us. We’ll also share creative ways we can move this creativity into not-necessarily-creative situations. This is an active session where we will share ideas in an open, receptive space. And, we will create a Learning DevCamp creativity souvenir for you to take home.

with Mark Lassoff

In this session, you’ll learn how to get high-quality results with minimal budget and repurposing of household items for video production. While many believe that it’s the expensive equipment that makes for great video, the skill of the video producer is actually much more important. The session will open with a description of the MVS– minimally viable studio– which uses a smartphone, and inexpensive home depot lighting to create stunning results on video. The facilitator will also present a few add-ons that, while low-cost, can greatly improve the scope and quality of the video produced. Once the minimally viable studio has been established, the facilitator will demonstrate how to use these items in the session to create a video with professional results. The video will be shot, edited, and produced during the session itself, giving participants insight into the techniques used to maximize quality results with minimal video equipment spend.

with Jill Stanton

A current big adventure for L&D is generative AI. Does all the buzz make you wonder what your future as an L&D professional looks like? Are you wondering which generative AI tool and approach paths will take you where you want to go and which are dangerous? Which obstacles are worth overcoming? In this session, you’ll learn how to uses skills and principles that are likely already in your toolkit: instructional design, evidence-based learning design, user experience design, and consulting principles and skills to design your own path to creating effective, engaging learning experiences for your learners with the support of generative AI. First, we’ll apply effective analysis techniques to gather information, begin to create a vision for what your professional future looks like, identify your goals related to generative AI and align available generative AI tools and areas of application and research with those goals. Next, we’ll consider key design principles from user experience and evidence-based learning design to apply to designing learning paths that are best for you and your organization. Then you’ll learn to apply key consulting skills to potential obstacles to creating and following those paths. Throughout the session, real-life examples will illustrate each concept and you’ll be invited to collaborate by sharing your own successes, ideas, and resources. You’ll leave this session having started to design your generative AI learning paths and with key practices, ideas and resources to create your path, achieve your generative AI learning goals, and create your future as a learning professional.

with Vincent Han

There was a recent story about how a chatbot for a large shipping company went rogue and started insulting its own company! This is a real-life illustration of the risks of AI but anyone who has done any substantive work with a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT will know that this is not news.

If you want to utilize an AI chatbot as a virtual member of your corporate team, it should adhere to the same rules as if you were to hire a human. Training a chatbot to be a good corporate citizen is actually doable and as you get more experience with designing chatbots, you’ll learn how to do this well. Join this session where we will walk you through the ways that you can use Mobile Coach to control your LLM experience. We’ll show you how to use Mobile Coach to create detailed instructions for your LLM, how to limit the content it draws upon and how to use it for effective natural language processing within the guard rails you prescribe.

with John Scoresby

The learning Experience Team at Intermountain Health will present a follow-up to the 2023 case study presentation into xAPI. While trying to be innovative when using xAPI to collect learner experience data, this team discovered how to integrate the principles of xAPI with Microsoft Power Suite tools, specifically, Power Automate and Power BI. We will introduce new users to the principles of xAPI while showing how the Microsoft tools can help automate this process for instantaneous data collection and evaluation that can be shown with dynamic graphs to be shared with interested stakeholders. The vision of this case study is to provide stakeholder real data about their learning module that can be used to make decision for future improvements.

with Jane Bozarth

In this somewhat tongue-in-cheek session Dr. Jane Bozarth takes us on a tour of the basics of accessing and understanding academic research: Where to find it, where to focus, and red flags to watch for. We’ll look at factors like reliability and validity, basics of experiment design, and issues with samples and survey techniques. The session will include quick looks at research around topics familiar to many L&D practitioners, such as learning styles, personality type indicators, and “generations”. Note: The intended audience for this session is those who find the very sight of research articles intimidating. The goal is to help them feel more comfortable with accessing and reading through research-based materials; the topic is treated in a fairly lighthearted way.

with Richard Goring

Is the question “Where do I begin?” on accessibility in eLearning stopping you in your tracks? Accessibility in eLearning design is more than making accommodations for those with disabilities. When you consider the broad range of individuals that are your learners, you will find that designing for accessibility is a requirement, not an option. In this session, we break down barriers! Discover the essential practices for creating more accessible digital content. These practices integrate seamlessly into your design process without adding unnecessary work and enhance the learning experience for everyone. By focusing on key areas such as alternative text and image descriptions, color and contrast, screen reader compatibility, closed captioning, and audio descriptions, the session demystifies accessibility and helps you design for all.

