Challenges of change

The internet and the programs that make use of it are in a constant state of change. You accept an update (usually suggested as a 'security' update), and hey presto something else no longer works. This has been the case with blogspot - suddenly getting in to edit a post is not longer available - or crashes when you try. The problem error messages assure me is Firefox. That is the internet browser program I usually use. But here I am working in IE and the same thing is happening when I try to access/edit an older post. So I will wait patiently until the programmers detect the tiny bit of code that is in conflict with another tiny bit of code and solve the problem.

Change is also one of the challenges in the area of training. No sooner have you designed a course to cover the current parameters in your industry, than hey presto a new machine/process/set of government requirements are invented. First your research and reading has to keep up with every possible change that is adopted by your industry. Then, just like the programmers, you have to search through your course material for any contrary mention or lack of mention of the change.

This is where industry-based associations are so valuable. They take off some of the stress of monitoring everything and dish up the changes in summaries. You can then choose where to go to find out the details. They act as 'scouts' leading the way safely through the jungle of change.

Sometimes paying the annual fees may seem like a lot of money for very little gain, but the cost of NOT being informed may be greater:

• Loss of course credibility if your material is not up-to-date!
• Being left behind in knowing what the industry is actually adopting or where problems are occurring.
• Leaving you out of the loop in talking to industry and asking the right questions.

All of the information industry organisations provide not only keep you informed, they keep you involved in the industry you serve. That's what maintaining a training course is all about. Being seen to offer more than your trainees could have gained elsewhere.
- Heather Sylvawood, http://www.edutechkm.com/

Financial literacy under the microscope

For the first time since the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) began across international countries, the financial literacy of 15 year-olds will be assessed. In New Zealand 180 schools (about 5,500 New Zealand students) have been randomly selected, and marking will occur in September and October.

PISA is a large international study of the mathematical, reading, scientific and financial literacy capabilities of 15-year-old students around the world. It is a collaborative effort among participating countries (65 in 2012) commissioned by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The interesting thing about the PISA study is that it focuses on not the absorption of knowledge but how the selected 15 year-olds are able to:

• Meet the challenges of the future
• Analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively
• Develop the capacity to continue learning throughout life

Then from the data the study hopes to find out if there are some ways of organising schools that make them more effective than others.

In many respects this last goal mirrors the policies of the current New Zealand Government. Ostensibly, national standards and performance pay are to give an incentive to lift student achievement. But in what?

NCEA units are prescriptive in their achievement targets, and to ensure the most students achieve the greatest number of the standards, the skills that will help them meet the challenges of the future can only be an ‘also-ran’ – something to be done if there is time after teaching the basics.

If 15 year-olds are to learn to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively then they must have a clear understanding of how the skills they are learning relate to their future. They must also grasp that this is only the first stage in their lifetime of learning and developing skills. Too many young people in this age-group are already turned off school (learning) because they see it as having no relevance to them. All they want to do is leave school and start earning.

That’s where financial literacy is really required. But is it on the school curriculum? Primary maths teaches about currency, and some secondary home economics and economics classes include budgeting and other financial information. However, not everyone takes these classes. So where does it fit for the other 15 year-olds?

• Of course, the first issue is: what questions/tasks will be used to assess financial literacy?
• Has it been designed to remove any skew from cultural bias? (I wonder if this is ever possible.)
• And pivotal to the financial literacy outcome is: how does PISA define ‘financial literacy’?

I shall watch with interest to find out where New Zealand sits on the financial literacy scales.

Heather Sylvawood, Director, Edutech KM Ltd, www.edutechkm.com

How important is social media in training?

I’ve been reading widely on the ways trainers have been integrating social media into online and off-line courses, and my feeling is that trainers who use it are:

• Already using social media themselves in their out-of-hours lives
• Are teaching subjects where trainees are likely to believe they can research the topic themselves
• Work with trainees/students for whom literacy is not an issue
• Train groups who can easily afford and access online technology

And before anyone jumps in and points out that it is the rare young person who does not own a cell phone, let me illustrate my point. I was involved in designing face-to-face training for a group of trainees who:

1. Live in rural New Zealand
2. Come from families with limited resources apart from telly, DVD players and cell phones
3. Are sometimes challenged with literacy

We designed an experiential activity in a pilot where a member of a small group had to phone an expert on a cell phone to elicit information to help them write a report (basically notes that they would speak to). What we failed to realise was that no one in the group felt comfortable actually phoning someone on a cell phone. They texted in txt language even during the course, but never used the phone to actually speak into. That cell phone was passed like a hot potato around the room until one of them finally agreed to try. It was an amazing success for the young man with the courage, but certainly challenged our assumptions about cell phone confidence.

Social media probably can be and is used as a research tool in more formal courses, but there is a still, I believe, a rather large gap between the social media learning opportunities within formal courses and those that can be used with less resourced groups.

Heather Sylvawood

www.edutechkm.com

heather@edutechkm.com

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