U-blog 6

With the current economic situation, i find myself wonder how this will change training and learning the workplace. Obviously some training will be trimmed down and we will be expected to do more "on the fly learning", but it makes me wonder if it will continue this way. I also wonder if this lack of learning time will effect the quality of work. I see this as creating problems for people with "subpar learning skills". I think people that currently get by doing the bare minimum will soon be let go and find themselves struggling to get a lesser job. I think we'll see a large shift in the workforce due to the current economic cituation.

U-Blog 5

The Lowman Project was very enlightening to myself and i would like to say that i judged the adults there before i should have! I went into this expecting to have to treat them like, for a lack of better terms, overgrown children. It was far from that! That ate up any information we could spit at them and came back for more! They remembered everything from past classes and things they didn't remember, they looked back at their notes about. I really enjoyed teaching them and hope that another situation comes up where i am able to do it again!

U-Blog 3

Children learn the easiest no matter what the method be. A child will retain more knowledge than an adult through a non-prefered method than an adult. Adults do have a better chance at knowing their prefered method due to them having more time to figure it out. Looking at these two age groups, i feel it causes challenges to adult teachers due to having to figure out how to best teach all the students. While children can be taught in a variety of manners and have a better chance of the students retaining the knowledge.

U-Blog 3

I want to take a minute and talk about two companies current thoughts on the workplace. These companies being Microsoft and JetBlu, both in our text. JetBlu has a strict work situation set up meaning employee A has to be at place A at time A for the company to work. It'd be kind of hard for a plane to fly without their pilot on time and a stuardess sure can't fill in for them! Now Microsoft on the other hand has no set times for most of their staff. They just check on your progress. They do work generally in teams of two to get done with programming but they do not have to be together from 8 - 5. Now my questions start with do these strategies hurt or help these two companies? I think the answer lies in the companies products and services. While a program does not need to be written at an exact time of day, a plane does need to fly when the customer is told it will. This goes to show not just one set of work standards work for every organization.

U-Blog 2

While having to think about the top 3 preformance roles, responsibilities, and competencies, it started to make me think about if 3 would be enough to describe it. While my top 3 were diversity, technology, and work force, i realized that there were far too many others that needed to be set in place to have a company work properly. Lets start with trainers. While there are many different paths a company can use to train, there is definitely a need for accurate and quick training. Less money is spent the more efficient the training is. Project managers are vital to keep things moving in the direction they need to be to stay on track. Group process skills are neccessary to make sure that a group can get a project done, because most of the time a project can be split up amoung several and finished quicker and catch more errors. These are just a few more of what i feel are vital in keeping a company running smoothly and efficiently and will continue to be important roles in a company.

U-Blog 1

The workplace learning of today's day and age has grown to a very important factor in the modern work environment. Company's such as JetBlu are setting trends with the creation of "Universities" for their employees. This has created a more suitable environment for training and updating past training tho. While i feel that this method costs alot up front, it seems as it would save money in the long run having a dediated place and curriculum set up. I'm not used to this form of training as my two major jobs have been been retail; one being a grocery store, the other being at a mall. So while i say that it seems it would be better to learn in, i can't fully say from personal experience. JetBlu seems to have employee retention (other than those current lay offs) on their side for stats, so as they say "If its not broke, don't fix it!"

Workplace Learning

While workplace learning is often thought of as initial training and nothing more, it is much more important than that. Training can often affect the customers you attract and keep. Training Trends and Tips says that it is important to help the customers rather than try to sell to them. Still initial job training is one of the most important aspects. Training trends says

Organisations of less than 250 people spend on average around £417 per head on training, whereas organisations of over 10,000 employees spend just £73 per head.

Thats almost 6 times as much per person in the smaller organizations!

Blended learning also is an emerging trend, such as this class. It can involve a variety of methods, such as f2f, internet, and others. Most organizations seem to show that people learning through blended learning method are retaining more information than through just one method.

One common thought is the need to continue training America's work force. Foreign language being one main area of concentration. Its becoming more common for people to be able to speak other languages in the country as well as with international clients. Also technological training being another front runner in importance. Very few jobs don't require some sort of computer interaction whether it be from teachers using blackboard, to network managers who's job revolves around technology. All of this is important as a large amount of American's are in unskilled jobs with little ability to increase their standing in society. While we need these jobs too, we are currently in a large surplus of them and lacking in skilled employees in certain regions such as medical.

Another problem with training American's is the shortage of money in the current economic situation. The government is lacking the budget to start training programs, although it is trying to do so in the stimulus package. Companies themselves are also lacking the finances to properly train and keep up with training that is required to be up-to-date.