MakingBetter

Strategy. Ecosystems. Meaning.

xAPI Camp

September Recap: xAPI Quarterly, DevLearn, Consortium

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September was one hell of a month. We…

1. Introduced the xAPI Quarterly

This is a journal we will be publishing four times a year. We will publish the newest information around xAPI. This will be the space for you to find out what’s happening and what’s changing. We will ask many of our xAPI Camp presenters to extend their messages into articles, helping xAPI Camp discussions live outside of the rooms where the event happens. Writers will come from everywhere, please reach out if you have an article in your head that needs to get out 🙂

This inaugural issue includes articles on xAPI security, instructional design forays into xAPI, best practices for major authoring tools (Storyline, Captivate, and Lectora), information on an xAPI Consortium in the works (see #3!) and much more.

Take a look at the table of contents here

2. Ran xAPI Camp – DevLearn

Happy xAPI Campers
Happy xAPI Campers

Whoa. Keanu whoa. This event blew us away. Another sold out house. Another amazing group of speakers. Another engaged and motivated audience. Another group of generous sponsors. We really can’t ask for more than this. The xAPI community never ceases to amaze and this was proof beyond doubt that you are THE BEST PEOPLE anyone could ask to work with.

All of the slides collected from the event are in the xAPI Camp Archives

3. Started a non-profit!

Wah? Yeah, we’re right there with you. This is big and we’re just getting started. There is now a non-profit corporation in the state of Pennsylvania called the Data Interoperability Standards Consortium, this is the way forward for the work we need to do as a community and industry.

This is explained in more detail right here.

And to October we say, ‘bring it on.’

xAPI Camp – DevLearn 2015 is ONE DAY AWAY

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We aren’t freaking out — we are FREAKING EXCITED!!! The first xAPI Camp at DevLearn, the first of four events we’re putting on hosted by The eLearning Guild, is nigh upon us. The Guild helped us launch xAPI at mLearnCon back in 2012 and they have been a steadfast supporter of xAPI. Last year was the first year there was an official xAPI Track at DevLearn and, together, we are upping that ante again (…in Vegas).

The eLearning Guild is a terrific host and partner in making xAPI Camp available to attendees as a pre-conference event. We have had so much incredible support from the community, I’d like to take a moment to let you know who’s really helping make xAPI Camp possible.

Partnering Organizations

The eLearning GuildRiptide ElementsMakingBetterAdvanced Distributed LearningLACE

With the Guild, we at MakingBetter have three other partners we’re super happy to work with.

  • Riptide Software has been a big supporter of every xAPI Camp with really compelling cases studies and incredible enthusiasm over the mission of getting people into the conversations they need to have around xAPI. They don’t have a booth at DevLearn, but Nick Washburn, the Director of Riptide’s Learning Division, will be with us on Tuesday and you should definitely give him a high-five.
  • Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) continues to be a huge supporter of the community as the current stewards of the spec itself. We are so happy that Andy Johnson and Craig Wiggins will be with us on Tuesday and throughout the week at DevLearn. We may even be doing karaoke Tuesday night, after xAPI Camp, because that is how we roll.
  • Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) is a European Union (as in EU-funded) project involving nine partners across Europe. They are passionate about the opportunities afforded by current and future views of learning analytics and educational data mining. We could not be more ecstatic about their partnership. Fabrizio Cardinali will be there Tuesday and all week.

Our Sponsors

BrightwaveCognitive AdvisorsHT2OnPoint DigitalRISCRustici SoftwareSkillawareTorrance LearningTrivantisTES

Organizing events like xAPI Camp take an incredible amount of work, especially in the context of a major industry event like DevLearn. We are so thankful our sponsors make it possible to produce an event that is high quality and super valuable for its participants. Everyone involved agrees to put the bigger goals for xAPI above pitching products and services, which is a big reason why they’re growing. Not just anyone gets to sponsor — we accept sponsorship from vendors and organizations that are really the best-of-breed when it comes to xAPI. And for DevLearn, we have a great list:

