E-learning in emergency situations

People have been trained in emergency situations for many years now. However e-learning is a new tool in comparison. What can e-learning bring to the table over other methods and is it really any more effective or just a sounds a lights show?

Earlier I linked you to a press release about a Canadian company CSA standards who is a clear proponent of e-learning for emergency situations. (http://smr.newswire.ca/en/csa-standards/saving-lives-and-building-bonds-emergency-ready-communities)

A paper from the journal of Minevra anestesiologica on E-learning as a tool in emergency and disaster medicine teaching provides a compelling argument for its use.

E-learning is a new project for education based on the adoption of new computerised, multimedia and telematic technologies. Its application has deeply changed the concept of a teacher-based teaching to a student-centred educational project. It offers a great flexibility in the educational methodology, in the administration of contents, in the synchronous and/or asynchronous interaction between teachers and students, in the organisation and in the structure of the course, in the educational plans, in the support, the tracking and the evaluation of the student. E-learning could represent a great resource and a possible revolution in the concept of education and in the field of medical education as well. In some specific fields of application, as Emergency and Disaster Medicine, where the interaction between the student, the teacher and the patient, even if of great importance, are difficult to obtain in a quiet setting and have a lot of organizing, technical and economic troubles, e-learning approach could find a fertile field of application. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7903539_E-learning_as_educational_tool_in_emergency_and_disaster_medicine_teaching)

I scoured the web looking for some arguments against e-learning and came across some lecture notes from of all places - The Institute for Software Engineering and Interactive Systems, Vienna University of Technology. The lecture itself was not against e-learning, in fact it was for e-learning however contained a section posing the other side of the argument. (http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw02/papers/refereed/kohle/paper.html)

There were some generally weak points such as "one needs to learn how to use a computer before one can utilize e-learning". However there was one interesting point made; that e-learning is still generally new and experimental. What this leads to however is inevitably an experiment at the students expense.

I have not heard of any disasters arising from a poor e-learning module to date however a wakeup call may be around the corner - perhaps not. It is important to remember the huge difference e-learning can make on even simple issues of subject matter.

I recall clearly my frustration as an e-learning teacher trying to engage students over webcam about experiments which traditionally were done in person with the facilitator. Or my inability to go on an excursion with students to a marine park or bush work etc. for biology lessons. They had all the technology in the world and the Internet at their fingertips but that was just it. It was at their fingertips but in reality they were still chained to their desk.

E-learning is an invaluable option to have when designing learning however it should not automatically be seen as a substitute. We did not spend the last million plus years evolving to learn through e-learning after all.

Things to look out for...

Greetings bloogers, 

I'm off to Melbourne for the weekend so I'm going to cheat and steal someone else's comments to keep you going until I get back next week. Then I'll take a more in depth look into emergency situations and e-learning.

Until then Alan Collins has some interesting views on key issues any HR practitioner should be keep an eye on over the next two years.

1. Generational Shifts. As more baby boomers defer retirements because of the recession, there will be huge human resources opportunities to address generational issues at work. We'll see more HR best practice innovations in benefits like elder care, pet care, concierge services, paid time off and flextime. With companies competing for top talent, HR folks will need to come up with these and other newer benefits to meet the diverse generational needs of the millennials, Gen Xs, Gen Ys and others they want to attract and keep.

2. Technology Innovations. This is an especially hot area. Enterprise-wide platforms like SAP and PeopleSoft that standardizes HR work will continue to evolve. So will the use of social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in recruiting and the use of virtual teams of employees who communicate through video-conferencing, e-mail, and text messaging. Online technologies that allow more work to be done without much face-to-face interaction will also grow by leaps and bounds in the future. And, HR professionals will need to stay on the leading edge of these new human resources opportunities.

3. Changes in the Aftermath of the Recession. I believe we'll also see, as a result of the financial banking crisis, HR stepping up and playing a stronger internal role in the regulation of issues such as fairness in the workplace, executive pay, 401k's, and ethics. Or at least, I hope so. No one wants their company to be the next AIG.

