EP. 11 - Agile

02/09/21 • 47 min

In this episode, Tim and Laurie speak to Jo Sayers, fellow co-founder of LearnJam, about how (and why) he uses Agile product development methodologies to develop digital learning products and solutions.

We thought it'd be great to have a chat with Jo to find out a bit more about his approach and to see what advice he has for anyone looking to learn more about Agile and how it can be put into practice.

In our conversation, we covered:

What Agile actually is and what an Agile project looks like.
How to manage a backlog and why it's important.
What makes a good user story and how to write one.
Why we use Agile in our Learning Design projects.
The challenges of applying Agile, and some pro tips.

LINKS

The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - Jeff Sutherland

In our conversation, we covered:

What Agile actually is and what an Agile project looks like.
How to manage a backlog and why it's important.
What makes a good user story and how to write one.
Why we use Agile in our Learning Design projects.
The challenges of applying Agile, and some pro tips.

LINKS

The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - Jeff Sutherland

Previous Episode

EP. 10 - Research

In this episode Tim and Laurie talk to Laura Patsko about how she carried out the research that led to the creation of our evidence-informed learning design principles.

Laura is a language and pedagogy consultant and an exceptional researcher. In our conversation, we covered:

Laura's circuitous route to became a learning experience designer.
How we worked together in 2019 to share our understanding and unearth questions about what really works in learning; and how Laura used that as a launchpad to dive into an ocean of learning science research, with the goal of helping us to identify and synthesise practical insights that could inform the work we do as learning designers.
Laura's specific process for working through mountains of research in a way that's both effective and manageable.
How Laura is able to maintain energy and stay productive while doing research work.
How bringing in external reviewers took the process to the next level, and uncovered a major gap in our thinking about how learning works.
How we can apply the insights from the research in practical ways on learning projects.
How we see our learning design principles evolving over time.

Next Episode

EP. 12 - Inclusive Learning Design

Tim and Laurie talk to fellow LearnJammers Laura Patsko and Lucy Williams about an Innovate UK project we are working on to develop and share best practices in inclusive online learning.

In our conversation, we covered:

how the rush to online learning in response to the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing exclusion issues
how we've developed our understanding of what exclusion means
our approach to developing a framework and set of tools to help raise awareness of inclusive learning design
how the project has had an impact on LearnJam as an organisation