  • Brightwave is out of the UK. In August, CTO Jonathan Archibald and I had a great chat about xAPI. While they don’t have a booth, their Project Account Manager, Colin Welch, will be out and about at DevLearn all week.
  • Cognitive Advisors is among the first wave of adopters of xAPI. My wise friend Marty Rosenheck will be joining us on Tuesday. He and Colleen Enghauser will be at their booth in the Expo Hall all week, #238.
  • HT2 is out of the UK. Always pushing us to be more creative and innovative, CEO Dr. Ben Betts and James Mullaney will be around on Tuesday and all week. They have a booth at DevLearn’s Expo Hall, Booth 414.
  • OnPoint Digital has people around the world, in beautiful Savannah, Georgia and Middle Earth… I mean, New Zealand. They have a long history pioneering work in mobile learning and are among the first to adopt xAPI. Mike Palmer and Robert Gadd are likely to be around Tuesday and all throughout the week. OnPoint has a booth at the Expo Hall, Booth 113.
  • RISC Inc., really gets high stake compliance and advance xAPI and, notably, CMI5. Art Werkenthin will definitely be with us on Tuesday, and you can find him, Duncan Welder and Jon Campbell all week at Booth 412.
  • Rustici Software almost needs no introduction as they prototyped and developed innovative work that eventually became xAPI. Continuing to support the community, you’ll find TJ Seabrooks with us on Tuesday.
  • Skillaware leverages a few interesting specs and standards, like BPML, DITA and xAPI, in compelling ways. Based out of Italy, you’ll find Fabrizio Cardinali of LACE with us on Tuesday and at the Skillaware booth, #214.
  • TorranceLearning won the Hyperdrive at last year’s DevLearn event with an impressive case study, merging xAPI with RFID at a Hands-on Museum. You’ll find Megan Torrance at her own workshop on Tuesday, sneaking in to speak with us. She’ll also be at her booth all wee, #416.
  • Trivantis, providers of Lectora, are the first Authoring Tool vendor to support xAPI Camps and we are very happy to have them join us. CTO John Blackmon will be with us on Tuesday and at their booth all week in the Expo Hall, #239.
  • Training Evidence Systems (TES) is out of Australia and has interesting work around mobile and performance coaching with xAPI. They can’t make it to DevLearn this year, but you should definitely reach out to Nick Stephenson on Twitter.

What’s Coming at xAPI Camp?

You can check out the agenda and the speakers here. We have a few surprises we’re going to share tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure some of the participants have some surprises to announce, too. Stay tuned — follow along with the hashtag #xAPIcamp.

xAPI Camp CSTD: Toronto is the new Brooklyn

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There’s a band called JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound who are determined that Baltimore is the new Brooklyn, but we’re nominating Toronto. We’re taking xAPI Camp to Toronto on November 17th, 2015 and we are excited about it, to boot. This camp will be co-located with the Canadian Society of Training and Development’s annual conference. The CSTD 2015 Conference & Trade Show runs 11/18-11/20.

This is the first camp outside of the US and the Canadian following of xAPI is strong. There are many companies using xAPI and building tools with xAPI in Toronto, but also through the rest of Canada. We’re also excited to welcome Myra Travin back as a speaker, she will be taking the Learning Ecology Framework a step further going into the Personalization Data realm.  

As Aaron comes up Strange Brew references and I try to stop Aaron from asking every single person in Canada to bring him Ringolos, we want you to get involved.

Attend

The registration page is here. You get a good discount on the camp if you’re attending the CSTD conference (we’ll be speaking at the main conference, too). At the Camp you will spend part of the day listening to short presentations and part of the day working in breakout groups. Bring your problems, bring your challenges — don’t feel like you don’t know enough to participate. There will be plenty of time and people to help you along your own path.

Speak

We’re accepting speaking proposals through 10/5. Submit your proposal here. We’re looking to continually stay on the edge of what’s happening with xAPI at each event. These will again be short, to the point, no filler presentations (about 10 minutes.) We’re looking for new case studies with tangible outcomes, big ideas, and big challenges.

Not to worry if you can’t do Toronto, we’re also accepting proposals for San Francisco in February, Orlando in March, and Austin in June.

Sponsor

Get in touch! We love making our sponsors part of this experience. A lot of what’s happening with xAPI is because of the work our sponsors do. We’re looking forward to celebrating this rapidly changing world together.

 

xAPI Camp – DevLearn: Call for Proposals Ends 8/10

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The next xAPI Camp is taking place at DevLearn on September 29, 2015. We have a number of proposals already, but we want to see more.

We are looking for brand new stories of you or your company using xAPI. We’re looking for new lessons learned. We’re looking for big ideas and big challenges that will blow minds and spark a multitude of conversations — not just during xAPI Camp but all week long at DevLearn. We want stories to inspire, to caution, to support and to challenge us all to be doing better.

Our presentations run from 7-12 minutes long. We will be strict about that in delivery, but incredibly supportive to help you shine.

There’s no guarantee of selection if you submit something and sponsorship is not considered for selection — we welcome vendors, consultants and stakeholders to present as well as practitioners, designers, engineers, managers and leaders. You can propose multiple topics.

