 Good afternoon, everyone. Now we'll start another session. So this session is the lecture. There was a emerging technology and a behavior with the other technical.com. So I was a speaker there. So are you ready? Yeah, so I'm good. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you've had a cup of tea. It's that time of the afternoon where everything starts to wind down. So the question that we have today is what do we need to consider when we're designing, learning to help people develop their soft skills? A bit of a mouthful. So in this presentation, what I'm going to do is cover hard skills versus soft skills. So we'll start with actually defining the terms. We'll look at the tech changes that have made possible various things that weren't possible five years ago. And we'll look at three points that we've seen from one of our projects as the key thing to consider when you're looking at designing soft skills. So hard skills versus soft skills. I'm told that if I want to start a brawl at a learning design conference, this is the question I should be asking. What is the difference between hard skills and soft skills? And the reason for that is you'll see we'll explore when we go into definitions. But apparently, language designers can't quite agree on what is the key differentiators between two. And so before I go into the brawl, I wanted to make a little bit of an introduction about the organization that I'm with, which is UF5 Voltec Trust. We are a grant funder in technology for vocational skills. And we're focused around skills that will actually help people make the most of their working lives. And so we fund all kinds of things from. And a lot of it actually has been around the kinds of things that we're going to talk about here today. So we funded all kinds of texts from skills for games, VR environments, for nuclear reactors. So quite a wide range. And one of the things that we're doing at the moment is we're currently funding an award. And I need to read it out because I can't remember the names of the word a little bit in my head. So it's an award for future skills. And it's really for bright ideas. So if any of you are interested or you have a clever idea, you don't actually need to have a plan for it yet. But if you have a bright idea, please do go to our website and apply for the award. So that should actually give you some more information about the award as a cash prize. The deadline is the 26th of September. So you have still a little bit of time to apply. So going back to our role of hard skills versus soft skills. I've heard all kinds of things around this. So firstly, is it an arbitrary distinction? Yes, maybe. Maybe it is an arbitrary distinction. And it can be. So they say that it's a blurry line between hard skills and soft skills. I would argue that that's the case for any two opposites. The lines between the two opposites are quite blurry. Some might say that it doesn't matter if it's a hard skill or a soft skill, because actually the learning design principles that underpin learning actually are the same. So the learning design principles they apply for hard skills would similarly apply for soft skills. Now, the fact that we do make a distinction means there are some differences. And there are probably things that we need to consider when we're thinking about hard skills that we don't need to think about in the same way or we need to think about in a different way when we're considering soft skills. So as we look at the blurry edges, I'm going to go to an Arab proverb which says that by their opposites, we get to actually know things. So what are the opposites? Hard skills often focus around technical abilities. They're often easier to measure. So you can either do an addition problem or solve an algebra equation or not. And actually, often it requires a lot of mental rigor around it. Again, these distinctions, to some extent, we are trying to create these distinctions. When we're talking about soft skills, we're actually looking more at work effectively with other people. Sometimes it's harder to demonstrate this. And it can also be less binary. So it's not, you can do this 100% or you can't. It can be something in between and often very reliant on emotional intelligence. So those are the kind of definitions that I'm going to go with in this case. Now what are the technical changes that I'm referring to here that have changed soft skills? I'm going to play you hopefully. Start with a prayer that actually works. A short video. Technical failure at a learning technology conference. This is just something to show you some of the tools that we've recently come across that are actually using VR. For soft skills training in healthcare, for example. I just wanted to show you the kind of, the techniques available, but also the kind of interactions that they have with their users. So I won't play the whole thing, but you can see from the, from the interfaces that you came across that it actually lets people interact with their environment. So going back, going back to learning design then. So if you have this sort of VR environment where people can interact with the environment, what does it allow us to do for soft skills? So I'm going to draw three key points. Number one is what I'm going to call the bouncy castle. So in a bouncy castle, you actually get to jump around. You're completely safe. Whatever you do, it's unlikely to cause any serious damage. And that's actually what something like this, the VR tool that you just saw. It's called body swaps. That's what it allows. It allows it to be a bouncy castle where people can actually interact. It's completely safe. There is no embarrassment. You know, it's only your VR. Your VR, the 