Adobe Education Summit 2015

Back in November I was fortunate enough to attend this year’s Adobe Education Summit.  I must admit it is a while since I have really used an Adobe product, beyond the obvious freebie ones and Connect, so I really just wanted to see what was happening with their suite of tools.  Indeed, in the past, Photoshop and Dreamweaver were two of my most used tools, in fact I used to support art students in developing their capability in those tools.  The focus on the day being largely being on the more artistic tools in Adobe’s suite, i.e. the Creative Cloud.

The event was the second held in the UK and was made up, as tends to be the way, between some official corporate messaging, user demos and thought leadership.  The event was also, to an extent, a celebration of 25 years of Photoshop – a pretty amazing fact in-itself considering the way tech has changed in that time.

Adobe keynote

This looked at some of the big trends they seeing from a generational, digital transformation and education sector perspective.  Nothing too much new in what was discussed but they did stress the rise of the Chief Marketing Officer in (higher) education and the impact competition and student demand is having.  On the marketing front, the Adobe ‘Marketing Cloud’ empowers schools and companies.

In terms of learning outcomes there was a mention for Tony Wagner’s more transferable skills (aka survival skills) vs student demand to see clearly what the tangible skills they will get from their studies.  There are clearly some crossovers here to capability education and assessment models that offer alternatives to the 1st/2nd/3rd model.  Interestingly, Adobe are hiring on demonstration of transferable skills – the technical expertise can, they argue, be taught in house.  With my L&D hat on this was obviously interesting to hear.

There were some interesting stats thrown in around the way, for example 72% of students surveyed wanted to be able to look at study options and information to help choose schools on their mobile.  Adobe’s positioning through the student life-cycle looking to help with:

Attract > Engage > Empower

Within engage, they have performed multiple activities, including working with universities on interactive books and mobile apps.  Meanwhile tools like the ‘Document Cloud’ can help organizations with their operations (including the digitization of forms).

Some organizational uses of Creative Cloud were considered, for example Uber’s phenomenal growth has been powered by ‘Creative Sync’ where head office can retain control over core marketing assets centrally, with different countries able to make use of them.  The advantage being that any updates at HQ will automatically filter through to the websites.  In the education space there was a look at Clemson Uni in the US who have taken the approach of “creativity as a competitive differentiator”, with digital creativity embedded across curricula and the whole organization (seemingly) working to this end.  Some of the tangible ways this has impacted have included library space being handed over to students for video production and other products.  Indeed students are expected to product an ePortfolio as a concrete piece of evidence beyond their resume.

I must admit that I had largely heard of a decline in use of Creative Cloud due to cost issues, however, growth numbers are apparently strong.  Perhaps I need to look again!  The ‘Digital Publishing Suite’ certainly looked an easy way to create mobile apps (no coding).

Finally there were plugs for the peer support available via the ‘Adobe Education Exchange’ and the value in some of the certifications available.

Adobe demos

There were a few main messages from these:

  1. no longer just about desktop, more and more about cool mobile apps
  2. increasingly about to work on a project across device and switching between apps
  3. mobile apps aiming to be fun and easy but with real utility, especially when combined with desktop

The main apps to catch my attention:

  1. CaptureCC: capture traditional media for digital work (i.e. hand drawn to vector), a little like OfficeLens for creative types 😉
  2. Premiere Clip: video stories
  3. Comp CC: create a rough sketch of web layouts, creates styled widgets and then can populate with digital assets later.  Those assets can come from elsewhere in your creative cloud so you can have a central store.  Effectively this seemed to produce a drag and drop web authoring environment when combined with Muse but you can also send you layout to InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator.  I thought this was interesting in that it is a ‘creative’ solution to producing digital content in the same way that the eLearning industry have gone and produced their own tools (Articulate, etc) rather than there being a ‘go to’ HTML5 authoring tool.
  4. Slate: presentations in browser or app.
  5. Photoshop Sketch: not that I’m ever likely to be doing any drawing but the timeline feature is really nice.  You can effectively branch a project from a base to create multiple different images or finishes from a standard starting point.
  6. Photoshop fix: use the healing tool on the go!  The demo showed how you could use the ‘face tool’ to make the Mona Lisa smile!!

