Being a distributed team here at LearnJam, we’re used to collaborating together and running remote workshops fully online. So, over the last month, we’ve loved seeing online communities grow and have been showing our virtual faces at as many online learning events as possible. Here are some of the Zooms and Hangouts we’ve been in and what we’ve learned.
Online events we have attended / hosted
LXD Meetup: Building learning communities online
Since 2017 LearnJam has co-organizing the Learner Experience Design Meetup with Enrol Yourself. This was our first ever online instalment of the LXD Meetup back in April, where we discussed how we can build and maintain learning communities in the virtual realm.
Some food for though from this Meetup included:
- Community takes many forms and also brings different things for different people
- Community increases our ability to be in service of other people
- We need a bias to action. So many ideas get forgotten in documents. What is the smallest thing that you can do today to help build or maintain a community?
- Different platforms that we use shape the experiences that we have of and in communities.
- Can the current coronavirus challenge help us to bring a more authentic side of ourselves to the professional communities that we are part of?
- If communities make hard things easier, what could we be making easier by building a community around it?
Join us this Wednesday 20th May for our next LXD Meetup with Deepr Design, who will be sharing everything they’ve learned about optimising online and digital experiences for maximum human connection.
Creating effective adult learning webinar with EdApp
In April we were invited by mobile microlearning platform, EdApp, to deliver a webinar on designing effective learning experiences. We took the opportunity to explore how our Learning Design Principles might actually be applied in EdApp, taking into account its features, functionality and available activity templates. We modelled a couple of simple microlessons (one on tips for teaching online, the other on learning Greek phrases for ordering a coffee) and we used these as starting points to describe how we made content and learner experience decisions using our LDP.
Missed out? Check out our slide deck and webinar recording to catch up.
Work smarter, not harder with Echo
We’ve been running training sessions for years, and one of the most popular courses is a half-day session on strategies and tips for working more productively – ‘Work smarter, not harder’. Because of the lockdown, we’ve now moved to running this as online learning events, reworking a 3-hour in-person course as a series of shorter webinars.
We were asked to run a special version of the course by the skills trading platform Echo (‘Economy of Hours’) for a digital skills programme put together by the University of Loughborough. This involved developing a ‘flipped’ version of the course, with 1-2 hours of self-study work, followed by a 2-hour webinar session.
I really enjoyed the experience – particularly because of the range of people taking part, which included actors, web designers, NHS workers, entrepreneurs and more. It was great to get such a range of perspectives on the topic of productivity, particularly in the current situation which throws up all sorts of new challenges – and to learn that everyone actually faces similar problems and can benefit from taking time out to look at how they work and find ways to reduce their stress levels and feel more in control of their working day.
You can find out more about the training we’re currently offering here.
LXD MTL – Virtual Conversation Cafe
INBO, a transformation consultancy based in Canada, runs a regular LXD Meetup in Montreal. This was the first online LXD MTL Meetup and was a ‘lean-coffee’ participant-driven session, run by Jess Malz
The session kicked off by brainstorming LXD topics for discussion on Mural. After a round of dot voting, we went into breakout rooms to discuss two questions: ‘how to read the room online?’ and ‘what’s the most efficient way to train people in HR to create their own online training?’
After weeks inside with limited interaction outside of my work and home ‘bubble’ it was refreshing to hear and share new ideas. My top takeaway was to use collaboration supercards. These printed cards say things like ‘you’re on mute’ or ‘great idea’ and are held to the camera for visual suggestions during online calls without verbal interrupting.
Check out Learning Experience Designers Montreal on Meetup for info on their next session.
Upcoming events
Here are some online learning events we’re looking forward to attending in the coming weeks:
- Technology and Publishing: Making It Work – May 19th
- EDUCATE Presents: AI Readiness Webinar for Educators – May 19th
- LXD Meetup: Learn how to design experiences optimised for human connection – May 20th
- Responsible Design in Times of Radical Transformation – May 20th
- COVID-19: Reimaginar la educación a través de una experiencia colaborativa (OpenIDEO Barcelona Chapter) – May 25th
- LXDcon – June 1st
- The Behaviour and Design conference – June 4th
- Hotjar’s eCommerce UX Lightning Talks – June 8th
- Digital Pedagogy Lab Online – July 26th – Aug 1st
