THE THREE ‘NOW’ LEARNING ANSWERS ”

Imagination is the single catalyst that drives creativity. One of America’s greatest scenic artists, Robert Edmond Jones, defined that process most appropriately when he wrote, “Imagination is the faculty for realization.”

No one can create anything meaningful unless their imagination can foresee that created object or concept already realized in their own mind.

Imagination is not fantasy. Fantasy is inner-directed, while imagination lets us envision worlds outside ourselves. And, if we are all going to fully grasp today’s learning culture transition, we will only do so if we can exercise a genuine imagination, which can empower us to see into the future of learning. A future, incidentally, which will be essential to economic advancement around the globe as well as the twenty-first century means for advancing individual achievement and any resultant social harmony.

So, where is the fit? Let’s begin by dispensing with that meaningless term we all use so cavalierly: multimedia. To borrow from Robert Bolt, “a word for all seasons.” And, incidentally, a term stolen from the multiple slide-projectors crowd more than a decade ago and adopted by the PR folks connected with our PC manufacturing industry. We all know that multimedia today stands for almost anything and means almost nothing.

The learning media I want you to consider are three: digitized CD-ROMs, e-Learning that is designed around video and optional full audio, as well as computer gaming and simulations. At this particular moment, those are the three broad classifications of training that actually succeed in markedly improving learning outcomes.

Pay attention to the common denominators. Today, nothing else will meet the test.

Enjoy your holiday weekend – – – – –

— Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning
bwalton@itclearning.com

“AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO BE BUILT BY THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”