What 10 factors are changing the landscape of workplace learning today?
Jane Hart, an e-learning consultant in the U.K. who runs the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, and member of the Internet Time Alliance, gave a talk at DevLearn this morning in which she outlined the state of learning in the workplace, pointing to factors that have been causing the greatest changes.
The complete slideshow from Hart’s talk is online, but here are the highlights:
State of Learning in the Workplace, DevLearn 2010
Learning While “Paying a Debt to Society”
The ultimate “win-win” proposition: Scientists get “research collaborators and inmates get a job that beats stamping out license plates”. Forest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni is using prisoners to learn how best to cultivate the dwindling prairie plants in a National Science Foundation research project. Inmates at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Washington, plant seeds and record observations on plant growth.
Nadkarni says that the inmates’ learning is equally valuable:
Everyone can be a scientist – everyone can relate to nature, everyone can contribute to the scientific enterprise, even those who are shut away from nature.
The project may model how other prisons can provide useful skills and learning opportunities to inmates while helping scientists find reliable (long term, in some cases) research collaborators.
SOURCE: National Science Foundation http://bit.ly/c8QP0 via The World Future Society
Student Blogs: Reflection for the Student and Perspective for the Applicant
Refection is pivotal to learning. Since it is hard to write without reflecting on an experience, blogs are a wonderful aid to reflection. I have been thinking about patient blogs recently, and explored other types of blogs to see the similarities and differences in the reflection process. When I searched on “student blogs” one of the first links was to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, know locally as WPI. The page of student blogs were entertaining, diverse, and a fascinating insight into the students there. Updates were available on twitter.
It struck me that this page of blog entries might be more illuminating to an applicant than any marketing materials the school could produce. I had a few questions: how were the bloggers chosen? Are they paid, and, if so, should that be stated? How do they decide (and who is “they”) which one is featured at the top with an image, since it isn’t the most recent entry?
3 Biggest Myths about Teaching Online Education
Like most of the students who enroll in an online course thinking it’ll be a walk in the park, instructors also fantasize about the simplicity of teaching a course from the confines of their own home. Maybe that’s why the rise of online education went from 3.2 million in 2006 to 12 million in 2009, according to research firm Ambient Insight. But despite the rise in popularity of online degree programs, many instructors still have a skewed idea of what teaching “distance education” truly entails. Below are the top three myths about online education, a must-read before you decide to teach.
Myth1: Teaching online will take less time since you don’t have to be in class 3 hours a week. Teaching an online class – especially for the first time – can be extremely hectic. Because these classes are supposed to be designed to be just as complex and intense as campus-based classes and because there is little or no face-to-face interaction – they require much time, energy, and creativity to transform an online class into a meaningful learning experience for students. It’s important to remember that teaching an online course is no different from teaching a campus-based course: you’ll still need to prepare class materials, grade, and find ways to engage your students.
Myth 2: Everyone who teaches the courses are qualified to teach online. A lot of online programs try to convince potential students that online education is simple for them – the technology-driven generation. However, what might be simple for them might prove very difficult for you, the instructor. As the software for distance education continues to advance at a rapid rate, some instructors are struggling to keep up with the constant changes. Especially instructors who are used to traditional methods of teaching may find it troublesome adjusting to the new software, which will ultimately create problems for students. But you don’t need to be a technology expert to teach a thorough class. Don’t know a lot about HTML? Programs like Dreamweaver can simplify this for you. It’s important to remember that experimentation is key: Prepare your class as you normally would and then search the web to figure out how to do it online. Don’t be too proud get technical help when you need it. It’s your job to find a way to get the information across to your students.
Myth 3: There will be little or less class-participation. A well-developed online class can in fact increase participation from students who might not feel comfortable sharing their views/opinions in a campus-based class. Students who are usually silenced due to language barriers or are merely just on the shy side are given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and strengths through these online opportunities. And in a way, everyone’s ideas are expressed since the information is accessible online and posted for everyone to see. This also provides an opportunity for instructors to have a better connection with students who might have been virtually invisible in a campus-based course.
This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes for online college courses.
A Great Example of a Storyboard for Improving Hand Hygiene
I love to create storyboards for courses, presentations, you name it, usually using a Post-It Easel Pad. But I rarely see other people’s storyboards, primitive like mine or slick and polished. The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare created a course on hand hygiene and posted their polished “Hand Hygiene” storyboard [PDF]. In particular, I like the very realistic analysis of Expectations vs. Reality (slide 4), the Causes of Failure (slide 5), and, especially, the matching of Causes with Solutions (slide 6). Next question: did it help produce a better course?