Too much of our industry is still beset by myths, superstitions, and misconceptions. The latest buzzwords generate a flow of excitement (and investment), but little is really new. Instead, we're sold old water in new bottles, and if we're being honest with ourselves, a fair bit of snake oil. And it's time to stop. We owe it to our learners, our organizations, and to ourselves to do better. We need to be good stewards of professional learning practice.

In this session, we'll go through the ways to be resistant. We'll examine examples to be smart consumers of learning tools and practices. We'll look at the concept of affordances, which while seemingly esoteric offers practical guidance for understanding new technologies. We'll look at how to usefully take advantage of academic research without reading the original works in inscrutable academese. And, we'll talk about how we can collect and use data, to make better decisions for our learners and ourselves. Caveat emptor, in our case, means knowing what's real and what's hype. So get armed and be prepared.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use affordances to evaluate new technology
• How to use research to validate proposed innovations
• How to use data to evaluate outcomes
• How to design data collection methods

Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, senior leaders

Technology discussed:
AR/VR, authoring tools, emerging technologies