Innovation Profile 103

The person is the sum of all the parts

A century and more ago, what a young person learnt in their schooling was considered just part of their fitness for working life. Now formal qualifications largely define which doorways into employment are open.

But as soon as young people are through the door, having a wide portfolio of capabilities, experience and skills is the route to success. Employers of course need easily visible indicators of capability and the wise employee regularly extends their CV with their achievements and additional training.

Working digitally, evidence of achievement is stored minute by minute in the work one saves and through the assessments one undertakes. e-Learning can provide both access to learning and recognised indicators of success.

A view of the wide range of e-learning that is available for small and medium sized businesses can be seen at http://www.netg.co.uk/SMB/default.asp. The mix of capabilities required in business is very wide; communication, management, finance, leadership, use of work tools, specialist skills and knowledge of many areas - as you will see if you explore the NETg web site.

On the work side of the door to adult life we expect people to continually gain, value and provide evidence of such a wide range of knowledge and capabilities. Surely we should also expect this on the school/college side of the door.

In most countries the study of specific subjects is the basis of education and the qualifications system. Many of the capabilities critical for effective work in business are not included, such as project management, people management, business management - and 'T skills'. It is necessary that people should develop deep expertise in their specialist areas and wide though less deep knowledge of many other areas. This is necessary in order to understand experts in these areas with whom one needs to work.

It is clear that a properly educated 'whole person' will have core capabilities that all need, specialist capabilities in their chosen field, and a wide range of extended capabilities. ICT is providing ways for young people to develop these during their years at school/college. Now we need pedagogy and assessment to change to enable this and to formally recognise the achievements of the whole person.

The NETg UK Company Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company and a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with the company.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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