Ain't technology great?

Well it is if you can find how to set it up.

I’ve always thought that being able to write your blog on your own computer and with a button push send it hurtling through space to my blog would be just soooo cooool.

So here I was two hours ago setting up the Word 2007 blog template so that it would link straight into Train2Gain. Simple I thought! And that’s what all the Word instructions assured me.

The first tiny window had a button that asked me to ‘register an account’ – but I already had a blogger account so I didn’t need one, or so I thought. After some puzzlement I realised it meant “Register your current blog or set up a new one”. I really would not have objected to a larger window with longer instructions.

So I clicked the button and low and behold another tiny window pops up. In this window I have to choose my blog provider and Blogger is there. I’m home and hosed before tea, I thought. I wouldn’t have to use the other options of: My provider isn’t listed or I don’t have a blog yet. I’m really into this techno stuff. So I click next.

Now I need my User Name and Password. Ah! Now which username are they referring to? Several visits back to my blog site which I am currently logged into I come up with a choice of two. I know my password so it’s only a couple of tests and I’ll be all set up, I think. I pass by the pictures options. I can do that myself on a case by case basis, I decide. So now I only have to click the OK button. Almost instantly for both usernames a ‘Word cannot register your account’ box comes up. But at the bottom were the words: “Was this information helpful?”

I’ll leave you to answer that ... my temperature is just coming back to normal!

Happy course creation

From the Team at eBrainz

www.ebrainz.net.nz

learning@ebrainz.net.nz

Phone 64-3-525-7073

Phone 64-3-337-0234

When passion drives you

When passion drives me it is so easy to get things done. Energy flows, and I feel light and inspired.

I find that if my motivation has been inspired by a book or webinar or program I can hardly wait for the end of the inspirational event before I want to start on whatever it is that inspired me. I forget that I have actually been involved in a learning event. It isn’t learning – it’s doing. Or is it?

Surely learning should lead to:

• A tangible result
• An intangible change in the thinking of a person or group?
• New knowledge that generates action?

So how come I don’t view my passion and inspiration as a learning path?

When I think about it seriously, I have stuck in my mind a belief that learning has to be serious stuff. It has to involve some sacrifice, some putting off passion until I’ve earned it. It also has to imposed from above by people who know better.

But isn’t that flying in the face of what’s happening in the world right now – the integration of social networking into learning? Of course it is. My thinking is stuck in last century’s learning models. Nowadays when I want to learn something I go online and research it. I look for just enough information to answer my current questions. I might note a few interesting things to research later, but mostly I follow the Japanese JIT (Just In Time) principle – information I need just in time for when I need it. That kind of learning doesn’t fit into the 3-4 years studying topics deemed suitable for a named degree.

Unfortunately, formal learning is often a passion killer unless you know that it is leading into a career that inspires you. The very notion that the extent of your learning can only be measured by tests or assignments, in which you support other people’s past comments, doesn’t fit the requirements of our twitch speed future. How will it inspire us to move beyond the ‘now’? How can passion be merged into learning?

Formal learning organisations are facing an insecure future:

• Less money for research (where passion and inspiration leads)
• The increasing pace with which information becomes obsolete (and libraries must be restocked)
• A huge challenge in verifying the validity and currency of online information
• An increasing push for specialisation requiring a wider range of experienced tutors
• Increasing cost for housing students in a location and less government money to cover it

Staff and tutors at formal learning organisations are surely constantly running to catch-up, never mind get ahead of the knowledge tsunami. That young students might feel a bit disenchanted or disenfranchised in such a world is not surprising. They are already engaged in learning in the social networks they belong to. They just don’t see it as learning because it hasn’t been legitimised by the system. And their learning is indistinguishable from the social chitchat that accompanies the sharing of information.

Yet out in the real world, where passion can be a driving force, businesses are finding their knowledge and commercial improvements come from a free-exchange within a ‘what’s new and what does it do?’ culture. They are also finding that the interaction of staff along with the sharing helps to build bonds that will ultimately create a cohesive team.

Somehow over the next few decades the processes of learning and following your passion are going to have to merge.

Training Budgets Have a Big Impact

Just recently I have met several trainers who are struggling to cope with a shrinking training budget. Fair enough, you might think. Everyone is having to trim the budget across all areas of any company. But have senior managers thought through the consequences of reducing the training budget?

As a training resources developer, I have to admit to some self-interest in this, because when budgets shrink we aren't called in to help. There are, however, more critical issues to the slash and burn across the board when it reaches the training budget. Short term consequences from chopping a training budget:

• The trainer has more training to do with fewer tools
• Trainers become stretched, stressed and perform less efficiently
  
• Fewer qualified trainers are brought in to raise the skill base of employees
• Normal regular training is done less often
• The trainer is left making value-decisions between competing, equally-valuable training needs

The long term consequences have a greater impact:

• Their commitment to training wanes and the malaise spreads to other staff
• The general skill level of employees starts to sink
• Employees begin making errors of judgment because they don't remember 'how'
• When work picks up there is a huge and expensive backlog to catch-up and become competitive
  

By comparison to the rest of a company's budget training is a small percentage, yet in times of retrenchment the value of training increases the likelihood of survival for the company (and sometimes the employees). The brave and future-focused company seizes the downturn to train, train train.

Edutech KM was recently involved in developing a new training program to increase productivity on manufacturing sites. The project aimed to give supervisory employees an increased understanding of what makes a company profitable, and of course, to apply that understanding at work. It was a radical departure from the usual training undertaken in the industry. Part of the course required trainees to address a production issue on their work site. The potential savings estimated from solving these issues was staggering.

Naturally the ITO that sponsored the program wanted to find out if the training program worked. The ITO undertook to investigate some of the results from solving the issues. It was an easy demonstration of ROI for training investment. You can read a three-screen summary of the course design and link to the three case studies where a definite ROI was established.

I'm probably preaching to the converted if you're a trainer, but these case studies, courtesy of FITEC, could give power to your arm if you're trying to make a case to restore your training budget. We can certainly talk to you about ways to maximise what you do have.