Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference

This week, I participated in a free Webinar series titled, “Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference”. This webinar was conducted over four 1-hour sessions and was led by Ethan Edwards (chief instructional strategist and principal consultant) for Allen Interactions.  I thought I would share a few of the things from the session.

• E-learning should include interactivity characteristics such as context, challenge, activity, and feedback.
  • Context should communicate relevance, add meaning, invite participation, provide “what’s in it for me”, elicit emotion, create immediate impact.
  • Challenge should actively engage learners within context, activate prior knowledge, create a sense of urgency, urge personal investment, build on the context, and set standards for performance.
  • Activity should create physical involvement, build commitment to stay with learning, encourage investment, transfer ownership to the learner, and involve their full senses.
  • Feedback should clearly communicate correctness, preserve learner’s response, deliver content, provide consequence of non-performance, continually reinforce context, delay judgment, and be compelling to the learner

To gain the full extent of knowledge available from the sessions, you will need to attend them, but here are a few things that really stuck out to me and I thought I would pass them along.

1. Make it immediately clear, via graphics and content, what the purpose of the e-learning is up front.  A lot of e-learning examples remind me of commercials on television. Can you remember the last time you watched a commercial and looked at your significant other wondering what message the commercial was really trying to get across?
2. Training and Development is never completed; it’s just abandoned–IDs will always try to make it better! Funny quote from Ethan! Does this sound like you?
3. People don’t read text objectives; for that matter, they don’t read 70% of the text in training materials. We should all keep this in mind.
4. Learning objectives are too specific; too technical for people to understand. Use them, but not communicate them verbatim in the e-learning lesson. Do you remember the last time you took a training course? Did you just pass by the page that listed the learning objectives? Enough said!
5. Rapid e-learning tools don’t make e-learning go faster! Good e-learning takes time. Marketing loves to push the tools; management gets sold on the “rapid” part but it’s a myth! Marketing of rapid e-learning tools feeds the “I Need It Now”  culture.
6. An Instructional Designer’s motivation to learn is never the same as the learner’s motivation to learn.
7. Create content that is non-linear (page turning). Remember, we want to engage the learner not put them to sleep!
8. Design your e-learning to make people think more. Encourage and expand the learners’ thinking!
9. Providing too much feedback when a learner gets something right, kills interest!
10. Delay feedback!  Let the learner experiment with options before revealing the results. Providing “You failed… move on” feedback too early, causes the learner to stop thinking.

Do any of these statements ring true for you? If so, I would love to hear your comments.

Source: richardwatson64.wordpress.com

Learn Boost – Free Online Gradebook

Learn Boost is a new free gradebook system that looks promising. Learn Boostis still in a closed testing mode, but according to their product tour Learn Boost will offer a lesson plan manager that will allow teachers to match state and national standards to their lesson plans. Learn Boost also plans to give teachers the option to integrate their Google Calendars into their Learn Boost accounts. Visit TechCrunch to learn more about Learn Boost.

Applications for Education
Learn Boost could provide schools and teachers with an excellent alternative to expensive student management systems.

E-learning in the Corporate World

E-Learning has progressed by a years from VHS video tapes, to blow up during a same time online assembly collection by a internet. E-learning is not usually being used in schools as well as universities though additionally in a corporate world.

Corporations have been regulating e-learning as a equates to of communicating, precision as well as enhancing workman worth opposite organizations as well as opposite countries.

Corporate Advantage

The corporate universe is all a time upon a demeanour to enlarge potency as well as efficacy in their workforce. There is a consistent need to ascent existent employees in latest trends or products.

Holding seminars, workshops or conventions lead astray employees from their work as well as formula of such practices have been during most appropriate weak. Being equates to to indoctrinate employees whilst upon a pursuit by e-learning, can infer to be intensely profitable to any business.

E-learning solutions yield workers with vicious skills, creation them some-more profitable as employees. A well-structured e-learning resolution is a answer to a altogether idea of potency as well as effectiveness.

