DevLearn 2022 – October 26-28
It is no secret that DevLearn has long been one of my favorite conferences of the year and DevLearn was back in full force in 2022. Nearing pre-COVID attendee numbers, DevLearn lets shine all the new, cutting edge learning technologies on the market. From Authoring and Animation tools to Learning Management and Analytics. It is the show for learning technology geeks (not unlike yours truly). Of course there was plenty of discussion around xAPI. This year, Torrance Learning passed the batton for the xAPI Cohort to the Learning Guild to facilitate. I was fortunate enough to present, “Building a Business Case for xAPI” for the Cohort on Thursday of the Conference. You can find the video here and the recordings of all xAPI Cohort meetings this session here.
xAPI Users Conference
In addition to workshops, DevLearn hosted four co-located events; The Learning Leaders Summit, Articulate User Conference, the VR for Learning and the xAPI User Conference. The xAPI User Conference was facilitated by Megan Torrance and had presentations from both vendors and end-user xAPI thought-leaders. The day even closed out with the Department of Defense Advanced Distributed Learning standards manager, Andy Johnson, discussing the future of xAPI and what it means to the training within the US Government and beyond. One fun part of the xAPI User Conference is the HyperDrive competition.
xAPI Hyperdrive
Hyperdrive is a competition where organizations can show off their new projects. Presenters are separated into a Vendor category and a Practitioner category. A panel of judges are provided a scoring rubric for each project and have the opportunity to ask questions of each presenter.
The Practitioner award went to Becky Goldberg, Learning Analysist and xAPI Implementation Lead for Traveler’s insurance for Adaptive Dashboards for the Diversity Network. Becky’s focus is moving beyond traditional learning measures like training completions (whatever that means) and on to meaningful, on-the-job activities that focus on improving performance. And she’s using xAPI to do it!
The Vendor award went to xACTION. RISC Inc’s President and CEO, Art Werkenthin, showed how xACTION is designed to receive xAPI statements, match them to rules and perform outbound REST calls, intelligently forward specific statements, or create new statements, following your governance. Unlike other systems, xACTION’s patent-pending solution can require multiple statement matches to process outbound actions. xACTION is a way to use xAPI to trigger actions in systems that don’t know anything about xAPI. xACTION bridges the gap between xAPI and other enterprise systems.
Riding high on the positive reception to xACTION RISC moved to the Expo Floor to continue xACTION’s debut.
DevLearn Conference & Expo
The conference and expo saw fantastic traffic and the xACTION booth was a hot bed of discussion. Experts from the industry like Debbie Richards, Bill McDonald and Dr. Jennifer Murphy shared their feedback and how they could apply xACTION in practice.
DemoFest for the Win!
The final evening of DevLearn is one of my favorite nights. Demofest is an opportunity for Vendors and Practitioners’ to show off their work. Attendees move between tables for a rapid-fire briefing on each project. After that, the attendees vote for their favorites in a number of categories.
xACTION took the trophy home for Best xAPI Solution bringing RISC’s total DemoFest win count to four.
So, is this xAPI thing just a trend? Remember Becky Goldberg? Her xAPI project for Travelers’ Insurance took best of show! A huge congratulations to Becky and the entire learning team at Travelers’.
What’s Next?
On Wednesday, November 16th, 2022 the Learning Guild is hosting a Best of DemoFest webinar. Register here to see winners from all the categories at DemoFest show off their work with the most cutting-edge learning technologies.
The xACTION booth and RISC crew will be at I/ITSEC November 28 through December 2nd in Orlando. If you aren’t familiar, I/ITSEC is the The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) is the world’s largest modeling, simulation and training event. The first time I attended I couldn’t believe my eyes; simulators, drones, medical devices. It’s a must see event and a chance to stop at booth 3158 to learn more about xACTION.
Sliding into spring you can find RISC at the Training Magazine Training 2023 Conference in Orlando, Florida February 15 – 18.
Interested in learning more? Contact RISC today at risc@risc-inc.com or 281-480-7910.
Mr. Welder’s career is founded in traditional instructional design and computer-based training development. He is a certified Development Dimensions International facilitator, a Kirkpatrick Certified Evaluator and facilitator of the Ohio State University curriculum development program. In addition to working in industry, Mr. Welder has held adjunct faculty positions at Bowling Green State University, Ohio and the College of the Mainland, Texas. Mr. Welder has been published in both Training Magazine as well as US Business Review.