How Students Can Use Social Media To Actually Learn Real World Skills Owing to the present difficult economic situation, financial literacy has turned out to be one of the hottest topics of discussion in the media. Being economically savvy is extremely important for making the type of smart money decisions, that’s essential for having a good standard of living. Your college years must be the years of gaining knowledge, but nobody is truly conscious of the significance of financial literacy. A majority of the college students feel that their institution didn’t really train them for the “real world”. With no real work experience and no savings, a number of students are finding it difficult to make ends meet. When it comes to financial education, social media plays an important role. According to a study conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute, a majority of the first year undergraduates spend time on social networking websites. Social networking sites are also an affordable means to communicate news to both students and alumni.
The Basics of Scenario-Based e-Learning In this post, I will walk you through the various aspects of scenario-based eLearning, so that you can design eLearning courses which not only keep the learners motivated and engaged, but provide them with the best possible educational experience that effectively enhances their skill sets and/or knowledge base. There are a myriad of instructional design theories and models to choose from when creating eLearning courses. In fact, selecting the one that fits your students’ or employees’ needs can often be a challenging task. However, if you are looking for a model that is ideally suited to improve learner engagement, then scenario-based eLearning may be the solution.Scenario-Based eLearning, essentially, immerses the learners in real life or situational simulations or learning experiences that allow them to gather skills or information that they will recall for future use. How Scenario-Based eLearning Improves Engagement and Understanding
How To Use Twitter For Teaching And Learning Are you still unsure about taking the plunge into Twitter? Worried it’s not actually useful for learning or teaching? Think it’s still just about people talking about what they’re eating? Whether you’re a newbie wondering the above questions or a talented tweeter, there are always new and exciting ways to use Twitter. - Why should a teacher or education administrator use Twitter? - How do I set up an account? - What questions should I always ask myself when I follow someone? - How do I tweet? - How do I find good people to follow? Beginning Instructional Authoring: Getting Good Scenario Content from SMEs Last month I began discussing the all-too-common difficulty that eLearning folks face of getting the right content from subject matter experts (SMEs). And as I said last month, it’s such a typical problem that it’s a bit of an inside joke in our field. Too often we ask for information about the wigglytibbit and the SME sends either 1) a PowerPoint presentation with minimal useful information or 2) a mountain of documents (which she now expects you to use, since she’s taken the time to find them). So last month I suggested three generic ways to get the specific content you need: If you need images, provide a very specific shot listIf you need textual content, provide specific contextual content clues such as storyboard pages ORPowerPoint pages This month I’m going to show you how to get content from SMEs for eLearning scenarios, but – with just a little bit of imagination – you can adapt this same technique to get content for any type of eLearning content. Branched scenarios Table 1.
Tip 40: Three Ways to Use Scenarios | Elearning Tips We’ve all heard the story by now that storytelling enhances learning; that sharing relevant examples helps both the expert and the novice forge connections with the content to ensure knowledge transfer. We’ve heard that flight simulators save lives and that practice makes perfect. And yet, scenarios and simulations can feel intimidating. They take time. We’re here to say that it can be all that, but it can also be something simpler. So let’s look at three approaches to creating scenarios in your e-learning – a bit of a scenario spectrum as we go from simple to more complex. Tell the story and then ask some questions This is a simple approach and one we use a lot, especially in more rapid e-learning programs when time is of the essence. Tell your story – as always, keep it short and sharp. For example in a program on behavior in the workplace, tell the story of a manager that might have crossed the line. The next question then goes even deeper. Ask questions throughout the scenario
