The obligatory end of decade post

Well we’ve reached the year that many an organisation had set as the future – the year for ‘visions’ and forward planning – yep, it’s 2020 time. So with our ‘2020 vision’ hindsight here is a look back at the last decade – the 2010s:

My own decade

Looking back at 2010 it does make one feel a little better about life in that I, personally, have at least achieved a few things…

In terms of career moves I have followed perhaps an odd path but it has followed trends in technology, not least the rise of Web 2.0 in the mid to late 00s leading me into working on eLearning, LCMS and other more general L&D areas since.

(Learning) Technology

Brandon Hall actually recently had a webinar on LCMS platforms and there do remain arguments for them, at least in theory (see image below). I thought this was interesting given their ‘buzz’ certain seems to subsided (although 2020 will be a year where I do not make it to the Learning Tech show or BETT so I might be a little out of the loop).

Back in 2009 my primary tech focus at work was on the learning management system (LMS aka VLE) and BBWorld 09 remains the last time I went to the USA – although the 2010s brought plenty of travel to Canada and elsewhere. On the LMS front it is pretty depressing to recently see research and case study outcomes such as:

“the LMS implemented in the university is not being utilised to an optimum level”

Source: Implementing Adaptive e-Learning Conceptual Model: A Survey and Comparison with Open Source LMS (https://online-journals.org/index.php/i-jet/article/view/11030)

Yet more depressing in the above article is the ‘solution’ to the problem – namely to be “adaptive” by classifying “learners into three main categories, namely, visual learner, an auditory learner, and kinesthetic learner.” Maybe by 2030 such lingering love for learning styles will finally be debunked and gone?

As mentioned on the Practical Ed Tech Podcast’s 12th anniversary edition – this has perhaps been the decade of the device shift with varying obsessions shifting between:

netbook > tablet > Chromebook

Personally, whilst I loved my Windows XP touchscreen netbook at the start of the decade, ultimately a powerhouse PC/laptop is really still the tool to have. Whilst Chromebooks have probably not picked up as much outside the USA their online-first style is probably suited for the 5G world we are moving towards (even if fast broadband for all will not be happening in the UK without a Labour government). I would argue that the reality is that little has been achieved by the focus on the hardware side, albeit that tablets/iPads have allowed for early applications of AR, there’s been little transformation of learning via these routes. Instead media consumption is increasingly easy and of course can be leveraged for learning but also offer us huge distractions.

In workplace learning we have seen various ‘buzz’ topics such as mobile learning, Tin Can, AI and social learning. All in all, these have probably been worked into most organisation’s approaches to digital learning, to at least some degree, even if not necessarily by the organisation as the digital transformation of learning increasingly sees it democratised and moved into the learners control (in a similar way to what has happened with IT in general).

Politics

In many ways this feels like a lost decade – regimes in some parts of the world have cemented their power whilst the UK has effectively stagnated on most measures. Overall, its a depressing picture and no surprise to see lots of people on social media welcoming the 20s as something that, hopefully, can be a fresh start.

The end of my decade: Lessons from Star Trek (TNG)

I’ve spent the last few weeks of the decade on a Star Trek The Next Generation binge – rewatching all seven series ahead of the launch of the new Picard show. TNG has a soft spot in my heart, after originally watching it in the post tea-time slot on BBC television with my family. I was always behind friends who had watched episodes on Sky but it was a show I have fond memories of.

Re-watching TNG there are lots of lessons that can be taken from it and doing a quick Google search predictably shows vast numbers of articles that are devoted to this in terms of ‘best episodes’, ‘best Picard moments’, etc. All in all there were some particular things that jumped out from my binge:

1. Don’t be afraid to work ‘under yourself’ or hire an unexpected candidate. Jean-Luc Picard develops across the series into a wonderful character with a considerable amount of depth. However, it would surely have been easy for Patrick Stewart to turn down the role given his experience as a stage actor and that Trek has often been looked down upon (along with a lot of the rest of sci-fi). Having just also watched Logan you have to admire PS for taking on iconic roles and really running with them and making them his own. Many of us will find ourselves needing to work for money at times rather than for ‘passion’ or obvious career choices (personally I’ve worked in a call centre, Burger King, B&Q, Somerfield supermarket and other jobs because I needed the money and/or experience) – unfortunately it feels in 2020 that recruiters are too often looking for ‘perfect’ candidates and ignore the realities of people’s lives.
2. 80s body horror and cultural acceptability. There are a few early episodes that are now very ’80s, particularly in special effects. A few of these are quite grim in the effects – raising interesting questions over what was appropriate for a family friendly show in the late 80s and early 90s and what you might deem appropriate today. Indeed this runs through other media from the time – for example violence in Spielberg movies and special effects in Indiana Jones and other media. Have we regressed here? What might be appropriate in developing workplace (learning) media? Would ‘not safe for work’ have changed too in that time? Similarly there are clear demonstrations of where what is culturally appropriate/correct have changed – for example a late episode about “North American Indians” (who have setup a settlement on a contested planet) would surely be “Native Americans” if written today – this goes some way to show how quickly things can change and that we should perhaps be less harsh (as a society) on those who perhaps do not keep up with changes to what is deemed culturally acceptable.
3. Performance reviews – hated then, hated now? It probably didn’t feel like it when watched as a weekly serial but, watching in binge mode, it is surprising how often performance reviews are mentioned on the show. Almost universally these mentions are negative – and often tied to emotions around getting a promotion through the ranks. Clearly considering the corporate world’s ongoing challenges with talent management this is something that seems to have stuck around from the early 90s even if we’ve seen a decrease in focus on hierarchy towards matrix and other models.