Photo by Steve Wheeler

It was great to be back in Berlin – that wonderful, glittering city – to speak at Online Educa Berlin, or OEB Global, as it’s now called. The event also incorporates Learning Technologies Germany, and I was invited to present a spotlight session on Day 2 with the above title (see link below).

The conference itself, held at the expansive Hotel Intercontinental in Budapester Straße was attended by thousands of delegates from around the world, and it was a delight to meet up and spend some time chatting with old friends from decades of working in educational technology, including Julian Stodd, Mike Sharples, Paul Kirschner, Donald Clark, Don Taylor, Michelle Selinger, Tom Wambeke, Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, Heike Philp, Gilly Salmon, Shannon Tipton, Laura Overton, Armin Hopp, Rhona Sharp, Maren Deepwell, Martin Hawksey, Jef Staes, Christian Glahn, Morten Paulsen, Charles Jennings, Bryan Alexander, Eric Sheninger, Alejandro Armellini, Paul Bacsich, Audrey Watters, Rolf Rheinhardt and Mirjam Neelen. It was also great to hook up again with the EADL crew including Jens Greefe, John Trasler, Ellen Gunning, Chris Wolstenholme and Tony Horsfield, and of course, the chair for my session – the wonderful Ildiko Mazar.

The great thing about this being in Berlin at this time of the year – other than the crisp weather, gluhwein, great food, Christmas markets, lights and shopping – is that OEB Global represents all the sectors of learning, and each has specific sessions and strands that focus on primary, secondary, tertiary and professional education as well as unified sessions where the keynotes and spotlight speeches connect every idea together. I met several colleagues for the first time, even though I had probably ‘known’ and interacted with them on Twitter for years. These included Benjamin Doxtdator, Mar Camacho, Andreas Keller, Paul Hearn, Neil Lasher, Tarkan Gürbüz, Laura Czerniewicz and Inge de Waard. If I have left anyone out, I apologise, but OEB Global is a very large conference. Below is
the recording of my Spotlight presentation complete with slides.

The abstract: In this talk we will explore the issues and challenges of learning within the workplace. What are the benefits and limitations? How can we achieve direct learning transfer, while maintaining a healthy work/life balance? We will explore micro-learning, personal and personalised learning as current methods and will discuss some key case studies about how large organisations successfully support and promote L&D. We will also examine the role new technology can play in promoting effective L&D and critically evaluate practices that are rooted in traditional learning/training environments.

OEB Global will return to Berlin between December 2-4, 2020.

Is there time for learning in the workplace? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.