Mobile Learning

M-learning, or "mobile learning", now commonly known as "m Learning" promises to be the next learning revolution. It means different things to different communities. Even though it seems to be close to E-Learning and distance education, the primary focus seems to be on learning across contexts with mobile devices.

It is gaining momentum. I always have been a great believer that the greatest discovery of the last century was the classroom and the school. Despite the limitations, we did not find a better way out. Now with the computer spearheading the E-Learning movement, m learning seems to be gaining momentum as the future. A common definition seems to be - "Learning that happens across locations, or that takes advantage of learning opportunities offered by portable technologies.”

I have extensively talked about collaborative learning in my blogs and Google Groups. M-Learning promises to support collaboration and looks like the Generation X is latching on to it.

The learning - knowledge and skills journey keeps getting very exciting.

More information - http://groups.google.com/group/FUNlearning

Deliberate acts of decencies

Organisations continue to worry about building a culture that supports performance and emotional intelligence. Academics call for the need for best practices. Practitioners propose models. Common sense people propose common practices. What are these? Steve Harrison writing in the HR magazine talks about examples of best practices that he calls as decencies.

Effective leaders use decencies to build great workforces one gesture at a time. You can mould a company culture by adopting small decencies. In my own experience, I have either experienced some of these decencies with the people who I worked for or tried them out. It is about the way leaders choose to behave - the actions leaders embrace - everyday, especially during the quite quiet moments when we think no one is watching. Some of the ten decencies suggested are:

	Be sure that nothing important or creative is perceived as the leader’s idea.
	Walk an employee or a customer to the door.
	Always greet people in a sincere way.
	Make as many allies as you can within the organisation all the time.
	Talk about disagreements in private personally and try to resolve them or at least agree to disagree.

They do not seem very difficult, do they?

Decencies need to be actionable, tangible, practical, affordable, replicable and sustainable.

For more details, please visit http://drpalan.blogspot.com

SMR Group news

Jim Kirkpatrick, our Vice President, SMR USA is very excited about the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Summit hosted by SMR USA and Training magazine. For more details, please email gaik@smrhrd.com.

Jim has also developed a pack of CD's on the topic 'Four Level Evaluation and Beyond' and a series of tele seminars on a wide range of interesting topics. For more details, please email sahiran@smrhrd.com.

August is a month when we catch our breath after a hectic Asia HRD Congress month.

September is again a busy month with the release of HRDPower R2, our web competency based Human Resource Development system.

We will also be launching out International Certificate in Training & Development in late 2007. For more details, please email lily@smrhrd.com.

Have a great month ahead. I will be in touch in October.