Friday 29 February 2008

E-learning reaches out to Soft-Skills students

An article from: Talkibie

- February 19th, 2008
- Haley January Eckels

Businesses have increasingly turned to online training methods in recent years, using technology as a way to better serve the needs of their employees’ professional development. This is especially true for those employees who need help with “hard skills,” such as computer training, operating machinery, or safety standards. Now, HR departments are starting to look to e-learning as a means of teaching “soft skills” or “people skills,” like communication, conflict resolution, management techniques, teamwork, and foreign language. This trend is still in its infancy, and some business are scratching their heads and asking, “Can you really learn people skills online?”

Employers are turning to e-learning to ensure that younger workers are developing the soft skills they need as they take over the work force. Baby boomers are slated to retire soon, and companies are worried that their experience and knowledge will go with them. Younger workers are accustomed to using computers, cell phones, and social networking websites in their everyday activities, and e-learning advocates hope that these two groups can be linked through online mentoring and training programs.

U.S. Bancorp has begun using a software package called Open Mentoring which connects workers across the organization for personalized training and mentoring services. Open Mentoring matches up employees based on demographic and competency information, and helps them connect through phone calls, online chats, and forums. The strategy may help preserve some of the organizational knowledge and memory that would otherwise be lost when experienced employees retire.

Employers are also using e-learning technologies to improve the language skills of their increasingly diverse workforces. Many companies who use an outsourcing employment model or who operate overseas are finding it increasingly important to provide language training to employees at locations all over the world. E-learning tools can help make that experience uniform and ensure the quality of teaching is the same across the company. One leader in this market is GlobalEnglish, which boasts clients such as Reuters, Mitsubishi, Nestle, General Motors, Canon, and Hilton International. They offer customized programs which will allow for specific problems or challenges to be addressed depending on the native language of the employee.

Online training has also come in handy for companies who need to give seminars on ethics or sexual harassment laws. During my tenure at a major publishing company with thousands of employees worldwide, we were required to participate in a web-based sexual harassment course. The 60-minute interactive class included a pretest, videos of real-life scenarios, test questions, and follow-up material that could be printed. Rather than attending a crowded meeting with a frustrated HR rep trying to shout over the chatter of bored employees, we were able to complete the training on our own schedule without the distractions of our immature coworkers.

So how do we know if online training is appropriate or effective for soft skills development? Many organizations are attempting to answer the same question. A number of online training models include follow-up meetings and sessions to allow trainees to interact and test their knowledge. This means that local HR reps have a chance to evaluate the effectiveness of the training, if only on an informal level. Metrics for soft skills learning are hard to define, but many programs use a survey/user satisfaction model to collect data and measure success. However, with the incorporation of more and more Web 2.0 tools into e-learning programs, people skills can indeed be exercised online. Between blogs, WIKI, social networking/bookmarking, and video sharing, employees really are able to communicate and learn in a group setting from the comfort of their cubes.

Enjoy,
Ana

Play & Learn @ Soft Skills.

One of the effective ways to grasp knowledge is an online simulation.
Get to know what are your soft skill capabilities in sales!

Enjoy,
Ana

Speed Reading and E-Learning


In this blog we are trying to give you the skills that will help you to develop your learning through e-learning concepts. One of the most important soft skills that will help in your development is the ability to read in a fast way.
I created a presentation about how to start reading in a fast way, what to do in order to reach great results.
And by this speed-reading will allow you to read more materials in the same time that you spend reading now.

You can download the presentation from here.

Enjoy fast reading and fast e-learning

Fadi

Thursday 28 February 2008

Soft skills & E-learning: A new revenue streams!


Recently I have visited many e-learning websites, and found that most of them offer variety of soft skills training courses!

Usually soft skills courses used to be taught traditionally face-to-face not online, as they involve a lot of oral communications and body language arts and tools. The question is what made a lot of big corporations and companies to accept to train their employees by courses offered online? Do e-learning really help increase the efficiency of teaching soft skills? If yes, is there any proof that can we present and rely on?

