Education Evolved

There comes a time when every writer will address the single most torture-some aspect of life in Dubai- the traffic.  Dubai’s traffic has gone from bad to unbearable over the years, and the bad news is, you still have to sit in it for hours.  The good news is, they don’t have to be *bad* hours.  You can turn those hours into something that is not only enjoyable, but even educational. 

Everyone knows what an mp3 player is, but few people understands its full potential, especially when it comes to traffic.  Most people use their mp3 players to store music, but in that respect, it is no more educationally useful than a radio.  An ideal use of the mp3 player is not in entertainment, but in education. Audio material has been available for a long time but it’s popularity in use, its tipping point, has only recently hit.

Audio books are the same as your regular books, except read out by a professional or the author itself. Borders, the new bookstore at Mall of the Emirates, is a great place to check out audio books, on Cds and audio cassettes. It has both fiction and non-fiction material for you to choose from. Alternately, for a much larger collection of audio books, try www.audible.com. Audible.com offers a massive digital library which you can download to your mp3 player. The great thing about the mp3 version is that you can stop and pickup from the exact same spot when you next enter the car or go for a jog or anyplace else you would take your mp3 player to continue your educationally enhanced listening experience. In the past 6 months, I’ve gone through roughly 6 books. Prior to my iPod (an mp3 player), I didn’t have time of these books.

Podcasts are a recent innovation. A podcast is like a radio show on the Internet. Each show consists of a series of episodes that can be downloaded to your PC and to your mp3 player.  When you start exploring the world of podcasts, you’re in for a surprise. Speeches, shows, comedy, movies, sports, food, politics, books, whatever - pick your subject and you can find podcasts about it. Not only do you have incredible choice but you can listen to your podcast whenever and wherever you want. For example, in your favorite Dubai traffic jam. Mine is the amazing 2 kms - 30 minutes stretch before the Arabian Ranches roundabout. My iPod is subscribed to Manager Tools (www.manager-tools.com) and TWiT (This Week in Technology - www.twit.tv). Two great places to start looking for podcasts is www.podcasts.yahoo.com or www.podme.org.

Audio books and podcasts are available in a variety of topics so vast that you could spend your morning commute listening to popular fiction and your evening ride home brushing up on management techniques.  Making use of your time in traffic is as simple as keeping your mind stimulated, which is something not necessarily achieved by listening to music or adding the digits up on the number plates of the cars that have cut you off.

Like Dubai’s vibrant skyline, your traffic time may change on a daily basis, but if you make proper use of it, time in traffic can be more like an evening in your comfy recliner with a good book.

“I have a learning problem,” someone once jokingly told me, “The problem is, I already know everything.” “You’re right,” I replied, “That’s a pretty big problem.” Plutarch once said that the mind was a ‘fire to be kindled,’ not a vessel to be filled, but the truth is if you think your cup of knowledge is already full, you will never add anything to it. The first step in any analysis is to identify the Need Gap. If you cannot acknowledge a need gap in your knowledge, then you cannot address it. The loss, my dear reader, is completely yours.

Chances are a person who ‘knows it all’ won’t be willing to accept, or even see that they do, but could you be one of them? When’s the last time you learned something new? When is the last time you heard something that surprised you, and you followed up by searching for more information? Listening closely and following up on something you hear, either to learn more or to simply confirm, is an important part of making learning an active behavior. Compare this to a more passive form of hearing, and not necessarily listening, which involves no follow-up of your own and closely resembles believing whatever you’re told or worse - not paying attention. If you know it all, and you’re just hearing what the other person says instead of really listening to it, you’re not going to learn anything. Chances are you brush new information off with “Yeah, ok,” or the “Ok, but did you know…” of a typical know-it-all response, the steering of conversation back to familiar subject waters where the know-it-all feels confident that they know it all.

I recognize some of these symptoms in myself, and I wonder how to correct it. I don’t think of myself as a Know It All. Hardly. The friend over last night drilling holes for my new bookshelf was sufficient proof. I had acknowledged the need gap in my Home Improvement knowledge and called him and asked for help. Looking back though, I realized I spent large chunks of the evening discussing education, my forte, instead of learning how to drill; I think I’ll call him back for another lesson. We all suffer from Knowing It All at times. The cure is simple: learn to listen.

Listening is a powerful tool, yet it is heavily under-utilized. In a world of personal opinions, individualized facts and Time magazine declaring You (yes you, and only you!) to be the Person of the Year, listening is a forgotten art. In his best-selling work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr Steven Covey discuss habit #5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. This habit relies on you listening carefully and attentively, understanding what was just said and then performing the powerful act of demonstrating your comprehension - iterating what you have just understood. A great way to do so is to pause the conversation and say “Let me make sure I understand this correctly. What you are saying is…”. Not only do you successfully assimilate new information and demonstrate comprehension, you have also won the gratitude of your listener.