E-Learning equates to regulating record for learning, as well as with record elaborating during a stream pace, a end of e-learning have been probably vast either synchronously or asynchronously. Laptops, desktops, mobiles, i-pods etc, can all be used for e-learning.

The stroke of e-learning can be tremendous, generally in corporations. E-learning for corporations addresses a accurate mandate of business. E -learning provides business-specific concept, precision of assorted departments opposite a nation simultaneously, introducing a latest product in to a association or only upgrading employees.

Since e-learning can be finished in any geographic spot, there have been no transport expenses. There is additionally no price of conventions or hotels. E-learning is reduction costly than guidance in a normal method.

Facilitating employee’s expansion as well as precision upon a pursuit additionally increases pursuit satisfaction. This heightens workman proclivity as well as formula in increasing work performance.

Worker Advantage

Flexibility is a vital value of e-learning. E-learning has a value of receiving category anytime anywhere. It is accessible when as well as where it is needed. E-learning can be finished during a office, home, or whilst traveling, twenty-four X 7 X 365.

E-learning accommodates opposite sorts of guidance styles. Workers have a value of guidance during their own speed. Workers can additionally sense by a accumulation of activities which request to most opposite guidance styles.

E-learning allows a workers to name guidance materials which encounter their turn of knowledge, seductiveness as well as what they need to know to perform some-more effectively in their field. This approach guidance can be customized to a workers need.

Workers can operate a advances in mobile record by e-learning upon assorted handheld inclination as well as PDAs during prolonged vapid commutes. This cuts behind upon time squandered in roving whilst more advanced career growth.

Through e- guidance workers can examination report as mostly as they like, pierce brazen as well as back by a direction during a gait they have been gentle with.

Corporate E-learning Software’s

Corporate E-learning Software’s have been specifically written gripping in thoughts a companies necessitates as well as workman requirements. They’re have been assorted packages which have a successful corporate e-learning software-

Communication package: facilitates all categories of users with contention forums, announcements, surveys, headlines articles, as well as FAQs.

Designation package: can define, access, as well as conduct roles, responsibilities, groups, user accounts, pursuit profiles, as well as opposite clients.

Content Bank: Content Bank allows we to emanate calm categories as well as conclude calm sorts to be used in a system. It has absolute facilities to upload as well as store calm in reusable format as well as in opposite versions. With easy-to-use poke feature, a authors can fast demeanour for calm to be used in their courses.

Syllabus Planner: This is a portal which aids instructors to devise a guidance settlement as well as workflow. To well broach precision to a workforce which has different needs, it is vicious which your height provides stretchable march smoothness options. WIZDOM provides we finish carry out over a guidance devise (LP). You can emanate a hierarchal LP as well as insert any kind of calm – PDF, DOC, PPT, Images, ZIP files, SCORM courses, or insert any object similar to Chat, Whiteboard, Offline Course, Discussion, Assessment, as well as Reference to a LP nodes.

Reports: This apparatus allows we to beget as well as investigate Site Usage Report; Course Usage Report, as well as Learners’ Activity Report.

The Bottom-Line

The bottom-line for any corporate is distinction as well as success, with e-learning we get ahead this idea quickly as well as easily.

National Summit Brings Together Technology, Rural Ed Experts to Focus on Solutions for Overcoming Distance, Accessing Resources

More than 150 rural education stakeholders and technology experts from 26 states came together to learn from one another and provide feedback to federal officials today at a National Rural Education Technology Summit in Washington, D.C. Federal leaders in education, content, and connectivity held up the work of rural superintendents, school leaders, education service agencies, and researchers as examples for leveraging technology to overcome distance and increase access to high-quality teaching and learning in rural schools.

“Knowledge knows no boundaries and we cannot allow distance to stand between students, education and opportunity,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We have the hardware, the latest software, and huge investments are being made in the build-out of the national broadband plan to connect us as never before.”

