The world is changed - GaladrielAugust 19, 2008
Bottom-up learning - e.learning ageBottom-up learning occurs because employees want to be able to perform effectively in their jobs. The exact motivation may vary, from achieving job security to earning more money, gaining recognition or obtaining personal fulfilment, but the route to all these is performing well on the job, and employees know as well as their employers that this depends - to some extent at least - on their acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills.Is Google Making Our E-Learning Stupid? - The Rapid eLearning BlogInstructional designers need to consider web surfing habits. Whether it's right or wrong, people who are online have been developing habits that they bring to the elearning course. Design courses to accommodate these power browsing habits. If you don't, chances are you'll lose a connection with the learner which will make the course ineffectual.The Voice of the Learner: How Employees Learn in 2008 - The MASIE CenteEmployees today are learning how to do their jobs very differently! e-Learning, on-line Video, Social Networks and other Informal methods are now options for learning, in addition to more traditional Classes and On-The-Job Training (OJT). A recent survey by The MASIE Center of 6,100 employees in companies around the world provides a profile of how employees currently learn at work and how their learning preferences are changing. Via Workplace Learning Today.Working Memory Training Raises IQ of Adults - Improve Your Learning and MemoryA new paper, Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory, describes that while there is a long history of research into cognitive training showing that, although performance on trained tasks can increase dramatically, transfer of this learning to other tasks remains poor. Here, the authors present evidence for transfer from training on a demanding working memory task to measures of Fluid intelligence. Also, see: Help Your Working-memory Capacity and Tests Produce Learning.August 11, 2008
The Thinking Behind Critical Thinking Courses - Washington PostCritical thinking is not a skill like riding a bike or diagramming a sentence that, once learned, can be applied in many situations. Instead, as your most-hated high school teacher often told you, you have to buckle down and learn the content of a subject--facts, concepts and trends--before the maxims of critical thinking taught in these feverishly-marketed courses will do you much good. The processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of thought (that is, domain knowledge).Here's Why Unlocking Your Course Navigation Will Create Better Learning - The Rapid eLearning BlogNo one likes wasting time and in the process being treated like a child. However, the organization commits a lot of its resources to the training and they want to make sure that people take the time to learn the information. They definitely don't want the employees skipping through information that might be critical to the organization's success.Design for Emotion and Flow - Boxes and ArrowsNote: While this article is direced towards web design, most of the concepts can also be used for learning design.Information architects and designers play a critical role in ensuring the products they design provide users' with a return on their investment of attention. Also see Completing the Zen in Performance Management. Consumers typically need not worry much about the programming plumbing beneath their online applications. But suppose you're the person on the hook for your company's online expense reporting tool or a start-up planning to build an online music mixer for anyone on the Internet. You'll have to place a bet on which technology is best and which programmers to hire or train. "Even if I were starting from scratch today, I still think I'd bet on JavaScript and Ajax...It's going to be hard to stop the massive momentum we have," Henrikson said. "Flash is seeing a pretty aggressive growth cycle now, (but) I still think JavaScript is going to be (used in) 10 times the number of Flash apps that launch." August 5, 2008
How magicians control your mind - Boston GlobeA new model has arisen over the past decade, in which visual cognition is understood not as a camera but something more like a flashlight beam sweeping a twilit landscape. At any particular instant, we can only see detail and color in the small patch we are concentrating on. The rest we fill in through a combination of memory, prediction and a crude peripheral sight. We don't take in our surroundings so much as actively and constantly construct them.Seeing is Hearing: New Type of Synesthesia Discovered - Scientific AmericanOn the visual trials, nonsynesthetes judgments fell to nearly chance levels, a result that corroborates other research showing that most people are better at judging auditory patterns than assessing visual patterns.The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn - Scientific AmericanAs researchers continue to investigate storytelling's power and pervasiveness, they are also looking for ways to harness that power. Some such as Green are studying how stories can have applications in promoting positive health messages. "A lot of problems are behaviorally based," Green says, pointing to research documenting the influence of Hollywood films on smoking habits among teens. And Mar and Oatley want to further examine how stories can enhance social skills by acting as simulators for the brain, which may turn the idea of the socially crippled bookworm on its head.What Stinks About Webinars?An elegant, focused PowerPoint deck is good, but hardly sufficient, webinars would benefit from some instructional design principles. Webinar disasters can be prevented by applying basic instructional design: selecting content by taking into account the purpose of the presentation, attending to time/space constraints and audience, matching content with delivery strategies, applying document design, storytelling, characterization, worked examples and so on and so forth. It boils down to "telling a story and not lecturing or reading."Why Organizational Strategy Matters - LeaderValuesTop performing companies successfully leverage their organization more effectively than rivals and derive over 64% more profit per employee than next-tier performers.Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon - Washington PostFor the purposes of their experiment, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another a text message. The researchers looked at the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect 180 billion different pairs of users in the database. They found that the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78 percent of the pairs could be connected in seven hops or less. Some pairs, however, were separated by as many as 29 hops.August 1, 2008
Cognitive restructuring and the fist bump terrorists - Mind HacksThoughts on implicit association test (IAT), reductio ad absurdum argument, and cognitive restructuring using the recent satirical New Yorker cover depicting Obama and his wife as fist-bumping Islamic terroristsThe Right Way to Disagree with Direct Reports - Harvard BusinessTry not to prove that your direct reports are wrong. Chances are that your direct reports are generally bright and interested in what they are doing - especially the ones that take the initiative to make suggestions. The fact that your ideas differ from their ideas does not always mean that they are wrong. As difficult as it may be to believe, sometimes you are wrong.Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? - New York TimesAs teenagers' scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading - diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write. The Myth of the Math Gender Gap - TimeAccording to new data, the researchers say, that gender gap has become a myth - a finding they hope will help shift the very real gender gap in math, science and technology professions, which are currently dominated by men.WikiGate: A Wakeup Call For Wikipedia - The Kent Lewis ExperienceHow are companies that are listed on Wikipedia supposed to clarify or correct inaccuracies, or add new content? Not only is writing about ones self a violation of the rules, but paying someone to do so is as well.July 22, 2008
Tough Choices: How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain - Scientific AmericanThese findings have important real world implications. If making choices depletes executive resources, then "downstream" decisions might be affected adversely when we are forced to choose with a fatigued brain. Indeed, University of Maryland psychologist Anastasiya Pocheptsova and colleagues found exactly this effect: individuals who had to regulate their attention - which requires executive control - made significantly different choices than people who did not.Everything is fragmented - Building CoPs for knowledge flow - Dave SnowdenThe name brings to mind Etienne Wenger's pioneering work in observing naturally occurring use of virtual environments by engineers. The problem was that when people went from a researcher's description of what had grown naturally in the past to a prescriptive recipe, things went wrong.Students Who Use 'Clickers' Score Better On Physics Tests - Science DailyOhio State University students who used the devices to answer multiple-choice questions during physics lectures earned final examination scores that were around 10 percent higher - the equivalent of a full-letter grade -- than students who didn't.Crisis, what crisis? The future of elearning - Training Zone95% of respondents believe elearning works best as part of a blend. This has always been the belief of those of us with a more enlightened view of the uses and limitations of 'e' as a learning medium.The Competitive Imperative of Learning - Stephen's WebThere is not a lot of critical or analytical writing on learning in the business press, so this article by Amy Ednondson is an important one. She makes the distinction between Execution-as-Efficiency and Execution-as-Learning.Bar graphs vs. Pie charts - Seth GodinI stepped on the toes of many data presentation purists yesterday, so let me reiterate my point to make it crystal clear: In a presentation to non-scientists (or to bored scientists), the purpose of a chart or graph is to make one point, vividly.July 10, 2008
A Customer-Driven Approach to Molding Tomorrow's Leaders - CLOAccording to conventional wisdom, 70 percent of employee development happens on the job, 20 percent through formal and informal relationships with bosses and mentors and 10 percent in the classroom. However, we are seeing a new dynamic emerge, one that suggests that 50 percent of employee development takes place through challenging job assignments, 30 percent in the classroom and 20 percent through community involvement. This theory suggests that powerful learning experiences are available everywhere and that experiential classroom instruction can be tied more closely to the job than ever before.As Baby Boomers Retire, Companies Fail to Transfer Knowledge - i4cpIf experience is the best teacher, most companies are apparently cutting class when it comes to knowledge transfer (KT). According to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), just 