UELconnect Blog

Nabeel Ahmed IBM Learning Technologist

I thought I would pop along and take in the presentation by Nabeel Ahmed a Learning Technologist from IBM. Mainly it was out of curiosity to observe the differences between the education sector Learning Technologists and the corporate versions. Terminology was the first thing I noticed the presentation was peperred with the language of the Blue Chip corporation. ‘Low hanging fruit’ and ‘growth sector’ sector. Hey I’m not judging! Let’s face it education terminology is equally vague at times.

So the theme for the afternoon was transformation but in my mind I always translate this to ‘change’. Basically the chap gave a brief overview of what IBM were up to in terms of usage of mobile tech internally (and what they expect to be doing). The abridged version of this was:

• Network learning and attempting to harness the weak ties (2nd and 3rd level level connections)
• IBM Blue pages now accessible through mobile devices (Blue pages being their internal directory)
• Performance support for selllers i.e. delivering just in time information to people out in the field.
• Just in time learning rather than porting courseware to mobile platforms (courseware being the generic term for e-learning courses) * I thought this was interesting shift in attitude incidentally.
• SMS messages pushed at new joiners e.g. ‘have you completed your compliance training?’

I think it is fair to say that none of that was particularly cutting edge but it was all good common sense stuff. Also some of which we already do as a Univeristy, txtools alerts for instance. Probably the one thing no University has however is the level of funding that IBM command. Apparently £60 million is being invested over five years.  Not surprisingly the Blackberry was the officially supported smartphone within IBM (I’d assume due to security being stronger). However he did say that there was going to be a shift toward opening things up to a users’ personal devices.

One nice quote that he referred to from the Wall Street Journal (although I can not source it) by Sam Palmisano CEO of IBM was ‘the PC is the past, now it all goes on the mobile phone’. Not sure I completly agree but how do you define a Personal Computer these days?