ADDISON'S Addison's diseaseWritten by Charles Douglas Wehner
The Internet is full of "GOSH-JOURNALISM" articles about Addison's disease. Sometimes, these are written by somebody who declares himself to be a doctor, sometimes they are anonymous.There is reputed to be a "CRAVING FOR SALT" - yet truth is that hormone aldosterone stimulates digestion of salt - so when it is deficient there is actually a DEFICIENCY of salt appetite. In final analysis, only people who can really decide what disease is like are those who RESEARCHED subject, and researched it PROPERLY in DAYS BEFORE STEROIDS ARRIVED.
| | Adapting for flexible delivery; the teamWritten by Phil Garing
For many years, trainer or lecturer was seen as a largely autonomous person who was responsible for all aspects of training delivery. Within their job specification was: - Identifying training needs - Setting goals/objectives for training - Providing expertise needed for subject - Developing resources to be used - Delivering training - Evaluating and adapting materialsMany organisations strive to include new technologies and systems in their training, but don't pay adequate attention to implications for those charged with incorporating them. Moving to in-house online/Intranet solutions for example often means big changes to way training takes place: - The role of presenter changes significantly, as do skills they need - The expertise in head of presenter often needs to be incorporated in new resources - The tools that are used demand new skills - Contact between learners is reduced - The scale of training changes, from small groups to asynchronous large groups - The learning resources are more complex and time consuming to develop What this often means is that it is no longer possible for 'the trainer' to do all things, no matter how competent they are. If a strategic decision is made to develop flexible/online training systems, it needs to be accompanied by a decision to put in place development and support roles that ensure training will work. This usually necessitates introduction of a team. Critics of such a move often point to soaring overheads as being prohibitive. However these additional development costs need to be balanced against following sorts of financial savings and qualitative outcomes: - Less travel/accommodation/'unproductive' time spent by learners - The ability of learners to blend training into their work days - Economies of scale inherent in one set of resources being used across whole organisations - The potential to generate a revenue stream from training materials developed by capitalising on intellectual capital of organisation
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