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Drucker’s solutions for fragmented executives—reserve large blocks of time on your calendar, don’t answer the phone, and return calls in short bursts once or twice a day—sound remarkably like the ones offered up by today’s time- and information-management experts.2

Add to these challenges a torrent of e-mail, huge volumes of other information, and an expanding variety of means—from the ever-present telephone to blogs, tweets, and social networks—through which executives can connect with their organizations and customers, and you have a recipe for exhaustion. Many senior executives literally have two overlapping workdays: the one that is formally programmed in their diaries and the one “before, after, and in-between,” when they disjointedly attempt to grab spare moments with their laptops or smart phones, multitasking in a vain effort to keep pace with the information flowing toward them.

First, multitasking is a terrible coping mechanism.

The problem, of course, is that those students represent the precise group MOOCs are meant to serve. “MOOCs were supposed to be the device that would bring higher education to the masses,” Jonathan Rees noted. “However, the masses at San Jose State don’t appear to be ready for the commodified, impersonal higher education that MOOCs offer.” Thrun’s cavalier disregard for the SJSU students reveals his true vision of the target audience for MOOCs: students from the posh suburbs, with 10 tablets apiece and no challenges whatsoever—that is, the exact people who already have access to expensive higher education. It is more than galling that Thrun blames students for the failure of a medium that was invented to serve them, instead of blaming the medium that, in the storied history of the “correspondence” course (“TV/VCR repair”!), has never worked. For him, MOOCs don’t fail to educate the less privileged because the massive online model is itself a poor tool. No, apparently students fail MOOCs because those students have the gall to be poor, so let’s give up on them and move on to the corporate world, where we don’t have to be accountable to the hoi polloi anymore, or even have to look at them, because gross.

SG_Debug && SG_Debug.pagedebug && window.console && console.log && console.log('[' + (new Date()-SG_Debug.initialTime)/1000 + ']' + ' Bottom of header.jsp'); SlateEducationGetting schooled.Nov. 19 2013 11:43 AM The King of MOOCs Abdicates the Throne 7.3k 1.2k 101 Sebastian Thrun and Udacity’s “pivot” toward corporate training. By Rebecca Schuman &nbsp; Sebastian Thrun speaks during the Digital Life Design conference on Jan. 23, 2012, in Munich. Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images requirejs(["jquery"], function($) { if ($(window).width() < 640) { $(".slate_image figure").width("100%"); } }); Sebastian Thrun, godfather of the massive open online course, has quietly spread a plastic tarp on the floor, nudged his most famous educational invention into the center, and is about to pull the trigger. Thrun—former Stanford superprofessor, Silicon Valley demigod, and now CEO of online-course purveyor Udacity—just admitted to Fast Company’s openly smitten Max Chafkin that his company’s courses are often a “lousy product.” Rebecca Schuman Rebecca Schuman is an education columnist for Slate. Follow This is quite a “pivot” from the Sebastian Thrun, who less than two years ago crowed to Wired that the unstemmable tide of free online education would leave a mere 10 purveyors of higher learning in its wake, one of which would be Udacity. However, on the heels of the embarrassing failure of a loudly hyped partnership with San Jose State University, the “lousiness” of the product seems to have become apparent. The failures of massive online education come as no shock to those of us who actually educate students by being in the same room wit

nd why the answer is not the MOOC, but the tiny, for-credit, in-person seminar that has neither a sexy acronym nor a potential for huge corporate partnerships.

There are more platforms, more websites, more pat solutions to serious problems — here’s an app that can fix drug addiction! promote fiscal responsibility! advance childhood literacy!

The doors to start-up-dom have been thrown wide open. At Harvard, enrollment in the introductory computer-science course, CS50, has soared. Last semester, 39 percent of the students in the class were women, and 73 percent had never coded before.

