What Kept Training Managers Awake in 2012?

So what kept training managers awake during 2012? What challenges they have been facing? During last year I was fortunate enough to be in touch with training managers of various companies in India. While not statistically conclusive, here are some general trends I noticed from my various conversations.Cost: Almost all training managers are pressurized to show some cost savings. Mostly this is resulting in passing on pressure to reduce costs on their training vendors. Cost seems to be their single biggest challenge these days.Uncertain Business Environment: There’s a constant challenge…

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Solve a Business Problem or Create a WBT?

I had an interesting chat conversation over the weekend with a budding instructional designer.ID: I wanted to discuss about Instructional approaches ID: Suppose there's a client who says " they have been using ILT that has not been successful, their mentors are not motivating enough& nw wants to change it to a WBT.......and target audience are senior &middle level managers well versed with sales, dealing with retailers etc..... And I've to give them 2 approaches.....do u hv any ideas? Me: why is their ILT not successful? ID: their mentors are…

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What is Blended Learning?

Clive Shepherd redefines his own definition of blended learning in his recent post.A blended learning solution mixes social contexts for learning (self-study, one-to-one, small group, larger community) with the aim of increasing learning effectiveness, and/or mixes learning media (face-to-face, online, print, etc.) to increase efficiency, in the context of a particular learning requirement, audience characteristics, and practical constraints and opportunities.Clive’s does a great job in separating the method and the medium. I quite agree with Clive.In my view, blended learning can be simply defined as a combination (blend!) of self…

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Introducing my kids to email

I am going to help my 11 year old daughter create her first email ID. I am looking for options available. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo are of course obvious choices, but is there an email service specifically for kids? My natural parental instinct worries me about my children getting on the Net unmonitored. At the same time I wonder given the muck they watch on TV and read in the newspapers, does it really matter that they are on the Net unmonitored? Yet to play safe, I am looking for kids…

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eLearning and Content Development Trends for 2008

Learning Circuit’s January Big Question is about predicting trends for the year 2008. Here’s my take on what we can expect in the coming year.Web 2.0 in LearningWeb 2.0 will be the killer buzzword for the year 2008. Everyone will want to use the technology for learning and training. Bersin report for 2008 talks about it, Brandon Hall has announced new categories of awards, and most bloggers are talking about it. I believe 2008 will continue to be the year of discovery and experimentation with Web 2.0. Web 2.0 techniques…

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