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This week, we’ve got posting using #learningisthebusiness to encourage L&D professionals from around the world to share their insights to help ensure learning earns its rightful place on the strategic roadmap, as well as the power behind it. We’ve started tweeting our thoughts and will continue to share advice, resources and great articles we hope will help. We’ll also recommend people to follow who have some great things to say on the topic. So pop over to Twitter now and follow #learningisthebusiness.
As a break from the norm, I’ve decided to dispense with the written narrative and become reporter in the field. With the hottest talking points including corporate MOOCs, learning ecosystems, xAPI and the changing skill-set of L&D, it was a thought provoking and vibrant conference. Here’s my round up from DevLearn 2014 and as an added bonus, you can download the slides from my presentation on What Corporates Can Learn From The MOOC Experience. WillowDNA DevLearn VodCast 2014
It’s less than 6 weeks to DevLearn, one of the most important conferences and exhibitions in the learning calendar. So it’s incredibly exciting to be presenting WillowDNA and the UK learning community at such a prestigious event. Over the past 12 months, corporate MOOCs and online academies have dominated in conversations and engagements with our customers and during our webinars. So it’s fantastic to continue this over the other side of the Atlantic. As well as speaking on the MOOCs stream in the DevLearn conference, we’ll also be keen to pick up on the trends, debate and new developments being showcased over the 3 days in Las Vegas as learning experts from all over the world explore ‘The New Learning Universe’. So in the lead up to this exciting event, myself and the team will be sharing our reflections on the New Learning Universe. From the stakeholder view through to new entrants fresh out of formal education, we’ll be looking at the challenges, opportunities and predictions we expect to dominate the learning landscape over the coming 12 months. We’ll be kicking off with Emily Cox, who’ll be exploring the new learning skill-set and what the New Learning Universe means to the instructional design community. So check back in a couple of days for the first in our series.
Many thanks to everyone who came along to the webinar this morning – online academies certainly lived up to it’s hot topic billing. From creating an effective learning ecosystem through to adding context through great content and community activity, it’s a rich subject that we’ll explore further in our autumn webinar series. We’ll be taking a summer break from our webinar programme but the blog will still be very much active, so check back regularly for new posts and papers on academies. We’ll be back on the webinar circuit on 17th September at 10am UK time with our friends at the Learning and Performance Institute for a webinar on Taking Leadership Programmes Online, where we’ll be building on the ideas and concepts explored today. You can download today’s presentation here.
We are delighted to announce that WillowDNA have been shortlisted for this year’s e-Learning Awards 2012 for best online distance learning programme for our work with the IPA. As finalist in this year’s Peer Awards sponsored by The Independent already, it’s incredibly exciting for us for our work to continue to be recognised. Next week, we’ll be publishing an article on some of the lessons learnt from the IPA Foundation certificate and more generally, how professional bodies can extend their reach with world class distance learning.
The traditional route to a University degree has never been more expensive for the student with the recent rise in tuition fees to £9000 per year. This market is now seeing an unprecedented increase in different providers offering degrees. And with this rise comes new ways of delivering degrees. The recent rise in tuition fees to £9,000 per annum has opened the market to private university colleges, challenging the traditional approach to a university education. With the option to fast track degrees over a two year rather than a three year period, the attractive reduction in the cost of a degree makes considerable sense to students as well as to their parents. As a parent myself to two more potential university candidates in the coming years, I am especially interested in how this is all shaping up. I was delighted to have my company chosen as the digital partner in the provision of a new distance degree due to be launched this Autumn. We have always prided ourselves on dealing with pretty complex material for professional learners. This was a natural next step for us. But as a parent, I wonder what choices my two young sons will have available to them in the next few years. Quite a few years ago, I took my post grad. conversion to IT through the Open University. One of the striking comparisons I made at the time was the much higher quality of materials provided by the OU compared to my recent university experience. Universities have been using VLEs (Virtual learning Environments) for quite some years and the open source platform, Moodle, tends to be ubiquitously used for academic supply of learning content for students. The use of the VLE under these circumstances though, tends to be very much in the hands of the individual tutor and there is frequently little consistency across the campus. Distance learning though, is a different environment. There is no teacher in the classroom, so the materials have to speak for themselves. The OU knew this from their earliest days. With the advent of new technologies the expectation of students who have only known the PC and internet age, for whom social collaboration is norm, is very high. The University colleges of the future who can meet this challenge, plus cut the costs of a degree will be way ahead. The prospect of my two boys entering their adulthood with debts of £27,000 in tuition fees alone is not too appetising. The educational establishment that manages to pull off lower fees with potentially fast tracked routes will be hugely attractive. And it would not have to be distance learning v. campus learning. For the educationalist to fast track your student, you will need to be able to compliment your traditional tutoring and lecturing with online access to extra tuition time. Another variation on that theme will be the mostly distance provision with much lower attendance but far more intensive tuition. I recall all too well the relatively low number of timed lectures for my degree. Today though, the very short terms plus almost non-existent lectures for my stepson is an eye-opener in comparison. Is this the result of the cuts in higher education? The biggest challenge of all though will be with perception. Can the new entrants truly challenge Oxbridge and the Russell Group? Or will they be seen as degrees on the cheap by students and employers? I hope not. For my children’s sake I hope this is the opportunity to break into new territory and give the traditional route to a valued and valuable higher education a much needed shake-up!
WillowDNA
Bristol & Bath Science Park
Dirac Crescent
Emersons Green
Bristol BS16 7FR
UK