July 11, 2016 The news today is reflective of a nation divided. It includes stories of disillusionment, anger and frustration. People keep talking past each other. And, failures in our educational system are partly to blame. When science and factual knowledge are rejected by many Americans, something is terribly wrong. And when the rhetoric of politicians is designed to incite fear and anger about one, or more, of our many minorities our...
July 6, 2016 “Big Jay”, as he was known in the community, dropped out of school in the tenth grade. He decided that school had failed to serve his needs, and felt that getting out in the world and earning money would be more of a help to his mother and younger brothers and sisters. “Big Jay” had to weigh his career options, and turned to what he found to be the...
June 22, 2016 Are you offering e-Learning courses to your trainees as part of their assigned training? If so, you should periodically step back and objectively evaluate the effectiveness of your e-Learning initiatives. In doing so there are several criteria you need to examine: 1) Have your enrollments increased, decreased or stayed relatively flat? (Your learners are, subjectively, telling you something about your offerings. Word of mouth is communicating to you in...
June 20, 2016 While still reflecting on last Wednesday’s blog, ““VIRGINIA STEPS INTO THE FUTURE“ I was reminded of the fact that while serving as CEO of ITC, I had first hired (and, later promoted to VP) two of the smartest and contributive employees the Company enjoyed in its long history. Both were sans college degrees. One of those individuals had gone from high school directly into the blue collar work force...
June 15, 2016 Finally! —- Somebody gets it! “Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed legislation Thursday that will lead to an overhaul of the state’s high school graduation requirements, aiming to make high school more relevant to the working world and giving students who want to start a career after high school more alternatives to fulfill requirements. . . . McAuliffe said that the state’s schools generally have been too fixated on preparing...
June 13, 2016 As practiced today, e-Learning has failed to meet the ROI requirements of business. Consequently, e-Learning is being successfully challenged by streaming video, games and simulations as the training media of choice. Why? Three major reasons. First, because re-purposed PowerPoints — are being passed off as e-Learning. These pseudo courses are never even completed by two-thirds of the trainees assigned to take them. They are full of lots of words...
May 27, 2010 I sometimes wonder if it’s too big a stretch to compare the decline of a thinking education to the increased popularity of “opinion media.” Is there a connection between this “dumbing down” and the audiences for obviously-opinionated “news” networks like MSNBC and FOX News? Have we regressed so far that we are exclusively interested in our own embryonically-formed opinions being reinforced by equally incompletely-informed “talking heads?” Have we stopped...
June 6, 2016 “The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” (Robert Maynard Hutchins, President of The University of Chicago, 1929-1945 and Chancellor, 1945-1951) Today, St. John’s College in Annapolis is most often associated with a continuing commitment to many of Hutchins’ ideas, particularly his emphasis on “The Great Books.” And interestingly, an article in The Washington Post by Daniel de Vise featured Christopher Nelson,...
June 1, 2016 With the introduction of Interactive Laser Videodisc (IVD) in the 1980s, the opportunity for increased learning and retention for the 40% of our workforce who do not assimilate anything written above a 4th grade reading level had become a reality! The emphasis was on the learning-design while the technology was secondary in importance — instructional branching was the key. (With the plethora of current e-Learning examples that are merely...
May 16, 2016 “ . . . Interactive media is the integration of digital media including combinations of electronic text, graphics, moving images, and sound, into a structured digital computerised environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purposes.The digital environment can include the Internet, telecoms and interactive digital television. No wonder it is difficult for new entrants to understand.The important concepts to hold on to are ‘interactive’ and...
May 11, 2016 On Monday, I wrote a piece entitled, ““‘STRAIGHT-A’s’ ARE ONE MEASURE,“ in which I pointed out that there were many other equally valid ways to measure “Success.” So yesterday it was most exciting to read a truly erudite piece in The New York Times by David Brooks, “Putting Grit in Its Place.” Here are his initial paragraphs: “We all know why it exists, but the grade-point average is one...
May 9, 2016 “Most parents want their children to do well in school, and that usually means getting A’s. They believe that good grades will help guarantee that their children will lead happy, productive, and successful lives. While good grades can be an indication that children will grow up to excel in life as they did in school, it’s far from a guarantee. In fact, straight A’s can actually be a sign...
May 4, 2016 So, why do you invest time in training your company’s workforce? For that matter, why does your organization commit dollars to training initiatives? The answers to those questions seem obvious, don’t they? “Because our people will acquire the skills necessary for improved performance and that will result in a better bottom line for our business.’ In a perfect world, those answers would be completely valid. But, it’s not a...
May 2, 2016 Learning is not merely memorization of information. Learning is the mental response to informational stimulation, which turns into reflection and new awareness. Meaningful learning initiates action and change, which results in heightened values and skills. So, why has e-Learning failed in its quest to become meaningful? It’s easy to spot e-learning courses that don’t measure up to current standards. These products are a black eye to the e-learning industry...