I’m a fan of this video from MS Inspire 2019, where Dr. David Kellerman, discusses the use of MS teams along with some Azure based capabilities to enhance the learning experience for a large class at the University of New South Wales.

The talk highlights a smart use of technology that makes the learning more personal, more effective and more engaging. I especially appreciate how the solution learns about questions / answers and that students can engage with a system that continues to get smarter.

This is a great example of leveraging technology to support the effort to scale learning.

I had the chance to be part of a MS Teams experiment for an alternative delivery model for helping folks learn about Agile coaching. Our challenge wasn’t related to number of people (like the example in the video) – instead, our challenge was distribution and synchronicity (or lack thereof!). My collaborators in this effort: Bill (AgileBill) Krebs and Sue Reber were instrumental in making this all work. The approach we landed on was as follows:

• Leverage existing face to face content (approximately 18 hours of materials)
• Stretch out the schedule – rather than trying to deliver over two days, deliver over 9 weeks
• Connect live, via video each Friday afternoon.
• Lead facilitator (Bill), created a video each work highlighting a “word of the week” – providing a theme and asynchronous interaction
• MS Teams was used for the cohort to share learning, questions and interact as a group and with the facilitator. Provided a great way to explore ideas in between live (synchronous) sessions.
• Each student was asked to create a learning portfolio – adding to it each week based on what they learn in class and what they learned trying to apply new concepts in their day-to-day efforts.

In future explorations, I’d like to connect this to chatbots leveraging AI/ML building on my previous efforts in mobile learning.

In wrapping up, how are you using MS Teams and/or Slack to further advance learning? Are you tying it to formal learning? Informal learning? A mix? And how are you integrating chatbots into the equation?