All My Sketchnotes from the Learning Technologies Conference 2024 UK

 Rachel Burnham writes: This work the Learning Technologies Exhibition and Conference #LT24UK has been taking place on 17 & 18 April at ExCel in London.  I was attending the conference as part of the social media team and contributing to the social media coverage for the event by Sketchnoting sessions.   I will include in this blog all my Sketchnotes for the sessions I participated in over the two days.

 

With a keynote address on each day and up to 5 streams of sessions for the two days, a lot of different topics and takes on those topics have been explored over the two days.  Each participant will have chosen to participate in a mix of sessions, with differing formats and will have come with a range of experience and from varying contexts, so each person will have their own view about what the conference covered and how valuable it was.  My experience was that all the sessions I participated in were thoughtful, interesting and of value.  Of course, there are some points made by speakers that I disagreed with, some things that weren’t new to me but familiar territory and also lots and lots that challenged, inspired and intrigued me.  

Here are my Sketchnotes from across the two days.  I have included both the titles of the sessions and the hashtags based on the session numbers so that you can look at other social media coverage on these sessions if you wish:

Opening Address Wednesday – A world in flux: AI and the forces transforming work, and what we can – and should – do about it

Daniel Susskind was looking at how AI is disrupting not just blue collar jobs, but also professional roles. He identified that this happening at the task level for a wide range of professions, rather than replacing the job as a whole. He also identified that AI tackles tasks differently compared to the way a human does, but may still be able to do specific tasks more effectively than a person does.  It was a pity that he seemed unaware of the way that modern L&D works and the range of ways in which effective learning can be supported.

 

#T3S1 The Case for Rethinking Organizational Learning

Here is my Sketchnote from the interactive session led by Dr. Nigel Paine and Dr. Celine Mullins on rethinking Organizational Learning.

The point that resonated with me particularly was about focusing not on knowledge but on knowing. With Sketchnoting I find the value is in 'the doing' and the insight this gives rather than in the Sketchnote produced.

 

#T4S3 Instructional Design in the Real World

Andrew Jacobs chaired a fully interactive session with a fabulous panel made up of Jane Bozarth, Julie Dirksen and Cammy Bean. The session was exploring designing learning for the way people learn and work and addressed questions from session participants - by doing this it modelled one of the points made in the session that relevance leads to engagement.

It was fascinating that so many questions related to managing relationships in order to be able to design effectively eg with SMEs or other stakeholders. Lots of practical approaches for doing this were shared by the panel.

 

Opening Address Thursday – What on earth will people do next? Understanding human behaviour now and in the future?

Lively, informative and helpful keynote from Thimon De Jong at the start of the second day of the Learning Technologies Conference. He focused on the implications for learning of two key areas - mental health and our response to the introduction of new technology.  I loved his use of metaphors – being stranded on a sandbar and the elevator – a gift for a Sketchnoter!

 

#L2S1 L&D and Sustainability

I was very glad that I was able to take part in the lunchtime session yesterday on 'L&D and Sustainability' hashtag#L2S1 with Rob Hubbard, Bryan Hopkins, Natalie Ainsworth and Jodie Pritchard. There is a lot we can be doing in L&D to be contributing to sustainability in our organisations - we need to put our hands up, find out what is already going on in our organisations, talk about it and remember that we have useful skills in changing human behaviour which is so important to this work.

 

#T1S5 VR in Learning

Lots of practical advice and experience shared from two very different organisations about when, how and when not to use VR for effective learning.

Really liked the DICE mnemonic for situations in which VR can be a good option shared by Charles Neuner and the practical examples for when to use the real thing, video or VR from Matt Day. The session was chaired by Stella Collins who kept the questions flowing.

 

#T4S6 Al Literacy for L&D

This session at yesterday's Learning Technologies Conference by Jon Fletcher of the The LPI (Learning and Performance Institute) was informative, challenging and got behind the hype about AI and into sufficient detail to be practically helpful. It focused on what knowledge and skills L&D professionals need to be developing in the next months/year to be able to both use AI effectively in our own work and also to be able to support our organisation/clients at they adopt AI technologies. In addition, he helpfully identified existing skills of L&D folk which will be useful in working with AI.

There is a lot for us to be learning, but Jon set out a map of what that looks like at present and by doing so gave us a great starting point.

