Posts on Education & Training

Usually when I'm at the checkout in Waitrose in Sheffield I get one of those little green tokens that you put in one of the three charity boxes near the exit. You read the label on each box and then use the token to vote for the local charity that you think should get a donation. It's a nice idea - it's always interesting to see which box contains the most green tokens and I guess it's a very effective and very visible (and tactile) way of making the customer aware of Waitrose's support for the local community.

Google+ is Google's answer to Facebook and Twitter. It lets you share posts, documents, photos and videos with ‘Followers'. Google say it's growing fast with over a 100m users and though it's got a way to go before it can match Facebook (800m) and Twitter (140m) for active users, it does have some great features: integration with other Google services like Google Apps and YouTube; really great photo sharing (photos look great in the brilliant mobile app); and Google+ ‘Pages' - standalone ‘Pages' linked to a Google+ account that you can use to promote your company or brand online.

More news this week from the US about free online access to university courses. This time Coursera, the online platform created by two academics from Stanford, announced that a new bunch of universities including the University of Edinburgh have signed up to make some of their courses available on the platform.

The post is a very brief idiot's guide to Functional Skills. It's the first of two and a bi-product of some background reading I've decided to do this weekend. There's a switchover to Functional Skills in August 2012 and they'll become increasingly important to our clients - particularly those independent training providers who deliver apprenticeships.