Citation
(2006), "Whats on the web", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 20 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2006.08120eag.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Whats on the web
www.qia.org.ukwww.lsneducation.org.uk
As readers will be aware, the Learning and Skills Development Agency has now been split into two separate organizations – the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) and the Learning and Skills Network (LSN). QIA set up by government to raise the quality of education and learning through a policy and strategic and LSN has become an independent not-for-profit organization providing services to organizations that fund, manage and provide education.
The QIA site explains the role of the organization and will, we assume, change in time. There is a full set of programs including e-learning and supporting skills to assist in improving education. An interesting aspect is the Learning Exchange, a web portal, which has been developed to share good practice. The first phase is planned in June 2006. The site is well set out and focused.
The LSN site is also well set out and easy to use. It explains the work program for the organization of producing publications, delivering events, products and resources, developmental projects, support through consultancy and networking. The publication section gives access to practical advice and thought provoking articles.
It would be worth keeping an eye on these sites to see how they progress.
Social learning
The Learning Development Institute is a not-for-profit organization based in Delaware, USA. The institute sees learning as a crucial dimension of sustainable development, as being a social essential, and that individuals need to have a variety of learning communities surrounding them. With a spiritual focus, the institute’s mission is to be a “transdisciplinary networked learning community devoted to excellence in the development and study of learning”. Crikey! The institute promotes learning. However, the site does not entice us to read let alone learn.
Too unlimited?
The company, You Unlimited, offers know-how, tools and techniques to organizations to get exceptional results on people performance with a range of development programs and coaching. What is interesting is the range of comments and scoring given by participants to each program on offer.
The company also offers a free trial but warns you that most organizations who have taken up this offer go on using the company again and again! They continue with the comment that you should check with the person who pays the bill before continuing! A fun, bright, site that might have the tools you are looking for.
Professional learning
www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/lrnanddev
Whilst we have been here before, there is much to see that is new. The CIPD site provides some great background material including much on the shift from training to learning and the various types of learning material. Practical advice is also available with fact-sheets including a listing of the various learning techniques available and learning styles. Although some of the articles and publications are restricted to CIPD members there is still a vast amount of useful information on offer to non-members.
And finally
Some more good one-liners:
Knowledge is proud she knows so much; wisdom is humble that she knows no more (Cowper).
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did (Mark Twain).
We can’t always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future (F.D. Roosevelt).
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas (George Bernard Shaw).
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80 (Henry Ford).
Contact us
For a particularly interesting and useful site you could always try our own! And if you have any favorite (or otherwise) sites that you would like us to review on these pages, please drop us an e-mail and we will submit them to our usual rigorous analysis.