Secretary Duncan convened the rural summit at the National Museum of the American Indian in partnership with Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, who is aggressively seeking to increase student access to the wealth of content, scientists, and resources available through the Smithsonian Institution. Duncan also enlisted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski in this effort to challenge the country to rethink and redesign schools as broadband and other innovations come online.

“The Smithsonian’s vast collections belong to the American people in rural areas and wherever they may live, and we have ambitious plans to use new technologies to reach new audiences,” said Secretary Clough. “We have much to offer students and teachers in art, science, history, education, and culture. We want to give learners of all ages access to America’s treasures and our creative experts who bring them to life.”

Secretary Duncan announced the formation of an Online Learning Registry to provide access to priceless historical, artistic and scientific primary source materials, like those found at the Smithsonian. Many of these resources have associated educational materials that have been created by education professionals and some are available online. But currently it can be difficult to find and make sense of this vast array of resources available across numerous agencies.

The registry is one of the recommendations the FCC made in the National Broadband Plan to give more students and teachers access to the high-quality digital content that the federal government owns.

“No technological innovation in our lifetime has greater potential to transform education than high-speed Internet,” said Chairman Genachowski. “But computers and connections alone are not enough to seize the opportunities of broadband for education. The National Broadband Plan recommended that the federal government increase the pool of high-quality digital resources that educators can easily find, access, and combine with other content to help their students learn. I am very pleased to see this recommendation being adopted. The Learning Registry will put a library of world-class educational content at the fingertips of every American student and teacher.”

In March, the FCC delivered to Congress a National Broadband Plan setting an ambitious agenda for connecting all corners of the nation while transforming the economy and society with the communications network of the future – robust, affordable Internet. The plan was mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009.

The FCC is leading the national broadband plan and working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to implement a joint initiative to provide broadband opportunities for rural America. The Recovery Act appropriated $7.2 billion for USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to expand broadband access and adoption in communities across the U.S., which will increase jobs, spur investments in technology and infrastructure, increase opportunities for education and career training, and provide long-term economic benefits.

“A healthy American economy depends on a prosperous rural America and broadband investment boosts innovative capacity, drives business competition, and expands both educational resources and health care services in small communities throughout the country,” said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Merrigan. “USDA, working with other federal agencies, recognizes that access to high-speed Internet is fundamental for rural communities that seek to overcome the challenges of time and distance and provide sustained economic development and job creation.”

More than half of the nation’s school districts are located in rural areas and one-fifth of all public school children (10 million) are enrolled in rural schools. There are successful models for providing access to college-level coursework, new content, and high quality teaching online and through blended instruction with faculty utilizing the latest technology innovations.

Technology is also being used to provide professional development and new collaboration opportunities for teachers and school leaders, and to personalize education to meet the individual needs of students and teachers.

“We must work together to pool our resources and leverage the power of technology to produce increasingly better results for children and adults,” Duncan said. “We know that students learn differently and we have an opportunity for great teachers to use technology to provide customized instruction and career pathways for students. We have an opportunity to rethink and redesign education in America to increase opportunities for a quality education regardless of zip code.”

Source: ed.gov.

USDA Seeks Public Comment On Distance Learning And Telemedicine Programs

Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager announced that USDA will facilitate a virtual discussion for individuals interested in the field of telemedicine. The Power of Telemedicine web discussion is an extension of the USDA’s Open Government effort and Rural Development’s latest effort to encourage a more widespread use and understanding of telemedicine.

“The Obama Administration believes that all Americans, including those in remote, rural areas, deserve quality health care and every child, including those in rural America deserves a world-class education,” Tonsager said. “USDA Rural Development’s Distance Learning and Telemedicine program provides quality health care and access to education in communities across rural America. Telemedicine has grown steadily over the past decade and your input is crucial as a stakeholder in the health information technologies field.”

The Power of Telemedicine discussion will encourage the exchange of information, innovations and success stories involving the varied uses of telemedicine. This information is essential as Rural Development examines the Distance Learning and Telemedicine program (DLT) and works to improve program delivery to telemedicine practitioners, patients, institutions and others affected by this cutting-edge technology.

