e learning age - the magazine for the learning organisation

Chalkface

Summat and NOWT

Learning Light was very proud of its meeting held in Sheffield at the end the year. Excited PR kept telling the waiting world that this was the first e-learning Summit (note the use of the capital letter) to be held in the UK. One dictionary tells us a summit is ‘a conference or meeting of high-level leaders, usually called to shape a programme of action’. Chalkface couldn’t possibly comment on whether the attendees met the definition of high level leaders but we have been promised a manifesto. And of course we await publication of the manifesto, or probably Manifesto, with gathering interest. Whether the good people of South Yorkshire ever got confused between summit and their fine dialect word summat – which slightly takes the edge of the grandiose nature of the get together – is sadly not recorded. 

Sweet success

The E-Learning Awards was the usual mixture of glamour, drama, much excitement, one or two moments of disappointment (good try, there is always next year) and a  damned good party. But there were some changes this year, including a smart new venue and some particularly fine twitter activity. One of the most popular innovations was the e2train gift of packets of Rolos. Judging by the serious sweeping of them into various handbags, anyone asked the question posed by Rolos’ ad agency “Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?” might have answered “Only if I’ve scoffed a few packets first”. Or were they all to give a way to loved ones? Discuss.

Death by email

The first survey of 2011 tells us something we all know. One in five British workers spends a total of 32 working days a year managing their email – more than an hour a day. A further 20% devote up to an hour and nearly 60% of us cannot retrieve an email over three months old. Evidently the typical corporate user processes some 110 email messages a day. Actually, looking at the date of the announcement, it could have run in the previous issue but we only found it after several days in the run-up to Christmas deleting thousands of emails. Only 32 days a year? Perhaps we need a course . . .