29% of responding organizations report that they incorporate retirement forecasts into their knowledge transfer practices, and only a third add "skills gap analysis" into those forecasts. Most companies also admit they do not formally measure the effectiveness of their knowledge transfer practices.The three laws of great graphs - Seth GodinThe problem with bar charts is that they should either be line/area charts (when graphing a change over time, like unemployment rates) or they should be a simple pie chart (when comparing two or three items at the same scale).New Design for My Smile Sheet - Will at Work LearningInstead of asking learners to respond globally (which they are not very good at), it asks learners to respond to specific learning points covered in the learning intervention. This not only enables the learners to better calibrate their responses, it also gives the learners a spaced repetition (improving later memory retrieval on key learning points).Older workforce requires variety of recruitment strategies - PennState Live"Today's employers will need to be innovative in hiring and motivating their workforce employees who can vary widely in age from Generation X and Y to Baby Boomers," said researchers Diane Spokus, a recent Ph.D. recipient in workforce education, and William Rothwell, professor of workforce education and training and development. "Few institutions have retention efforts under way to retain their mature workforce. But managers will need a smorgasbord approach to fully use the untapped assets of an aging workforce."July 8, 2008
The Mirror Neuron Revolution: Explaining What Makes Humans Social - Scientific AmericanMirror Neurons collapse the distinction between seeing and doing.Virtual training at Fort BenningWhile much of a recruit's introduction to the Army is the same as it has always been--firing ranges, long marches, obstacle courses, and the like--the Army is increasingly utilizing new technologies to help soldiers learn their jobs.The crowd within - EconomistThis suggests that the brain is constantly creating hypotheses about the world and checking them against reality. Those that pass muster are adopted. Guessing the answers to questions you do not know the correct answer to, but have some idea of what the right answer ought to look like, could tap into such a system. A hive mind buzzing with ideas, as it were, but inside a single skull.$37 billion - US and UK businesses count the cost of employee misunderstanding - CogniscoUK and US employees are costing businesses $37 billion (£18.7 billion) 2 every year because they do not fully understand their jobs, according to a new IDC white paper commissioned by Cognisco, the world's leading intelligent employee assessment specialist.Approximately two thirds of the total cost of misunderstanding reported by organisations was attributed to loss of business due to unplanned downtime (32 percent), poor procurement practice (17 percent) and settlements for industrial tribunals (16 percent). Other costs incurred include regulatory penalties and tax or revenue penalties. Long-tail economics favors the blockbuster, Harvard study finds - c/netRemember the long tail? It was the omnipresent theory that suggested there were oodles of cash to be made by monetizing a market's disparate tastes via the Web.Why sell a million copies of Led Zeppelin's Coda, when you can make a thriving business of selling two to three copies of your neighbor's garage band to Rick, two copies of a Nigerian band's tunes to Susan, and so on? As new research highlighted in Harvard Business Review suggests, the answer may well be that the real money is in the blockbuster, not the long tail, after all. Your Mashup Is Probably Legal - Slashdot"We've been conditioned to think that if you pull something off the web and use it, you're committing some sort of copyright infringement. But increasingly, the law is moving in the opposite direction. Provided you are making a truly new use of the content, you are free to make money off those copyrighted images and video and sound.June 20, 2008
Study: Social networks may subvert 'digital divide' - c/net"What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today," Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher from the school's College of Education and Human Development, said in a release Friday.Water woes, trouble, and training - Dave's WhiteboardA one-page guide to performance problem analysis, just in case the cause of the problem is not restricted to a lack of skill or knowledge.The Myth of Multitasking - The New AtlantisWhen people do their work only in the "interstices of their mind-wandering," with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.Information Overload Research Group news wrapup - emaildashboardWow. We publicly launched the Information Overload Research Group yesterday,June 17, 2008
