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Welcome to the Learning Pages! The intent of this WordPress space is to communicate both the capabilities of this tool, and to use the tool as a medium for communicating my background, philosophy, “creds,” and vision to colleagues, friends, interested parties. I invite comments!!

I also maintain BCC’s CTL blog – please check it out!

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The Road Taken #2

Back in the late 1980s – early 1990s, I worked in the high tech industry. This was in the waning days of the Massachusetts Miracle (hmm, could Mass use a miracle now!), when the VAX reigned supreme. I was involved in a company producing computer memory — Moore’s law will tell you that the memory setup of a VAX back then was laughable in today’s terms, but computers were hungry for ever more memory even back then.

My job was to set up distribution for the products across Asia. These were the heady days of development in the region – double-digit growth everywhere. I saw Jakarta and Bangkok as massive high-rise construction sites; environmental consequences of development in Taiwan; the rise of Southern Chinese manufacturing might; Japan’s dominance; Australia’s play in the Pac Rim world; months in Singapore and understanding another fundamentally different view of society and business (such as being invited to a new office opening at 5:12AM – the proper time on that day according to divination!); the early hints of India’s juggernaut… it was wonderful to see.

It was unusual in that time to see a woman given a management role in Asia business; but I was surprisingly well-accepted. Call it the novelty factor rather than my great skill (ok, well maybe I did have some skill; I was definitely persistent).

Cross-cultural learning is so vitally important to understanding first, culture itself; and second, the impact of one’s native culture on perception. Also, gives one perspective on what is “right” and “proper” in one context and how it can be just the opposite in another. I hope I can carry those lessons forward and transmit them in my Business Communications class this Fall!

Real time versus Batch time

So, finally someone has put words to what has been happening to us all, and particularly to college students: we are moving to a “real-time” connected world from a “batch” connected world (by “connected,” I mean electronically through Internet and cell phone: oh, yeah “mobile devices”).

What does it mean? Think of a stock trader who is constantly monitoring trades — that’s real time. Now think of being in an (endless) series of meetings, then coming back to your office and checking your email — that’s batch time. Now, when  (traditional age college, but not just) students come into class, they are used to operating in a real-time world of instant feedback on cell, Facebook, Internet –  whereas, to protect our productivity (and sanity), we instructors  tend to operate in batch mode. Make sense?

It’s a bit daunting to envision an “always connected” world, and thus we need new approaches and skills to mediate the need for “off” time=sanity and the press of a real-time world. OR, can we be sane and develop filters and strategies for coping and succeeding in the real-time world? Any ideas? Feel free to leave a comment!

Adieu to edschein.com

I have just stopped maintaining the website www.edschein.com. This is a timely simplification and refocusing of effort — its purpose had been served over the past 8 or so years. Anyone who is interested in Ed Schein’s work can find info on wikipedia, and through numerous titles available on Amazon. On to newer projects!

Does Google Wave Mean the End of the LMS?

I don’t think it’s the end of the LMS, but for a hybrid course with exams on-campus and the instructor’s manual gradebook, it might be an alternative worth exploring…

Does Google Wave Mean the End of the LMS?

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