What an exciting time it is! Thanks to how rapidly technology is advancing, training is more readily available and engaging through various platforms and formats than ever before. That’s what I observed while attending ATD International Conference & Exposition, one of the world’s largest events for talent development professionals worldwide.
I was inspired by keynote speaker, Seth Godin, who gave a fresh insight into how we perceive our work, change, and the people we work with. Seth challenged the audience to be leaders in the workplace; embracing coordination, trust, permission and exchange of ideas with our tribe. I took these recommendations to heart, knowing change is one of the many things we can count on. By embracing emerging eLearning technologies, learning can be fun, engaging and productive again.
From VR and AR to AI and interactive video content, the advancement of technologies to support eLearning is fascinating to watch. These immersive training channels can capture and track a larger scale of learners’ attention while providing a more relevant and immediate learning experience.
Because we work with so many LMS platforms, a session that really peaked my interest was titled “Is the LMS Dead? Highlights From the Latest ATD Research” by Thomas Stone. The research efforts done by i4cp and ATD in 2018 found Learning Management System use has increased 71% in the past 2 years. I was expecting an increase but that is quite the uptick! Of the 17% of groups without an LMS, 44% are looking to adopt a LMS. Listening to the attendees questions and answers was encouraging to hear how eager many are to streamline their eLearning training for staff across various education, compliance, service and healthcare industries. As someone new to Rustici, this was exciting to hear as we talk to so many LMSs and learning platforms each day on ways to help them add support for eLearning standards in their products.
Another session that I was really excited about was “Leveraging AI to Supercharge Sales Effectiveness” co-presented by Trevor Byrd of Sales Performance International (SPI) and Carver Matheidas from Zoomi. Rustici Software has been working closely with Zoomi to integrate their powerful AI platform with SCORM Cloud, so hearing firsthand how SPI plans to use Zoomi’s AI to improve their sales enablement training was great.
Outside of sessions, I spent most of my time in the exhibitor hall. It was a great chance to have in-person conversations answering questions about SCORM and xAPI as well as discussing how we help companies distribute, manage and track their content across multiple systems.
In summary, I observed many great conversations among attendee sessions. Discussions ranged from the importance of understanding what data is available in their LMS (such as time duration, completion status, pass/fail, score) to learner activity data (xAPI statements) captured in a Learning Record Store (LRS) outside of the traditional LMS-based learning session.
Learning how to use the learner activity data continues to be a big focus and is evolving quickly with new emerging technologies that are providing valuable insight through AI and xAPI analytics. ATD 2019 was an exceptional experience and provided many different paths to follow, whether you’re seeking direction for creating eLearning content, finding the right LMS provider, consulting services, sales training, talent management, leadership development and much more.
As each one of us in the eLearning space presses forward, eagerly embracing new emerging technologies, I’m energized to help organizations and vendors alike leverage SCORM and xAPI to support widespread interoperability. Reach out to us with any questions about these eLearning standards, and we will be happy to guide you in the right direction.
