Edwin "Ka Edong" Soriano of Technobiography recently posted about his friend's company which provides online training for Call Center agents. Since there is the outsourcing boom and new graduates and other job seekers are eager to to try their hand in this field, many apply for positions.
Sadly, their schooling provide little or no help when it comes to this field. Yuga posted about it here. Many students (me included) regarded oral communication as a "minor" subject. And now, BPO comes and we are not ready.
But going beyond the outsourcing phenomena, and going back to the methodology, are we seeing a trend of adopting to new modes of learning?
I wonder if we can translate that to modular nursing reviews .... Cheaper, less/no travel needed, lower overhead.
This could revolutionize the whole review industry.
See Ka Edong's entry here.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Friday, August 11, 2006
eLearning from E-Myth
I’ve mentioned E-Myth Revisited as one highly-recommended book for anybody who wants to go in business. You can go to www.e-myth.com for more resources.
I joined a contest there and guess what.. I won an Embark E-Learning scholarship for one year! This one takes the ice…Talk about convergence of interests: entrepreneurship/business and eLearning (two great interests of mine).. And I get to them free.
If you haven’t read the book, get it now at a Different Bookstore (if there are stocks left). I got mine for PHP768.00
We all need to learn continuously. My motto is “Make sure you’ve learned something new
before sleeping.”
DIGITAL LEARNING FOR FREE (ALMOST)
“Learn at least one thing new today before going to sleep at the end of the day.” - Jun Asis
One of the things I have vowed to do daily before I go to sleep is to know at least one thing I have not known before. I never let a day pass without learning something new. This is not limited to my chosen interests but it covers any good information under the sun. Whether it is about the internet, positive thinking, technology, business, entrepreneurship, Christian living, good values, parenting or education, there are readily available ways for me to learn.
I describe my self as a digital learner. I use the technology and information available to fill my thirst of learning. It is not expensive to learn with technology, as many people think. It will entail some cost but for the most part, but it will be more costly in the long run if you do not learn. With the strides in digital realm, learn can be free. Well, almost.
EBOOKS. These are the digital equivalent of books. If you have a computer or PDA, these are great resources of information. Most of my ebooks are free and many of them can be freely distributed for free. Just google ebook , and plenty of hits will come your way. Or you can go to www.gutenberg.org for public domain books that you can download for free.
AUDIO BOOKS AND PODCASTS: Most would think of music when they hear of MP3s. Aside from music, a lot of books are in mp3 format. Also, there are a lot of podcasts (downloadable audio on the fly with the proper software) which are very helpful and informative. These cover about anything under the sun. Many radio programs of various interests do podcasts. Moreover, a good percentage of them can be played (and replayed) in an mp3 player. You can listen to them at your convenience. One notable podcast is www.StartupNation.com, about small business, how to start it and how to run it successfully. I find their ideas and insights quite invaluable.
I invested in a 256MB mp3 player and have used it extensively while driving to the office, walking or working. It cost me PHP3,700 because I also use it as a USB flash drive (instead of the less reliable, clunkier, less-than-sturdy diskette). For those who will use it solely for listening, a 128MB mp3 player is enough, and will cost about PHP1,500 up. If you have not saved that amount yet, listen using the computer.
EMAIL. Instead of reading chain letters, hoaxes, get-rich-quick offers (which are always spam mail anyway) and urban legends, I subscribe to several newsletters and e-zines (e-magazine). I subscribe to Chicken Soup for the Soul, success and self-help, spiritual direction and reflection about the faith, business, marketing, selling and humor. I don’t get to read them all everyday, but refer to them on a regular basis. Some even offer free email courses.
Also I send out a regular email about positive attitude and success and entrepreneurship weekly. Email me with SUBSCRIBE as the subject at magandang[dot]balita[at]gmail.com if you want to join the list. I will send you a free ebook, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill or As A Man Thinketh by James Allen just for joining.
WEBSITES AND BLOGS. If you just know where to look, I dare say 95% of the information you need is on the web. Frequent websites that inform and educate. Go to blogs of those you trust, who talk sense, whose opinions and insights matter. Aside from the mainstream news portals such as CNN, Yahoo and MSN, there are a lot of other websites that can teach you what you want to learn. What’s more, there are those that specifically cater to the topics of your choice.
I must make a precaution here. There are a lot of websites which may mislead and give false information. Be careful where you go. One of the things I do before trusting a site is searching for the background of that site (or author). Read what others say about it and then judge using your mind and heart.
Listed below are some of the sites I trust. I will be writing more about them in detail in succeeding posts:
Bizdrivenlife.net
Sme.com.ph
Briantracyintl.com
Jimrohn.com
Dailyscriptures.net
Startupnation.com
BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS. Despite being a digital learner, I still consider books as the most common source of knowledge. I still read books a lot. I’ve had lots of books but I hardly felt the dent in my pocket. Why? Because I bought pre-owned books, borrowed, swapped and went to the library. My new books comprise just about 10% of my collection. If you are not sure where to start, subscribe to Reader’s Digest. It has variety, culture, science, humor, fiction, inspirational articles and a lot more. And even if it gets old, you’ll find that you can re-read it. And if you have children, it could prove to be invaluable to them in their school work,
Learning must not stop once you leave school. It does not have to cause major damage to your budget (though you should consider investing in learning). Use what is available. Be a digital learner today.
