Technology – Taking Advantage of “The Cloud”

Before we can even have a realistic conversation about taking advantage of cloud computing, we have to actually understand what this is.

Cloud technology, when applied to a learning organization offers:

• Anywhere, anytime access to learning applications
• Instant scalability to meet the size of your learner population
• Seamless compatibility with social and collaborative platforms and tools

Cloud computing is essentially a series of hosted computing systems.

Career Development – Future Workforce Skills

The Institute for the Future is an independent nonprofit research group. Their mission is to work with organizations of all kinds to help them make better, more informed decisions about the future. They take a global approach to strategic planning, linking macro trends to local issues in such areas as:

• Work and daily life
• Technology and society
• Health and health care
• Global business trends
• Changing consumer society

Interestingly, a 2011 survey of more than 2,500 college students and employers reported that 65% of employers believe that the workforce skills keeping their company competitive today will be the same skills keeping them competitive 10 years from now. Only about 40% of our corporations are adapting their talent management strategies to develop a properly skilled staff. Workers with these identified skills will play a large role in bridging the gap in skill sets.

According to the Institute of the Future, there are ten skills defined as the key skills workers will need over the next decade. These are the skills that will help you thrive, even though radical technology changes, society changes, and the changing nature of work.

Learning Theory – The Margins of Learning Management: How to Keep Learning Indispensible

Author: T M Stafford, MS MA

One of the key issues that needs to be considered in adult learning is the balance between the load of life and the managing power that one feels he has to counterbalance the load that he finds himself under. Consider this as an example, when one is sick, immediately the load of life becomes overpowering to the person to the point that they can no longer function in the same way while under this new load. This forces the learner to make decisions about what is expendable in this situation so as to help balance out the weight of being sick. For different people this list of negotiables includes: (1) missing work, (2) visiting the doctor, (3) taking an over the counter medicine, (4) going back to bed and a host of other options that each person can sort through while considering the weight of the load.  Howard McClusky captures this scenario is his, Theory of Margin, where he shows that the fulcrum of balancing life is the key for the adult learner moves variably between the load of life and the power of life to counteract that load. There are several significant factors that are critical to understanding how this theory affect eh adult learner.