The LEARNTEC in Karlsruhe celebrated its 30th birthday, and of course, we from blink.it had a booth on-site. In Hall 1 (Booth E44), our team presented, among other things, the new features "Emailless" and "LMS Connector". What exactly is behind these names, you can find out in this trade fair report!

Also this year, the LEARNTEC was characterized by digital learning trends, but it can be assumed that the megatrend "AI in further education" will continue to shape the event in the coming years. Especially the area of corporate learning was in focus – presumably because the industry is currently overtaking itself with new, supposedly promising, and sometimes highly debatable achievements. Which is good, as progress does not come from clarity; it is notorious for taking detours on the way to the goal, which may turn out to be misleading or not particularly helpful.

AI & VR: Learn more, think less!

Thus, the LEARNTEC also offered a true variety of innovations whose practicality the world will still have to decide. "Adaptive learning meets microlearning and user-generated content" says a press release from Messe Karlsruhe – so it doesn’t sound particularly decisive here either. How will people learn in the future? Perhaps through immersive learning in virtual realities? After all, there was already a dedicated area for this!

And yes, there were amazing things to see. And naturally, everyone immediately asks about the investment costs for the high-tech glasses plus the associated software… Actually, the wrong question when it comes to the future, but well, in the end, in many places, the learning effect is not the deciding factor, but rather the cash bag. And yes, progress has always been expensive, but perhaps one should just think less and experiment (learn) more? Because after all, that’s what it’s fundamentally about, right? In any case, it was a striking experience, and it's crazy what is possible these days!

In case of doubt, it is particularly important from a corporate perspective to look at how far one can train their own teams in this way (and allowed to). In the meantime, there are entire training programs on this topic. Whether personnel developers, trainers (or other people in the company) will continue to train correspondingly in this area and which companies find the area interesting, remains to be seen. However, it is clear that the opportunity to experience learning completely anew exists, and openness towards AI and VR should at least play a role in developing one’s own learning culture.

At the exhibition grounds in Karlsruhe, the visitors of LEARNTEC 2023 experience VR technology up close. Photo: Messe Karlsruhe/ Behrendt and Rausch

In total, over 100 experts from business and science shared their expertise in over 60 lectures and workshops with the participants. The main topics included Metaverse, Learning Ecosystems, New and Agile Learning, Learning with Artificial Intelligence (AI), and adaptive learning. ChatGPT was, as expected, covered in several events. But also resilient learning settings as well as the activation of learners and the change of the learning culture found their place in the congress program.

Onboarding 4.0: The good and bad of onboarding

At blink.it, we focused on the topic of onboarding 4.0 this year. Why? Because we still see good onboarding as central in terms of productivity and that there are countless ways to conduct good and bad onboardings. Our Customer Success Trainer Claudia Grajek explained with case studies how, with the help of the blink.it platform, people can become productive in no time and be welcomed into the company. In our view, a friendly "Welcome" and the pursuit of productivity do not exclude each other, and you can implement both excellently with blink.it. Looking for examples and inspirations? Then take a look here:

- That’s why we focus on personalized onboarding (blink.it Insight)
- Methods in onboarding: The video diary
- Your onboarding checklist as a free download

Of course, our LEARNTEC appearance was also about showcasing new features. Therefore, we have briefly summarized these for you in the following sections. But first: some impressions, so you know how we experienced LEARNTEC! :-)

1 Team Blinkie at LEARNTEC 2023 (from left): Konstantin Ristl, Stephanie Scheuermann, Hans-Martin Sprungk, Michael Witzke, Benjamin Lau, Claudia Grajek (Photo: blink.it)

2 Customer Success Trainer Claudia Grajek spoke on May 23 on the Exhibitor Stage on the topic "Onboarding 4.0: How new colleagues can quickly get fit!" (Photo: blink.it)

3 blink.it founder Konstantin Ristl reported "full house" at the blink.it lecture on the Exhibitor Stage. (Photo: blink.it)

4 From left: Good mood at the booth: Hans-Martin Sprungk, & Benjamin Lau (Photo: blink.it)

These are the new blink.it features!

LMS Connector

Integrate blink.it courses into your LMS!

You already have an LMS and want to use blink.it for creating your courses? Then benefit from our newly developed LMS Connector, which allows you to easily transfer your blink.it content into your LMS. Of course, your learning progress will be included. Thus, you can now use blink.it as a fully integrated learning platform alongside your existing LMS.

Emailless

Register, participate, and manage – all without an email address!

Perhaps you know the following situation: You naturally want all employees in your company to participate in further education and benefit from it.

The problem: Your colleagues in the factory, in the shop, or in field service either have no email address at all or use accounts outside your company network. Depending on the LMS, those users are excluded from all continuing education measures.

The solution: you can now use blink.it without an email address – both course participants and admins. Registration with personnel numbers, UIDs, and freely chosen usernames is now also possible. This can also be combined with SSO and user data synchronization. Why? Because we want you to onboard and further qualify employees who can register without an email address – for example, employees in production, staff in restaurants, supermarkets, and retail, or freelancers with external email.

You see: Not only at Learntec are the latest trends and future visions of the further education industry celebrated! Because blink.it celebrates with you too. Therefore, secure the unique Learntec trade fair offer for new customers now!

Trade fair offer for Learntec 2023