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E-Learning and the Potential for Global Education

“If Bill Gates is excited about online education, you should be too,” says Anna Malczyk, a communications executive at GetSmarter- a South African online training firm.

The internet has changed the way we live and the way we work. So, asks Malczyk, why hasn’t the education sector caught on? It’s true that online education has expanded and that it’s a popular learning platform for non-traditional students, but in other ways, says Malczyk, the online education sector has a lot of catching up to do. In other words, online education needs to become much more global and much more expansive.

Bill Gates, a champion of the online education movement, believes that the internet can “dramatically improve global education,” but a few things need to be done first. The amount of information and content on the Web is vast. Students often pull from this storage of information and college educators are beginning to make their courses and other learning resources available for free online.But, what Gates suggests and Malczyk reiterates is the need for structuring. “It’s not enough just to have good content,” says Malczyk, “it needs to be organized in a useful way and backed up with a solid teaching support network.” Once this is done, the real learning can start. And, unlike in a traditional classroom, students across the globe will be able to have instant access to whatever learning resources and materials they need.

In addition, technology needs to be both better implemented and further expanded. Working out of South Africa, Malczyk sees this first hand. She calls underdeveloped computer skills and limited access considerable obstacles to South Africans. But, she notes, the potential undoubtedly exists and needs to be further developed. Moreover, says Malczyk, with iPads and other E-readers fueling the shift towards online education, educators need to continue thinking of innovative ways to utilize technology for learning.

The online education sector needs to catch up in order to fulfill its mission of educating students digitally. It needs to continue to expand in order to further provide all deserving students-across the world, with an accessible and flexible way to learn. Malczyk like Gates believes that education is “the next place where the Internet will surprise people in how it can improve things.”

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Getting Cranked Up With A Home Based Business

It’s no secret that in today’s economy, it is becoming increasingly difficult for one to be financially-independent, especially with the rising cost of goods and lack of jobs available. So it would really be a blessing if you can earn some extra cash on the side that will help keep you in good shape. Initially, it might not pay enough for you to be completely independent, but any amount of cash that can help pay the day to day expenses is a very good thing. This is where the importance of home-based business opportunities comes in, as it allows you to earn that extra bit of cash to ease your worries.How to start your own home-based businessThe best way to go about starting your home-based business is to identify what you love to do, and then see if it can be turned in to viable home-based business. Complicated as it may sound, it really isn’t. For instance, if you are great at sewing, then this can easily be turned in to a lucrative business opportunity with little or no investment. You don’t even need any signboard outside; you can conduct all your advertising and handle your bookings online.Most businesses nowadays start as small home-based business operations that grow in time and find themselves in a position to expand further. There is no reason why your particular home-based venture can’t do the same. All you need is the right attitude and a market that is ready for your particular idea and your business will surely be successful.Online businessesThe easiest and most common home business opportunity lies in e-commerce. It is by far, one of the fastest growing industries in the world in terms of the number of businesses that have taken that route. The numbers are growing even further with every passing year. Whether you want to sell your clothes or any other goods that you may own, selling online is one of the easiest ways to earn money. You would just need to check in a few times a day to see if people have placed any orders. People have even started to sell customized t-shirts and shoes online, and have adopted this is as a full time, legitimate home-based opportunity.You can even be a professional seller at auction sites like yahoo auction or eBay. This would require you to ship items and wait for the money to come in. According to eBay, there are over a million professional sellers on their website, and you can add your name to that list if you want to adopt this as your home-based business operation.ConclusionWith living and earning money becoming more and more difficult these days, starting a home-based business can really be a very practical move that you should be considering. However, your business operation will not be worth it if you are earning only a minimal amount for the effort you put in. So to ensure that you will profit from your endeavor, plan and strategize very carefully. And when you start getting some profit, be sure to put aside some so that you will have something to reinvest for the future of your business.The ultimate purpose of all businesses should be to grow and this is definitely no different for a home-based model.

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Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

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