Starting today, Rural Development is encouraging individuals, organizations, and professionals in the telemedicine community to contribute feedback and ideas on a series of questions provided for discussion. Please visit the USDA’s Open website and discover the conversation by searching “telemedicine” or browse for the latest discussion threads.

Since 1993, the Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant program has funded more than 900 projects in 48 states and several U.S. territories, totaling more than $300 million. The program is designed to provide rural residents with innovative and affordable learning and health care opportunities.

USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, administers and manages more than 40 housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of 6,100 employees located in the nation’s capital and 500 state and local offices. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America. Rural Development has an existing portfolio of more than $140 billion in loans and loan guarantees. To access the discussion site go here.

Case-based Q&A eLearning

Over the last year new LitFL posts have been dominated by things we call ‘Case-based Q&As‘ — you may wondering whats going on.

Don’t worry, LitFL is going to stay true to its quirky and eccentric medical blogging roots…

Updates and interpretation of the latest in Web 2.0/3.0/4.0… and social medicine,

UCEM will continue its quest for world domination/ salvation,

The odd philosophical aside will still spring up,

Poetical bastardisation will march onwards,

Neologisms will be created,

Whimsical human encounters will be de-identified, further fictionalised and shared,

…and the case-based Q&As are going to keep on cranking too.

Personally, I like to learn by a problem-based approach using the Socratic Method (or positive pimping if you prefer), where an experienced learner/ teacher helps others through guided questioning and explanation. The Case-based Q&As are an attempt to extract the precious bodily fluids from this approach and distill them into an open-source and easily retrieved bottle of port (i.e. something that tastes good and is easy to swallow)… The emphasis on cases, though tenuous and borderline farcical at times, attempts to keep it real, relevant, interactive and interesting.

The question/answer show/hide format makes for easy revision, provides an easily comprehensible structure and allows readers to come back, revise and test their knowledge. Questions and answers can be easily cut-and-pasted into personal notes, edited and modified, or turned into flashcards for using spaced-repetition programs likeMnemosyne for those so inclined. Many of the answers are in two stages — a brief to-the-point bare bones answer, followed by a deeper explanation. In general, the focus is on what the clinician needs to know to take care of their patient and pass their exams — thus extraneous epidemiology and molecular underpinnings tend to be limited. Of course, we have an unabashed predilection for breaking our own rules…

The Case-based Q&As are ever growing, and the index is intermittently updated in a searchable table on the Clinical Cases page. The cases vary from core emergency medicine and critical care subjects that practitioners need to know like the backs of their hands, to more obscure and ‘out there’ topics — but why not? We see it all in this business.

The best case-based Q&As are those like Paul Young’s Pulmonary Puzzle 002 – Not just a PE; as the case evolves an incredible amount of diverse medical terrain is traversed, but the questions focus on the key messages and important learning points.

Many cases, like Laboratory Tester 003 – Seizures, hyponatremia and ADH, evolve from our own learning needs and differences of opinion at work, the clinical questions that arise as we try to do what is best for our patients and the controversies we encounter.

Other cases, like Trauma Tribulation 005 – Releasing the Roman Breastplate, are more conventional and designed to cover core knowledge requirements. Where possible the posts are referenced, usually with at least one of theACEM or CICM Fellowship exam recommended texts (typically Rosen’s or Oh’s, respectively), unearthed gems from the primary literature and recent review articles, and/or the best online and open-source resources we can find on the web.

Oh, you have another question do you — what’s with the naming of the posts?

Well, we’ve finally settled on a system of giving each post a category name, like ‘Neurological Mind-boggler‘, and most posts will have another more post-specific name to keep things interesting. Some readers get upset when post titles give away the diagnosis and others are irritated by the formulaic category names.

The current system promises to annoy both parties in equal measure… 

Finally, what’s the ultimate goal of all these ‘Case-based Q&As’ I hear you ask?

