Our Key Takeaways from DevLearn 2023 (Part 1)
Keynote speakers
On our first day of the conference, we had the pleasure of listening to the creator of the show Everybody Loves Raymond and star of the show Somebody Feed Phil, Phil Rosenthal. His interview-style presentation was upbeat and positive– a great way to start off our DevLearn journey! One of his most powerful statements that resonated with me was something along the lines of,
Stay true to yourself and be specific, and others will relate.”
Everyone Loves Raymond was such a success because people were able to relate to the family; however, Phil did not aim to create vague characters in order to relate to the masses– he simply created characters that were similar to his loud, funny, loving family, and viewers FOUND similarities to their own families, in their own way. I believe that this strategy can be applied to our accounting eLearning. Our mantra is all about making accounting fun; however, we worry sometimes that our themes are too specific and will not relate to the masses. Phil has encouraged us to keep up this trend of themed courses and trust that the learners will find their own connections.
Our second keynote speaker was renowned chef, Chef Jeff. His final message, after presenting us with a savory meal (that he cooked right in front of us!), was that sometimes your most teachable moments can come from your darkest moments. Our team can really use that advice when sales are down or we feel overwhelmed with multiple projects. It is a great lesson that we will take with us throughout the rest of our eLearning careers.
Finally, we heard from Josh Linkner, an entrepreneur and New York Times best seller. One of his 5 steps to success was:
Fall seven, climb eight.”
The message is similar to that of Chef Jeff’s in the sense that we can sometimes learn the most from our most trying times. However, I appreciated how Josh took it a step further and told us to not only LEARN from those hard times or mistakes, but to come back even stronger than before. We are always striving to better ourselves and keep up with the latest eLearning best practices, and this encourages us to take it a step further. We hope to do so by incorporating more accessibility and AI into our future courses.
Sessions
My team and I decided to divide and conquer when it came to the concurrent sessions. My first and favorite session was about Snagit, an advanced screenshot capturing tool. The presenter taught us how to manipulate screenshots and fit them onto image templates that were not necessarily straight.
He also taught us how to manipulate code on websites in order to take out unwanted images and colors, for an optimal screenshot. We are very interested in using this tool for our marketing images and screenshots of our eLearning course characters. I am very glad that I decided to take this session first, so that I had a great outlook on the rest of the conference!
My final takeaway comes straight from Vyond; I was able to attend a demonstration on the new AI feature. They showed me how to create new character actions by recording myself doing the action. They also showed me how to enter a subject into Vyond Go, which will instantly create a video from scratch based on the subject entered. It was even able to create a video about the PCAOB! This will be a great feature whenever we are in a time crunch and need quick ideas and starting points for our animated videos. Our team will still be there to clean it up and advance the storytelling and teaching aspects of the videos, but it will be a fantastic start!
I am very thankful for my first DevLearn and Las Vegas experience, and I cannot wait to apply my new knowledge to future eLearning projects!
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Disclaimer
This post is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as official accounting guidance. While we’ve ensured accuracy as of the publishing date, standards evolve. Please consult a professional for specific advice.
