Training differs from education in many ways. Its aim is to improve the skills necessary for better life and job performance. And, rightfully, the emphasis today for both training and for education has shifted from the provider to the receiver — allowing us to now focus our attention on learning and the learner. The philosophy and aims of an educational institution are concerned with the education of the whole man — mind,...
Those of us involved with Skills Training have two big advantages in the Learning World today. First of all, our test results can successfully measure the knowledge acquisition of our training initiatives. Unlike Education, which mistakenly bangs its head against the Standardized Testing myth, our skills training tests actually measure the knowledge acquired for on-the-job performance. In contrast, standardized testing merely measures memorized academic skills — ignoring any measurement of “attitude, engagement,...
We all know that a solid background in industrial fundamentals is essential to a well-trained industrial worker. Work practice, tool use, mathematics, reading and writing are the necessary foundation skills that are, too often, essentially ignored in most training curricula. Of that list, reading, writing and math training are the most often omitted simply because we assume that those skills already exist in our employee population. We’ve all heard a lot about...
Those of you who regularly read these Blogs know that I am a big proponent of E-Learning that: a) Uses a multimedia instructional design (full-motion video-based) for maximum communication in today’s learning culture. b) Avoids written language as the primary communication tool (no PowerPoints). c) Includes an Optional Word-for-Word audio button in every training course you purchase or create. If you question these requirements, please take a moment to examine the following...
About ten days ago, my married daughter called to tell me about a film she just had seen at her oldest son’s Middle School auditorium in Pennsylvania. She was excited (and, disturbed) about this documentary and wanted, very much, for her mother and me to see it. So, I accessed the movie’s website: www.racetonowhere.com and discovered that it would be showing in a Northern Virginia Community Center this past weekend. And see...
PowerPoint adaptations that are passed off as E-Learning are counterfeit! Two insightful sayings will suffice for illustration. The first deals with college lecture classes: “That which passes from the notes of the professor to the notes of the student without engaging the minds of either one.” The second references opinion-radio and the opinion-cable television networks: “Noise which passes from the mouth of one person to the ears of another without engaging the...
You may have occasion to build some of your own E-Learning courses — or, more likely, you will be instrumental in the purchase of vendor-produced E-Learning courseware. In either event, how should you proceed with your evaluations or your new production? First we must acknowledge that effective educational programming has always been a designer’s medium. It has never been an evolving electronic gadgetry world. Instead, it has been developed and used as...
With the advent of CD-ROM instruction a couple of decades ago, we had a training-delivery system that had efficiency limitations. One either had to buy a zillion copies in order to distribute them to all involved or commit to a Learning Center concept. Since labor costs are always the single biggest training expenditure, we had a relatively inefficient system — plus one that did not have the learning-value compensations of “one-on-one” instruction....