A Conversation with Bill West and Marty Rosenheck at eLBX
- Sean Hickey
- Jun 12, 2018
- 5 min read
Today was the first day of Learning DevCamp—more on that later—and it was an experience. To be specific, it was the eLearning Brothers X-perience, or eLBX for short. From engaging speakers to some awkward comedy moments and a visit from a fairly convincing Gene Simmons impersonator, it was an informative and enjoyable day, full of talk of next-generation learning technologies and eLearning best practices.Â
Bill West (l) and Marty Rosenheck (r) from eLearning Brothers
For me, the highlight of the day was being able to sit down with Bill West and Marty Rosenheck to discuss what they've seen in the learning and development industry, the state of instructional design and eLearning, and where the industry is headed. Both Bill and Marty have been in the field of education, learning, and development for decades. Bill West is the executive director for customer solutions at eLearning Brothers. His experience spans more than 30 years, having earned numerous eLearning awards and having worked with companies such as IBM and Xerox. Marty Rosenheck, Ph.D., is the director of talent development consulting at eLearning Brothers. With more than three decades in the field himself, Marty is a thought leader, author, consultant, and speaker on the application of cognitive science research to learning and performance.Â
While our discussion was informal—definitely not an interview, more like a panel discussion—I wanted to share some of their insights into where eLearning has been and where is might be going. Bill's and Marty's responses below are paraphrased to the best of my memory.Â
You both have been in the industry a long time. How is it different today compared to when you started?Â
BW:  For a long time, all of the content was contained within the eLearning. You would get the content presented in some way, and then you would take a test. The good ones gave you the test first and then followed-up with the content. In today's eLearning, the content is every except in the eLearning. Maybe it's something you curate on your servers or you send your learners to Google to find it, but it's not in the eLearning. The learning is about practicing the skill and showing learners where to find answers.
MR: Â The technology has certainly changed. And I think that is changing the way people learn. In some ways, though, it hasn't changed. A lot of eLearning is done the way it always has been. We're paying more attention today to the way the people learn and the good eLearning does a better job of assessing that.Â
Speaking of technology, how are things like VR and AR changing the eLearning landscape?Â
BW: Â Right now, VR is useful, but the only places it's being used are the real-world situations where failure is incredibly expensive. We created VR training for a team that mixed expensive, highly unstable chemicals in a sealed chamber. One false move, and that's a million dollars' worth of materials ruined. So they can practice with VR again and again until they have the muscle memory and they won't risk the real thing. The equipment and the development for VR training has been so expensive up until now that only those sorts of critical situations warranted the cost of development.
MR:  That's definitely changing, though. You can buy an Oculus setup—no computer needed—for like two hundred bucks. That's changing the calculation for where VR is appropriate. There are even cheaper options. You can do VR with your phone and a Google Cardboard headset for like ten bucks. There was a speaker we had today who mentioned that Walmart is using VR to train new employees on what Black Friday is like. That's where VR is headed. I think we will see more people using it to provide those opportunities to get immersed in a training simulation where they can make mistakes. We just created a VR training about diversity in the workplace, and it lets you actually talk to and interact with people in the virtual environment. The learner has such a strong connection with the content. It's really powerful.
Does VR development cause challenges for your instructional designers? Right now, we hear lots of stories about IDs who are expected to be experts in development software as well as adult learning and education. Are they also expected to produce VR content?
MR:  The time during which one person can create a truly valuable product by themselves is over. You need a team. There are just too many skills involved:  programming, design, learning/curriculum development. In order to create useful, valuable eLearning content, you need a team. It should include your stakeholders, the learners, your designers, programmers, curriculum and learning specialists, and the technology people. Let the tech people focus on the VR. The learning people shouldn't even think about the technology. They should just tell the tech people what they want.
BW: Â That's definitely true. We don't even do it all in-house. No one does. There are too many different skills for one company to do it alone. Big development firms or even small boutique development houses still need to forge partnerships with different companies that can handle some of the needs. We have all sorts of partnerships for skills we just don't have in-house.
Where is learning technology going? What advances have you seen that you think will have—or are having—a significant impact on the eLearning industry?
BW: Â I think AR is one. Even more than VR right now, I think AR has potential. Very little eLearning is focused on blue-collar workers right now, but that's a real opportunity for growth. Suppose you're working on the factory floor and you are wearing some sort of headset like Google Glass and you have an assistant with you that shows you how and when to use the equipment. It's a great way to bring just-in-time training to the workers that need it.Â
MR: Â Have you seen this AR cube thing on Amazon? I think it's called Merge Cube? It's amazing. It's this plain cube that you hold in your hand and with AR it can become anything. The cube disappears and suddenly you're looking at the solar system or a miniature city. The possibilities are endless.
Any other technologies that are impacting eLearning?
MR: Â I think AI is a big one that is going to make a significant change in the years to come. Right now, we have chatbots, which are just really simple AI. But it won't be long before those are personal coaches, providing valuable advice and guiding a learner's experience.
BW:  One thing I'm really excited about is xAPI. It is really one of the most exciting things to happen to eLearning. It provides an opportunity to track learner performance and action outside of the LMS. So you can see that a learner has opened a PDF and read it or edited it. You can add real-world work observations to xAPI, so the learning being provided can be in response to actual learner performance. We recently created eLearning for a sales team that used xAPI to pull real, up to the minute sales data into the learner's record, so the training could automatically tailor itself to how the learner is performing at his or her job. The only thing stopping xAPI from being used is lack of understanding on how to use and implement it. As more people understand it and get trained, they will be better equipped to create responsive eLearning in the future.
Overall, it was a fascinating look into where eLearning has been and where it might be going in the future. I can only hope that the next three days of Learning DevCamp prove to be as informative and exciting as this opening day!