KnowledgeAdvisors and Bassi Investments' Human Capital Measurement Portfolio Outperforms S&P 500 by 15 Percent - The Earth TimesOrganizations that invest heavily in Human Capital were more likely to outperform the market. The Human Capital Measurement portfolio created by Bassi Investments Inc., comprised of a subset of KnowledgeAdvisors clients, clearly shows that when an organization focuses on measuring and improving human capital impact it is more likely to generate above average returns to shareholders.Also see Investing in People who Invest in People (PDF) and The Impact of U.S. Firms Investments in Human Capital on Stock Prices (PDF). Closing the "ADDIE" Loop - The LeanLearning BlogContrary to the belief that the interests of instructional design and learning analytics work at cross purposes, I present the case for analysis-analytics collaboration for the benefit of the learner. Hear me out, ye learned jury of courseware sponsors and learners, before you passeth judgment ...Circling the wagons against Nick Carr - c/netWhat is it about Nick Carr, a very bright guy, that inspires the not-so-bright guys to bring out the knives? Criticism of his recent Atlantic piece has ranged from the predictably ungenerous to the downright bitchy.So it goes. The chattering class always gets irritated when convention gets challenged. After Carr published his thoughtful Harvard Business Review article in 2003, "Why IT Doesn't Matter," many technology leaders and trade press opinion makers reacted harshly. They so caricatured Carr's nuanced thesis that they entirely missed his bigger point about IT's declining importance as a competitive asset. In the end, of course, it turned out Carr was quite right. Alaskan Airlines saves millions by rethinking check-in flowDuring my two hours of observation in Seattle, an Alaska agent processed 46 passengers, while her counterpart at United managed just 22.For English Studies, Koreans Say Goodbye to Dad - New York TimesSouth Koreans now make up the largest group of foreign students in the United States (more than 103,000) and the second largest in New Zealand (6,579). South Korean parents say that the schools are failing to teach not only English but also other skills crucial in an era of globalization, like creative thinking. That resonates among South Koreans, whose economy has slowed after decades of high growth and who believe they are increasingly being squeezed between the larger economies of Japan and China.June 9, 2008
Learning, Training & Development - Defend Thyselves! - Elliott Masie in HR ManagementWe have an obligation to create an environment where they can learn the skills they need to succeed and we have a critical need to create (and measure) the readiness of this tribe to take on tomorrow's challenges.The context of error - Cognitive EdgeInnovation happens when people use things in unexpected ways, or come up against intractable problems. We learn from tolerated failure, without the world is sterile and dies. Systems that eliminate failure, eliminate innovation.The Learning Landscape Model - Will at Work LearningIt's helpful to have an overall understanding of what we're trying to do in the learning-and-performance profession. The E-learning Ecosystem in organizations - The E-learning Curve at EdublogsBy adapting the well-known learning curve, I developed a conceptual model that maps Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives to learner requirements as they progress along the curve.Behavioral Interview Techniques - testreadypro.comSTAR is an example that is most often used for behavioral interview responses. It follows the following formula, S: Situation, describe briefly when and where the incident occurred and who was involved. You are setting the scene. T: Task, what were you trying to achieve, what was the problem or issue to be dealt with. A: Action, what action did you take independently or to assist others to get to a positive outcome. R: Result, what was the outcome of your actions, state your success and any positive feedback received or what you learned if the outcome was different to what was anticipated.Inside Outsourcing - ForbesAs the risks of outsourcing loom ever larger, the rewards are growing, too. For visionaries who take advantage of its potential, there is real profit at stake.U.S. Schools: Not That Bad - Business Week"But things aren't as dire for U.S. students as they might appear in the documentary. As an academic, I have been researching engineering education and have taught many graduates of Indian, Chinese, and American universities. It can take longer for Indians and Chinese to develop crucial real-world skills that come more easily for some Americans. Yes, U.S. teens work part-time, socialize, and party. But the independence and social skills they develop give them a big advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks."May 28, 2008
Management in formation - People ManagementInside one of the buildings, you might have found the eminent leadership academic John Alban-Metcalfe. He's giving a lecture to an assemble "some of the worst examples of leadership can come at the top of organisations", and citing such sources as Charles Handy while proceeding to debunk the myth of the charismatic leader.Breaking Down mLearning - mLearning HubAt the highest level we can separate mLearning into learning applied to mobile devices inside the classroom and those outside the classroom. Please note I realize the simple fact that something that is mobile means it could easily move in or out of the "classroom", however there is an important distinction between the two. Also see, iPods for Learning.Teaching in the digital world, part I: technology is not always your friend - Science BlogsTeaching an on-line course turned out to be as much a learning experience for me as it was for my students. Now, it's time to step back and reflect on what was learned.Six Dangerous Myths About Pay - Conde NastPortfolio Off-price clothing retailer Men's Wearhouse pays higher-than-average wages and invests extensively in training. These unusual moves let it reduce turnover and compete on customer service, superior product knowledge, and sales skills - advantages that rivals can't easily copy.Beyond Blogs - Business WeekWorkers can fritter away hours on YouTube. They can use social networks to pillory a colleague or leak secrets. That's the downside, and companies that don't adapt are sure to get lots of it.But there's an upside to the loss of control. Ambitious workers use these tools to land new deals and to assemble global teams for collaborative projects. The potential for both better and worse is huge, and it's growing - and since 2005 the technologies involved extend far beyond blogs. So our first fix is to lose "blogs" from our headline. The revised title: "Social Media Will Change Your Business." May 26, 2008