Guest speakers

Sarah J Coleman (aka inkymole illustration) and David Butler (VP of Innovation at The Coca-Cola Company)

Sarah’s talk was most of interest to me in just seeing her mindset around digital tools, she uses traditional and digital media.  However, there are some things she is known for (such as chalk-style effects) that she has only ever done digitally.  It was also interesting to hear how her digital approach has changed over time, she was apparently a big user of MySpace for self promotion!  There were certainly some lessons for those, such as me, considering the talk from a ‘learning’ perspective – not least “It’s OK to bugger things up as long as you had a go” (the kind of message that of course comes up a lot when thinking about learning cultures!).  She has worked with others to produce a film, “Stupid Enough“, aiming to provide better advice to aspiring creatives from the likes of Gareth Edwards.

I had to leave before the end of the Coca-Cola presentation but it was looking how ‘design thinking’ has changed their business.  From one which took decades to change or introduce new products it is now much more flexible and a “design driven company”.  I particularly liked the point that we are now all designers and our organizations need to work to get us designing better.  I’d argue we can see some bigger trends around this, if we thinking of data presentation (including infographics) the need to have an ‘eye’ for design is increasingly important (he says somewhat ironically considering the basic design I have opted for with this site).  His approach to design being:

explore > simplify/standardize/integrate > scale

Within the above, you can design for agility by having fixed elements (like the coke ingredients) and recognize the flexible pieces (new productions, sizes, packaging, etc).  For Coca-Cola this has led to three new billion-dollar juice brands in the last five years and increased growth in emerging markets (where the core product is fixed but distribution/sales models can be seen as the flexible elements).

Educators’ presentations

A number of presentations, I had to take a few calls during these so did not see them all but they included:

  1. rllearning.com: presenter has worked with teachers at his school to digitize curriculum.  He is also a Lynda.com author to help a wider audience, including students so they can help themselves.  Justification for all of this was to “help changes lives!”.  A very passionate speaker!  It seemed like a lot was done via publishing to the ‘Adobe Content Viewer’ app.
  2. tipsquirrel.com: presenter focused on why he has students actively using their mobiles [yes it seems there is still a debate on if phones should be left on or not!]  There was a lot of basic stuff on phone management in the room [the nicest idea was that they have phone breaks every 20 mins which also doubles up as a ‘brain break’].  The more interesting bit was how some apps are being used in the curriculum and by students, he mentioned: Capture, PhotoShop Light-room, PS Mix, PS Fix and Instagram for Photography.  Cross-subject apps included Slate, Adobe Voice, NearPod, Edmodo and RefME.

 

ALT Winter Conference 2015 (Day 2)

I am hoping to attend at least part of a few ALT Winter Conference sessions today, notes below.

Jessica Gramp (UCL): Welcome to ‘Moodle My Feedback’

  • Moodle plugin being developed at UCL – this was an update on progress as it has been showed at previous events.
  • Adds My Feedback to profile block.
  • Problems with default Moodle included feedback is stored in TurnItIn – this tool aggregates links back to TII, rather than having to go into different courses to find them.
  • Tells you if students have looked at feedback.

Using Social Media Data in Learning Practice and Research

  • 9 minute demo video: https://vimeo.com/147996126 using Facebook data, visualized, for research.
  • Overall I took that the point here was there are a huge amount of possibilities and questions from this.

Gaming the Conference: can Playful Interactions Engage Delegates

  • #altcgame
  • Some details on the game that took place at the conference.

Arena Blended Connected (ABC) rapid curricula development at UCL

  • Presentation on an approach that has been found to be a great way to engage academics.
  • Previously did not have a coherent way to talk to academics about their programmes, they have adapted Ulster’s approach from JISC Viewpoints project.
  • “Connected Curriculum” – wider framework for good design at UCL: this is the C part.  A and B help with the structure to reach those outcomes.
  • Core to the approach is a “Gamestorming” 90 minute workshop, have a high energy discussion on what to do.  Consider issues such as what learners should be doing, mockup of examples of modules (broken down by learning types), etc.
  • Argue best to not start with assessment as to allow for mindset that anything could be assessed.
  • Use session to bring in other elements such as high level costing of module development, impact of including videos, etc.
  • http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ele/

TFPL – Dashboards in Excel Made Easy

  • Not an ALTC session but another webinar I attended today.
  • How to build dashboard combining one function, a chart, some data validation.
  • Used COUNTIF to count a total from data.  COUNTIFS for multiple.
  • Use bar conditional formatting and then create chart from there.
  • Add data validation with tool-tip for interactivity on page.
  • Then format the worksheet as a dashboard – basically calling on data elsewhere through a visualised approach.
  • Overall this was relatively straight forward stuff.

