Monthly Archives: July 2009

Royalty publicly backs e-learning

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It’s not every day that Central Government and royalty combine to endorse and promote e-learning but that it what has happened in Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has stressed that e-learning plays a fundamental part in his plans to restructure and modernise his country’s education system. To that end, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education has established The National Center for eLearning (NCEL), to promote the use of e-learning – and NCEL has initiated the ‘Maknaz’ (treasure chest) project. This is a prestigious and long-term project – publicly supported by the Saudi Government – to create local editorial centres producing digital contents of the highest quality in Arabic that will enhance education and training in Saudi schools and universities. The project also aims to build a national network for this content to facilitate the online sharing and exchange of learning materials.

 

The project aims to further enhance Saudi Arabia’s rise in the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s ‘network readiness index’. It rose from 48th to 40th position in this index between 2007 and 2008. This index illustrates the country’s readiness to play a key part in the new digital economy ecosystem.

 

The WEF has stressed the importance of ICT in national competitiveness and development strategies. It has provided a useful tool for decision makers and civil society alike to monitor national progress as well as offer examples of best practice and policies to increase networked readiness.

 

Comment: It’s heartening to find a country that is so serious about improving its ‘network readiness’ position along with the human resources capital at its disposal – and maximising its value to the country’s economy – that its Central Government and Head of State publicly commit themselves to its promotion and support.

Equal employment opportunities – even for zombies

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HR magazine has reported that The London Dungeon has recruited two new zombies to embark on a £30,000 per year career of scaring visitors. There were over 200 applicants for the role and around 60 were auditioned. Louie McKenna and Jeremiah Barnes were selected as the two best suited to take on the role of the undead, after the London Dungeon launched a recruitment campaign for ‘zombies – dead or alive’.
And, again at the end of July, estate agent Carole Bonahan was appointed as the new Witch of Wookey Hole. She beat more than 300 applicants – some who had queued since 5am – to the post, at the visitor attraction near Wells, Somerset.

 

Comment: It’s good to know that Britain’s equal opportunities legislation extends beyond mere men and women to almost all states of being.

 

It has even been revealed that the Government is considering holding a bank holiday in remembrance of employees who die while at work. So that will extend employment legislation to everyone. Well done, Gordon – but how many of them will vote for you when the Election comes?

Plato meets science fiction

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People are being introduced to the key concepts of philosophy through science fiction in a course run by London-based philosopher Peter Worley. The course, run in London on six evenings in September and October, under the auspices of The Philosophy Shop, explores philosophical questions and themes behind much modern science fiction literature, films and television dramas. That can be The Matrix’s introduction to the question, ‘how do we know what is real?’ through issues around personal identity in a film like Bladerunner to complex issues around ethics and epistemology in films like Solaris or 20001: a Space Odyssey.

 

The programme starts with a general introduction to philosophy, and links science fiction with the key concept of the ‘thought experiment’. Dating back to Plato, the thought experiment is an imagined scenario in which the philosopher is able to consider the various implications of an idea – which is almost a definition of the science fiction of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

The course covers such issues as: personal identity (Bladerunner, The Prestige, Memento, Solaris, Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde); free will (Gattaca, Groundhog Day, Minority Report, The Truman Show); knowledge / the external world (Total Recall, Abre Los Ojos, The Electric Ant); space time / time travel (Terminator, The Time Machine, Dr Who, 12 Monkeys, Back to the Future), and philosophy of mind (I Robot, Colossus: The Forbin Project, 2001: a Space Odyssey, A.I.).

 

According to the organisers: ‘Space is limited, so pre-booking essential: to book your tickets please email emma@thephilosophyshop.co.uk or phone 020 8699 9314.’

 

Comment: Isn’t this starting the whole process off by being extremely judgemental? Philosophy – for it to be of value – has to challenge preconceptions and accept no limits. So stating, from the start, that ‘Space is limited’, makes the whole course flawed.

Motivation matters

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Farnham Castle, the Surrey based corporate events venue, has urged companies to take staff motivation seriously during the recession.

 

“A positive and motivated team is always going to out-perform competitors which have a negative staff attitude,” said Farnham Castle’s Jeff Toms.  “Focusing on staff motivation during the downturn is a cost effective way to encourage proactivity and get everyone involved in delivering the highest level of service as a cohesive unit. This, in turn, can give an organisation that much needed competitive edge – particularly in challenging economic times.”

 

Comment: Toms’ message is neither unexpected nor unusual. Other organisation development professionals – notably Echelon’s Alistair Morrison – have been saying the same thing for some time. They are, of course, absolutely correct.

 

The difficulty is that, like the schizophrenic who had half a mind to get treatment for his condition, the economic downturn is, in itself, de-motivating. People who are de-motivated are unlikely to want to do anything new or take on new ideas. So the challenge is to motivate people to want to be motivated – and that doesn’t just happen because someone sends you on a training course.

E-learning may not be e-learning any more

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Speaking at the recent eLN meeting in London, Stuart Chadwick, of e-learning developers Kineo, commented that e-learning materials and programs could as easily be used for advertising as for ‘pure’ learning purposes.

 

Comment: He is right in the sense that what we call ‘e-learning’ is really only the application of technologies to produce some materials which can help people to learn things. In that sense, ‘e-learning’ is only one form of communication and the technologies that it employs can be used for any other form of electronically-delivered communication.

 

However, where does this argument stop? At what point does ‘e-learning’ become advertising and at what point does it progress to become ‘propaganda’? Could this be a slippery and dangerous slope for both the unprincipled commissioner of such materials and their naïve recipient? One thing seems certain: once e-learning stops being e-learning, who knows where it will all end?