The answer is yes, yes, and yes! According to an independent study made by Development Dimensions International addressing this issue and implementing a full survey on it, they found back in 2002 that e-learning is contributing to more than 42% of the learned soft skills in the sample they drawn! Imagine how it should be right now in 2008! At the very same study, they have shown a bunch of detailed pros and cons of e-learning, and how they suggest overcoming the problems companies faced in order to get the maximum benefit of it.

Please try to go through this PDF file if you are interesting and take a quick look on it…it is very useful to know generally.
www.ddiworld.com/pdf/ddi_stateofe-learning_rr.pdf

My interest overall is to realize the size of the market that we are talking about, and the huge amounts of money that companies are willing to spend in order to get their employees capable and handling enough skills to carry out their jobs and their lives either. No one can deny the advantages of teaching courses online being cost-effective and cutting big efforts for all parties. Nevertheless, the new commented trend is that companies more than individuals are more willing to engage online training. That is why we see many companies surviving and end-up with more profits from online training courses that relates to soft skills such as http://www.balancelearning.co.uk/. and there where the money is.

Amjad Alqaisi

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Online-learning.com

I have done an analysis about www.online-learning.com which concern pure virtual play company which teach courses online as well as doing business with other companies and universities.
Please find the study results of that website on the following link.

http://ait.softskill.googlepages.com/E-Business.doc


Also please take time to fill our survey.









Regards,
Amjad

Oracle University as an e-learning website



Click here to take our Online Survey to evaluate Oracle University e-learning site



As a part of our study for the e-business course and since our blog theme is related to e- learning area, as a homework we had to do a study about an e-learning website Oracle University (http://education.oracle.com/).

You can download the file from here
Enjoy
Fadi
P.S Please take time to fill our survey



Click here to take our Online Survey to evaluate Oracle University e-learning site

E-learnig @ Latitude University

One of a classes i am attending at AIT (Athens Information Technology), is E-Business course.
Like all the courses, has its own project requirements.
This blog, by the way is initiated as an E-business project, where the team members had to define a topic to talk more in their blog. As a first homework our course professors involved us in finding a web site within the context or our blog (which is E-learning e-business area), and to elaborate in business models adopted by this website.
To accomplish this homework i referred to the "Latitude online University" "http://www.latitudeu.com". A report of the homework can be found here.

As an open training community, Latitude University, gives the possibility to everyone to share or gain knowledge. It brings together those with "teaching" skills to the knowledge seekers, and all this for free or at a low price fee.

@ LatitudeU, i found very interesting e-courses, talking about different aspects of "Soft Skill". I would recommend to the readers of this blog, to get and join LatitudeU, explore it and to benefit for its online course catalog, and please feel free to answer to the following questions:







Enjoy Folks!
Ana

Monday 18 February 2008

Managing a Busy Schedule

We are always rushing to meet deadlines, wasting time at meetings, answering important emails very late and always starting projects but never getting around to finishing them: We generally feel unproductive although we are extremely busy all day.

What we need to employ are time management skills. This process, just like any other, includes planning, monitoring and implementation steps.

I created a presentation that you can download and get benefit out of it on how to manage your time successfully. It’s a great soft skill that every body should have.

You can download the presentation from here

Enjoy

Fadi

Subscribe Now

Dears,
now you can subscribe directly to soft-skills to be updated once a new post created.

have fun
fadi

Thursday 14 February 2008

The Power of the Mind - Taking You to Another Dimension

pI received the following email from price water house about a confrance about the power of mind here in Greece and thought of sharing it.
“8 April 2008
Badminton Theatre

The main theme of the conference is the power of the human mind. As many of us have been told at some point in our careers, there is no barrier to what we can achieve if only we were to put our minds to it. During this event, we aim to show those of you developing or embarking upon your careers that your achievements are in your hands. Similarly, those of you who have already achieved a great deal, may be able to discover new avenues to even greater success both personally and professionally.

The speakers we have chosen for this event are here to inspire and empower you through their individual views on life, and prove to us all that ‘the power of the mind’ really is the one tool we all need to succeed.

