I’m sure there was probably an official theme for Learning Technologies London 2022 but the unofficial theme was definitely re-connection. People were so happy to catch up again and to find out what had everyone been doing for the past two years and there were lots of cries of ‘lets hug!’
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Tina Harris and Stella Collins were at the conference, as always, to support participation and, of course, to learn for ourselves.  
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The highlights of the conference included Dave Kelly’s session demonstrating the value of connecting data to decision making – it’s not data for data’s sake – it needs to be used wisely.  
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Mirjam Neelan introduced Dr Itiel Dror who told us that digital technology is literally shrinking our brains which was scary until he reassured us that we’re getting smarter as a human population.  But he did make us think about how the technology we use has a significant impact on our behaviour, psychology and physiology so we need to think it through.

Accessibility is something we all need to be aware of and Stella was delighted to chair Susi Miller and Mike Osborne’s session that brought complex legislation to life with stories, case studies and practical examples for everyone and lots of commitment to action by the end.
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Women in Learning has been a recurring theme at Learning Technologies and Sharon Claffey Kalioubi yet again had us planning how to support the vision of improved diversity and inclusion. In Stella’s group they realised they had a tendency to over-excuse themselves when they had other commitments so they pledged to be straightforward and simply say ‘I’ve got a hard stop’.
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Don Taylor and team had pulled out the stops this year with some really excellent conference sessions and a huge exhibition but the high points for us will definitely remain bumping into people again and realising what an amazing, supportive community of professionals we belong to.

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