January 20, 2016 In Monday’s post, I cautioned: “ . . . many find that their employees simply don’t have the reading and math skills necessary for effective job performance. While readily investing dollars in task skills training, too many businesses ignore the basic skills knowledge gap that exists throughout their organization. And that means specific training in reading and math skills!” Today, I want to share with you a few of...
January 18, 2016 While readily investing dollars in task skills training, too many businesses ignore the basic skills knowledge gap that exists throughout their organization. And that means specific training in reading and math skills! Unfortunately, when they take the time to examine that skills gap, many find that their employees simply don’t have the reading and math skills necessary for effective job performance. “Well-designed programs using the latest technology could be...
January 13, 2016 The “Great Books of the Western World” and its companion collection, “The Great Ideas Today,” were published more than a half-century ago. Their introduction was designed to stimulate thinking and their publication was an attempt to bring the best of education to Americans everywhere. Unfortunately, education has slid backward from that earlier promise. Even in the time of their original publication, the naysayers were attacking “The Great Books,” “by...
January 11, 2016 It’s a pretty safe assumption that most of you have moved at least some of your training initiatives into an e-Learning environment. An equally likely assumption is that most of you have been experiencing some disappointing results with your e-Learning initiatives. In the introduction to “The Illusion of e-Learning: Why We Are Missing Out on the Promise of Technology” by Frank L. Greenagel, Ph.D we find a summary of...
January 6, 2016 Like they were for me, I hope your holidays were full of good times and reflection. I even managed to do some “holiday reading” and came across a few articles that I’d like to share in this first 2016 posting. Arranging the articles in the order I discovered them, the first excerpt comes from “American higher education is a house divided” and was written by syndicated columnist George Will....
PART FOUR — “The Design & Vendor Review” December 21, 2015 Six years ago, I posted a series of blogs designed to aid the buyer in navigating the purchasing process. With new edits, and some rewriting, to bring them up-to-date, here they are again —- written from your point of view. This final one is Part Four, “the design and vendor review.” Here are some essential design elements you should expect...
PART THREE — “The Media Review” December 16, 2015 Six years ago, I wrote a series of blogs designed to aid the buyer in navigating the purchasing process. With new edits and rewriting to bring them up-to-date, here they are again —- written from your point of view. This one is Part Three, “the media review.” Confucius is credited with the following: “I HEAR AND I FORGET, I SEE AND I REMEMBER,...
“Readability Review” December 14, 2015 Six years ago, I wrote a series of blogs designed to aid the buyer in navigating the purchasing process. With new edits to bring them up-to-date, here they are again —- written from your point of view. This one is Part Two, the “readability review.” Ever hear of the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests? There are two of them: The Flesch Reading Easiness and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tests...
December 9, 2015 Six years ago, I posted a series of blogs written to aid the buyer in navigating the purchasing process. So, with new edits to bring them up-to-date, here they are again —- written from your point of view. More “live to regret it” decisions are made during the buying process than you can probably imagine. Worse, the wasted money that your company will spend — and, the wasted time...
December 7, 2015 “For 25 years, through four presidential administrations, U.S. schools could rely on one small truth: Math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP test, always went up. Not this year. The latest results of the biennial tests, given to thousands of students and nicknamed “The Nation’s Report Card,” show a first-ever drop in math scores for the randomly selected students in both fourth- and eighth-grade students...
December 2, 2015. Education and Training have clearly embraced the multi-sensory learning world — and, with good reason. “Technology is the ultimate carrot for students. It’s something they want to master. Learning to use it enhances their self-esteem and makes them excited about coming to school. The computer can be an empowering tool to students. They have a voice and it’s not in any way secondary to anybody else’s voice. It’s an...
November 30, 2015 Price — not, Value — is what is driving far too many e-Learning purchases today. That’s backwards! You need to examine the program content and it’s multiple-mediia aspects first — be it by requesting a demo or a link to the vendor’s demo portal. When you are “test-driving” that course you should be looking for the following: Are the work and safety practices correctly portrayed at all times?
November 23, 2015 “Passively-viewed video is not an inherently valuable learning tool, especially if the player features are skewed towards media and entertainment, marketing, or advertising. Finding ways to engage the student within a video is another matter. Facilitating and measuring student comprehension — the holy grail of eLearning in general — must apply to the interactive video learning experience as well.” (“What is Interactive Video Learning” by John Parsons in eLEARNING...
November 18, 2015 Something different today! In the past ten days, I’ve been fortunate in my reading to discover several good comments and observations relating to the three broad subject areas this blog has always addressed. Hope they stimulate your thinking, too! RELIABILITY & MAINTENANCE (industrial skills training) “Maintenance is considered an action; it is more of a joint responsibility than a function. Maintenance starts with selecting equipment and follows with installation....