I protested: “What about Facebook?” He looked at me, and I thought about it. No doubt, Facebook has changed the world. Facebook has made it easier to communicate, participate, pontificate, track down new contacts and vet romantic prospects. But in other moments, it has also made me nauseatingly jealous of my friends, even as I’m aware of its unreality. Everything on Facebook, like an Instagram photo, is experienced through a soft-glow filter. And for all the noise, the pinging notifications and flashing lights, you never really feel productive on Facebook.

Bethel and Grandview both pursued open resources in large part because they were not satisfied that commercial curricula were closely aligned with the common core.

They called on their teachers, and other content experts, to help them find the open resources that hit the mark.

It's safe to assume many districts switching to open resources will have to devote large amounts of time and money to finding what they need and preparing teachers to use new materials, Mr. Bliss said. Yet that work brings rewards, he argued. In going through that process, teachers get "some of the best PD they've ever had."

To start truly collaborating, here are two steps that you should take: First, consider the goal you’re trying to achieve. Map out the end-to-end work that you think will be needed to get the outcome you want.

Second, convene a working session with all of the required collaborators from different areas of the company to review, revise, and make commitments to this collaboration contract.

Use video: This is perhaps the most important rule.

Do a “Take 5″: For the first five minutes of a virtual meeting

Assign different tasks:

hy forward thinking? Because I think that hierarchical learning isn’t conducive, in fact is obstructive to creating businesses fit for purpose for innovating within disruption. I think the behaviours it creates slows down people’s learning as they go higher up ‘the ladder’, limits their behavioural flexibility and creates a culture where people are afraid to challenge the status quo. And what do I mean by networked learning? I think this has something to do with letting go of words like ‘expert’ and accepting that we are all learning, all of the time. And I think if we can do this, and ask any question without fear, we can shake things up and make things happen.

So how could companies themselves encourage and create a safe environment for networked learning? A few ideas:&nbsp;

Cultivate a culture of celebrating failure

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And with more businesses relying on teamwork, top managers' conflict-resolution skills are in greater demand

Southwest Airlines Co. leaders wanted to shake up what they viewed as a culture of "artificial harmony" among staffers.

It's not that firms want contentious leaders, but those who retreat from confrontation tend to postpone hard decisions and allow problems to fester, according to Ms. Glaser.

Keeping Your Skill Set Current Can Be Key to Keeping Your Job Small and midsize companies can’t afford to not keep up with technology, and neither can enterprise-level companies. This past fall, IBM notified employees, who it had determined needed additional training, they were required to step up their technological game, and that they would receive only 90% of their salary while embarking upon this additional training. Talk about an incentive to stay on top of changes in technology ! According to the article in the New York Times covering this move, some IBM workers received an email letting them know that an assessment had determined certain members of the team had “not kept pace with acquiring the skills and expertise needed to address changing client needs, technology and market requirements.” While some criticized the move, the reality is that employees can no longer be complacent when it comes to their grasp of technology and how to use it to help their businesses grow. That’s something to keep in mind, for sure, whether you’re just embarking on a career or whether you’re already in the workforce and want to make sure you have the skills you need to stay marketable.

The Modern Worker Needs to Be Constantly Learning

most managers are cooperative, friendly, and willing to share information — but what they lack is the ability and flexibility to align their goals and resources with others in real time. Sometimes this starts at the top of the organization when senior leaders don’t fully synchronize their strategies and performance measures with each other.

First, consider the goal you’re trying to achieve. Map out the end-to-end work that you think will be needed to get the outcome you want.

Second, convene a working session with all of the required collaborators from different areas of the company to review, revise, and make commitments to this collaboration contract.

too many nonprofit CEOs and their boards continue to miss the answer to succession planning sitting right under their noses—the homegrown leader.

leadership development deficit.

The sector’s C-suite leaders, frustrated at the lack of opportunities and mentoring, are not staying around long enough to move up. Even CEOs are exiting because their boards aren’t supporting them and helping them to grow.