The smartphone has been around for about a dozen years, and so many people have become overly dependent on one. In fact, it's likely your smartphone holds a lot of the information that your brain used to. You rely on your smartphone for information you can't recall or skills you've lost, such as important phone numbers, your passwords, definitions and spelling of words, your current bank balance, directions to a restaurant, a calculation of the tip for that restaurant’s wait staff, and so on. And after you’ve checked the smartphone for that data, you'll usually just forget it again. Why bother keeping it in your brain? Whatever information you need is just a swipe and a few taps away! The sm
If you're thinking for the first time about working with an outside curriculum development company to help you build an online or in-person training program, you may feel lost without a clear direction to start moving. But have no fear! In this series of blog posts, we're outlining what it takes on your part by breaking it down into five simple steps. This is the fifth post. Our first post gave a high-level overview of all the steps. The second post focused on getting your curriculum and/or source material together. The third post helped you focus on the scope of the training. And the fourth post covered what the user experience is and how the training looks and feels to learners. If you hav
“Show me how to prune this tree.” “Teach me how to prune trees.” I would suggest that these statements are fundamentally different and, I suspect that for most people, they evoke different expectations. But we often confuse them and don’t stop to consider the difference. If I show you how to prune a particular tree, you may be able to prune that tree and possibly other trees that have similar characteristics. But you won’t necessarily be prepared to prune trees that are much older or younger, structurally different, diseased or damaged, in different growing seasons, and so on. And just by watching me “show” you, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can do it competently by yourself. The differenc