with Megan Torrance

With ChatGPT, it seems like we’ve finally solved the “get more done, faster, and with less resources” conundrum once and for all. And yet, you may have heard any number of cautionary tales about generative AI. At this point, you may be wondering how to make the most of this powerful tool. Or you may be wondering how to catch up (and did you get left behind? No, you didn’t) If any of this rings true for your experience, then this session is for you. Megan Torrance will cover the basics – what in practical terms generative AI actually is, and how can you use it as an assistant, a thought partner, a brainstorming muse, or even as part of a learning experience itself. They’ll share examples of how they have used – and you can, too! — ChatGPT and other generative AI tools as part of your communications and learning design, as a media creation tool, and data analytics engine. Throughout the session, she’ll focus in on how to make your use of generate AI “WISE:” smart, safe, inclusive & equitable, keeping you, your organization, and your reputation safe. For Megan, smart use includes leveraging AI for tasks it’s actually good for (and avoiding ones it’s not). Inclusivity includes understanding where inherent bias can creep in and how to counteract it. Safe use includes simple data protections that every one of us is responsible for maintaining. And equitable use starts with an appreciation for the intellectual property and the labor market issues underlying today’s AI industry.

with Sam Rogers

with Dylan Smith

In the learning and development field we are presented with constant challenges. One of my recent challenges was to make our learning more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. I worked with our Accessibility Engineer and learned quite a bit including standards on colors, fonts, sizing, spacing, alt-text, etc. I’ll share some tools that can help you in your journey to make learning accessible to everyone. I’m no expert but I’ll share everything I know!

with Debra Brown

Being a Learning DevCamper is fantastic. We meet new friends, explore interesting skills and walk (or ride or fly) away with great intentions to use what we learn. Join us for a fun session where we build a bridge…that’s right…a real bridge that will help you connect your Camp experience with your work and life at home. This is an experience where you and your fellow participants will build a bridge which will support campers every day at Learning DevCamp. Are you ready to start building your connection?

with Jeff Batt

VR/AR headsets like the Oculus Rift or Apple Vision Pro are becoming increasingly common. Even phones, which most people have in their pockets, can view and interact with AR experiences. How can you take advantage of these devices and deliver content that feels like it was designed for this kind of device? Do you need to know code or some complex application?

In this session, you will learn how to create augmented reality (AR) content easily that feels native to your device. You can use just your iPad to design AR experiences quickly. We will start by exploring how to find free 3D digital assets that can be utilized to design AR experiences rapidly. Then, we will bring those assets into an AR environment and learn how to animate and move the content in 3D. We will also make our content interactive and allow the learner to engage with the AR content to bring it to life. Finally, we will jump into AR on our phones and devices like the Apple Vision Pro and Oculus Rift to see how the experience is enhanced. We will even talk about other tools that can be used to improve your AR content even further.

with Jill Stanton

Quickly create and unleash the power of personas! In this session, we’ll discuss the benefits of personas in effective learning design, the basics of using generative AI, recent thinking about creating inclusive personas, real world examples of personas and their application, and how to create and use personas to design and develop effective learning experiences. You’ll learn a four step approach to creating and using personas in addition to useful tools for the process including: empathy mapping, techniques to surface unspoken needs We’ll also discuss and try out some best practices for using generative AI to quickly make adaptable, dynamic data-driven personas, including analyzing data, generating and reviewing personas, and updating personas throughout design, development, and implementation. You’ll leave with tips, templates, and best practices to start using right away to create and apply these powerful tools in your design process to provide training that you know works for learners.

with Richard Goring

Remote learning is here to stay, as is the Zoom fatigue that many learners experience. The importance of compelling content is becoming ever more apparent, but trying to do that with the same tools you’ve always had can be hard, right? Wrong. PowerPoint gives you terrific tools to create the kind of dynamic, visual content that you need to capture your audience’s attention. With functions that allow interactive sequences, navigable content to respond to your audience, and pop quizzes for informal knowledge checks. And you know what? Pretty much all of that works really well for in-person training too. And for hybrid sessions. Come along to this masterclass packed with live demonstration of how to create compelling presentations for successful training in a virtual, hybrid, or in-person environment.

with Jason Bickle

Ten years into the HTML5 revolution with its focus on responsive web experiences, the elearning world What if we had no graphics? What if there was no audio or video? Would our online learners learn? As technology is changing, the way we think about teaching and learning online is evolving. How do we develop courses with improved cognitive engagement. How do we create the Need to Know? Motivating the learner to take responsibility for the learning process.

*Session offerings may change without notice.