No 14 - Journal of Social Informatics / Revista de Informatica Sociala

An additional dimension to the four principles is to encourage mechanisms through whichinstitutions and students can strengthen the linkages between learning and economic returns. Whilethis does call for a strengthening of vocational programs that have been gutted in the U.S. over thepast decades, it also means providing mechanisms for learners to engage in practical experiencesthat are grounded in team building, communication, innovation and entrepreneurship – the veryskills that many U.S. employers find lacking; their absence is adding to the storm clouds facing theU.S. [24]. Fortunately, community-based learning experiences provide the mechanisms forembedding these experiences into the lives of learners.The same sorts of embedded predictive analytics that are comparing student performance withsuccessful students in the past may be applied to employability and workforce success in the future.We Conclude on a Hopeful Note. The emerging combination of institutional and open learningexperiences and options will provide both new pathways and mechanisms for exploitingorganizational processes that add value (as with some of the knowledge flows in online learning),and discovering fresh approaches to learning and competence building.These fresh approaches will be critical to reaching the goals that have been set for America –merely extrapolating existing approaches will prove too costly and unworkable. To achieveAmerica’s goals, learning enterprises need to increase their productivity, for example throughstrategic deployment of the insights that they gained in past innovations, but have notinstitutionalized as yet. This will help them to deliver greater value, to more students, with lesseffort, and at lower cost.ABOUT THE AUTHORSDr. Donald NORRIS, President of Strategic Initiatives, is recognized as a thought leader andskilled practitioner in developmental consulting for institutions, states, Ministries of Education andother knowledge enterprises that are striving to re-imagine learning and work in the aftermath of theGreat Recession and the realignment of processes and practices in its wake.Dr. Paul LEFRERE of Strategic Initiatives is also Senior Research Fellow at the OpenUniversity of the UK (Knowledge Media Institute) and Professor of eLearning at the University ofTampere, Finland (Vocational Learning and e-skills Centre). Previously, he was Executive Directorfor eLearning at Microsoft.