In my post on complexity and learning, I said that work in networks requires different skills than in hierarchies. Coordination is making sure things get done effectively and efficiently. Most organizations do this well. Collaboration is working together for a common objective, usually directed through someone in authority. This is still the focus of most... Read more »

The season of the standardized test is upon us. Probably the most dreaded time of the year for teachers and students alike. Why? The end of the school year is in sight. Summer is just around the corner. The months of April and May should be a happy time! So, why do teachers hate standardized […] The post Standardized Test Reviews That Are FUN! appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

With the range of tasks that modern office professionals undertake at work ever increasing, it can be tough to know what to prioritise and easy to get bogged down with the amount of tasks you need to accomplish.  With Office 365, Microsoft have introduced a number of tools and functions to help you work and collaborate with colleagues more effectively, creating an infinitely more streamlined working environment. At Filtered we champion productivity, so we thought it best to share our top 10 features of Office 365 that will help you and your team work more efficiently and in increase your productivity as a result:

We discuss the trends and issues we observed during the weeks of March 25-April 17 as we flipped resources into our Flipboard magazine (http://bit.ly/trendsandissues). We discuss two major trends and two minor trends. We also provide a report from the American Educational Research Association Conference held in Washington DC in early April. The two major […] Tags:   Del.icio.us Facebook TweetThis Digg StumbleUpon Comments:  0 (Zero), Be the first to leave a reply!Copyright © Trends & Issues [Episode 61 Trends for March 24-April 17], All Right Reserved. 2016.

Basic writing skills are not something that should be taken for granted. Time and time again, I read poorly written manuals, instructions, and articles. Whether you write for a living or it is simply an annoying add-on to your real job, it is your responsibility to effectively communicate through the written word. If you do not understand basic writing best practices, you will fail. Here’s an infographic with 7 tips for better documentation:  

With competency-based education making national headlines, many educators are eager to implement this new learning style. Early adopters have already demonstrated that CBE has extraordinary potential for all types of learners, from those in trade school to business programs to the fine arts. But CBE programs are not simple to design and establish, and many universities that consider it are facing years of planning. The good news is that it is possible to move in that direction now with a walk-before-you-run mindset. And the first steps toward implementing CBE may be using a skills graph in individual courses and programs. That’s because a skills graph shares with CBE a focus on defined objectives. A quick refresher: CBE is an evidence-based method of learning that requires proficiency in particular abilities instead of satisfaction of a number of course hours. It often involves sophisticated software with courses that focus on "mastery of specific knowledge and skills . . . via exams, portfolios, and projects." CBE is self-paced, allowing highly motivated students to advance quickly while allowing students who move slower to practice certain skills repeatedly before they move onto more complex modules. The financial model may be subscription-based instead of using a fixed fee based on course hours. Many acknowledge that CBE is great for vocational training or technical learning (for example, practicing working with mathematical formulas or memorizing facts), but CBE has plenty of dissidents. Some worry about the shift from lecture hall-style teaching to individualized coaching and the scalability problems that come with this. Others muse that CBE widens the gap between "those who need a thorough, content-centered liberal education and those who only need a light, fast and vocation-friendly version." In other words, the assumption remains that CBE is too complicated for liberal arts. However, evidence shows that CBE may, in time, enhance liberal arts programs as long as higher ed implements CBE strategically. Northern Arizona University has already successfully implemented a CBE liberal arts program, paving the way for other institutions to create personalized programs in a variety of fields. Moving the conversation forward The question for institutions who are interested but hesitant to give CBE a try is this: how can you move past the uncertainty of implementing a new technology, in order to improve learning outcomes and gain a competitive edge in the market? "The key is to commit to the rigor of defining clearly the competencies," writes Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christenson Institute, in a 2015 Competency Works article. He argues that identifying learning objectives and building CBE assessments and curricula would make learning more meaningful in just about every learning context. A skills graph is a planning tool Acrobatiq’s analytics engine relies on that and that builds from clear learning objectives to measure mastery of skills. It creates a very close alignment between the goals of the course and the content, activities, and assessment. After each learning objective for a course has been defined on a skills graph, the next step is to connect tasks from these objectives. Each task is labeled with corresponding skills, which enables the software to "map out" a student’s progress on a particular objective. For instance, an objective might be "students will be able to find the cosine of a triangle," or "learners will be able to define the four core values of XYZ corporation." Then each activity the student completes is labeled with one or more skills, so as the student works, the software collects and analyzes data that tailors the learning process to their own strengths and weaknesses. A skills graph is simple to build in a well-designed course authoring tool. Meanwhile, under the hood, Acrobatiq’s sophisticated predictive analytics software is using the skills graph and observations of student practice to understand where and how progress is being made. Each learning objective has its own learning curve, tailored to adhere to the power law of learning. This is a proven concept that students make rapid gains when first learning a new concept, and additional gains taper off over time, requiring more repetition of a skill to gain additional mastery. The skills graph integrates this concept of change in learning over time, giving students adaptive practice sessions that grow at their own pace. For example, if a learning objective is to know and understand each of the ten amendments within the United States Bill of Rights, one task might be to identify an example of the first amendment in action from a multiple choice list. Within the software, this task might be labeled "first amendment," and if a student completes it correctly, the software is signaled that the student has made progress on this particular part of an objective. Competency-based learning is full of possibilities for institutions ready to put it in place for learners. Getting there is a long road, but in the meantime, innovative faculty and institutions can start the first steps by integrating an objectives-based skills graph in their courses.     Amanda Marie is Colorado Springs-based writer specializing in education, parenting, and health.

