ASTD - Best of T+D: BluePrints for Success:  http://t.co/OqfGhwgThe Bestof T+D: Blueprints for Success offers some of the most searchedfor articles from the highly popular Fundamentals and Learning Blueprintcolumns. Includes an article on Scenario-BasedLearning.  Somearticles are old - but if you missed them, this is a great way to read them ina consolidated format.  Free to NationalASTD members.Our Flag:  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/sd109-18/sd109-18.pdfEverything you wanted to know about the Star and Stripes.Facebook and BeyondWhite Paper:  http://pages.lithium.com/facebook-and-beyond.htmlEffectivenessof a Facebook brand100Resources for Interactive Training Designers:  http://www.raptivity.com/100-elearning-resources.html

Lev Vygotsky (1896 -1934) was a pioneer psychologist who lived in Moscow. I have great respect for his studies and found his Mind And Society an absorbing read. One of the precious ideas he brought to us is what he called the Zone Of Proximal Development. I was reminded of this recently when reading Laurie Bartel’s post, Lev Vygotsky & ZPD, where she called for elaboration or clarification of ZPD.Vygotsky had an interest in scaffolding, particularly in relation to learner development in vocabulary and language. He was fascinated with ways of determining the state of development in the young learner. He drew the distinction between what he referred to as ‘age level of development’ and the ‘developmental process’ in relation to ‘learning capabilities’.Closer analysisVygotsky’s studies in this field suggest he firmly believed there was more to potential development in the learner than just what could be judged by observing what he called the learner’s actual development level. This is what can be determined presumably through analysis over a range of tests and other related observational parameters.His argument was that what the young learner can do with the assistance of others is a better indicator of mental development than what she can do alone. He made the unambiguous distinction between the assessable accomplishment of the learner when unaided and the observable performance of the learner when given assistance. His pithy summary isThe zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic state.Much of Vygotsky’s ideas were tempered by existing theory of the time and furthered by his insightful hypotheses based on his own observations. R G Tharp and R Gallimore proposed an expansion of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development that involved further stages including the assistance that could be provided by the learner herself.While Vygotsky spoke of developmental stages in the learner, he also posited that development is too complex to be defined by stages that disperse and become diffuse as the learner develops. As a result of this diffusion, previously identifiable stages can no longer be recognised in the learner.Rather than ‘development’ laying down a series of identifiable zones, as shown above, learning is more a broad frontier that advances progressively. The zone of proximal development at the periphery of the actual development level has a depth according to the level of potential development."What is in the zone of proximal development today will be the actual developmental level tomorrow".

Meredith is a teacher in an xAPI-enabled classroom. A Teacher in an xAPI-enabled Classroom She doesn’t do roll call every morning, the students’ GPS enabled tablets take care of that for her. Her students have lots of apps and devices by which they learn and generate learning data. Lots of learning data. But guess what?... Read More ›

Designing the program is only the beginning - data are even more valuable in enabling you to consistently improve your learning programs. This week, we’ll discuss the "red meat": Implementation, data analysis, and program improvement. Baseline AssessmentOnce you have completed your program design, start the implementation phase by taking a baseline assessment. This means using the tools and measurements you have identified to assess your target audience’s current status and performance - and your organization’s status and performance. Remember that throughout the assessment process, you will likely identify administrative, logistical, and structural problems that can’t be solved through training. While this can be frustrating, it is an opportunity. You may not be able to solve all the organization’s challenges through your work, but as you isolate the factors you can change through training, you can share your findings on needed change within your organization. You can document the administrative, logistical or resource obstacles that are interfering with learning and productivity in your organization - and position yourself and your department as an internal consultant to your organization. Program ImplementationThe theory of change, once articulated, provides the metrics of your success. Your goal, as you implement your learning initiative, will be to collect assessment and performance data, and continually compare this data to your program goals. Iteration and ImprovementYou will know you have succeeded in generating positive change once you can demonstrate the uptick in the metrics you planned to address through your theory of change. Conversely, if you aren’t seeing positive movement in your targeted metrics, you can move into higher level analysis: Evaluation of possible causes for the lack of success, and experimenting with possible means of improvement.There are two crucial characteristics of the iteration and improvement phase: 1) Lack of success is not failure. If the first incarnation of your learning program is not successful, that means you have useful data about what doesn’t work. Don’t lose heart, but refocus on where the connections between your activities and desired outcomes broke down.2) It’s never over. Improvement of a learning initiative lasts as long as the program’s goals remain in place. As circumstances change, it will continue to be your responsibility to respond to feedback, improve the program and respect your learners’ needs.Lessons LearnedIn closing, here is my most important lesson learned: When you’re working hard to improve your program, you won’t be overwhelmed by too much data. In contrast, you will be thrilled to have access to great data and may even regret all the questions you didn’t ask. Building processes for collecting and analyzing performance data in your organization will empower you to make informed decisions, allocate training department resources effectively and focus on the changes that will make the biggest improvements in your organization.Further Reading: "How to Translate Training into Results", Ron Ashkenas"Why Measure Training Effectiveness?", Business Performance"The Three Reports: Talent Development Reporting Principles", Dave VanceImage credit: logos noesis on Flickr

March 31, 2011- Automating Compliance-BasedTraining Through Just-in-Time LearningRegister April 6,2011- InstructionalDesign for Live, Online LearningRegister  April 7, 2011- Outsourcing vs. OuttaskingContent Development: Which Is Right for You?RegisterApril 14, 2011-How to Measure InformalLearning and Engage Managers to Optimize On-the-Job ImpactRegisterApril 20, 2011- Great Webinars: Crossing theChasm from Classroom Training to High Performance Virtual Delivery RegisterApril 21, 2011- Preparing Your Workforcefor Tomorrow’s ChallengesRegisterMay 12, 2011- The 5 Secrets to DeployingEffective Training at Warp SpeedRegister

