A look back at Learning DevCamp 2017
Hannah, our Lead eLearning Developer, shares her highlights from the Learning DevCamp 2017 conference.
Held in Salt Lake City, Learning DevCamp (2017) is an eLearning conference dedicated to discussing instructional design theory and authoring tools for eLearning developers across the globe.
As the Lead eLearning Developer at GuyKat Solutions, I was lucky enough to experience the conference again this year, along with my fellow eLearning Developer (and friend) Zoe Hall. Just over a week ago we set off on the 15-hour journey from Birmingham (UK) to beautiful Utah, with high expectations of a great week.
The conference is set over four days. The focus is on eLearning professionals sharing and learning best practices. Whenever I attend DevCamp, it’s always refreshing to find many L&D experts challenging the way online training has to be delivered. There shall be no more boring “click and read” training! This year, there were two innovative concepts that stood out. Firstly, Augmented Reality and the possibilities it can lend to supplement training design. Secondly, bite-size training – sometimes referred to as SHOTs – to provide precise and painless training.
Learning DevCamp also boasts some great industry speakers and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from experts such as Kevin Siegel, Jennie Ruby, Joe Ganci, Nick Floro and the founder of DevCamp, Jason Bickle (to name only a few). A highlight from our week was discovering the new features and capabilities of Adobe Captivate 2017, the authoring tool that we use in-house. Whenever software upgrades become available, we pride ourselves on taking the plunge early on.
A personal highlight for me was reconnecting with some old friends and meeting some new ones. It was great to enjoy dinner (and a spontaneous hike up the Salt Lake Hills) with some energetic and creative people from the eLearning world. There is nothing quite like a sunset in Utah.
Overall, at GuyKat we always aim to make our eLearning engaging and exciting, so attending a conference like this enables us to stay ahead of industry trends and helps us to learn more about how to improve our eLearning modules for the future. I would highly recommend this conference for anyone who is involved in the L&D industry and has the desire to learn about online training. It really is a great way to gain expertise.