Prototyping, Distance Learning, Habits, & Mentoring

Integrating Prototyping Into Your Design Process - Boxes and Arrows

When aimed well, a prototype can answer design questions and communicate design ideas. A prototype's fidelity has the most influence over its effectiveness. Fidelity simply refers to how realistic the prototype is.

How-To: Engage the Managers of Distance Learning - Training Magazine

One of the drawbacks to distance learning is it easily can result in the learner's manager becoming disengaged from the learner's training, yet we know a manager's participation in employee training improves results. While there are several ways to address this issue, one of the most effective is through your Learning Management System (LMS).

How Long to Form a Habit? - PsyBlog

Although the average was 66 days, there was marked variation in how long habits took to form, anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days in the habits examined in this study. As you'd imagine, drinking a daily glass of water became automatic very quickly but doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast required more dedication (above, dotted lines). The researchers also noted that:

• Missing a single day did not reduce the chance of forming a habit.
• A sub-group took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are 'habit-resistant'.
• Other types of habits may well take much longer.

Online Mentoring Programs - eLearn Magazine

In general, face-to-face mentoring often translate well to the online environment. Many of the same basic principles utilized during in-person meetings apply online, too.

Mentoring Is Overrated. Try Tutoring Instead - Business Week

Three participants - each from different companies - got together during the break to teach themselves (and each other) how to marry the software to the statistics. Intriguingly, this ad hoc group had synergistic skills: One knew the software but had a shaky understanding of the statistics; another understood stats but had only a casual acquaintance with the software; and the third had a problem he thought the software could solve. Fifteen minutes of explanatory give-and-take around the keyboard later, everyone had clearly "learned" more about their own skill and competence by attempting to "teach" their colleagues. The software jockey gained greater fluency with the package as he demo-ed how to integrate the problem with the statistics. The stats geek got a better sense of the math in the course of helping translate the problem into the software. The guy with the problem better understood its underlying challenges in the course of defining it for the statistician and the software.