Video games can make us creative if spark is right - e! Science NewsVideo games that energize players and induce a positive mood could also enhance creativity, according to media researchers. However, the study also finds that players who were not highly energized and had a negative mood, registered the highest creativity. "You need defocused attention for being creative," said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State. "When you have low arousal and are negative, you tend to focus on detail and become more analytical."Also see "THE EFFECTS OF EMOTION ON CREATIVITY". Create Mobile Websites with Wirenode - Mobile LearningWirenode incorporates media and interactivity, which may even be uploaded by the user, and there's even an analytics tool for users who like to see how many visitors/students are checking out their mobile site.Design - Human Centered Design vs Activity Centered Design? - eCubeThe "listen to your users" produces incoherent designs. The "ignore your users" can produce horror stories, unless the person in charge has a clear vision or Conceptual Model for the product. The person in charge must follow that vision and not be afraid to ignore findings. Yes, listen to customers, but don't always do what they say.Web users 'getting more selfish' - BBCInstead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave. Success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75%, said Dr Nielsen. In 1999 this figure stood at 60%. The designs have become better but also users have become accustomed to that interactive environment.Web users were also getting very frustrated with all the extras, such as widgets and applications, being added to sites to make them more friendly. May 22, 2008Checking out animoto
Blogging--It's Good for You - Scientific AmericanScientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits.
We're all Einsteins now - New Zealand HeraldThe ability to think in abstract terms underpins the scientific, material and, arguably, moral advances of modern society.
Visual Architecture: The Rule of Three - Digital Web
Don't flame me, bro' - New ScientistPeople can vastly overestimate their ability to communicate unambiguously by email in that we find it hard to take another person's perspective when communicating electronically. Similarly, a study found that people tend to interpret emails more negatively than other forms of communication, making them even more likely to respond aggressively.
Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain - New York TimesThe aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit.May 18, 2008
Unlocking the DNA of the Adaptable Workforce - IBM (executive summary)
Developing the workforce is the prime ingredient for an organization's success. "As any firm that has attempted to transform its workforce to meet changing conditions will attest, the journey is difficult and littered with obstacles. Understanding key workforce performance challenges and identifying the leading practices companies are using to overcome them have become central focus areas." - IBM download the complete paper
Back to Basics - MetropolisIn our rush to build a knowledge economy we forgot that we need a backbone."Manufacturing is still more relevant to long-term economic development than glitzy museums or massive sports stadiums." - Joel Kotkin
Think about paths instead of hierarchies - Signal vs. NoiseWhile this short post is about web navigation, the same principles apply to all forms of knowledge in the learning and development field."Instead of thinking in terms of hierarchy or up-front structure, I think it's better to work with paths. A path is a line that goes from a starting point A to an accomplishment B." - Ryan May 17, 2008
Recent Survey shows 36:1 development ratio for ILT - Bryan Chapman
Mobile learning is not about courses on a phone. mLearning is where we really bring home the message: 'It's not about learning... it's about doing", because while there are learning implications for mobile devices, it's really about performance support.
Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times
What Behavior Do You Want to Change? - Business Week
Research Report on Feedback - Will at Work learning
May 3, 2008
The Cognitive Age - New York Times
The globalization paradigm leads people to see economic development as a form of foreign policy, as a grand competition between nations and civilizations. These abstractions, called "the Chinese" or "the Indians," are doing this or that. But the cognitive age paradigm emphasizes psychology, culture and pedagogy - the specific processes that foster learning.
Is the grass greener on the other side of the pond? - Training Zone
Memory Training Shown to Turn Up Brainpower - New York Times
Instructional Technologies in Human Resource Development:
Impact, Models, and Changes - International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning
Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices - New York Times
We still believe there is human involvement - Nicholas Carr
|
|
RSS Feedshttp://bdld.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Knowledge & Learning Jobs
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Donald Clark. Make your own badge here.
|