Obviously, I'm not a psychic. But I believe these three areas represent hot human resources opportunities the will require strong leadership from the HR profession.

Alan Collins
Author, "Unwritten HR Rules - 21
Secrets For Attaining AwesomeCareer Success in HR"
http://www.SuccessinHR.com

Now it should be mentioned like most things taken from the LinkedIn discussion boards, it is American. So before you jump on the website and order the book takenote that some of his points are based for an American business market.

Corporate Sustainability pt 2: The individual

In what can likely described as a landmark case in UK discrimination law, Tim Nicholson has successfully won an appeal against being fired on his views about climate change.

Tim and his lawyer, Shah Qureshi appeared on the Law Report recently in what was a fascinating conversation into the fringes of discrimination law definitions.

Tim Nicholson: Mine is not a faith-based or a spiritual-based belief, it is grounded in the overwhelming scientific evidence and it's the combination of that scientific evidence with the moral and ethical imperatives to do something about it, that is distinct from a religion.

Shah Qureshi: Tom was the head of sustainability at one of the largest property development companies in the UK, Grainger PLC, and he's employed to help them with their environmental policy on such issues as climate change, and he's a person who takes a political stance on the environment and climate change, and leads his life according to those principles. And what's happened is that he raised a number of issues for example, an issue about the chief executive flying someone out to take his Blackberry to him in Ireland because he'd forgotten it, and he raised issues about carbon footprints, gas-guzzling cars and that sort of thing. He says as a result of that he was pushed out. The company say that he was made redundant, and he issued proceedings in the Employment Tribunal in the UK, and one of the things that he raised was that he'd been discriminated against on the basis of his religion or belief and there are regulations making that unlawful. And he's just won a case in the Appeals stage, confirming that his views are covered by the UK discrimination law. (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2009/2748370.htm#transcript)

Does this open the floodgates and should recruiters run for the hills when a climate change activist sends in a resume? I think not. Tim still needed to pass a number of legal tests to get to where he is now. Firstly he had to show that his beliefs in climate change were a key part in shaping his life - essentially it was not a simple opinion but a heat felt belief. Tim would rarely travel by car, refuse to fly, eco-renovated his home and eats locally farmed produce.

Secondly it needs to be proved that Tim was dismissed because of his views; and that if he was dismissed for his views that they were not interfering with his ability to carry out the inherent requirements of the job. Seeing as Tim was head of sustainability it would be highly unlikely that being a climate change activist would be detrimental to his job.

The company claims Tim was made redundant as his role could be covered through his duties being subsumed within other posts. Either way watch this space as it may very well have implications for Australian HR professionals, especially since climate change is a hot topic here to say for the next few decades at least.

For more information, a good place to start is the actual Law Report interview, broadcast 24th November 2009 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2009/2748370.htm#transcript

E-learning in emergency situations (coming soon)

I just had an interesting chat with the Master of a Teekay shipping vessel on e-learning and some of its limitations verses face to face learning especially in emergency situations.

Don't worry, I will expand on the personal side of corporate sustainability soon as promised last post but if you want to share any preliminary ideas or experiences on e-learning now we can expand on them in a future post.

For some food for thought: 

CSA standards, a Canadian based company is a clear proponent of e-learning for emergency situations and has just launched a new program attempting to tackle this very issue.

Canada alone experiences as many as 315,000 reported time-loss injuries and 1,055 workplace fatalities in a year1. CSA’s new tools for business are designed to enhance the abilities of employers, employees, students and consumers to prepare for threats and emergencies of all sizes, by giving them the ability to experience them in realistic virtual scenarios – before they happen in real life.

