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Net Gen

I've been sitting here reading up on Net Gen through different blogs I found through Google. We can all agree the Net Generation grew up with technology. I have two Net Gener's myself. They were playing computer games before they started school. They have cell phone's which they do more texting on then talking. They have iPods and know how to find and download their favorite music and their pretty proficient with researching information for school. But I would also agree with one blogger who stated there is still a lack a real understanding when it comes to the importance of the basic skills like grammar, punctuation, even spelling. We've noticed this in the workplace as well. There is also lack of knowledge when it comes to plagarism as another blogger mentioned. If they find the information they're looking for they simply cut and paste the information. I also have found it interesting that although they may have heard of blogging, wiki's and podcasting there either isn't much interest or they don't really understand how or why these are used.

I do believe based on their exposure and skills they've grown up with we should take that into consideration and implement it into their learning. Why wait for them to attend college to really understand how technology can be used. Teaching them about how to search, what is an HTML, how they could implement blogs for educational purposes.

Learning, eLearning and everything else

Well if you're looking for information on Learning of any kind check out Kapp Notes. Karl Kapp is a consultant, speaker, scholar, just to name of few of his credentials. He seems to have a great sense of humor as well. If you can't find what you're looking for through Karl's blog check out the never ending list of blogs he's got on his site. Love the analogy he used when discussing learning with baby's. I won't spoil it and if you catch my response you'll see although I appreciated the analogy I did not agree with his statement. Click here and go exploring at Kapp Notes.

Great tips on ppt for elearning design

I was talking to one of my co-workers about the fact that I was looking for some blogs more specific to my job and she found one with great tips designing ppt for elearning. Click here if you'd like to find some great tips for your elearning project.

Inspiration from Wikinonics

I began reading Wikinomics a week ago and it's been a start and stop process. I just got to chapter two and jumped to chapter 9. Chapter two talks about the younger generations and how they have grown up on the web and been collaborating with others across the street, across the state, and some across the world. Now this interests me from both a person and professional perspective. My children range in age from 29 to 16 so finding and researching information helps me to understand them better and how look at the world and why they may say and/do some of the things they say and/or do. I'm also a learning and performance trainer and part of my job is to find the most effective way to train the associates within the organization. So, the more I understand how peaple like to communicate and learn the better prepared I will be in delivering their training.

Chapter 9 as I mentioned earlier talks about the Geek Squad. Although familiar with it I had no knowledge of the history of how it came to be. Kudo's to Robert Stephens for seeing a need and being so innovative coming up with the Geek Squad.

The timing of my class at Drake and the reading of Wikinomics could not have been better if planned. My team of trainers along with our corporated training team partner each year to invite all trainers within the organization for what we call Trainers' Institute. This year will the be our seventh year we sponsored this event. Each one has grown in size and each year we had to look for larger space to accomodate all of the trainers'coming from all over the country.

Last year with budget constraints we decided to have the event online using our training platform WebEx. We could accomodate more trainers' without travel expenses, hotel accomodations or food. We are repeating that delivery again this year. We are always looking for interesting topics to deliver to our trainers that will help them be more effective. One associate who is an IT trainer is going to present on Second Life. I can't wait to see the responses from our audiences. I'm sure we willhave some like Ric who have experience with this type of technology but there will also be many who will be blown away with the idea of using this as an educational tool.

I can't wait. Well on to more reading and research.

See you next time.