Welcome to students who started Lean Sigma Master Black Belt and Lean Sigma Black Belt in January and to students starting Lean Sigma Green Belt and Lean Sigma Yellow Belt soon.
As we know, in line with Government guidelines, education in Ireland at all levels is currently online for student safety. Worldwide online learning is viewed as a new way of adapting to current circumstances. There are many platforms used from Zoom, Panopto, Teams, Google, and more. The use of Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, and other Learning Management Systems, LMS, are now much more understood. They all have one thing in common, the need for a computer device such as a laptop, tablet, or phone with internet access. It is often mentioned that this would not be possible a few years ago as internet was slow, and devices would not have the capability. While we have obvious black spots, most of us now have reliable access to the internet allowing us to benefit from online learning and use this time to upskill. I recently saw a prediction that in 2021 eLearning and gaming will improve dramatically as we have now had to embrace more than before this new way of existing at home.
In reflecting on this, I was amused when I came across a copy of an old paper recently at home. It made me wonder if all this is as new as we are led to believe.
In the Irish Independent of 8th March 1967 under Science on Wednesday there was an article describing how computers will be used for learning. “Students at Ohio State University in the United States can dial a computer to be supplied with a recorded lesson in Chinese or a string quartet by Mozart. Simpler systems not involving a computer are used in several schools and colleges but the one at Ohio is described as the first computer operation of its kind in any American college or university.”
How coincidental was this. As we refine our online skills and look at remote delivery for classes keep in mind that we have been preparing for this in some quarters for over 50 years.