 

Rachel Burnham

19 April 2024

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.

 

How Sketchnoting became the key to unlock a whole new way of working

 Case Study - Sketchnoting in Use in the Chemical Industry

Background

• Janet Greenwood runs a specialist consultancy, TT Environmental Ltd, helping high hazard industries such as heavy industry and manufacturing understand and comply with chemical regulations. They provide environmental consultancy services and GHS Classification Courses, which provide introductions to CLP, and also CLP mastery, which is all about ensuring that organisations are able to communicate clearly to customers and staff the hazards of chemicals.

How Sketchnoting is being used

Janet has been using Sketchnoting in her work since she did an introductory virtual workshop to Sketchnoting facilitated by Rachel Burnham in the summer of 2021. There are two main ways in which she is using Sketchnoting:

• Firstly, as a way of communicating urgent news to customers and contacts in a quick and easy to digest format. This has enabled Janet’s consultancy to get breaking information out rapidly to her client base and industry to inform and reassure.  Eg  a problem with the law underpinning CLP was identified and it was important to provide professionals dealing with this with timely advice on how to respond. Here is the simple but effective Sketchnote used to do this: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/janet-greenwood_state-of-play-with-annex-viii-to-clp-as-we-activity-6900757098003517440-W51n/
• Secondly, Janet and her team are now making extensive use of a variety of Sketchnotes within their training courses to summarise complex and detailed information on a single sheet.  She describes Sketchnotes ‘as a way of getting across years or even decades of experience concisely and in an easily understandable form, both to beginners and more experienced professionals.’ They had previously make use of flowcharts and infographics - one of the advantages of Sketchnotes is their flexibility, so that you can vary the approach used to present the content most effectively and also combine a number of approaches within a single Sketchnote such as flowcharts, words, diagrams, arrows, structure and pictures. Some of their Sketchnotes are more word based and some more visual eg setting out the hazards of particular chemicals. With a Sketchnote you can both get the big picture, the context and also specific details.

The impact of using Sketchnoting

• Janet and her team have had a very positive response to their use of Sketchnotes both as a communication tool and also as a learning aid from their customers and contacts.  Communications using Sketchnotes shared on social media have had an excellent response with people commenting on the usefulness of the information contained.
• Participants in their training courses undertake a series of tests covering each of the course modules and since the introduction of the Sketchnotes pass rates have improved. As other improvements to the courses were made at the same time this cannot be wholly attributed to the introduction of Sketchnotes. However, the trainer’s view is that participants understand the information presented more quickly and easily when a Sketchnote is used. In addition, individual participants have commented on the ease of understanding the Sketchnotes in discussions. This feedback from trainer and participants. when coupled with the test results, indicates a positive impact from using Sketchnotes.
• Clients have responded very positively to the use of Sketchnotes in their work – in this field of work, clarity is highly important – the risks of getting information wrong are high. So any tool which leads to great transparency of information is valued.
• Janet was so impressed with the impact of Sketchnotes for her business that other team members have now been on the online Introduction to Sketchnoting workshop and are now using Sketchnoting in their work.

Key Learning

A Sketchnote doesn’t have to be perfectly drawn to be highly effective as a communication tool. This is not about producing art.

In Janet’s and her colleague’s experience they have found that they can create one in about half an hour – providing they fully understand the topic. What the process shows up is where your own gaps in understanding are and so it helps you to pinpoint where you need to do more research.

The only downsides are that you go through a lot of pens and sometimes end up with ink all over your fingers!

‘It is like turning a key in a lock and opening up a completely new way of working’ says Janet.

Rachel Burnham

25/4/2023

How can Sketchnoting make a difference to the way you work?

Here is a case study looking at how Sketchnoting has been used in a business to work with customers and help the team become even more effective at communicating complex and technical information in easy to understand ways. It shows the value that visual thinking can bring and how it is a highly effective way of working, rather than just a fun activity.

Sketchnotes make use of a combination of words and simple graphics to communicate information. They can combine pictures, diagrams, flowcharts with words and so are a very flexible tool for use in learning, thinking and working. I offer workshops introducing professionals and students to using Sketchnoting for note taking, planning, reflection, sense-making and communicating.

With many thanks to @JanetGreenwook of TT Environmental Ltd for telling her story. It is great to be able to share this experience of Sketchnoting from the chemical regulations and health & safety field.

