Key Ideas from the Training 2026 Conference

When I speak at in-person conferences, I always attend a number of sessions and come home with pages of notes. I find that if I don’t review those notes shortly after the event, it’s easy for everything I learned to simply vanish from my brain. That’s one of the reasons I write these recap posts after events: I want to pull out key ideas right away so I don’t lose what I learned. This is my recap with key ideas and tips from the Training 2026 Conference.

Katrina Kennedy on Learning Transfer

While I’ve known Katrina online for years, I think this was the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to hear her speak live and in-person. If you ever get a chance, please attend her sessions! She did such a fantastic job modeling all of the techniques she talked about throughout her session. For me, this session was as much about learning from her example as a speaker as it was about the content.

One key idea I noted was some learning research I hadn’t seen previously about the “Optimal Error Rate” for training, which was about 16%. Learners should get answers right in practice most of the time. If it’s too hard, we check out. If it’s too easy, we get bored and check out.

While we often focus on techniques to improve learning transfer during sessions, we don’t always do as much before and after. Even something simple like a “pre-flection” question before starting can help focus attendees and improve transfer.

Chrisanna Paxton McMillan on Accessible Elearning

I appreciated seeing Chris’s examples of accessible elearning that isn’t boring and her tips on how to build interactive elearning that meets WCAG requirements.

One tip I want to try is including text with 0 opacity for screen readers. You can remove some objects from the focus order and then add objects that are only readable by screen readers.

Another idea I noted: pregnant women working are underrepresented in training images. That makes sense; stock images of pregnant women tend to show hands holding their belly, eating, or feeling sick. That’s something I’d like to see if I can do better with AI image generation now.

Jeff Batt on Vibe Coding

When I attended Jeff’s session on vibe coding at Training 2025, I felt like you really needed to have some programming or app development background to be able to describe what you want in specific enough terms to build anything usable. In fact, my notes say, “I think this is too complex for the typical user.”

I don’t feel that way anymore. The technology has advanced to a point where you can describe what you want in plain language, and the tools can build something usable quickly. It works best if you start simple and then add features iteratively, rather than trying to do everything in a single perfect prompt to start.

I have to think about how I might use this for practical purposes, but for fun in the session I created an 80s-style arcade game with questions about instructional design models and principles. You can try the game and the flash cards I built; I added them both to a Rise course as embedded code blocks.

Diane Elkins on Getting Value from Visuals

I appreciated Diane’s session on getting the maximum instructional value from visuals because it relates to the work I do with AI images. We have the ability to generate just about anything we want for images now, but if those images are irrelevant or distracting, it doesn’t do us any good.

The first principle Diane shared was “illustrate, don’t decorate.” Every slide and image should have a goal. Use images to help people understand or remember. Give them a reason to care about the topic with an emotional connection. Use images to provide sign posts or signal structure in your training.

Kassy LaBorie on Real Connections in Virtual Classrooms

Kassy had lots of fun activities to demonstrate, as she always done. This year, she used Suno to generate a song for the session with details we picked as the audience with polls. Suno (and other tools like Udio) are so easy to use that you could generate “theme songs” for each week in a multi-week course.

Karin Rex on Storytelling with Data

I don’t actually do much work with data, but I was interested in learning Karin’s framework.

Examine the data for patterns and contrasts.Expose the danger of doing nothingExplain the heart of the matter. Write one sentence that captures what needs to happen for a happy ending.

Megan Torrance on AI Implementation

Megan’s session was about moving “beyond the pilot” and making thoughtful AI implementation decisions. What I got out of this session was a framework with questions to guide my conversations with clients related to AI. I appreciated thinking through both her sample case and one of my own real projects to think through where I might have gaps in what I know and need to probe deeper.

“The accessibility of AI tools and the illusion of instant results demand more deliberate, inclusive approaches.”

A few more images

I didn’t take as many photos this time as I have at past conferences. I was more focused on my conversations with all the wonderful folks attending than I was at pulling out my phone. But here’s a few more snapshots from Training 2026.

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