Next time you’re in a meeting, listen. Listen to what is being said to you. Listen to what each sub-ordinate is sharing with you. And if you don’t understand, ask for more information. In those moments, you are no longer primarily the GM, the director or the guru. You, my friend, are the student and your teacher stands in front of you. Pay attention now.

My name is Waleed Jameel. I’m an educational consultant and E-learning specialist in Dubai, and rather than tell you what this column is going to be about, I’m telling you what it’s NOT about. This column is not going to be about esoteric education terminology, or about technological developments of no use to you, or about what e-universities offer what programs these days. Instead, I want to discuss how e-learning and life-long learning is of use to you - and how you can take advantage of emerging opportunities.

As a manager, I often interview candidates for available positions, and one of the traits I look for is their willingness, their desire to learn. That trait coupled with potential are a valuable asset that any employer would be lucky to have. I don’t have time to train people which is why I look for people who train themselves. A candidate should not come to me and tell me that he doesn’t know how to create diagrams in Microsoft Excel when multiple resources are available to our technologically savvy workforce today. The candidate should be able to utilize given resources to finish the job at hand. That’s the entire point of hiring you - you bring something to my office that I don’t currently have.

Knowledge is a tool in the workforce, and when knowledge is freely available online, what excuse do you have for not pursuing it? A quick search on Google with name of your software plus the word “tutorial” will reveal hundreds of results, many with free content. Try searching for more advanced tutorials with keywords such as “project management” or “performance review” to gain better understanding of higher level work. Each new skill you acquire will make you a more valuable employee.

The UAE’s diverse workforce is focused on utilizing candidates with experience. A quick glance at the Appointments page in any newspaper will show you a requirement of X number of years. Experience is very important, and the number of years a person has been working is meant to measure how good they are at what they do. But a person with experience is just that - an individual who has been working for so many years. On the other hand, a person who updates their knowledge is someone with the perfect balance of new and old; current knowledge of a new graduate + the experience of an old hand.

Dubai is growing. Its increasing work market is bringing in a vast number of Multinational Companies, and already, local business practices are changing. To keep up with the new competition, changes are being made to retain intellectual resources and the growth potential of the individual is finally being recognized. In turn, the smart crowd is quickly reacting. I recall one interview where the candidate, who was applying for an Office Administrator position, turned to me and asked: “What kind of training will I be receiving initially and regularly in this position?”. He was leaving his existing firm because he saw little that he could learn there now.

It’s been several months since that interview and he’s already moved up. That man came to me as an administrative assistant, but now he’s now handling enterprise clients for an upcoming MNC in Dubai. To grow today, you need more than just experience. For that extra boost, you need to be empowered with knowledge. Online resources are an untapped potential, they comprise the worlds largest e-learning bank, with tutorials, courses, seminars, networking and lessons. All you have to do is take the initiative and literally, the world is yours for the taking.

Here’s an article that I’ve submitted for approval to one of the local tech papers.

Update: In the process of submitting tech articles, I have been proposed a column by Emirates Today. In the upcoming months, I’ll hash out the details.

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2007 will be the Year of the Operating System. Both Apple and Microsoft have chosen the same auspicious annum to launch their new OS. Microsoft will be releasing Vista for Home (and various other editions) while Apple will be releasing Mac OS X v10.5 - Leopard.

In the race that these two giants are inevitably pitted against one another in, Microsoft is ahead on timing with a Q1 release (confirm UAE release date). Apple has scheduled a tentative release date of “Spring 2007″ according to CEO Steve Jobs, and as both OS boast a large variety of advanced features, the consumer is left with a tough choice: which platform to adopt, which machine to buy, which side to stand on. If you find the decision between OS’s difficult to make, you’re in luck. If you buy an Apple, you can use both.

Almost all major softwares are now available for both Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) are all available in Apple, officially released and supported by Microsoft. However, there are always a few vital applications that make it difficult to leave one platform for another. For example, Microsoft Outlook has no equivalent in Mac, atleast at the professional level.

The release of BootCamp- a new software in Mac OS X Leopard that allows two OS’s to be installed on the same Apple machine - purportedly allow users to run Microsoft’s Windows XP on their Apple machines, offering the best of both worlds in one machine. This is Apple’s official solution to dual booting on their machines, a procedure common in PC’s. What sets this apart is Apple’s approach to it; a built-in intuitive software that easily allows the average user to install Windows XP on their Mac. Compare this to Windows, where it would take an advanced user to perform similar feats.

Furthering this is the use of Virtual Machine Softwares, such as Parallels, that allow users to run alternative OS’s from within the Mac OS X. According to the developers, you should be able to use Parallels to run your email client, your browser, and your Microsoft Office in Mac OS X while another application window is running Windows XP simultaneously (insert screenshot here - see attached image).

According to Benjamin H. Rudolph, Marketing Manager of Parallels, you should be able to do the same with the new Windows OS as well. “Vista now runs as smoothly in Parallels as XP, complete with a Tools package that enables file sharing, synced clipboard, etc,” he said. Allegedly, no other machine or platform can offer similar features.