JANUARY 2008

Welcome to Learning Technologies 2008 and our bumper Inside Learning Technologies show guide issue. We hope you enjoy your visit.

With record numbers of visitors and delegates registered from over 20 different countries, and with the exhibition sold out months ago, the event looks set to start the year in a great way for the learning and development community.

With every new year also comes uncertainty, so it was quite a pleasure to read the number of positive predictions that our writers have for the year ahead. In fact, our own conference chairman, Donald H Taylor actually guarantees a few of his predictions in the opening article succinctly titled ‘The Year Ahead – and it’s going to be a good one!’

One article that provides a foundation for some of Taylor’s predictions is Laura Overton’s where she looks at the current skills gap, the steps that need to be taken to address it and whether the UK has what it takes to be a world leader in skills by 2020.

One underlying thread of many of articles in this issue is how technology is changing the way we communicate and share information, and how this in turn is transforming learning. Keynote speaker Jay Cross looks at how businesses need to adapt to this rapidly changing learning environment or risk dying, and Nigel Paine examines how you can locate those hidden heroes that exist in every organisation and how you can ‘humanise’ your intranet.

Following on this theme, Kai Merriott discusses how the wider media world is now providing a plethora of alternative learning models to consider, and Alan Bellinger looks at how to harness the power of informal learning, especially when some reports are showing that 70 - 80% of skills may now be learned outside of formal learning.

Clive Shepherd then looks at how e-learning has developed over the years and how well it is adapting to the extraordinary changes that we are currently witnessing in the ways we communicate and share information. And later in this issue, Jane Hart presents ten of her favourite examples of e-learning and how they can be used by you to create your own e-learning.

Whatever type of learning intervention you use, there still needs to be thought put into its planning, design and execution and Vaughan Waller looks at the questions that must be asked before designing any course of learning.

Finally, Phil Green asks that with the emergence of virtual worlds, and the proliferation of wikis and blogging, is this the year that we will finally say that the humble printed book has had its day?

Warmest wishes for 2008.