Why I Am Excited for ASTD 2012 in Denver

ASTD’s International Conference & Exposition is a time for the training industry to come together and take a few days to develop themselves. As someone interested in e-learning and learning technologies, here’s what I’m most looking forward to:

Session: HTML5 is NOW. What You Must Know.
Speakers: Ashish Garg and Joseph Ganci
HTML5 is indeed here. As we covered on the LC blog a couple months back, there’s a lot of hype surrounding it. It’s important for learning professionals to understand how mature HTML5 is and how it will impact their content creation and delivery.

Session: Social Media for Trainers
Speaker: Jane Bozarth
Social media is nothing new, but there are still a lot of learning professionals who haven’t used it for learning or who are dismissive of it. Here, the singular Jane Bozarth, will provide some concrete ideas for using social media tools to enhance and extend (not replace) existing training programs.

Session: Mobile Learning is SO 10 Minutes Ago…Mobile Performance is Now.
Speakers: Renata Gorman and Richard Mesch
As the session description says, “Mobile learning is on everyone’s to-do list…” Before we dive in and start converting all of our e-learning modules to play on mobile devices, we need to take a step back and fully understand how the technology and truly improve workplace performance.

Those are just a few of the sessions I plan on attending at ASTD 2012. But for me it’s really all about the experience of the event—coming together with like-minded individuals to share best practices and solve problems. Meeting up with old friends and making new ones. While the sessions are important, it’s the learning that happens in the halls that always sticks with me.