Before I get into today’s post, here’s a brief report on this week’s ATD EXPO in Atlanta. From friends and business acquaintance phone calls, they believe that two subject areas stand out this year: 1) LMS-like technology (no surprise) and Microtraining (which has been on the horizon for some time and is now beginning to explode — and, in my opinion, all for good reason. Today’s learner demands it and rejects the...
This is the week (May 22-24) of the ATD International Conference & Exhibition. ATD is expecting in excess of 10,000 attendees to gather at the Georgia World Conference Center in Atlanta. Better than a quarter of that number will be international visitors (a remarkable percentage that indicates how global the appeal of training has become). ATD (Association for Talent Development) is the largest training society in the world and hosts the largest...
I have had several varying careers in the training business, professional theater and in higher education. More importantly, I have watched many things change within the culture of our country. But, the change that bothers me most is the over-emphasis parents place on grades today — an emphasis they mistakenly associate with future success. Unfortunately, what those parents mean by future success is almost always equatable with money. “Make straight ‘A’s’ in...
“ . . . So to conclude my brief glimpse into the difference between PowerPoint and eLearning… They can both be full of amazing graphics and engaging interactions, but they are different tools with different aims. My point is, many of us may have used a knife to loosen a screw, but sooner or later we come to the conclusion its far more effective if we take a little more time and...
“Poverty, undereducation and disconnectedness to society beget exactly those same things — a problem that has stymied policymakers since the advent of public education, which was supposed to be the solution. Four centuries of publicly funded schools in America have taught us, definitively, that education is much more than schooling. All receive schooling, but in large part, those of the educated class get educated and those not of the educated class do...
“No matter how brilliantly Science has understood the mechanics of the material world, it is a remarkable ineffective tool for deciphering the mysteries of human misery. Even with thousands of ‘experts’ telling us what’s wrong, and measuring it, self-knowledge is on the decline. In America, the most technologically advanced country on earth, one has to be oblivious not to hear a din of sorrow and private disappointment just below the gabble of...
I have observed during the time that I have been a training consultant (having left ITC in 1998) that American-produced e-Learning courseware has tended to move away from learning values and, instead, has focused their efforts on the initial cost of online training technology. For me, that has been a big step backward. And, from a true ROI view, I’m relatively certain that the economic equation comes up on the negative side. ...