Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Tricky Questions
If you are all worked up about writing and editing but haven't subscribed to Poynter Online , high time you did. Although the focus here is on enhancing journalistic skills, yet it is very relevant for people writing for the web or any elearning content.
The latest newsletter of Chip on your Shoulder Transforming Questions talks about the key to asking the right questions to elicit the right answer by focusing on the objective of the question. In the elearning space, this is akin to defining the 'learning objective' and designing the all important 'assessment strategies.'
Check out the table of questions at the end. This is a wonderful example of how to cut down extraneous words and how to say things simply, briefly and directly...isn't this what we keep harping about?
The latest newsletter of Chip on your Shoulder Transforming Questions talks about the key to asking the right questions to elicit the right answer by focusing on the objective of the question. In the elearning space, this is akin to defining the 'learning objective' and designing the all important 'assessment strategies.'
Check out the table of questions at the end. This is a wonderful example of how to cut down extraneous words and how to say things simply, briefly and directly...isn't this what we keep harping about?
Monday, May 17, 2004
Language Editor :-), Photo Editor :-(
Today, I realized it was much easier to be a language editor than to be a photo editor! I had to crop a picture to be inserted in a powerpoint presentation and didn't know how to do it. I had no photo editing software; so had to sos design guru sarit for help. And, in the process, learned a new thing:
Insert the picture -> Right-click -> Show picture toolbar -> Crop (icon)
Ah cool, now drag the edges of the picture any which way to resize it!
Insert the picture -> Right-click -> Show picture toolbar -> Crop (icon)
Ah cool, now drag the edges of the picture any which way to resize it!
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Have the Courage to Act Different -- It Works!
Are you tired of the command-and-control hierarchical structure in your organization? Are you forced into the rat race of promotion and performance, and are you in constant terror of your company's hire-and-fire policy? Read this new quirky,tongue-in-cheek model of company management. In his article in Across the Board, A.J. Vogi writes about the anti-CEO Ricardo Semler of Semco and talks to him about his radical company governance policies and his new book The Seven-day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. Ricardo defies the models that the top billion-dollar management consultants prescribe.
The high points of this anti-ceo is pro-freedom:
1) Attendance at all company meetings is voluntary.
2) Two of the company's eight board seats are held on a first-come-first-served basis, open to any worker in the company.
3) Semco has no business plan, no mission statement, no long-term budget, no HR department, no VP of IT, no COO, no fixed CEO, no dress codes, and no job descriptions. Nobody approves expense accounts.
4) Workers choose their own training instead of having their boss or HR choose it for them.
5) Workers can take up to three years off for any purpose.
6) Through Semco's Retire-a-Little program, a worker in his prime can take days off now and "redeem" them in the future, after he retires.
7) Semco's "Lost in Space" program allows young recruits to wander the company for a year to discover what they want to do.
8) The company holds collective job interviews, in which candidates meet their rivals for the position and are interviewed by a cross-section of employees.
Excellent article, dream model, makes you long for a company like that...hmm...charity begins at home?
The high points of this anti-ceo is pro-freedom:
1) Attendance at all company meetings is voluntary.
2) Two of the company's eight board seats are held on a first-come-first-served basis, open to any worker in the company.
3) Semco has no business plan, no mission statement, no long-term budget, no HR department, no VP of IT, no COO, no fixed CEO, no dress codes, and no job descriptions. Nobody approves expense accounts.
4) Workers choose their own training instead of having their boss or HR choose it for them.
5) Workers can take up to three years off for any purpose.
6) Through Semco's Retire-a-Little program, a worker in his prime can take days off now and "redeem" them in the future, after he retires.
7) Semco's "Lost in Space" program allows young recruits to wander the company for a year to discover what they want to do.
8) The company holds collective job interviews, in which candidates meet their rivals for the position and are interviewed by a cross-section of employees.
Excellent article, dream model, makes you long for a company like that...hmm...charity begins at home?
The Virtual Mentor
Today, I was reading about the trends in e-learning and found a very interesting article in the magazine Communications of the ACM, a publication of ACM. E-learning is the new age learning medium. Corporates are increasingly relying on e-learning to train their employees. In fact, most educational institutes and universities are adopting e-learning to provide online courses to students worldwide.
E-learning is "almost" becoming an alternative to the traditional classroom learning. I emphasize "almost" because it is still premature to say that e-learning will replace traditional learning soon. The reason being e-learning is still very passive, dull, one-way and asynchronous. Most training material created as e-learning courseware are text-heavy information dumps or slide presentation of content. Often students are at a loss to clarify doubts and get answers to important questions.
While the use of multimedia technology makes e-learning more interactive and interesting for the learners, the concept of Virtual Mentor (VM) will certainly make e-learning more effective. VM answers users' queries and caters to the individual learning pace of the learner. VM can be in the form synchronized multimedia materials such as instructional videos, presentation slides or lecture notes. VM can also be a real-life mentor who directly interacts with learners through chat, email or discussion board.
Check out the following article to know more about the role of VM in an e-learning scenario.
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/seia/conf_0603/2.0612-DKakinda-ENG.pdf
(And, if you are an ACM member, do read the article Can E-learning Replace Classroom Learning, May 2004)
E-learning is "almost" becoming an alternative to the traditional classroom learning. I emphasize "almost" because it is still premature to say that e-learning will replace traditional learning soon. The reason being e-learning is still very passive, dull, one-way and asynchronous. Most training material created as e-learning courseware are text-heavy information dumps or slide presentation of content. Often students are at a loss to clarify doubts and get answers to important questions.
While the use of multimedia technology makes e-learning more interactive and interesting for the learners, the concept of Virtual Mentor (VM) will certainly make e-learning more effective. VM answers users' queries and caters to the individual learning pace of the learner. VM can be in the form synchronized multimedia materials such as instructional videos, presentation slides or lecture notes. VM can also be a real-life mentor who directly interacts with learners through chat, email or discussion board.
Check out the following article to know more about the role of VM in an e-learning scenario.
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/seia/conf_0603/2.0612-DKakinda-ENG.pdf
(And, if you are an ACM member, do read the article Can E-learning Replace Classroom Learning, May 2004)
