Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

21 Stats and Facts - Women & the Workplace

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8 Stats and Facts - High School Dropouts

1. Each year nearly four million kids begin ninth grade.  Nearly 1 million of them don't make it to graduation. That’s nearly one out of every four students fail to graduate.
2. A fifth of schools identified by the U.S. Department of Education are identified as "dropout factories," where no more than 50 percent of students graduate.
3. The unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma is nearly twice that of the general population.
4. Over a lifetime, a high school dropout will earn $200,000 less than a high school graduate and almost $1 million less than a college graduate.
5. Dropouts are more likely to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, become teenage parents, live in poverty and commit suicide.
6. Dropouts cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings, welfare and medical costs, and billions more for dropouts who end up in prison.
7. Almost half a million black teenagers drop out of school each year. Most will end up unemployed by their mid-30s. Six out of 10 black male dropouts will spend time in prison.
8. The single biggest reason why girls drop out of school is pregnancy. 41 percent of Latinas leave high school because they get pregnant. These young women often end up with few job skills, more pregnancies and dependency on unreliable and sometimes violent men.

Read more about The High Cost of Dropping Out

While Washington Fiddles, U.S. Dropouts Burn

A U.S. debt crisis threatens to paralyze our government and disrupt the global economy.  But despite all the political posturing, the impasse will end sooner or later. 

What won’t end - and regrettably will get far worse due to budget cuts and falling revenues - is a high school dropout that is both discouraging and depressing.  Each year nearly four million kids begin ninth grade.  Nearly 1 million of them don't make it to graduation. That’s nearly one out of every four students fail to graduate. A fifth of schools identified by the U.S. Department of Education are identified as "dropout factories," where no more than 50 percent of students graduate.

The impact of the decision to leave school is lifelong, not only for the dropout but for every taxpayer. Dropouts are more likely to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, become teenage parents, live in poverty and commit suicide. Dropouts cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings, welfare and medical costs, and billions more for dropouts who end up in prison. Estimates of these costs run as high as 320 to 350 billion dollars.

Despite the staggering rate and associated costs, these rates may be conservative. They certainly are not accurate. Part of the problem is that every state has had a different definition for dropout. For example, in some states, students who leave school aren't counted as having dropped out if they enroll in adult education classes like night school or in a GED program. The U.S. Department of Education says GED recipients should be counted as dropouts - but few states and school apply the rule. Okay, you might argue, who cares how the student gets educated as long as they continue in school.

But get this? Students who did drop out because they go to prison aren’t counted either. Very few school districts count kids who are incarcerated — even in juvenile justice facilities. Some schools don't think they should be held responsible if a kid quits school because he gets in trouble with the law.

Responsibility in this case equates to funding. It's not in the interest of schools to have an honest, accurate account of dropouts — not just because a high dropout rate makes a school look bad, but also because there's serious money at stake. Most schools get funded based on attendance. If kids don't show up, schools lose money.

Some schools “fudge" the numbers by taking attendance at 10 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. - if kids show up at all, they come in late and would be counted absent if attendance was taken at the start or end of the day. A late roll call counts tardy students as present.

Why should employers care? The unemployment rate for dropouts right now is anywhere from 15 to 18 percent, double what it is for high school graduates. That’s an enormous financial burden on society and government which ultimately is paid for by mostly business taxes.  Possibly worse, dropouts in the future will essentially be unemployable, lacking even the most basic skills required to do even the simplest jobs.

So while all attention and theatrics is focused on the debt crisis, a high school dropout catastrophe simmers that will boil over if business, government, and the public don’t soon acknowledge the problem and begin to do something about it.

A Parent's Guide to Texting, Facebook, and Social Media

The Internet isn't just prevalent in our lives, it is our lives. According to a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, over 93% percent of teens ages 12 to 17 go online, 75% of them own a cell phone, 66% say they text, and  72% of teens have a social networking profile (eg. Facebook).

