(From abcnews.com) Sigmund Freud thought dreams were a window into our unfulfilled sexual desires. But the dreams of video game players suggest they have a more practical role: helping us to learn new skills.

"It really looks like if you're not dreaming about it, you're not getting better," says Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School, who carried out one of the video game studies.

The studies don't prove that dreaming about games makes players better. But they strongly suggest that dreaming and learning are intertwined.

That sleep can help with learning and memory is well established. What's more, the more people dream during the light sleep characterised by rapid eye movements (REM), the better they recall memories. But whether the specific content of dreams plays a role in this sleep-learning process wasn't clear.

Read the entire article.

Tags: learning, cognition, research, psychology, gaming

Categories: News

The chief executive of New York-based Deloitte L.L.P., one of the nation’s largest accounting and consulting firms, said Wednesday that following through with plans to build a $300 million training facility during the worst recession in 50 years is actually "a bullish and smart move."

"Make no mistake, when this recession ends the war for talent will resume, and when it does, Deloitte University will be a big differentiator and powerful draw," CEO Barry Salzberg told the group at the groundbreaking for the firm’s training and conference facility in Westlake.

"It’s almost the perfect time for us to do this," he said. "The whole philosophy of building a learning and development facility like we’re doing is to make sure it’s embedded in our culture in good times or bad."

Read the full release.

Tags: training, recession, new economy, learning, development

Categories: News | The Economy

(From Knoxville Biz.com) Like scores of successful entrepreneurs, Kamilia Kozlowski built a business to fill what she saw as a void in the marketplace.

Her ability to fill that gap saved lives.

Kozlowski is marking her 26th year of detecting breast cancer by expanding the Knoxville Comprehensive Breast Center. The facility is nearly tripling its size and furthering Kozlowski's mission to stay on the forefront of breast health technology with a new 39,054-square-foot location in the Dowell Springs Business Park off Middlebrook Pike in West Knoxville.

The doctor is to be recognized as a breast health pioneer in a "Profiles Series" educational documentary on PBS, to air this fall.

When Kozlowski was doing her residency in the late 1970s, many doctors thought the best way to detect a breast tumor was to feel it, although mammography was gaining acceptance. More women were getting screened, but the mammograms were being analyzed by general radiologists - doctors who might be looking at an image of a breast lump one minute and a leg fracture the next.

Kozlowski saw this practice, still common today, as a problem. Breast scans are trickier to read than images of bones or organs, she says, and she knew most of her radiology peers hated analyzing mammograms. The breast's dense and fibrous tissue can easily appear abnormal when it's perfectly healthy or mask unhealthy lumps. And no woman's mammogram looks exactly like another's.

Read more.

Tags: entrepreneurship, innovation, learning, healthcare

Categories: News

Tags: rapid learning, training, federal government, learning

Categories: Government

Champaign, IL (PRWEB) October 5, 2009 -- Wolfram Alpha LLC today announced that it will inaugurate Wolfram|Alpha "Homework Day," a groundbreaking live interactive web event, on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. Led by noted scientist and Wolfram|Alpha creator Stephen Wolfram, this marathon webcast will bring together students, parents, and educators from across the country to tackle tough homework assignments and explore the richness that Wolfram|Alpha brings to K-12, college, and beyond.

Launched this May, Wolfram|Alpha is a free website powered by a computational knowledge engine that generates answers to questions in real time by doing computations on its own vast internal knowledge base. Named by Time magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2009, Wolfram|Alpha is widely recognized as an innovative and invaluable new resource for education. 

Read more.

Tags: education, wolfram, learning

Categories: News

The Examiner franchise of papers can be found in urban areas across the country. The DC Examiner ran a story called "Strategies for marketing a training event" which cited findings from ASTD related to how many people never put into practice what they learn! Article includes some interesting tips for how to create buzz for your training.