3d VR people who you might, you know, never meet. So you don't actually have to worry about, you know, losing faith to them. So it's really a say, it allows for this bouncy castle. It allows for experimentation. It allows, it allows for non-linear learning. Now for anybody who has learned to do anything, you'll see that there's some learning that has to happen sequentially. So you can't get to algebra before you can add up correctly. It's a sequence that has to be followed. Whereas actually what this VR environment and specifically the soft skills allows you to do is actually create non-linear pathways to learn soft skills. So if you were learning to negotiate, there's various things that you need to learn as part of that. And some of it could be just being able to ask questions. The other parts would be to actually respond to some things. And it actually allows you to develop things in terms of the learning design of the soft skills quite differently because you have this bouncy castle. Now I know a lot of people don't like the idea that VR is fun. And VR can also not be fun because, you know, we've also had people using VR and actually getting seesaw from using VR. So the fun is there but it can also be, you know, queasy like the bouncy castle. So it's just something to bear in mind actually as you're designing. The people will have different reactions but actually there is a little freedom within this particular learning technology. Now the other piece of this I think is really important is around feedback. This sort of learning technology for soft skills actually allows this kind of slightly creepy thing which is a faceless feedback. So you're getting feedback but it's not from a person. So the VR is telling you you're good or not good or something else. So it means also a lot of the times there's no one really to disappoint or impress. And actually that psychologically has its own baggage, you know, because part of what happens with learning is you get validated by a teacher or a tutor. Somebody says thumbs up, you're good at this. Now in this VR environment the fact that it is faceless is helpful because you're completely safe. You don't have to worry about losing face but equally there is no one to impress, no one to disappoint. And how do you get to that point where you celebrate success for somebody? Yes, you can have a big whizzy prize or we've seen people do badging as part of this sort of process. But actually there is something very human and specifically it's very important for soft skills that you get validated by a person. So as people are designing these sort of in terms of learning design there needs to be a point at which there is a validation from another human, you know, talk about having to add a human to learning technology. So on the third piece, so you know there is the final bit and this again goes back to this human point and is around wraparound support and I know, I don't know if you've heard about this a lot, other learning technology, specific technologies but actually around these soft skills. One of the things that Body Swaps has found is actually the technology is there. A lot of the times it's very plug-and-play. They've designed it so that you can get the kit, get started, but actually it needs hand-holding and support around getting people to use it and feel, and the needs tend to be different depending on the environment that you're designing for and the context that you're designing for. So again this, so it's really important they have had to think about how do they help their customers create the appropriate support to allow them to actually make the most of the technology. So it's just something to bear in mind that that is actually a necessary part of the learning design. The wraparound support is not just designing in the technology itself, but designing what is around the technology to make sure that people are making the most of it. And finally, just wanted to show you Body Swaps soft skills library. So you'll see the kind of things people are using it for. So they have things like public speaking and presentation, around communication, active listening. And some of this, I mean this is one of the products that have been, they basically had a project with U of Five Octech Trust and their product on their own now as well. But one of the things that's really interesting is seeing who's taking an active interest in this and how important actually some of these skills are becoming when it comes to the future of work. So yes, the hard skills are necessary. But so as a lot of things are getting automated and all of that, the soft skills are actually becoming more important, not less. So I imagine a lot of learning designers will be focused around that in the future if they're not, if it's less of a focus now. So finally, the soft skills, it's really in terms of keeping in mind where it sits, I think it has a strong impact on the culture and the mindsets of people, of leadership and how they behave. And in a way, it's actually teaching people how to listen appropriately with empathy, lead their teens, negotiate. There's various things that are actually part of soft skills that are becoming more important, not less. And I think there's a role for technology where it actually makes some parts of learning soft skills easier. But the point is to actually make us more human. And so it's just something that I think learning designers really have to bear in mind as they design technology that is designed to make us more human, not less. So again, just three points again, a safe bouncy castle. How do you make faceless feedback meaningful and validating. And the wraparound support of a bear hug. So that's it from me. Thank you.