The Future of Learning: Project-based teaching and assessment supported through new media technologies

  • I didn’t attend too much of this one but when I came in then there was a discussion of some of problems with current university education, including the student focus on grade and the resulting concentration on what the exams will be.
  • Presenter’s research has just reconfirmed that content heavy education leads to rote learning.
  • Need to align assessments with what you really want the students to learn.
  • About personal journeys – only way to ensure students take subject to heart.

RefME as an example for viral apps

Do you remember Harvard referencing and building lengthy bibliographies during your student days?  If yes, did you find it time consuming?  Yep, thought so, did you ever use the techniques again (presuming you’ve not continued in academia)?  No?  Didn’t think so.

Even if we’re kind to academic referencing it is, at best, a necessary evil to show the development of research skills and the correct representation of ideas (i.e. to avoid plagiarism).  I’ve been to two events this week, the first on Adobe products will get a longer post but the second, on RefME, showed how a tool can go viral with users if it is really well targeted on solving an actual problem.

RefME has built a following of more than one million users quicker than Facebook or Twitter – all thanks to the humble citation!  Why?  Well those negative experiences of citation and bibliography building are now finally tackled through this very easy to use app.

When I studied there were some tools in this space, some institutionally backed, but none as easy as RefME appears from the demos at the #BLEevent.  Overall, I took away a key message here – focus on your audience (whoever they may be) and their challenges/frustrations.  If you are facing a lack of adoption with your corporate/institutional technology then it is probably fair to presume that it is (a) not easy enough to use and/or (b) not solving a problem that is felt keenly enough.

It will be interesting to see if any institutions opt to stand against it as a way of students ‘cheating’ by not having to spend hours formatting their own lists … not to mention all the librarians who will have another thing they ‘own’ taken away from them by technology.

Why I work in ‘learning’

I have had a lot of conversations of late as to why I do what I do and how my career has developed.  The below is a little reflection I initially drafted in a coffee shop earlier in the week…

 

My primary driver in career considerations, when younger, was that I wanted to do something that would help people better themselves. This was partly driven by, whilst living in Toronto for a year, spending a lot of time in Toronto’s libraries. The library was a haven for me as a temporary resident, providing internet access (when it was not as ubiquitous as today) as well as newspapers, books and entertainment. My academic studies, that followed, in the library/information world further fueled my interest in learning.

I have written before about the particular educational informatics module that was at the heart of my professional focus on completion of my MA and, realistically, still is. My career since then has seen time spent in FE, HE and workplace learning but, in all those environments, my interest in supporting people to better themselves has remained. This has, of course, taken different flavors, from supporting people to pass exams, supporting less able people with basic English language skills, creating an information architecture for tutors and students to interact, developing complex career pathways and learning opportunities, etc.

My view is that personal empowerment is all important, I would argue only with this can you have a truly engaged populace (when it comes to education) or workforce (for organizational L&D). As such I have no interest in being the holder of knowledge, rather the architect and facilitator. This is one area where I differ to some of the people I have met through the years in the learning and library professional communities.

One annoyance of mine, with both the HE and L&D professional worlds is that they too often look for the differences between themselves. I seriously believe you can only support a workforce if you are aware of the school and post compulsory education systems your workplace are emerging from. Similarly universities, as is well recognized, need better links with employers to understand their needs.

Whose education/learning is it then? The answer is increasingly complex, we no longer need a basic workforce for factory, field and forces but one able to adapt. I would see myself as an example of this, taking the ‘I want to help people be better’ mentality to different sectors and roles; the balance of who benefits most from my work will vary between the individual, organization and society.

In terms of L&D specifically I would see the recent recognition of value for skills like curation as, largely, nothing new but recognition of failings in the past. Underpinning all of this is the inevitable move to digital and I’ll post soon some thoughts on some recent posts related to eLearning and the nature of L&D.

I will finish with saying that my ethos of looking to better people and therefore our organizations and society doesn’t necessarily mean I want to work in ‘L&D’. I see the need for far less boundaries in supporting workplace/student performance and there also needs to be a recognition that different traditional professionals are all having similar conversations, for example much of this paper for CIOs will sound familiar to learning professionals facing the need to change for our future digital workplaces.