Well, the master plan is to build up an entire case-based curriculum for emergency medicine and intensive care catering for all levels of training. A ‘big ask’ I know, but hopefully in a few years we’ll be able to say, “Well, we knocked the bastard off”, just like New Zealand’s most famous bee-keeper once did. But, we’re not kidding ourselves — we know this is a task that will never end. I’d be disappointed if it did.

And now a postscript, a request. If you use these Case-based Q&A’s fire some feedback our way (even better if its constructive!). We want these resources to be useful and as good as anything out there — open-source or otherwise. If you want to submit a guest Case-based Q&A post having done some research on a relevant EM/ICU topic we will be happy to consider it if its quality stuff (contact the team here), and we’ll credit you as the author. For instance, you might want to create a revision aid for a teaching talk you’re going to give. Feel free to copy, re-use, modify and improve anything on LitFL for your own learning and teaching needs and do Hippocrates proud.

“To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art — if they desire to learn it — without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken the oath according to medical law, but to no one else.”
— from the Hippocratic Oath

Of course, if you learn something from these cases you may hear a knock on your door if we ever find ourselves totally skint… and feel free to ignore the ‘no one else’ part.

(Source: lifeinthefastlane.com)

Top 5 Hot E-Learning Topics 2009 And Ed Tech Prediction 2010

The New Year is coming! All kinds of summaries for 2009 and predictions of 2010 come into view at this season. Education, one of the most important focuses, has certainly becomes the hot topic. For example, Jeanne Meister, author of the New Learning Playbook blog, wrote a prediction post on the five words to describe corporate learning in 2010. Have you ever noticed these hot discussions? Here we will show the top 5 E-learning Topics in 2009 and the Education technology trends prediction in 2010 to teachers, students and anyone who cares the education issue.

Top 5 E-learning Topics in 2009:

• TwitterTwitter shows its great energy in 2009. This community comes as the innovative learning and communication channel for people. Tips: 29 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom
• Social Learning/Informal learningSocial media and networks are used in this kind of e-learning. Groups of individuals are using these new tools to collaborate and co-create content and generally work and learn together. Tips: Measuring Social Learning
• Google Wave: Google Wave is hotly discussed in the E-learning trends conference. It has b potential to support powerful new models for social learning. Tips: Google Wave in Education
• SharePointSharePoint can be used to host Websites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host defined applications such as wikis and blogs. Tips: Using SharePoint: eLearning Technology
• Video Video is the great element to make our learning alive. The online video sharing sites also encourage people to use and make videos for learning. Tips: Top 10 Videos that Inspire US to Rethink the Way We Learn

Top 5 Education technology trends prediction in 2010:

• EBooks will continue to proliferate. EBook readers aren’t going to replace traditional textbooks anytime soon, but it won’t be long before someone adapts eBooks out of the consumer space and makes textbooks available on these portable devices.
• Notebook functionality will grow. Netbooks, known as relatively new category of small, light, minimalist and cheap laptops, have been quite popular throughout schools in US and are predicted to be more popular in 2010.
• More teachers will use interactive whiteboards. Interactive whiteboard allows teachers and students to work together easily. They have been used in a variety of situations such as in classrooms at all levels of education, training rooms , corporate board rooms, etc. and this trends will continue and even become hotter.
• Personal devices will infiltrate the classroom. The personal devices like iPod, and smart phone bring great convenience to the students. Some experts predict that these wireless, portable personal devices will be used more and the younger generation will also join in the user group in 2010.
• Online testing will show its power. The society pursues efficiency and speed more than ever. Online testing and assessment through making a Flash quiz or online quiz must be more frequently used in exams as well as evaluations.

The summary of 2009 is helpful for us to know the gains & loses and also the development of the education industry. You can learn the useful tips and technologies in Education to make your own teaching or study more efficient. As for the relating predictions, do you think they will come true? Let’s look for the answer in 2010 together.

eLearning: Lecturers’ perspective

THE RIDGE News
A NUSSU Publication

eLearning: A concept all too familiar to students. With our lectures webcast, tutorials submitted online and discussions taking place on forums or chatrooms, there is no need for us to move an inch from our comfortable perches at home.