With the growing popularity of these social networking sites and mobile cell phones, the neighborhood playground now spans the globe.  Teens, as well as adults, now have access to and are exposed to more people than ever before.  Unfortunately the world has always known evil people to find new opportunity and the Internet is no exception.  The ubiquity and popularity of the Internet is just their fertile place to lurk and be mischievous if not downright hostile.

What follows are seventeen of the most shocking statistics I’ve read about a growing epidemic of online harassment and cyberbullying.  It’s a wake-up call for parents, teens, educators, politicians – just about everyone who uses the Internet or mobile phones. It is also a dramatic statement that the role of adults is to help our youth learn to use the Internet safely, not forbid its use. Because accessing the Internet is no longer a luxury or discretionary choice.  I’ll repeat my opening statement: The Internet…..is our lives.  (Keep reading too because at the end of this article, I have 2 important recommendations for parents on how to help their children use the Internet and mobile technologies safely.

1. About half of all teenagers have experienced some form of online harassment and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly (Cyberbullying Research Center).
2. Over 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet (i-SAFE).
3. Over half of bullying and cyberbully attacks go unreported to parents, educators, or authorities.
4. On a daily average, 160,000 children miss school because they fear they will be bullied if they attend classes.
5. Every 7 minutes, a child is bullied on a school playground, with over 85 percent of those instances occurring without any intervention.
6. 100,000 children carry guns to school in 2009 as a result of being bullied.
7. As a result of being bullied, 19,000 children are attempting suicide over the course of one year.
8. Once every half hour a child commits suicide as a direct result of being bullied (online and offline).
9. At the end of 2010, over 30 children had taken their own lives after being cyberbullied.
10. 64 percent of all teens say they do things online they don’t want their parents to know about (Lenhart, Made, and Rainie, 2006).
11. 71 percent of teens receive message online from strangers (National Center for Minind and Exploited Children).
12. 51 percent of teens have been asked for personal information online (MCAfee, Inc.).
13. 42 percent of youths ages 10 to 17 have seen porn in the past year.Two-thirds of these exposures are unwanted (University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center).
14. 26 percent of teens have been harassed by their cell phones either by voice or text (Pew Research: Lenhart, 2010).
15. Size doesn’t matter – cyberbullies don’t have to be “tough” or big.
16. 72 percent of parents say they can see their child’s full profile on social networking sites.
17. Most victims have not set up privacy and security settings.

What can a parent do? 

First, take the time to learn what Facebook is. Even if you don't have to time yourself to use it, you need to understand it. Whether it's Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or any other social networking site, these sites are part of mainstream communication today.

Next, take some time and set up privacy and security settings. I can count on one hand out of the thousands of people I’ve met in workshops, seminars, and classrooms who have even glanced at the privacy settings in Facebook, the most popular of all the social networking sites.  Admittedly Facebook might be doing some squirrely things with our data but to their credit they do offer the most robust and sophisticated system of privacy settings of any social site.  Unfortunately their mission is for all people to be more social so the personal default settings are often a lot less restricted than most people might realize.  To help both adults and teens protect their privacy when using Facebook, I’ve prepared a step-by-step guide on how to “Network Safely When Using Facebook.”  It’s available now for only $5 by clicking here.

Third, it’s important that parents prepare not only their teens, but themselves as well, to combat this serious topic. The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media: Understanding the Benefits and Dangers of Parenting in a Digital World by Shawn Edgington guides parents and teens to developing an open communication on the dangers of the internet and bullying. It’s important that both parents and teens recognize symptoms and causes of bullying and are able to report it to an adult. Learn more about The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media and order Shawn’s book.

Press Release: Cyberbullying Prevention Expert Reveals What Parents Should Know

As cyberbullying has become more frequent and increasingly vicious, the importance of educating parents about how to protect their kids is of paramount importance, says social media expert Ira S Wolfe. This epidemic of online bullying is what got Wolfe, managing partner/founder of Social Media Architects of Delmarva, involved with National Cyber Safety Awareness Day on May 17.

