#GuildChat for 11/08/19: Using Consumer Tech for L&D Purposes

Our next #GuildChat takes place Friday, November 8th at 11am PT / 2pm ET. This week’s chat is on using consumer tech in the L&D world.

There’s lots of useful tech specifically designed for the needs of L&D and education. Things like rapid eLearning development tools, learning management systems, testing tools, virtual classroom platforms, and more. But we shouldn’t feel limited to only using the technology that’s been specifically designed for our field. Consumer and professional tech made for a broader audience has a wide range of ways it can solve our needs well. And many of us already use some consumer tech in our work already, whether it’s common tools like Microsoft Office or G Suite all the way to more complex tools like game development engines or professional video editing software.

Join us this week as we discuss how we can use technology that’s not specifically designed for supporting learning to meet our goals anyway. We’ll share what consumer tools we use now, why they work well, what some of the challenges are of making them work for L&D purposes, and tips we’ve found for adjusting (or even hacking) them for our needs. We’ll also talk about a challenge we face any time we use technology – whether it’s consumer tech or things specifically designed for L&D – how to make sure the needs of our audience and organization are driving our decisions rather than the tech.

See you on Twitter this Friday!

Prospective questions

Q1 What are the benefits of searching beyond tech specifically designed for L&D when looking for potential solutions?
Q2 What are some of the ways you use consumer tech in your own work?
Q3 What can be the challenges of using consumer tech for L&D purposes?
Q4 What aspects of consumer tech can be helpful to check or assess when you’re considering using it for learning or performance support purposes?
Q5 What hacks or tips do you have for helping consumer tech to work more effectively for L&D needs
Q6 How do you personally keep on top of the constantly evolving consumer tech options out there?
Q7 Are there times where you really need tech designed specifically for the L&D market? Why or why not?
Q8 What consumer tech are you not using right now that you’re curious about using for L&D purposes? What about it is attracting your interest?
Q9 Whether it’s for a broader consumer base or designed specifically for L&D, how do we prevent the tech from steering our decisions rather than the needs of our audience and organization/client?

Missed this GuildChat? Don’t worry – you can still read through what happened on our Wakelet transcript of the chat!