A Free Online School
There. I said it. I let it out in the open. i just posted it in PTB as a comment in an entry about Sun Microsystems‘ chairman Scott McNealy vision about education which is congruent with mine. Read it his vision here and my comment here.
I dream of a free online school for grade school and high school in the Philippines. Eventually, this could take evolve into something bigger.. But let’s not get ahead of the dream shall we?
Ever since I’ve been introduced to eLearning and open-source, this idea has been bugging me. But I like the bugging part which drives me to think. It’s the “idea” part that I hate. I want it to become a reality.
My platform of choice is 
.
Open-source, free, evolving and widely supported. It’s fairly easy to post content and there is exelearning for offline content creation. There are other features and tools which make it an ideal platform but that may come on a later post.
As with every dream, there are several barriers to overcome. Lack of infrastructure and computers, engaging quality content, and questions like will it be acceptable to the public , hound the project. Not to mention the funding needed to build, maintain, support and expand. But if it was easy, we would not dream of it, would we?
These are daunting, real obstacles.But rather that focusing on why it can’t be done, I am focusing on why and how it can be done.
Here are several ideas, albeit disjointed:
1. Ask the input of Martin Dougiamas. He is the guy who started moddle and is still the prime mover of Moodle. I’m sure that he has ideas how to pull this off. He knows the right people to connect with. The Moodle developers and community will surely tag along with him. Hmmm, imagine what a good a word or two from him do.
2. Use a social, collaborative model, like Wikipedia, Digg or YouTube. I’m sure there is a workable model we can draw from their successes.
3. Make it a project/thesis of the education courses. While the mandatory actual teaching hours is essential for any teacher, it might do us some good if we can introduce our future educators to this new realm of learning. Think of this: If all 100 BS in Education graduating students of Philippine Normal University would create a one hour, one topic content, that would amount to 100 hours!
4. Ask ADB or World Bank to fund it. To do this, we need a business plan. I have a couple of people in mind from the Philippine eLearning Society (PeLS) who are working together to establish elearning in the country. They are adept in their respective fields and their share vision can take this project through the roof. (Can anybody help me draft the project/business plan please?)
5. Find “open-minded” people in DECS, CICT, DOST who will champion this initiative. The more people who are actively rooting for the success of this project, the better. Especially in the deparments which have a direct stake in this endeavor.
6. Find a good revenue model. Advertising, membership fees, sponsorships?
7. Ask for Volunteers. This could be the Gawad Kalinga of education. Volunteer your time, effort, resources, expertise. Instructional designers, teachers, coders, multimedia artists, testers, trainers, webhosting, etc.
8. This is the great equalizer. 24×7, cheap, renewable, easily upgradeable, a long-term solution to our education systems’ dilemma. It feels right, it is doable and non-partisan . Its success would translate to great economic benefit for our country and who wouldn’t like that?
What do you think?
Would you help make a dream come true?
Free eLearning
I love learning, especially if it’s free. Since I am a digital learner, my main source of learning is the internet - the treasure trove of free knowledge and information.
Next to website contents, e-books are my next best friend in the internet. Then came audio books. I also dabbled a bit with digital video which will gain more headway in two or three years.
Here are the link to free (e)Learning:
eBooks
Project Gutenberg - Public Domain Digital Library which contains text as well as recorded books and works.
Audiobooks:
Learnoutloud.com - Not everything is free but there are lots of free audio books that cannot be found elsewhere which ar available for free.
Academic
MIT Open CourseWare - MIT is making their courseware materials available to the public for free.
Other Open Coursware sites - Some other universities which are following MIT’s OpenCourseware initiative
UC Berkeley Webcast - Courses in audio format
Podcasts
Internet-based Business Mastery
I’ll be adding more to the list.
How about you? Where do you get your free learning?
eLearning is Changing
According to Marc Rosenberg, author and expert. eLearning is evolving. He puts out 6
1. E-learning will become more than “e-training.”
2. E-learning will move to the workplace.
3. Blended learning will be redefined.
4. E-learning will be less course-centric and more knowledge-centric.
5. E-learning will adapt differently to different levels of mastery.
6. Technology will become a secondary issue.
I agree with him.
And on Item 2, for us less developed countries, may I add that it will become the great equalizer for education. eLearning is coming to the Rural Areas. The world is becoming flat and the playing field is continuously leveled.
On Item 6, with the rapid improvements in technology, this will cease to be an issue.
My personal take:
- eLearning will also lean towards developing different approaches for different learning styles and intelligences. One topic will have different version catering to the personality type of the learner.
- eLearning will take public education global - where countries pool their knowledge base and resources offered to all who want to have an education. Alliances of competing industries/companies will be formed to sahre this precious resource.
- The business model for eLearning will change. New avenues for revenue will replace the traditional content and system as the main source. Open-source will develop to a point that it become the de facto standard world wide.
Elearning for the Technology-Challenged
In the Philippines, only a small percentage of the population have access to a computer. Of these, only a small percentage have access to CD-ROMS and the internet.
If this is the case, building online courses would be useless for most households.
How do you reach out to the less-priveleged?
TV and Radio. But since radio and TV stations are costly, what choice do we have?
The VCD and to a cetain extent, the DVD.
I’ve been to many rural areas and have noticed that many households have TV sets and quite a number, VCD or DVD players.
VCDs as Elearning. Limited I admit, but a step forward.
As with movies, it should be entertaining: Infotainment.
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