Tags: training, learning, astd, job performance

Categories: ASTD in the News

It's an ASTD 3-fer in this week's Workforce Training newsletter, put out by Workforce Management.  A feature article on the link between training and investment, titled "A (Weary) Champion for Employee Investment" mentions ASTD several times, quotes ASTD's executive editor Pat Galagan, and mentions our flagship magazine T+D.  The newsletter also pulled some information from our latest study "Learning in Tough Economic Times" and featured two charts: one comparing the effect on training of this economic downturn compared to the last downturn; the other comparing the effectiveness of learning now to two years ago.  If you want to see the full research report, click here.

Tags: t+d, research, economy, astd, training, investment, learning, effectiveness

Categories: ASTD in the News

(RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, TX) -- The Air Force has a heritage rooted in technology and innovation. From our earliest days, Airmen have sought to find a better way to dominate the domains in which we operate -- air, space, and now, cyberspace. Developing superior capabilities which enable global vigilance, global reach and global power have proven vital to our nation's security. Leading learning innovation is the key to developing our future Airmen and these superior capabilities.

Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, Commander, Air Education and Training Command, recently stated that, in addition to recruiting, education and training, innovation must be one of our core competencies. He believes, as a global leader, our education and training programs must be "cutting edge."

So just how is AETC pursuing innovation today to establish cutting edge learning programs? We started with General Lorenz' vision, "Deliver unrivaled air, space and cyberspace education and training," and used that as our guiding principle. Next, we developed new learning concepts -- knowledge management, continuous learning and precision learning -- which will guide the development of our future Airmen. Finally, we've begun to innovate by pursuing creative new ways to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of our learning programs. Let me give you some examples of how AETC is leading the way to learning innovation.

Read the full article. 

Tags: learning, innovation, military

Categories: News

I hear the same excuse every time I talk to change resistant learning professionals: “There’s a bad cultural fit for new learning approaches here” (to which I say, if you’re not willing to challenge a stale culture, you’re in the wrong profession), “we don’t have time” (but you have time to waste people’s time with useless PowerPoint presentations?), “we don’t have the budget” (who said next gen learning costs more?), “our IT infrastructure can’t handle it” (that’s what your IT department said ten years ago about email too), “we have to crawl before we walk” (no you don’t, you can leapfrog to next gen learning from any position), “we don’t need to waste people’s time with frivolous Tweets about what Demi Moore had for breakfast” (Twitter is also used in Iran to protest one of the most oppressive regimes in history, I guess that’s frivolous too?), virtual worlds is just a game (yes, most new technologies start as games before turning into tools).

One of the most prevailing and misguided excuses for inertia: “We have mature employees who wouldn’t embrace new learning approaches.” Why have I NEVER heard someone from a company that actually uses social networking and virtual worlds express this concern? The reality is that older workers are usually the most enthusiastic users of social media, virtual worlds and podcasting. Join our weekly Train for Success meetings in Second Life and the average age is probably around 50. Here are my top-three theories why mature workers embrace next gen learning:

1. Mature workers have a greater network of colleagues to draw insights from. Social networks are designed for those of us who need to stay in touch with our college friends and professionals colleges from years past. The fastest growing demographic of Facebook is  women over 55.
2. Older people enjoy being a young avatar in Second Life with a full set of hair and the body of a 19-year old.
3. Older people have spent decades in asbestos homes gulping Aspartame sodas, and it’s beginning to take its toll. They can’t concentrate on boring  lectures, they need learning that is fun and engaging!

Kidding aside, the notion that older workers will not use social media, games and mobile learning flies in the face of every client we’ve worked with, it’s just an excuse for status quo.

Tags: learning, elearning, virtual world, social media, second life, social media, gronstedt group, webinar, simulation, podcasting

Categories: Celebrity Bloggers

Let’s be honest, our profession is full of control freaks, people who are not half as concerned about sharing data as they are about protecting their data. The first question I get when I give presentations at ASTD conferences is usually not “great, how can we leverage social media, games and virtual worlds to improve performance?” Instead, I get inane questions about: “How can I be assured that our data is safe on an iPod?” or “How do you know that no one is eaves-dropping on your conversation in Second Life?” or “How can we keep people from wasting their time on a social network?” Since when did the learning profession become an extension of the IT security department? 

Tags: learning, elearning, virtual world, social media, second life, social media, gronstedt group, webinar, simulation, podcasting

Categories: Celebrity Bloggers