An Easy Way to Build Branched Scenarios for E-Learning This past week I was in Nashville where we discussed building interactive scenarios. Part of the discussion revolved around designing some simple scenario strategies to move the projects away from linear elearning and towards meaningful interactivity. The ultimate goal is transitioning from a push model where we just provide information and move to a more interactive model where the learner makes the same types of decisions she’d make in a real-world environment. These decision-making activities are used to reinforce what you want her to practice and learn so that your courses have real-world impact. Simple Structure for Scenarios As I’ve shared before, I like to use what I call the “3C model” to construct my scenarios or interactive elearning. Challenge: The goal is to engage the learner and challenge her understanding. There are a few different ways I use the 3C model to template the interactive scenarios. Complex Decision-Making Interactions Pros & Cons of Complex Branching
In a Relationship: College Students and Their Smartphones [INFOGRAPHIC] College students aren't just concerned with getting good grades and finding the best parties. More than ever, they're using their smartphones to navigate life on campus. On the bus, waiting in line, in bed, on the treadmill and even while driving, college students can't seem to put their phones down. Thirty-five percent say they sometimes use their phones while driving but stopped at a red light, and nearly 20% say they sometimes use them while the wheels are even moving. The Internet education portal OnlineColleges pulled this data and more from sources including the Pew Internet & American Life Project, University of Colorado and Nielsen to produce the infographic below. Among other notable findings: More colleges students use iPhones than any other device, email has nearly caught text messaging as the most popular use for smartphones among college students and nearly half of students use their phones to check the weather. Thumbnail photo courtesy of iStockphoto, deepblue4you
The Anatomy of a Scenario-Based Lesson Scenario-based learning is generally most appropriate when teaching learners with some relevant prior knowledge or experience how to perform tasks that rely on critical and creative problem solving. They are especially useful to teach skills that are difficult to acquire on the job because of safety concerns or scarcity of real-world opportunities. Decisions can have life or death consequences, and a scenario-based approach to learning offers at least a partial substitute for real-world experience. There are four essential elements of an effective scenario-based lesson: an authentic scenario or task assignment that serves as a context for learning learner guidance while responding to and resolving the problem feedback on problem solutions or problem-solving processes explicit opportunities to reflect on problem solutions. The Scenario Case study scenarios commonly appear in procedural (part task) lessons and sometimes even in explanations. The Guidance Constrain learner control.
V4L Moodle The most successful customer service training programs focus a great deal of their content around experiential learning because it significantly increases employee performance and customer satisfaction. Experiential learning methods focus on having employees learn new skills by experience and practicing them. Some experiential training methods include job aids like posters and PDFs, coaching, or role-playing different workplace scenarios with team members. The Advanced Guide To Top Your Customer Service Training Game Get actionable insights on identifying and solving problems with your existing customer service training program. One of the most popular forms of experiential training is scenario-based learning. Simulations can be used for different types of customer service training, from soft skills to product knowledge. Increases Learner Engagement One of the most valuable benefits of scenario-based learning is its ability to engage learners by stimulating their brain activity. Summary
A Google plan to kill carriers with WiFi is all too believable Could you live your mobile life on WiFi? Attempts to ween users off of expensive, subsidized smartphone deals have been more successful this year than every before; word earlier today that Google had acquired a WiFi hotspot company - and which later turned out to be false - was believable in part because the search company is a prime candidate for ousting cellular from the mobile equation. The ICOA deal may be fake, but Google's appetite to ditch the traditional carriers and strike out more or less alone isn't new. The original Nexus One was the company's first effort at that, an attempt to bypass the commonplace subsidized phone deals with an unlocked handset, and relegate the carriers themselves to "dumb pipe" status. It proved to be an idea ahead of its time; smartphone-naive shoppers blanched at a $529 sticker price in January 2010, and Google had to satisfy itself with carrier distribution just like everybody else.
14 Twitter Statistics You May Not Know Twitter may very well be one of the most important tools for the connected educator, student, parent, and Internet user in general. It’s a place to connect with new colleagues, learn from those you’d never normally meet in person, or just a simple way to see what’s happening right now. However you use Twitter, it’s educational, enjoyable, and fun. So what’s Twitter actually like? how many tweets are sent in a single day? How many tweets are sent per second?