Career Event: The Best Meet the Best
Following last year’s success, this year the Career Event will also take place within the framework of our corporate conference. Top companies will meet with top students within the conference venue and discuss their career potential.

PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 Scholars
During the conference we will be proud to announce the names of the students and professionals that will be awarded PwC Scholarships for 2008. This is part of our Corporate Social Responsibility programme, focussing on the young and talented people. Our objective is to contribute to bridging the gap between market demand and relevant education. This year we have increased the number of our scholarships to 16 (from 6 last year). Applicants must submit their credentials by February 28.

This conference is directed towards high-calibre professionals and young talented people, so whether you are an Executive or Student and interested in paricipating, please click on the links below to register. Participation is free of charge.
· Executive Registration Form
· Student Registration From

For more info check thier web site
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/ncevents.nsf/docid/B43FEFF622E7512C802573E100778CB1

Enjoy
fadi

Thursday 7 February 2008

Why Soft skills ?

Soft skills somehow is the ability to communicate effectively with co-workers, employers, clients, customers, friends and family members!

Soft skills is now recognised as key to making businesses more profitable and better places to work. Increasingly, companies aren't just assessing their current staff and future recruits on their business skills. They are now assessing them on a whole host of soft skill competencies around how well they relate and communicate to others.

Measuring these soft skills is no easy thing. But in the most progressive companies, managers are looking for people's ability to communicate clearly and openly, and to listen and respond empathetically. They also want them to have equally well-honed written skills so that their correspondence (including emails) doesn't undo all the good work their face-to-face communication creates.

Good soft skills also include the ability of people to balance the commercial needs of their company with the individual needs of their staff. Being flexible and able to adapt to the changing needs of an organisation also qualify as soft skills, as do being able to collaborate with others and influence situations through lateral and more creative thinking. The ability to deal with differences, multiculturalism and diversity is needed more than ever. Very few companies are untouched by the ever-widening influence of other cultures and good soft skills facilitate better communication and people's ability to manage differences effectively.

Everyone already has some form of soft skills (probably a lot more than others may realise) They just need to look at areas in their personal life where they get on with others, feel confident in the way they interact, can problem solve, are good at encouraging, can schmooze with the best of them. All these skills are soft and all of them are transferable to the workplace.

http://www.impactfactory.com

Tuesday 5 February 2008

A Definition of Soft Skills

Some of us might be cureous to realise what exactly soft skills is. We could say that soft skills refers to personality traits, social graces, facility with language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that mark people to varying degrees. Soft skills complement hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job. It can also be an important part of the success of an organization, especially if the organisation is dealing with customers face to face.

Some exaples of soft skills as showned by Wikipedia.
Personal Qualities:
  • responsibility,
  • self-esteem,
  • sociabilty,
  • self-management,
  • integrity/honesty.

Interpersonal Skills

  • Participates as a member of the Team
  • Teaches others
  • Serves Client / Customers
  • Exercises Leadership
  • Negotiates
  • Works with cultural diversity
Enjoy,
Panos

Personal Development!

Today as I was talking online to a very best friend of mine, I noticed his personal quote:

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay for a while and leave footprints in our hearts, minds and steps we walk. We're never the same"

These words make me think for the people I have encountered up so far, and how different I was going to be would be without having shared those experiences and moments.
As I interact with people, different situations, I slightly changed myself. Interests change in my life. I have found new goals to pursue, at professional or personal level.
Sometimes I am more self motivated and at other moments not.
What I try to do on my daily life is to improve myself
emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically.

This is what the term "Personal Development" or "Personal Growth" is all about. Each of us can give its own definition for it.
I was searching online to come up with a scientific definition for the term "Personal Development", and I found a very interesting video on this topic, by Jim Rohn.


Jim Rohn-Personal Development_1.

Jim Rohn-Personal Development_2

Enjoy folks!
Ana.

Monday 4 February 2008

Quote of the Day

Dears,
New section was added on the right, Quote of the day, It will be updated daily.

Enjoy
Fadi