Collection of Sketchnotes from World of Learning Summit 30 & 31 January 2024

Rachel Burnham writes: I spent a very interesting two days at this year’s World of Learning Summit, which was held in January 2024, at Olympia, London. I was fortunate to be able to attend the conference to Sketchnote a wide range of sessions, but of course also enjoyed meeting and speaking with people in between sessions, over lunch and whilst wandering around the exhibition. 

The sessions I participated in were on a real mix of topics – AI and its importance for L&D, skills-based organisations, learning in the flow of work, neurodiversity, reverse mentoring, the advantages of curiosity and developing our digital skills as L&D professionals. 

The sessions that were most effective from my perspective dug deeper – for example Kerry Richardson from Thames Water presented an excellent case study (see Sketchnote later in post), which was about ‘Learning in the flow of work’ as advertised. But she also set out clearly how to run an effective pilot, including focusing the intervention clearly on a business need – in this case reducing complaints with clear success criteria and showed how to cost the results generated from the pilot. There was so much useful stuff in this session – not necessarily new, but practices that are important and often don’t get done. 

Some of the less effective sessions attempted to cover far too much material and so skimmed over the surface. I think it is easier to get more depth if sessions involve just a single presenter or case study or if sessions are slightly longer and I would encourage conference organisers to take this on board. 

 Here are all 8 of the Sketchnotes that I created live over the two days. 

The Opening Address on AI 

Not surprisingly, the first two inputs at this year's conference were on AI and how L&D can be making use of this. My favourite bit was the Crawl, Walk, Run and Fly stages that Trish Uhl outlined that we need to go through in our learning about how to get the most out of AI.

The Skills-Based Organisation 

This is from a session by Asi De Gani and Dani Saadu, who each talked about their organisations' approach to taking a skills based approach to Learning & Development. People I talked to about this session had very mixed responses - some feeling that this was bread and butter L&D and wondering how it was different from a competence based approach, whereas others found it incredibly helpful for the journey that their own organisation was in the midst of. 

Have a look and see what you think. 

A practical look at learning in the flow of work 

Great session from Kerry Richardson, Thames Water detailing how they ran a pilot to add a learning in the flow of work element to the mix using 'Clever Nelly' to pose questions. So many super things about this approach - it taps into both 'retrieval practice' and 'spaced repetition', they focused on addressing a key business needs - reducing complaints - and identified success criteria ie what success would look like, they carried out a pilot and compared with a control group, and costed the results sharing their workings out. Kudos to Kerry and her colleagues for such a rich case study. 

Navigating the spectrum in a neurodiverse world 

I am so excited to be able to share my Sketchnote with you from the session led by Leena Haque and Sean Gilroy from the BBC, titled 'Navigating the spectrum in a neurodiverse world'. Leena described her experiences of autism and of the challenges of school and finding her way into the world of work - she used pictures and video clips to vividly communicate her story. Of course as a Sketchnoter, my favourite bit was when she told us about how she drew pictures at school to process her learning! This is something we can all do and benefit from. 

Sean also explained about the initiatives the network they co-lead had taken at the BBC to address the needs neurodiverse people had identified - training to increase awareness, changes to the built environment and to technology to make it more accessible and to build community. 

I know a lot of people in the session were very moved by this presentation. 

L&D skills for the digital world 

Here's my Sketchnote from Jo Cook 's session 'L&D Skills for the Digital Word' which was getting us thinking a bout the Digital skills we need now and how to future proof are skill sets. 

The curious advantage 

Great conversation about curiosity and how it benefits organisations and how to nurture it. So good to hear Peter Ashcroft, Garrick Jones and Tim Munden discussing this. 

The evolution of reverse mentoring 

This session was co-delivered by Emily Cosgreve from 'The Conversation Space' and Mark Taylor from RSM UK. They shared their experience of using reverse mentoring to stimulate intergenerational conversations at work and they included lots of helpful detail about the way they did this. 

I hope you have found it useful to see summaries of the sessions in Sketchnote format. I am always interested to hear what people think of them. 

If you are interested in learning to Sketchnote yourself or have colleagues who would find this of interest do get in touch – my next open workshop is online from 1pm on 29th February. Or get in touch if you would like to commission me to create a Sketchnote for your organisation. 

Rachel Burnham 

2 February 2024

 

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.