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The TrainingZONE LearningWIRE - Issue 33
1 February 1999
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk
The Learning Community
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Copyright (C) 1999 Sift plc. All rights reserved.
This material is distributed free to trainers, learners, managers and
coaches. It may be reproduced in any medium for
non-commercial purposes as long as attribution is given.
Editor's Note
=============
This week we seemed to have found a strong seam of resource materials for
trainers and managers around different websites. You'll find links to many
of these practical resources in the Internet Monitor section of this digest.
As always, this is just a sample of what we've put on the TrainingZone site
in the last few days. Do please keep sending me your news, postings,
sightings and press releases. We're also looking to recruit some topic
experts in the Training, Learning and Organisational Development fields, so
if you'd like to contribute, look for the note below.
Tim Pickles,
Editor, LearningWIRE and TrainingZONE
mailto:tpickles@trainingzone.co.uk
Request for Topic Experts
=========================
Sift is putting a series of topic experts in place to provide content for
its professional communities. Many of these experts are individuals with
particular sector expertise. We are interested to hear from trainers,
consultants, development staff, publishers and anyone else that is
interested in exploring the possibility of providing by-lined content on a
regular basis for TrainingZone (or our other communities - AccountingWeb
and BusinessZone). If you are interested in this, or know someone who
might be suitable, get in contact with Ben Heald
(mailto:ben.heald@sift.co.uk)
INTERNET MONITOR
================
Icebreakers
-----------
Looking for some fresh ideas about how to open sessions and get people
engaged. Don Clark has updated his amazingly varied Big Dog's Human
Resources site to include some new icebreaker activities for anyone to try
out
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2813&d=1
Evaluation toolbox
------------------
Whilst on the subject of online practical resources, we've come across a
great resource page containing a host of evaluation instruments designed to
help you monitor and check the effectiveness of your training events. Each
tool is provided with full instructions, an on-page illustration, and a
download facility in both ClarisWorks and Word. Many of these instruments
are equally adaptable for other forms of project evaluation with a little
creative thinking.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2840&d=1
Donald Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation
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And for a discussion about some of the more well-established methods of
evaluating programmes and plenty of references to the respected work of
Kirkpatrick why not check out this part of the American Society for
Training and Development site. Throughout this week, there has also been a
chat forum on the site promoting the sharing of ideas and experiences about
these approaches to evaluation.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2838&d=1
BBC Online tops the pops
------------------------
The BBC's website, BBC Online is the second most popular site
among UK internet users. A survey published by business research
group, Fletcher research, showed that in terms of audience
"reach", the BBC came second only to Yahoo! and was well ahead of the third
most popular site, Lycos. It is interesting because
nearly all the sites which came in the top ten, apart from the
Beeb, were directory services or search engines. The other
notable exception, Microsoft's UK site only managed to come in at number
seven.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2836&d=1
Achieving excellence through performance
----------------------------------------
A thoughtful paper from Don Clark which relates to performance management
and the role of coaching, with some useful links to other sites.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2814&d=1
What makes great groups?
------------------------
15 take-home lessons on what creates top performance in major organisations
- as seen by Warren Bennis in his new book 'In Organising Genius'. It
might be American, but try getting your head around some of these ideas.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2854&d=1
Enterprise Training and Re-engineering
--------------------------------------
And if you want to be prepared for some more buzz words about to cross the
pond to Europe, you'd be well advised to read this feature article in the
latest issue of Training Magazine from the TrainingSuperSite. It contains
plenty of ideas on organisational learning - but asks whether there's
anything really new in this language.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2855&d=1
Work experience survey
----------------------
The Training Village community site is asking 'Should a training scheme
include work experience abroad?' You can vote in their electronic opinion
poll and express your opinion at the site
http://www.trainingvillage.gr
Mac the Knife
-------------
Apple's website has an ad featuring HAL, the murderous talking computer
from 2001: A Space Odyssey. According to contrite HAL, the problem "wasn't
our fault. The human programmers never taught us to recognise the year
2,000 ... it was a bug, Dave. I feel much better admitting that now." But
HAL soon reverts to type: "Only Macintosh was designed to function
perfectly saving billions of monetary units. You like your Macintosh
better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?"
Oddly, the website makes no mention that HAL is a one-letter shift from IBM.
http://www.apple.com
[From Zeitgeist, Weekend Guardian]
TRAINING-RELATED NEWS
=====================
BT and BBC to produce new training videos
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BBC for Business has chosen the BT Talking Training service
http://www.talkingtraining.bt.com
as the launch platform for a new series of 'fly on the wall' training
videos aimed at the small business market. Talking Training is the
training directory and bookings service established last year by BT and
reviewed previously in LearningWire. For more information, see:
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2836&d=1
Bug buster training declared a success
--------------------------------------
The Prime Minister has declared that the 'Bug buster' training
courses launched last March have been a success. Despite a slow
start, increasing numbers of businesses are now coming forward to be
assessed and trained to deal with the potential Year 2000 bug problems.
The training course, for which the Government had set aside 26
million pounds, provides free training advice to businesses with
less than 250 employees. The latest training figures show 8,916
small and medium-sized businesses have started Bug buster
courses, of which 7,209 have been completed and a further 9,011
are booked.
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2851&d=1
Parenthood Education Microsite news
===================================
Microsite at http://www.parenthood.org.uk
American site for all things sweet and parenty
----------------------------------------------
This American Parenting Network site appears to be maintained by a couple
of parents who are just interested in promoting good parenting. Its a
little twee in places for the average cynical Brit, but theres a place for
Magnificent Moms Awards on my shelf! Some wholesome advice is mixed with
sharp observations and just-too-sweet platitudes like How kids spell love
- T-I-M-E. Visit and see if its worth getting students to appraise the
site - ask what the differences are between American and British parenting.
Do the American soaps give any clue?
http://www.theparentingnetwork.com/
EVENTS DIARY
============
Our online events pages are now ready to be made live. All we need is your
input. So if you have conferences, seminars, courses or events which you
would like to let our readers know about, do get in touch. Posting your
information to TrainingZone brings it to the attention of a highly focused
group of people interested in training, learning and staff developmentt.
And for all you potential participants at such events, keep watching the
site and we will tell you when the pages go live.
Forthoming courses on creative thinking
---------------------------------------
A selection of forthcoming short courses in March from Illumine include the
following topics:-
- Speed Reading and Memory
- Realising Personal Potential
- Mind Mapping for Businesses
- De Bono's Six Thinking Hats
- Do Bono's Lateral Thinking
Further information from: mailto:illumine@msn.com
http://www.illumine.co.uk
Personal development workshops
------------------------------
Two day events organised by Passport, one for women only, and one with open
access are taking place in Derbyshire (March) and London (April)
http://www.passport.co.uk
GETTING INVOLVED IN '99
=======================
If you want to check through the back copies of LearningWire for items and
postings you may have missed, you can do so at
https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/news/digest.html
where there is a search engine for just this purpose.
If you'd like your material to appear in LearningWire, just send details by
email to the editor with details of any relevant web addresses where
possible.
About Sift
==========
Sift plc is a leading developer of online communities. Based in
Bristol, Sift has developed AccountingWEB for the accounting
sector, and BusinessZONE (for the SME market).
At the 1997 Online Information Exhibition at Olympia,
AccountingWEB was voted European Information Product of the
Year (and also runner up as Internet Product of 1997).
http://www.sift.co.uk
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Editor: Tim Pickles mailto:tpickles@trainingzone.co.uk
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