 |
 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
A Brave New Gamer WorldJim Gee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, believes video games are significantly impacting education and the workplace. He gave a presentation entitled "How Games are Reshaping Business & Learning" at the Fluno Center for Executive Education on the UW-Madison campus. The event can be seen via a recorded Webcast courtesy of co-hosts Accelerate Madison and Wisconsin Technology Network at www.acceleratemadison.org. Along with colleagues Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler, Gee will discuss how video games are creating a new standard for learning, how they display the latest studies on learning, and ramifications for the workplace and learning. Researchers John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, who co-wrote "Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever," urge supervisors to understand the emerging generation of workers and executives under age 30 who grew up playing video games. The say this generation of 90 million individuals has unique characteristics that need to be harnessed. Beck and Wade say this group tends to communicate more openly and are good at problem solving but are also frustrated by the baby boomers who oversee them. This phenomenon of video games impacting learning is being studied at UW-Madison through its Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab, which specializes in learning systems that can be used anywhere at any time in the classroom, in the field, or online. Source: Madison Capital Times (WI), P. 6E; Ivey, Mike Innovative Leader Takes Aim on the Creation of Knowledge Yash Gupta is dean of the Marshall school at the University of Southern California. He believes that just as medical schools have hospitals, business schools need to have knowledge companies to make it easy for students to make the shift from being a student to a professional. Gupta contends that as more and more low-skilled jobs move overseas, developed countries will depend more and more on knowledge creation to compete. This will greatly affect business schools because they will have to assist knowledge." Gupta also plans to overhaul Marshall's MBA curriculum completely. To be launched in the fall, the curriculum will establish more formal and informal connections with business organizations, which in Southern California, abound in the film, television, and data sectors. In addition, teams of MBAs will be required to work through dilemmas and management scenarios, similar to team structures in medical school. "As a manager, how do you deal with rare events--this is what simulation teaches you," he explains. Gupta adds that the school budget will be distributed not only based on course demand, but also on the basis of suggested ventures or projects. Source: Financial Times, P. 9; Bradshaw, Della Playing Well With Others Managers are plagued with questions about how to make teams more cohesive and less like cliques, but oftentimes, managers are left in the dark about the actual social dynamics of project teams. Human resource experts have suggested that project team's progress be monitored and each person's involvement be recorded to ensure that all members are on the same page. Managers are forced to break up small groups within project teams in order to keep projects on schedule and within budget, but many are at a loss of how to do it amiably. Groups can help companies become more productive so long as each worker's skills are being utilized, but cliques can break up the cohesiveness of workplaces, causing groups to shut out those with the necessary skills to complete projects on time and satisfactorily. Managers can make blanket statements at meetings about information sharing is essential among all workers, and the approach may work for a while, but experts warn that cliques tend to reform after a cooling off period. Experts suggest examining underlying problems, including impending layoffs, mergers, or economic hard times and create office environments that are more conducive to mingling. Additionally, employee directories could include fun tidbits about workers' hobbies or interests and teams could include different ethnic or religiously grouped people to ensure cliques are not formed on various projects. Source: Inc Vol. 27, P. 29; Wellner, Alison Stein
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
