"People learn by doing. It isn't complicated. Plato spelled it out, and his message has been repeated in the 2,500 years since. Yet it seems as if we are condemned to repeat the mistake of imagining that learning by telling works. It doesn't", says Roger Schank looking ahead to his opening keynote at Learning Technologies 2011.

Roger Schank, one of the world's leading visionaries in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science, and the building of virtual learning environments, will ask why workplace learning so often insists on repeating the errors of the educational system.

"Schools and universities are the way they are as a result of accident and compromise; they are not based on an understanding of best practice in learning. Instead of using lessons as our model for learning at work, we could base our work on sound psychological research, including twelve cognitive processes that all learning requires", adds Schank.

Calling on his extensive experience and on practical examples, Roger will draw a compelling picture of how the mind learns and will then challenge us to question how well our own practices match up to this. Finally, he will suggest practical ways in which we can adapt what we do to produce more exciting, engaging learning.

Roger Schank is CEO of Socratic Arts, a company whose goal is to design and implement learning-by-doing, story-centred curricula in schools, universities, and corporations. He has written more than 25 books, including "Virtual Learning: A Revolutionary Approach to Building a Highly Skilled Workforce- and -œColoring Outside the Lines: Raising a Smarter Kid by Breaking All the Rules".

In his closing keynote at the Learning Technologies 2011 Conference, Building Skills for Tomorrow: Learning and Development and the Next Five Years, Professor Campbell will throw startling light on the importance of skills to both organisations and to the UK. He will draw on research demonstrating the impact of coherent, well-thought-out skills building activities, and ask crucial questions about today's L&D functions.



What bundles of people management practices, together, create high-performing enterprises? What are the effects of improved skills on individuals and on organisations? And what can we do to increase our effectiveness in L&D and demonstrate its impact?

"In the frantic rush of today's world it's all too easy to be caught up in the present - to get absorbed in tackling a particular training need, or get obsessed by the latest tool that is supposed to solve all our learning problems", says Campbell.


Professor Mike Campbell is responsible for advising government on the policies, strategies, and targets required to reach the world-class-skills ambition and for assessing the UK's progress towards it; it is his job to take the longer and bigger view. He looks at how well the UK is developing its skills for the future and the role that we - the country's workplace L&D professionals - play in this, as well as the research showing where we are succeeding and where we are falling behind.

The Learning Technologies 2011 conference takes place on 26-27 January 2011 at London Olympia 2. Learning Technologies conference programme and bookings.