A webinar day: global love for learning

Yesterday (19th Nov) I planned to attend a few webinars – some rough notes below for the ones I made it to:

The Connected Global Educator (Global Education Conference)

The first session from this year’s GEC I have been able to attend.  The GEC schedule is always hugely impressive and a great example of virtual tools being used to learn globally.  However, it does not seem to attract huge audiences, at least live, with only 7 attendees (split between US, UK, Belarus, Nepal, Argentina and possibly elsewhere) for this session (with the presenter and moderator from Australia).

The presenter (Anne Mirtschin) talked about how she develops learner curiosity through global tools and collaboration.  She connects with people globally with her countryside school in Australia talking to experts, community groups, other schools, etc. around the world to help learning be “far more effective than a textbook”.  Using webcams, etc. also gives the students transferable skills, recognizing that people will talk via Skype, etc. in increasingly global workplaces, as well as with friends and families abroad.  As well as synchronous sessions she has also used asynchronous tools, for example sending video recordings back and forth with US schools.

As well as her own activities can make us of globally organised events, for example, “International Dot Day”.  Lots of good examples were run through, including using WeChat to communicate with Chinese students.  She has had other educators contact her directly – finding her via Google – for example a rural Japanese school connected with them.

My take on all of this is it is amazing for cultural awareness and other learning opportunities.

Showing the value of learning as a service (LSG)

About how the presenter has changed the perception of learning and L&D at Rentokill during 3 years at the company.

Have made the move away from L&D being the experts, controlling things through a center of excellence model.  Looked critically at their setup, for example, was the LMS just there for L&D rather than there to facilitate and democratize learning?  Partnered with a start up (Fuse[?]) to see what could impact on business, lead to creating community based platform to source and share knowledge.  Have given subject matter experts content creator/recorder tools – would have been doing it anyway locally but ability to do it easily amplified this.  Particularly powerful as do on mobile whilst doing job.  Realize time for 40mins eLearning had gone, follow lead of YouTube.

Made use of other tools, including mobile assessments and reflective questions.  Including observational assessment guidance for managers.

Need to assess UG content?  No.  Likes, shares, etc. will see cream rise to top.  Similarly, advantages if previous misunderstandings are now being communicated out as those people can be corrected.

Put price on items to change mindset – give business choice of going to them or elsewhere.  Made people realise the benefit for L&D.  Show can provide value compared to external vendors, make it easier to increase headcount based on demand from business.

Measure total of ‘learning interventions’, measure of access to digital resources – like YouTube play counts.  However, even existing content has had big increases in use – not just growth through chunking.

With good content, created a revenue generating external learning platform for customers.  This is same Fuse platform.  For bigger customers they provide content so they can deploy themselves via an LMS or other system.

Overall a fantastic presentation on how they have transformed learning, changing the approach to learning and the business relationship.

Linking Colleagues, Researchers, Industries and Investments Today – Dr. Mirzi L. Betasolo (GEC)

Joined but unfortunately the presenter had not made the session.

Love Sharing, Love Learning (LSG)

Presentation based on some of points from new booklet Charles Jennings has done with Cornerstone.

Opening question on how people are supporting learning and sharing – wide range of ideas and tools put forward by the audience, as you would expect.

Humans are a social species – talking about natural behaviors.  Technology now driving how we do this.

New work environments emerging, as a result of digital and social for many organizations the “20%” is much bigger in the mix.

Conversation a key learning tool.  Need to create the correct environments, with openness and sharing.  Need trust, honesty, etc.  Can use questions, for example, if a performance manager you should not be talking for the majority of a conversation – mention for US after action review process.

UGC, shared search, all mentioned as playing part in wider changes.  L&D role can be in speeding up knowledge sharing, [step out of the way].

No longer information scarcity, world now is one of information abundance.  Mention for Jarche with KPM/SSS and those skills important in new world.

One role of L&D to find what is not available on the Internet [i.e. the real USP knowledge of your organization] – but now have options to do that seeking/sharing quicker.

Survey of College & University Faculty Workplace Engagement (Inside Higher Ed)

This sounded like a really good session considering the current focus on engagement in the corporate world.  The figures, from US Higher Ed, showed some very low numbers in terms of workplace engagement.  Clearly work to be done in this space.