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Trust me...this hurts!
Having been slowed down, somewhat, this week after a painful cycling accident, I have found myself thinking about what learning opportunities and experiences this delivered. Here’s my summation:
- That great equipment does not, by itself, make one great. MTB’ers refer to this often and have an appropriate saying: “All the gear and no idea”.
- Even a small (18″) step, on a relatively gentle step, allows man and bike to build up considerable potential energy which, when converted to kinetic energy by virtue of man hitting floor, is plain for all to see.
- That when one has an appetite to try something new – to see what can be achieved one must balance the charging call of the heart with the analytical assessment of the mind.
- That positive statements and humor can combat panic and fear.
- That several years of top notch medical school training, intelligence, a genuinely friendly persona and a bunch of X-rays may still not ne enough to enable a new doctor to effectively communicate the nature of an injury or the way it will be treated to a patient and his family. Experience is often the most valuable asset of all.
- That a normal, healthy and mobile adult male can be reduced to a useless organic mass through only a partial incapacitation.
- That one’s circle of family and friends is wider and more concerned than one would normally imagine.
- That it is possible to learn more about one’s injury, the parts of the body affected, the degree of damage, the possible courses of treatment and even the extent of the debate amongst medical professionals as to how aggressive such treatment should be ….in less than 1 minute thanks to the Internet and the choice selection of a few key words.
- That a motivated (and experienced) friend can assess your injury via a scanned X-ray that you placed on Facebook and proffer a clear and easy to understand explanation in 3 sentences….unlike the well-meaning professionals in the A&E ward.
- That NHS hospitals are run on a constant state of emergency, where the staff are focused on ‘fire fighting’ coping strategies just to stay still.
- That it can be incredibly frustrating not to be able to type at >10% of one’s normal speed, with one hand…the wrong one and that it is surprisingly difficult to perform normal everyday tasks with your “wrong hand”….like brushing your own teeth.
- That it is almost impossible to escape from a bath when you have one damaged shoulder….and that it is still embarrassing for a 39 year old man when his mum sees him undressed as a result.
- That there is no telling one’s pet cats that you cannot be as attentive as usual when you are somewhat battered & bruised.
- That a 5ml shot of morphine can induce a significantly improved disposition very quickly and that the natural rush of adrenaline post-accident runs out after about 10 minutes.
- That the TV remote control is your best friend when you are incapacitated…and that misplacing it can be the most annoying thing on the earth.
- That it is literally possible to not be able to get out of bed in the morning…when your skeletal system fails to operate properly.
- That you are not as an essential part of the company team as you imagined and that your colleagues are more than able to carry on if you let them and if they believe in themselves.
- That all the stresses and ‘disasters’ of working hours pale into insignificance when your health, well-being and family fortunes come under threat.
Not sure what qualification/curricula these ‘learnings’ slot into but I’d wager it is delivered in the University Of Life.
It seems that all of a sudden the established players in the eLearning world are waking up to learning 2.0. The question, though, is do they really understand it and are they truly serious….or are they simply jumping on the bandwagon after seeing the success of much more innovative and smaller companies around the world.
SABA have a free whitepaper available entitled “Learning 2.0: Using Web 2.0 to Create Effective Informal Learning.” You can get it for free by registering at the following URL (albeit you may have to pretend that you really want to buy a new LMS!:
http://www.saba.com/offers/20080804_web20_whitepaper_uk_webcast/reg_getinfo.htm
Overview (from SABA web site):
“While the size of the workforce is declining in North America, Europe, and Japan, the span of generations within the workforce is increasing. For the first time we have five different generations working together. Each generation is made up of a group of people who were born at approximately the same time and considered as a group having shared interests and attitudes. Therefore, the people collaborating and competing with each other in the newly flat world are multi-dimensional and these various dimensions must be accounted for in order to maximize individual and organizational performance.”
Don’t miss these key takeaways!
- Create a blended informal and formal learning model to meet the needs of today’s multigenerational workforce
- Understand the use of Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs, video capturing and editing applications, and virtual worlds for informal learning purposes
- Use technology for just-in-time information, accelerated time to competency, extended global reach and increased resource productivity
I took part in a panel session at the Apply Serious Games 08 event in London last week. One of my co-panelists was Paul Miller of The School of Everything. I’d not previously heard of these guys but was dead impressed by the elegant simplicity of their business.
In essence ‘Everything’ act as a brokerage between people who want to learn (anything) and people who are able to teach (something). To quote from their web site:
“Our goal is to do for education what YouTube has done for television, or what eBay did for retail: to open up a huge and fertile space between the professional and the amateur. A space where people teach what they know and learn what they don’t.”
Read more at: http://www.schoolofeverything.com/about/vision
For a very simple explantion view the image below.

An Idiot's Guide to Everything
Here is a post I can literally copy & paste from the source which, as it is early and my caffiene levels are still low, requires no effort on my part 🙂
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After two and a half years, Global Kids is delighted to release the results of the independent evaluation by the Center for Children and Technology of both Playing 4 Keeps, our after school gaming program, and Ayiti, the game produced with Gamelab during the first year of the program. For the evaluation CCT observed the program and interviewed the students. To evaluate the game they looked at the results of nearly 16,000 game plays.
Download the full report here:
In short, when we made Ayiti we wanted to learn if players would learn if the factors affecting access to education within an impoverished condition are both interdependent and exist within a dynamic system. CCT’s research found that “the central idea embedded in the game play, that no single factor accounts for success, appears to have been successfully communicated to the majority of players.”
Bingo!
In addition, they describe how youth report that through their participation in the after school program their experiences involved:
* Engaging in activities that require useful life skills related to communication and collaboration;
* Learning about social issues;
* Realizing what goes into designing and creating a good game; and
* Gaining general computers skills.
A gaming program that improves the lives of its participants and creates a game that has a measurable affect on the critical thinking of its players AND is an award-winning, engaging experience – nice!
Source: seriousgames.org email listserv