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