M.I.T. Creative Learning - Scratch Project

The Creating Learning Class, "Learn How to Learn Almost Anything" has been great fun so far. But the rogram SCRATCH that they have opened up for public use globally is a wonderful program with a great deal of potential. It is a self-teaching program with all the help you need embedded into the program. This is my first video and I will be posting more as I learn more. It is GREAT FUN! Let your imagination run wild with it, and share your creations with the online community!

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/CreateANewVoiceX/3134582

Leading and Managing Change

                In 1983, I was on the ground floor of a management transition from the Traditional Style of Management to the Team Concept of Management in a small foam & flexible fabrics factory in Auburn Hills, Michigan outside of Detroit. At that time, the automotive industry was making a major conversion to this en vogue management  style,  and started to require its vendors to follow suit to maintain lucrative contracts. This movement  was considered cutting-edge thinking at the time because  it was open to interpretation about how to proceed. New ideas and new ways of doing business were challenging old ideas and old ways of doing things at every bend of the road. This created tension, eroded the trust factor between current management and employees. It also taxed and crumbled an already ineffective communication structure. My consultant work was initially identified as 1) establishing a new Training Department and 2) training employees to establish and maintain the new management system. Training was broken into 3 different major areas: 1) White collar employees, 2) Blue collar employees and 3) Sales staff. There were 2 shifts, and 350+ employees.

                My original assessment pointed to a serious problem in communication between teams, shifts, union and management, and new/established workers. The establishment of common ground understandings were enhanced by an in-house created booklet that explained what the factory did, the process of the manufacturing line, and the function of each of the teams. Seeing themselves as being a collective part of an understandable process started to build the One team made of many teams cultural thinking change. Employee’s contributed to the Wall of Fame employee board recognizing accomplishments by individuals and teams, and a company newsletter went into production so that news channels would signify a new and improved was for sharing information. A two-hour training class was delivered to each team in the factor to help establish the benefits of better communication. It was well-received and started a momentum towards the change process.

                The next step was clearly to give the teams the structure to govern team choices and 6 major areas were identified as a start point for training: 1) Mission Statements, 2) Ground Rules, 3)Goal-Setting, 4) Goal realization (within established time frames), 5) Recognition and Rewards, 5) Team Assessment, and 6) Problems solving & Conflict resolution. The training was inter-active, and was based on criterion-based performance objectives. Demonstration of understanding was measured based on the learning that took place and could be verbally explained, explained in writing, and using hands-on activities.

                Our success after one year was presented at the Michigan Labor/Management Council in Lansing, Michigan because we had the highest profits ever after using this system. Employee Quality of Life and Increased Production were the two major accomplishments of change under this new system. None of it could have been accomplished without first establishing a communications structure that could support the change. Better communication leads to better trust, allowing for emerging leaders to be identified and utilized.

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Gears of My Childhood

My Object of Influence and Inspiration

Gears of My Childhood

M.I.T. - Creative Learning - Assignment WK2

There can be no question that my object of choice was a clean sheet of paper. With crayons first, then finger paints and then pencils and pens, my "workshop" or, “drawing board,” was created each time I was presented with a new piece of paper. As I began to focus on learning, I become a visual learner very quickly, translating single topics into an aerial view of topics that could be laid out on a piece of paper. In higher education, I could draw schematics, process models, and demonstrate relationships either with words, or pictures, or graphs or some other visual aid.

The workshop jumped off the sheet of paper and became documents on the computer. No matter where I roamed in research or writing, I always came back to my paper...or papers...or computer documents….that created my evolved "drawing board" of ideas. What started with my piece of paper was the whole idea of capturing ideas and fixing them into a form that could be shared. The paper became my medium for self-expression and communication, learning and demonstrating knowledge as well as pursuing innovation. Composition stemmed from one drawing board into the next in a series of drawing boards at each step of the process, until a finished product was realized.

As I started working with computer programs, my drawing board became an Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Data spread sheets to gather my information and bring it back to documents to work with. Surfing the internet, I found I could bring back links, clip art, quotes, take screen shots, search for graphics and expert opinions. and bring them all back to work with on my workshop (akin to my piece of paper), in any of its forms. The piece of paper symbolized me as a working pallet, all the artistic creations I had yet to form. I AM the pallet, and have been since that first clean piece of paper that was mine to design. It was a mirror of my first attempts to see myself, through self-expression of my own ideas and creativity.

 About the Author:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855