“To reduce injuries, workplace training must teach best safety practices and change behaviour,” says Suzanne Kiraly, President, CSA Standards. “These new interactive modules go well beyond the simple transfer of knowledge and engage users in making decisions in the workplace that are linked to real-world standards and safety guidelines. From handling hazardous materials to assessing risks to prevent major disasters, preparing workforces with safety and emergency response skills in a virtual environment could mean the difference between life and death on the job.” (http://smr.newswire.ca/en/csa-standards/saving-lives-and-building-bonds-emergency-ready-communities)

As i've always argued, its very easy to do bad e-learning. However if you get right; there is a whole range of new and 'exotic' tools to engage learners with.

Corporate Sustainability

In light of the Daily Telegraph's three part series into climate change and Copenhagen upon us I thought it could be fun to kick things off with a look into corporate sustainability; ethics and change management.

Sustainability often conjures up the theme of sacrifice. Something must be sacrificed for the greater good. The irony that Tony Fry mentions is that what we are ultimately trying to sustain is unsustainable, that is sustaining our current lifestyles.

We're at a watershed. The future of humanity as we understand it is really before a choice which says do we change direction or do we try to maintain what we already have?

Now the question in terms of sustainability and sustainable development, to a large extent kind of reduces to the proposition of sustaining what we already have, sustaining in a sense, the unsustainable. (Fry, T. Innovation Cities, radio broadcast, Future Tense, ABC Radio National, Sydney, 20th August. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2009/2656432.htm) 

I wont go into the technicalities of climate change as this is not a science blog, however the concept of sacrificing on altruistic terms is an interesting one when viewed in the light of capitalist organisations. Sacrificing on monetary terms is easy to comprehend and essentially easier to justify as there is no personal value attached to a dollar or number. What about sacrificing values however?


In my final year of university I investigated big for profits partnering with Environmental NGO's looking at both the possibilities and complications arising from such a event. I came across a successful partnership between Greenpeace and npower. To the open disapproval of the World Wildlife Fund, npower's father company, RWE dealt with coal and nuclear power. Regardless of this Greenpeace went ahead and developed windfarms with npower. The result was a green customer base which grew from 5,000 to 50,000 in 5 years. (Webb, T. 2005, Does it pay to get into bed with business?, The Guardian, Viewed 1st October 2009, http://www.spinwatch.org.uk/-news-by-category-mainmenu-9/173-pr-industry/724-does-it-pay-to-get-into-bed-with-business)


Essentially the conclusion I came to was this:

...Environmental NGO’s may need to lower their ethical standards and step of their high horse in order to actually drive change in the corporations their targeting. What this ultimately means is associations and partnerships with the processes, products and models in big business that initially go against the NGO’s standards of practice. However the partnership itself is used to place the NGO in the strategic position to drive real change, internally as opposed to relying on external influences. (Braithwaite 2009)

I confess there can be a number of counter arguments to this statement. Firstly it is arguably a utilitarian point of view; the means justifies the end essentially. Secondly, it in a sense oversimplifies the the issue of challenging ethical standards as it suggests the breaking of them to be a black and white issue.  Was Greenpeace really lowering its ethical standards when its end goal was to produce windfarms? For a similar analogy. Is the environmental activist lowering their standards when they have to fly across country to give a keynote address possibly affecting hundreds?


I'll leave you with this food for thought and in my next blog attempt to look at this issue on a more personal level, within the workplace, between people rather than the clash of two organisations.

The birth of a new blog

Hello world, I have decided to begin my own professional blog. 


It seems somewhat appropriate to quote the blog's description:

A professional blog evolving from my work, research, ideas and experience gained while completing my Bachelor of Arts in Organisational Learning. 

From games and simulations to change management and everything in between; this blog will encompass many of the exciting new developments in Human Resources / Organisational Development today.

Being the first post, this blog is still obviously in its infancy. Expect numerous layout changes over the coming weeks and perhaps direction changes over the coming months. Either way rest assured the blog will always remain a place of academic and professional discussion.

In the mean time as this blog gets of the ground and finds its feet, feel free to check out one of my professional pages:

Professional Page: http://mycareer-headhunter.com.au/people/JBraithwaite
LinkedIn Page: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jbraithwaite