We all agree this is a fast changing world. "At times of change, the learners are the ones that will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists." — Alistair Smith Darwinian Remember "Darwinian"? From Merriam-Webster Online: 1. of or relating to Charles Darwin, his theories... Read More ›

I was introduced to a fascinating phenomenon in 2002. Someone had pinned a note on the staff notice-board. My first thought on reading it was taht the tpysit had faleid to use the slelpckehcer. But the wolhe dumconet was wtirten lkie tihs.It went on to explain that most people could read and make sense of writing, despite jemubld ltertes in wrdos. As long as the frsit and lsat letter of each word did not sfiht their position, trehe was litlte preblom.Text of this sort was not new to me. I was familiar with the writing of dyslexic students who were adept at constructing words, phrases and sentences like those shown here.Jumbled-letter word messages caused a swell of activity in emails and on blogs at that time. Recognition was facile for jumbled-words that were correctly positioned in text. More so than the cognitive gymnastics needed to make sense of text where the positions of correctly spelt words were jumbled in the same sentence.The phrase, ‘too sense to muddled any make’, may demonstrate this.ResearchSpeculation arose as to why most readers found it easy to make sense of jumbled-word texts. There then followed a flurry of research as academics looked into the psychology of the phenomenon. The term ‘jumbled-word effect’ was introduced.One of the initial proposals was that the first and last letters were important to the recognition of words. Soon it was revealed that the first and last letters were not especially the ones used when recognising and reading jumbled-words in text. Further to this, particular words with their interior letters muddled in special ways were identified as being difficult to decipher.When carefully disarranged words are chosen it is possible to construct sentences that are arduous to understand, as in the example:A dootcr aimttded magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur.More recent postings on blogs have perpetuated the ongoing debate about the phenomenon.Other languagesInterest in the psychology of reading was stimulated by these curious observations, so much so that programs were created to jumble the interiors of words in texts, expressly for the purpose of creating material for use in further research. As well, investigations were conducted on possible occurrences of the phenomenon in other written languages.Some findings are posted by Matt David of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. It seems that vowels, and their juxtaposition to consonants within the jumble, have some bearing on the readability of words. Compared to other languages, significantly fewer vowels than consonants are involved in the makeup of words in the Hebrew language.Apparently Hebrew writing is rendered quite unreadable when the interior letters of its words are scrambled. This suggests that the presence of vowels and their position in the jumble of letters may indeed have some role in affecting ease of recognition of jumbled-words.Ordered letter pairsAt the University of Maryland, Jonathan Grainger and Carol Whitney drew on the work of earlier researchers. They proposed that recognition of jumbled-words was sustained by what they referred to as ‘ordered letter pairs’ or ‘open bigrams’. The mind seems to latch on to particular letter combinations when recognising a jumbled-word.A less academic perspective by The Escapist claims that the context of a word in text is more likely to assist its recognition than does the arrangement of the letters that make it up.This is a plausible idea if the sentence or phrase, rather than the single word, is considered as the unit of meaning. How often has a typo, where letters of a word are accidentally jumbled, escaped the eye of even the most scrupulous proof reader, by virtue of the meaning of the misspelt word being subsumed in the rest of the text?Perhaps the mind uses a range of indicators in attempting to interpret meaning from jumbled-words in texts.Who kwons?

Corporate Responsibility Network FIBS, the leading non-profit corporate responsibility network in Finland that promotes financially, socially and ecologically sustainable business in Finland, has picked CBTec Oy, creator of Eliademy, as one of the most sustainable business and potential solutions to change … Continue reading →

Visit the first PowerPoint awards festival, where you'll find everything you need to create blockbuster presentations.  Take a look around, watch the videos and learn the tips and tricks. Then enter your best presentation for a chance to win a 2010 Microsoft Office Suite, a new Xbox 360 with Kinect, or a trip to the next TEDActive conference in Palm Springs, CA.Check it out:  http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint-slidefest/do-and-dont.aspx

May’s blogger has been a steadfast friend and contributor to ASTD. Allison Rossett is knowledgeable about needs analysis, technology-based learning, persistence and engagement in a world with increasing amounts of technology-based independent learning. Her official bio reads something like this: Dr. Allison Rossett, long-time Professor of Educational Technology at San Diego State University, is a consultant in learning and technology-based performance. A member of Training magazine’s HRD Hall of Fame, Allison serves on the Board for the Elearning Guild and Chief Learning Officer magazine. She was honored when ISPI selected her as a Member-for-Life and more recently when they bestowed the wonderful Thomas Gilbert Award on her. Allison served on the ASTD International Board and more recently received ASTD’s recognition for lifelong contributions to workplace learning and performance. Allison is the author or co-author of six books, several of them award-winners.Recently, ASTD designated Allison a LEGEND, and she writes on her blog that she is still stunned by the label. Really? I’m stunned that it didn’t happen sooner because Allison absolutely knows a lot about a lot of complex issues. More important, people like to hear what she has to say. When I’ve needed help understanding something, finding resources for Learning Circuits, or bouncing around ideas, she’s one of the first people I email. Her responses are not only always insightful, they’re sharp and fun to read.So, with ASTD International Conference & Expo this month, Justin and I wanted to invite a guest blogger who could cover a variety of topics. I instantly thought of Allison. Enjoy!