Fresh from a busy week at DevLearn 2019 (one of the biggest learning, training and development conferences in the world) I wanted to reflect on my time in Las Vegas and share my learnings with the Zapworks community on how L&D professionals can best use AR to build long-term success within their training programs. 

Packed with over 4,000 learning and development professionals, DevLearn is the place where the L&D community gathers to look at ‘what’s now, what’s new and what’s next’ in the industry - augmented reality, funnily enough, covers all three bases quite nicely. 

 

 

Over the course of the two days, we had wide-ranging conversations with practitioners both new and familiar with the tech, all excited about the possibilities AR could seemingly bring to their business. What struck me the most was the buzz that now surrounds AR within the L&D community and the innovative way in which they are approaching new ways to communicate with their learners. Talking to individuals I found that this open and innovative attitude is underpinned with a real passion for teaching whether it be practical training for machines, emergency procedures or teaching the soft skills to enable managers to understand their workforce.

With these impressions in mind, I wanted to share 5 learnings from the conference and ways in which Zapworks users can start to leverage AR in their learning environments today. 

5 learnings from DevLearn 2019

1. The conversation has changed! There is now a growing awareness of AR and how it can be best leveraged within the L&D community. It is no longer, “I’ve heard about AR but, what actually is it?” and much more “this is awesome how can I make it work for me and my company?” It’s these in-depth conversations about the possibilities of AR and how businesses can solve real problems with the tech that gets us excited. 

2. L&D professionals are quick learners’ and passionate about developing their core skills! The buzz around AR also comes with a hunger to learn about our tools and the creative possibilities they provide, the extraordinary turnout and enthusiasm for the talks and workshops run by Zapworks user Destery Hilderbrand during the event demonstrated this beautifully. It was great to have those workshop attendees  seek us out later at the booth to talk more about AR and the Zapworks tool kit.

3. The current tools available to L&D professionals don’t cut the mustard . Don’t get us wrong, there are some amazing tools readily available for L&D professionals, including our friends over at Vyond, and Storyline by Articulate. But what happens when you need to augment your L&D programs and take them to the next level? Here’s where the Zapworks toolkit comes in. For example, in our upcoming webinar with Vyond we’ll be showing you how you can quickly AR-enable your existing Vyond video to be more engaging, immersive and impactful with Zapworks Designer. In short, Zapworks can add additional engagement to your existing materials, making them work harder, increasing time to competency while reducing costs in the process.

It was through speaking to L&D professionals at the conference and sharing one of our most popular use cases, we discovered our final two learnings, what it is that gives L&D professionals that Zappar Rush…

 

 

4. The Human brain is not linear. The learning process requires far more than what the traditional linear training video or text can provide and AR experiences have been found to deliver an engagement rate of nearly double that of a non-AR experience. What the people we spoke to loved about BBC Heart is not only the interactivity it provides but by using a 3D model it can be seen in detail, at scale, from all angles enabling the end-user to learn in a lot more immersive and engaging way. 

5. Exploratory learning is the key! With hotspots not only can people learn at their own pace but they can choose which order they explore the learning experience in capitalizing on engagement and retention. Learning, training and development is all about getting people up out of the seats and interacting with the content and material provided - and the BBC heart example demonstrated how in a real-world environment just how powerful AR and interactivity can be.