After listening to a recent radio interview about the threat and consequences of cyberbullying, Wolfe picked up the phone and called the radio guest, Shawn Edgington, America's leading cyberbullying prevention expert.  The timing was perfect because Wolfe was about to give a presentation to local high school students and their parents about the threats and risks of cyberbullying.  Edgington shared with him her just released book, The Parent's Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media: Understanding the Benefits and Dangers of Parenting in a Digital World.  “I immediately became immersed in the book, Wolfe said. “I rarely sit down and read a book but Shawn's research and statistics were startling.”

Wolfe immediately agreed to help promote National Cyber Safety Awareness Day which coincided with a book drive for The Megan Meier Foundation.  On that day (May 17), donations of 1,000 copies of Edgington's book are being sought to help the foundation's founder,Tina Meier,educate parents about how to prevent cyberbullying. Meier created the foundation after her 13-year-old daughter committed suicide because she had been cyberbullied on a social network by a neighbor. This tragedy has been the impetus for Meier's drive to warn parents of the hazards kids face growing up in a digitally connected world.

Wolfe hopes to have more opportunities to speak with parents about how to use social media safely.  “I’ve been helping hundreds of business people who attend workshops and classes at local Chambers of Commerce and Wor-Wic Community College understand how to use social media effectively and safely. Most of the participants are also parents and grandparents which makes what I teach in class touch them personally too. Helping children navigate online safely is also a great way to give back to the community."

Book donations are 100% tax deductible and any individual or organization that donates a case of  books or more will be thanked in Edgington's next printing of her book.  Books can be purchased  at:  https://secure4.planetlink.com/shawn_edgington.

About Ira S Wolfe: Ira Wolfe is the managing partner/founder of Social Media Architects of Delmarva (www.socialmediaarchitectsofdelmarva.com).  Wolfe has been described as a “Gen Y operating in a Baby Boomer body,” a name aptly given to him after writing his book, “Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.”  Wolfe is also president of Success Performance Solutions (www.super-solutions.com),  a pre-employment and leadership consulting firm as well as the author of several books including “The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0” and “Understanding Business Values and Motivators.” He has also been recognized by several human resources organizations as one of the most influential bloggers and is a sought after speaker at many CEO, business, and human resources association meetings.

To help both adults and teens protect their privacy when using Facebook, order a step-by-step guide on how to “Network Safely When Using Facebook.”  It’s available now for only $5 by clicking here.

About Shawn Edgington: Shawn Edgington is America's leading textpert and cyberbullying prevention expert, and the author of the newly released The Parent's Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media and Read Between the Lines: A Humorous Guide to Texting with Simplicity and Style. She is also the founder of The Cyber Safety Academy. Her mission is to raise public awareness about textual harassment, online predators, sexting, and cyberbullying prevention. Edgington has been featured in the upcoming documentary Submit:The Reality of Cyberbullying, and by Fox Business, Imus in the Morning, ABC-7's View from the Bay in San Francisco,KRON4News in SanFrancisco, CNN Radio, the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Diego Union-Tribune, CBS Radio, ESPN Radio, NPR, andThe Leslie Marshall Showamong others.

The Rapid Growth of Online Education

When the internet first started to gain popularity with the general population in the 1990s, speculation ran rampant about all of the possibilities this exciting technology could deliver. Some visionaries predicted that the internet would one day replace classrooms, allowing students to attend school from the comfort of their homes.

While traditional classrooms haven’t been replaced just yet, the growth of online education is happening at a meteoric pace. Education institutions and students alike are realizing the myriad of possibilities online learning presents. From the obvious convenience benefits of learning from home to the increased accessibility to higher education for students across the globe, the advantages of online education are sure to continue fueling its growth in the years to come.

Statistics Highlighting the Popularity of Online Learning

Just how popular have online classes become? Here are just a few of the many statistics highlighting the meteoric growth of this new education technology.

• Approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2009.
• 2009 saw an increase of nearly 1 million online students over 2008. This 21% rise in enrollment was the largest year-to-year increase recorded in 8 years.
• There was a 17% increase in online enrollment in 2008 compared to 2007.
• 75% of U.S. universities reported that the economic downturn has increased demand for online courses.
• Nearly 30% of all higher education students in the U.S. take at least one online course.
• By 2014, the number of students expected to be taking ALL of their classes online is 3.55 million.

Public Schools Start to Get in on the Action

When most people think of online learning, they think of higher education. To date, it has been mostly universities offer online education options, but now, many public schools in the United States are embracing this exciting technology as well.

Public schools see online classes as a tool to reach potential dropouts and to supplement normal instruction on days when classes are canceled due to weather or other factors.

In fact, some states are starting to require teachers to take special training to prepare for online teaching. K-12 schools are starting to incorporate more and more online classes into their curriculum to give students more options, teach independence, and improve the overall learning experience.

Why Online Education Continues to Grow

What is it about online education that’s so attractive to students? Online learning offers a range of undeniable benefits.

• Convenience
• Lower costs
• More choices. Students can attend school anywhere in the world from home.
• Improved interaction between student and instructor
• Teaches independence
• Diversity of opinion and knowledge

This list could go on and on, but as you can see from the statistics, the simple truth is that students and institutions love what online learning has to offer.

How Popular Will Online Education Become?

Each year, more and more students enroll in online classes. Universities and public schools continue to offer more online course options for students, and the rise in popularity of distance education just doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

As technology like electronic books and podcasts continues to become more prominent in mainstream culture, these tools will help to further the possibilities of online education.

Will online education ever completely make the traditional classroom obsolete? Maybe not. However, it will continue to increase the public’s access to quality, affordable education.

Related Articles:

The State of Education

Virtual Classrooms: Panacea for Online Education?

 

Guest Blogger: Vern Marker writes on behalf of a forensic psychology degree program and frequently blogs about industry careers.  You can follow him on Twitter@VernMarker.

 

4 Trends That Changed The Role of Women at Work

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Simon Sez: Could This Be The Future Of Training?

Many of us remember playing Simon Sez as a kid.  Now imagine playing the game on the computer where you try to outsmart an avatar on the computer screen.  Unlike current virtual worlds like Second Life or MMORPG’s like War of Warcraft,  this new software allow you to control your avatar with your gestures, not a joystick. The avatar waves, you wave back. If the avatar didn’t say Simon Sez but you move,  he tells you that you lose!  That type of software is what Andrew Tschesnok, founder and CEO of Organic Motion, believes is the future of training.

On the day I interviewed Tschesnok, his company announced an agreement to deliver what he calls “a multi-soldier tracking platform capability” to the U.S. Army. Translation: Organic Motion’s technology can now provide a more realistic training environment where the movements of soldiers in training are tracked and displayed in real-time. “Old mechanized training doesn’t work anymore,” says Tschesnok, “in a world where warfare is asymmetric. New technology will embed the individual in the process.”  Organic Motion’s software can help reconstruct a marketplace in a village in Afghanistan.  Actors play the enemy; the soldier can interact.  What’s been missing up to this point was getting the other person immersed in the simulation.  Now the participant isn’t just controlling a joystick but he becomes the joystick.

The implications for this in business are enormous. Let’s say you want to purchase a shirt and slacks.  Instead of running to the mall, you sit in front of your computer screen, enter a virtual store, and are greeted by associate.  The associate knows what size your wear because the bi-directional monitor “sizes” you up. 

Are you thinking this is years away?  Think again.  Microsoft’s just released Kinect for Xbox 360 just in time for the holiday season.  Kinect is a "controller-free game based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console. It enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller through a natural user interface using gestures, spoken commands, or presented objects and images.  In other words – it converts a computer display into a bidirectional screen where you see the computer and it sees you and responds back.  According to Tschesnok , Microsoft’s technology will be considered primitive soon but currently serves as a great example of what’s coming. 

Bill Gates once said that “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” The advancements and technologies available to employers and schools, along with many others that don’t even exist yet, will revolutionize how companies train and employees learn.  It’s quite likely that the speed of change in learning systems and models will follow Gate’s slow-start, rapid-shift scenario as  the economy recovers and lost business opportunities accelerate due to severe skilled worker shortages.