Many vendors - old and new, traditional and disruptive - offer their platforms and tools to the HR software market.  Conventional wisdom is that companies need to know what’s in it for them in order to buy into the vision HR software vendors are offering. Conventional wisdom is that companies - such as GamEffective - would need to show how the companies would benefit from using software for better employee performance and learning. They should show a positive ROI in terms of employee productivity and engagement. The problem is that this conventional wisdom is often wrong since it misses one important point: what’s in it for the employees themselves. Today’s HR and business leaders are coming to an understanding that for anything to happen, employees need to engage, and do so willingly. Otherwise, companies risk deploying yet another tool that won’t be used. Here are some practical implications of this understanding: 1. Worklives Matter Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, in their book The Progress Principle, coined the term "Inner Work Life". What is it? They define it as "the constant flow of perceptions, emotions, and motivations that people experience as they go through their work days. In essence, inner work life is day-by-day engagement at work". Correlation of employment factors with Glassdoor recommendations as place to work show that culture and leadership are three times more important than salary. This isn’t because employees are dazzled by perks or stories about corporate culture - it’s because they figure their worklives will be better in these environments. This very same logic drove Citi to define its "Smarter Worklife Challenge", to discover up-and-coming trends and ideas for HR (check it out, GamEffective is one of the winners). This also means that tools that are used to measure employees and drive performance should instill a sense of fairness, transparency and an opportunity to improve oneself. They should not use overly threatening competition. As the performance review is dying companies should think of a way to discuss performance that is transparent, real time and that measures things that matter to employees and their success at work. 2. HR and line of business managers aren’t looking for better command and control The naïve perception of management - one that is very focused on micro-management - is that managers need to see everything employees do and control their every action. But the fact that the internet of things can track everything employees do - check out Volometrix for instance - doesn’t mean that this it the best way to engage employees. As a matter of fact, companies are increasingly trying for other sources of motivation and better self-directedness. Gaining employee trust is paramount to the adoption of any tool. Managers get that. They don’t want tools that will make them better at controlling employees - they want employees to opt-in to these tools and believe they are going to be better off for doing so. 3. Don’t worry about attrition or lack of engagement; worry about the employee experience I recently spoke with the management of one of the world’s largest business process outsourcers.  They conduct regular research into finding out what tools are likely to change the lives of their employees. "The point isn’t attrition," they told me. "It’s true we have high rates of attrition, like many other business process outsourcers, but we don’t focus on the short chapter we play in employees’ lives. We want to understand what would make them make this chapter a longer one, what they want to take away from it". And what they discovered was that two things matter: one was the employee experience. The other was that employees care about learning. 4. Employees know that more learning is more earning Corporate learning is big and growing. Again, I can explain what’s in it from the company’s point of view. But the real point is that for millennials, learning and development are the most coveted job benefit.  Employees know why: education is strongly tied to earnings. For them, one of the greater benefits is learning something at work that would help them in their future employment. For software vendors, this means that better educated and trained employees are a core goal since this is what both employees and companies want and need. That’s why micro-learning is becoming a core component of many systems. 5. Employees care about recognition and teamwork, not competition Another trend is that although a certain type of employee may be competitive, most employees are better motivated intrinsically, and want teamwork - and that their goals, recognition, and kudos reflect this, They aren’t asking themselves how to become a top tenth percentile performer, or checking their leaderboard rankings, they want to know how to become better at what they do, work with teams and have the sense of a job well done. 6. Working in silos, employees crave connectedness Many employees work in vast cubicle farms - and in sub-units of the organization. For them, according to many of our customers, part of the creation of meaning and a sense of value at work, is social connectedness at work. Employees are increasingly feeling isolation and that they are working in a silo. HR software should open that. Knowing what other teams are doing, how they deal with challenges and what makes them tick is important to employees - this is what they’d like to do in their downtime, connect with peers near and far. Social features enable this, from team challenges to kudos. *** In short, HR software cannot afford Taylorism; without providing a clear benefit to the employment experience of employees, they won’t stay around long enough to make an impact. The flip-side is significant: changing the work experience changes work culture and work lives. This is a huge opportunity for everyone - vendors, employees, and employers. Grab it.