Two hour presentation and workshop completed! It was good fun. Fortunately, there’s been great continuity between presenters and my presentation centreing around new approaches to learning and why these have informed the design of the online learning platform we are developing for IAA  was able to draw a lot of good research from previous speakers.

The wonderful thing about presenting is that it forces you to whip your own thinking into shape – knock the hazy and slightly unclear edges off your ideas and see where the fault lines are occuring. As I concentrated in the first hour on creative thinking, digital literacy and the demand-led need for a re-think of our teaching/training methods I’ve come away from it with a far clearer idea of what I’m actually talking about … always a very good result!

I’ve also become a lot more informed about generational theory – one of the key components in the mix and one that I had not given enough clear thought to.  Conversations with Michael McQueen and a really lovely and amusing  presentation by the Korean sociologist and psychologist Dr Geunyoung Jang have sharpened my focus on the role of  generational dynamics in learning. The current quiet revolution in education and learning approaches has as much to do with this as it does with technological change. Or, probably more accurately, the two are so closely entwined that you have to look at both if you want to catch a glimpse of the bigger picture.