Making sense of the sense in a digital learning world Ady Howes, Digital Learning Specialist, www.dpgplc.co.uk
Welcome. I've built this digital story of my session at Learning and Skills 2016. I love the visual impact and the beautiful scrolling touch.
Some of the buttons in this Adobe Slate link to pages which will be made available during my session on Wednesday 3rd February at 11.15am Theatre 10. If you're browsing ahead of this, do be sure to check back during or after the session.
And in the meantime, here's a little more about what I do....
One of the great things about being a Digital Learning Specialist for DPG is that I'm just that. A specialist. Not an expert. This is a great place to be. Digital is constantly shifting, changing, growing and developing. There's always new tools, tech, toys, gadgets and gizmos to play with. What's new today, is replaced and out of date tomorrow. So how can anyone possibly be a digital expert? Is there such a thing?
The scale of the word digital is awesome and exciting. It's not just online, it's offline too. It's not just on-demand at a time that suits, it's live. It can include or exclude people. Sometimes it needs to be connected, sometimes it has to operate when it's not. And quite frankly, some of the time the best thing you can do with technology is turn it off.
Why are digital skills so important?
We've all changed our habits in the way that we learn things and that's an obvious reason for the need to develop better digital skills. While most of us now take the internet for granted, too many people and organisations in the UK are still missing out on the benefits it has to offer. 12 million UK adults and a 23% of small businesses don't have the skills to prosper in the digital era. That's according to a charity called GO.On UK. In our own L&D industry, the latest Towards Maturity benchmark report shows the significant advantage organisations embracing digital have over others. It's interesting research and information that further supports the need to develop our digital competence. If we are not leading the way in L&D, who will? There's a link below to a video I created which sums up the key findings of the research by GO.ON.
Do we settle for digital incompetence or not? Do we do nothing when our budget to outsource is dry, or do we develop some internal capability? Do we commit to developing the digital skills of ourselves, our people, our organisations and industries? It's a choice to make.
When thinking about digital learning content, a useful thing to do is to 'brainstorm' the different things you can do to bring content to life and make it more engaging. Think visual, audio and touch. Think about how you can make your learning content look, sound and interact with better. From this, it becomes apparent where the skills are that you or your team may need to develop. Here's some ideas and some of the skills I've needed to develop as a Digital Learning Specialist.
What others can you think of? Where may you need some more ideas?
It could feel like we have a mountain to climb. But remember, we don't have to be an expert, we just have to focus on turning up the dial bit by bit, one level at a time. And let's not overwhelm ourselves trying to do everything at once. Start small. Choose one of two areas for you or your team to focus on and work with that for now. The rest can come later. This is a continuous journey.
Here's just a few ideas to help you and your team develop your digital capability....
I'd love to be connected with you on Twitter and welcome any questions you have...