It is extremely convenient for us, but have you ever wondered what went on in the background? How do your lecturers cope with the demands of an eLearning week?

THE RIDGE takes you back to an eLearning week conducted in Semester 1, AY2009/2010.

During the eLearning Week, Dr David Lehman invited his MNO1001 students back to watch a movie during lecture hours.

Meanwhile, Dr Liew Soo Chin had his GEK2503 students log on to an IVLE chatroom for an interactive lecture session.

Other lecturers uploaded their lectures onto Breeze; some conducted webcasted lectures; and yet others uploaded their slides onto IVLE.

The vast variety of options available to lecturers for conducting e-lectures could have been daunting for some who were unaccustomed to doing so.

Fortunately, the Centre for Instructional Technology (CIT) provided suggestions and demonstrations for conducting e-lectures. CIT and the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL) also conducted Breeze workshops for lecturers.

Lecturers also got help from colleagues who were more familiar with the software they intended to use.

All these went some way in ensuring that the system appeared user-friendly rather than mystifying, with the CIT reporting that they received fewer than 40 support requests.

The experience, however, was different from what they had expected, according to some lecturers.

Dr Pow Choon Piew from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ (FASS) Geography department conducted his lectures through Breeze with the help of a colleague.

“The recording part was more time-consuming than I thought it would be. There is a tendency to want to get it right with no glitches and pauses when recording the e-lecture,” he said.

“That requires a lot of re-recording; as much as 8-10 times per slide for one colleague I know.”

Also, a lot of preparatory work was still needed for e-lectures.

Lecturers had to get the necessary equipment, like PC microphones and audio recorders, on top of signing up for Breeze or Camtasia Relay accounts, depending on the mode of presentation they had chosen.

This was followed by the recording and uploading, both of which took time, especially for those unfamiliar with the software.

In spite of the time taken for preparation, it is uncertain how effective e-lectures are, with lecturers acknowledging that students tend to get distracted by the internet when watching an online lecture.

It may then come as no surprise that lecturers still prefer “live” lectures, as shared by Dr Pow and Dr Carl Grundy-Warr, also from FASS, who gave webcasted lectures for his two modules.

“I prefer “live” audiences because they help to keep me animated, focused and allow for some interesting anecdotes to be made to keep people interested in what you are saying.”

“Watching students looking bewildered or falling asleep in lectures has its rewards,” said Dr Grundy-Warr.

Given the value lecturers place on interaction during “live” lectures, one would not expect them to be ardent supporters of eLearning Week.

Dr Grundy-Warr acknowledged that webcasts were a very useful supplement to “live” lectures; however, he felt that eLearning should occur “only in the case of real emergency situations.”

Dr Pow was more generous.

“We should have at most 2 e-lectures per semester,” he said.

emPower eLearning Solutions Providing E-Learning Advantage

emPower e-learning solutions is one of the fastest growing healthcare e-learning solutions provider in United States, based in Kentucky. Our mission is to assist hospitals and healthcare institutions to provide superior quality of care to patients, meet corporate & government regulations and contribute to the overall quality of their institution while reducing costs.

Our LMS ensures timely and consistent delivery of standardized courses offerings such as OSHA, HIPAA, Joint Commission and Red Flags rule. The LMS, through its tracking mechanism, ensures that the results of those who have taken required courses can be viewed in real-time. Organizations can easily identity areas of non-conformance and take corrective actions to reduce the risk of non-conformance with requirements. Web-based learning including video clips, animated diagrams, medical images and graphic presentations provide very effective and engaging way of learning process.

emPower offers following advantages to the online learners.

* The e-learning tool meets compliance requirements that seamlessly blend with the organization’s workflow processes

* emPower e-learning training program is an interactive mode of learning that guides students to progress at their own pace.