We’ll give honest feedback on how to improve your proposals, whether we accept them or not. We’re looking to curate the best possible experience for all participants, including our presenters. In every way we want you to be part of it and we want to make being part of it — even the proposal process — worthwhile. You’re taking the time to share your very best. We’re curating ideas and expertise for a specific experience design. You’re taking this seriously. So are we.

Presenting at an xAPI Camp puts you in the vanguard of the vanguard of where learning, design and technology meet. There’s no pitching. We’re not advertising our services. We’re creating the space and the reason to have serious, relevant conversations that need to happen with trusted expertise so people can get answers and take action on their next steps to work with xAPI.

Are you up for it? Because we need you — especially if you don’t think you’re up for it.

But… if you want to be considered for DevLearn, we need those proposals submitted by Friday, August 10. All speakers and sponsors will be announced on or before August 15, 2015.

xAPI Shifting to 3rd Gear

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Mark Oehlert kicking off xAPI Camp - AmazonYou might be surprised to find out we’re in 2nd gear. We shifted out of 1st gear at DevLearn last year. Between November 2014’s xAPI Hyperdrive and the xAPI track at DevLearn 2014, we hit our stride. We had people well outside of the ADL bubble talking about real world things things they were using xAPI to accomplish.

What happened at xAPI Camp Amazon?

This wasn’t merely a great event. This was a game changer. The participants, including the speakers and our partners — this event really couldn’t have come out more epic than it did.

Let me talk a bit about our speakers. They are not messing around. All killer, no filler high-octane Awesome. We got Sean Putman to come in from Detroit to talk about what he all did with Altair’s software and xAPI. Ben Erlandsson, who’s working on the boldest and most complex application for xAPI I’ve ever encountered — and how xAPI stands to help make the most impact of any social initiative to date. Myra Travin came from across town in Seattle to articulate the field of learning experience design in a way that really made sense. Kirsty Kitto and Aneesha Bakharia are rockstars in research that’s driving the learning analytics field — and they’re pointing out ways in which we need to be using xAPI better. Bill McDonald spent 25 years helping run the Aviation Industry’s Computer-Based Training Consortium, eventually overseeing their own standard evolve to be completely based on xAPI. Russell Duhon talking about what it takes to run xAPI in Enterprise… at scale. Duncan Welder talking about the ways in which their LMS is helping Big Energy improve their compliance — not just get a check in the compliance training box, using xAPI for both content analytics and social. Their presentations are all archived here.

A breakout group at xAPI Camp - AmazonThese speakers were incredible people, many of whom are outside the xAPI Developer/Contributor/Adopter circles. Real folks making real decisions about real world problems and using xAPI to help. They’re haulin’ ass.We had small emergent breakout groups and large breakout groups moderated by our partners Shelly Blake-Plock, Mike Hruska and Nick Washburn. Participants got into the weeds of learning architecture, project management and scaling the technology to respond to growing organizational demands in near real-time. Everything discussed was approachable in real-world, real-human language but nothing was watered down. People took notes and tasked themselves for next-actions. Attendees were solving real problems while they were there.

The format for the event worked, it really worked. Myra Travin saw so much in it that she wrote a post on just how well it worked. You can read it on LearnxAPI.

Why was this camp so significant?

No matter what Amazon does with xAPI, their embrace of xAPI, even to bring the community to their house so we could learn together — what xAPI enables and (frankly) what value xAPI holds for them — is huge. Just huge.

You need a company to reference when asked, “Who’s doing xAPI?”

Your answer now is “Amazon.” Done. Mic drop.

Because when we talk about the future of learning, usually our professionals from ISDs to CLOs immediately talk about recommendations… “like Amazon.”  Every conference that talks about elearning at all — K-12, Higher Ed, Community Colleges, Corporate, Gov, .mil — everyone talks about recommendations “like how Amazon does it.”

…And even Amazon is going xAPI.

You hold onto that for a moment. Let that thought just linger in the air a bit. Enjoy it. Savor it. This is the kind of moment — those of us who’ve helped make xAPI happen — this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Given their engineering culture, given their fanatical attention to customer service, given their massive supply chain and the people power it takes to make all of those parts work in harmony, xAPI could not have a better stakeholder.

It marks the beginning of the end of early adoption for xAPI. You go back to the bell curve model of Rogers’ Diffusions of Innovations theory. We hit the level taking us to Early Majority.

This is the shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. There’s more to be done. It’s not just events, it’s not just fancy new adopters. There’s a post coming later this week on what has to happen next. (Hint: we need to formalize our work together to make sure what the early majority is doing keeps working and makes the space to iron out the wrinkles existing today.)