Tipping Point: Technology Disrupts How We Learn

Just as Amazon offers you new book titles based on what you’ve bought in the past, training systems will be able to make relevant suggestions for further learning based on your ability, your pace, and your work process.  By tracking individual employee decisions and behaviors, new learning systems will make unprompted recommendations.   The recommendations could be content to view or subject matter experts in the business or online.  Customized materials can be generated on the fly to recommend a better way to do a task and satisfy the particular learning styles of students.  Advertising works this way already.  Borrowing technology from Google, Amazon, and Facebook, employees could learn more quickly and effectively from the behavior and knowledge of other people than any number of workshops or books.

Steven Flinn, founder and CEO of ManyWorlds, Inc, believes the tipping point in how we learn is just around the corner.   Flinn, who is also the author of The Learning Layer: Building the Next Level of Intellect In Your Organization, says “the biggest breakthrough is that instead of you learning about how to operate the machine (or computer), the machine learns about you. Rather than the system being hard coded, the system learns from your behaviors and the behaviors of other people.” While this technology is just becoming available, “by 2015, it will be mainstream. By 2020, employees will have no patience for systems that don’t have social awareness.”

Just as blogs and Web sites have disrupted traditional media, collaborative learning and peer-to-peer education will disrupt conventional colleges.  Experts will complain about the creation of user-generated educational materials, but a vibrant community of students will evolve that can literally teach itself, because when each individual has something different to offer, the whole is greater than the parts.  Members of online learning communities will seamlessly leap between beginner, enthusiast, and expert, depending on the learning context, and they will be able to find and create content that is more relevant to their lives than anything schools or publishers can provide now.  Companies that take advantage of this adaptive learning technology will have a competitive edge, even while saving money on their own educational initiatives. 

Can Employees Learn Using Online Games?

Educators have long known that games are good models for teaching teamwork. Employers however often view these games as ice-breakers and entertainment – in other words, a waste of time.  But MMPORGs- Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game - do a better job of teaching teamwork, problem solving, analytical thinking and collaboration skills among adults than do traditional classroom workshops because they more closely replicate the complexity of a typical office environment. 

It's easy to know what's best for the team when everyone is wearing the same color shirt, climbing a rope, and trying to kick the ball in the same direction.  But it’s much harder to be an effective team player in an environment with competing priorities, limited resources, divergent goals, and a whole slew of personalities.

MMPORGs force participants to make choices.  To be successful, the first thing a participant needs to do is select a team.  Choosing which team to join or which team members to recruit, and knowing when/if/how to leave that alliance or individual, has interesting parallels with the workplace. 

For example, consider The River City project. Recently developed at Harvard, River City has the look and feel of a multi-user video game. The idea behind River City is to create scientifically literate citizens who are able to think critically, make sense of complex data, and solve problems. The training is also designed to teach collaborative skills. Students who use River City enter a town that is beset with health problems. They then form research teams to figure out what’s making people sick. They can track clues, develop controlled experiments to test hypotheses, and make recommendations based on their lab work.

River City represents a new trend which has significant implications not only for schools but for business training as well. The trend is built around what online application developers call a MUVE, which stands for multi-user virtual environment.

In this intersection of business, education, and technology, there exists another looming trend of equal importance:  how the Web itself is going to disrupt the conventional training models. 

A whole generation of young people, the next generation of workers, has grown up with iPods, iPhones, and computers.  Many, if not most, need training on the spot.  In fact, many tenured employees need re-training today – not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, but now.  They need answers and skills when … well, when they need it.   The once a year or once a month sheep dip model of training just doesn’t work anymore.  Multi-day and even one-day trainings, what I like to call “drive-by workshops,” are costly, disruptive, and ineffective.  Companies are so lean that removing employees from the workplace for extended hours to train them literally halts business productivity dead in its tracks.  Unfortunately the alternative - not training employees - is a poison pill.