* Ease of tracking and monitoring of all the courses taken by all the employees in the healthcare facility

* Comprehensive quiz and mid-test to ensure comprehension

* Interactive courses with voice over internet protocol(VOIP) so that the employee can listen and understand the course as well, rather than going through the manuals/data

* Automatic email reminders to make ensure that everyone is in compliance with norms.

* Customer Support in terms of email, direct call and chat.

* All the courses can be accessed 24/7/365 via the internet.

Organizations can track and analyze learning results overtime and are able to administer learning evaluations online. LMS also ensures that organizations are capable of rapid deployment of updates and additions and have access to learning compliance data for regulatory and legal purposes.

emPower provides competitive edge and risk coverage to organisations through its e-learning courses.

About emPower

emPower is a leading provider of comprehensive Healthcare Compliance Solutions through Learning Management System (LMS). Our mission is to provide innovative security solutions to enable compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maximize business performance. We provide range of courses to manage compliance required by regulatory bodies such as OSHA, HIPAA, Joint commission and Red Flag Rule etc. Apart from this emPower also offers custom demos and tutorials for your website, business process management and software implementation.

Our Learning Management system (LMS) allows students to retrieve all the courses 24/7/365 by accessing our portal. emPower e-learning training program is an interactive mode of learning that guides students to progress at their own pace.

For additional information, please visit http://www.empowerbpo.com

Great leaders keep the focus on student learning

7.16.10 – Public education is crying out for leaders. This may seem strange when there is no shortage of people in leadership positions. They have attained degrees, certification, experience, and titles that qualify them to direct and supervise other educators. But not all people in leadership positions are leaders.

Many believe their primary role is to keep the public school system operating efficiently. This is important, but leaders not only keep school systems afloat, they keep a steady hand on the tiller, skillfully guiding public education to a more productive destination.

Public schools exist, or should exist, solely to prepare all students to become independent, self-sufficient adults and helping them develop particular knowledge and skills. This requires engaging all students in high-quality educational experiences while also providing them attention, care, and social-emotional support. Of course, this proves to be a highly complex process.

Without effective leaders, public education is often a maelstrom of competing interests. Attention and effort can shift from students’ needs to responding to the most powerful or persistent adult voices. School system leaders understand that one of their roles is to modulate and, in some cases, resist these demands, ensuring that the system’s focus remains on student learning. This is often exhausting work and certainly not the reason most leaders chose public education as a career. Nevertheless, leaders prepare for and embrace this role, understanding that their success directly impacts student performance.

School system leaders’ effectiveness depends on their skill to inspire, mobilize, and support front-line practitioners. Their vision is shaped not by the latest education trends, but by a simple resolve that the school system must work to the maximum demonstrable benefit of all children. They organize and deploy the school system’s financial, human, and technological resources to enhance the intensity and effectiveness of students’ instruction. Leaders know they cannot do this alone, so they identify and cultivate allies, from the board room to the classroom, with whom they collaborate to make student learning the priority.

Solving problems is always a major role for school system leaders, and it is important they meet this responsibility with creativity, deliberation, and patience. But problem solving can also become a refuge from taking initiative to prevent problems. If an educator defines his or her role as that of a problem solver, there certainly will always be problems to solve. Leaders, on the other hand, define their roles as pursuing an aggressive agenda to raise levels of educator and student performance. Because they are conscientious in attending to operational and educational issues to advance that agenda, they are able to manage problems rather than vice versa.

School system leaders are in demand because public schools are not educating all students effectively. Educators in leadership positions who focus almost exclusively on implementing prescriptive procedures, rules and regulations, and making sure others do so, are not leaders. There is an appropriate role for such individuals, but as long as they dominate, school systems will continue to function as they do now, with the same results. If school systems and communities want to improve academic outcomes for all students, they must expect educators to lead, prepare and support them, and, most importantly, must permit them to do so.

Hayes Mizell is NSDC’s distinguished senior fellow.

(Source: http://www.educationnews.org)