Over the next eight weeks, hundreds of thousands of college-age students will start to look ahead to the summer months, and for many, this means finding a rewarding internship. From paid internships in the finance, technology and engineering fields to unpaid gigs running errands for independent filmmakers, college-age students crave meaningful work-related opportunities and with good reason. Getting a full-time job upon graduation increasingly is contingent on having already completed one or more Continue reading →

There is now a growing movement to offer high school programs in 100% or nearly 100% online formats. While this may sound like a bad idea, for many students, the format is highly appealing to teens but also holds the potential to support parents’ lifestyles too. First, today, most teens are already tech savvy, spend many hours online, and consider virtual friendships just as important as face-to-face ones. Second, for families on the move–and in a global economy, a growing number of families do cross borders on a regular basis–the development of robust virtual programs means that their children can now attend the same high school wherever their work takes them in the world. But how does a virtual high school work? Continue reading →

Over the past week, thousands of college-age students have returned to campuses across the United States. Over the next eight months, many of these students—those who are seniors—will go on the job market for the first time. A small percentage of these students will end the school year with a desirable job offer in hand. Many more will be about to embark on the first of one or more internships that may or may not pay anything at all and may or may not eventually lead to a job. Unfortunately, many more of today’s college and university seniors will find themselves working as a barista or living in their parents’ basement and wondering if they should simply return to school to up their chances of finding a job in the future. While there are many reasons that college and university educated but inexperienced candidates do not land full-time jobs straight out off the graduation runway, there is Continue reading →

In the late 1990s, colleges and universities across the United States, started to purchase subscriptions to learning management systems, such as Blackboard. At the time, the idea that an instructor might be able to post course outlines, assignments and articles online in a “virtual classroom” and even facilitate online dialogues was transformative. What few colleges and universities anticipated at the time was the extent to which user experience or UX would change over the coming decade and how quickly these early learning management systems would become dated.

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We expect a lot from our organizational leaders these days, from creating a compelling vision that employees can latch onto and accurately assessing the economic landscape to setting organizational culture and performance expectations. If all of that has happened at your organization, don’t think you can sit back and take it easy. Evidence is mounting that another key role leaders need to play is that of teacher, but not in the traditional sense you may be thinking. Continue reading →

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have generated a lot of support, as the potential to educate enormous numbers of people at once appears to satisfy the popular notion that better education throughout the world can improve the lives of many. The development of MOOCs is particularly exciting in an era where the teacher to student ratio has increased to where there are now often courses with one instructor for hundreds of students. MOOCs allow an almost limitless numbers of students to view the instruction of the highest quality professors from top education institutions while also providing means for interacting with other like-minded students from across the globe. Continue reading →

Some argue that great leaders are born. Others, however, say that education and training can shape and form individuals into great leaders. No matter which side of the argument you sit on, one thing holds true. Effective leaders all share five primary characteristics. Draw inspiration from these five characteristics to create effective leaders of tomorrow or to be one of the effective leaders of the future. Continue reading →

According to The Corporate Learning Factbook 2013: Benchmarks, Trends, and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market, companies spent an average of 12% more for training in 2012, including online training, than in previous years. One of the biggest portions of spending on online training included some form of social learning, such as using Facebook or other social networks, the Internet or an Intranet system to train employees, managers and supervisors. Continue reading →