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Entries Tagged as 'Learning'

Selecting Our Teachers

November 26th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Everyday I select a few teachers. Note, no one else selects them for me. It is all my selection. As with most aspects of life, there are good and bad points here. We all have teachers – people from whom we learn things. Tiny, rural Loranger High School graduated me a few […]

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Tags: Choose · Learning

Knowing What You are Doing

August 13th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. I love working with people who know what they are doing. They come to the workplace, see challenges in front of them, and eagerly plow into the work. Short pause – I don’t live in LaLaLand. I live and work in the […]

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Tags: Learning · Work

Learning Environments

July 30th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A learning environment is one where people can learn. It may not be a teaching environment as that focuses on the teachers instead of the learner. Several years back, author and consultant Jerry Weinberg told me a story about learning. The story telling was years ago, so my memory will fail me […]

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Tags: Learning

A Lesson about using Apple Computers

July 26th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I learn how NOT to backup an Apple computer. Apple has a piece of software called “Time Machine.” It automates backups. The software puts all the files on the computer disk into a “big ball of bytes” on a backup disk. You must have Time Machine to access the individual files in […]

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Tags: Apple · Computing · Learning

Free Time

July 19th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Giving employees free time may bring great new ideas and products. Not giving employees free time may cause them to “try things” while working on projects. The projects often suffer. I have met many engineers, programmers, administrators, and others who have great imagination. Ideas come to them (I used to be one […]

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Tags: Learning · Management

14 Lessons from a Troubled Project

July 9th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Several years ago I was working with a troubled project. We had a few days to plan and learn. Here are 14 lessons I learned. Several years ago,  I spent three full days with a group of people trying to plan their way on a project that was failing. They were doing […]

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Tags: Learning · Management · Observation · People

But Then They Won’t Pay Attention (to me)

March 12th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The iPad and its apps are the latest tech gadget that can help in the classroom (any kind of classroom in almost any setting). One issue is that once a student loves the iPad, they ignore the teacher – the person. Persons have feelings and sometimes persons have hurt feelings. Let’s employ […]

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Tags: Education · Family · iPad · Learning · People

Inadequacy as a Resource

January 19th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Lacking something means that you have learned to live without it. That knowledge is a resource. I know many people who lack many things. Their resources are inadequate to do some things. Observing some of these people has helped me realize: Inadequate resources is a resource. Here are some examples. A person […]

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Tags: Learning

Bananagrams

January 16th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I learn that I need to learn more words. Over the holiday season I spent time with relatives in Louisiana. One evening, some of the relatives were playing a word game: Bananagrams. It seems this is a famous game, especially on Facebook or something. I had never played the game and wasn’t […]

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Tags: Education · Learning · Writing

Lesser-of-Two-Evils Questions (and Meta Questions)

November 14th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are times when I ask if my situation was caused by one of two shortcomings. Neither answer is pleasing. Then I move on to ask why I am in such an unsatisfactory situation. A couple decades ago, I heard a statement about explaining a bad situation. One paraphrase of the statement […]

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Tags: Communication · Excuses · Learning · Problems