Glossary Term Definitions

Actionable (hands-on) learning allows the learner to practice the skills that are necessary to stay competitive in the employment market. The student learns by doing, instead of just sitting through lectures. This enables the learner to experiment and put into practice the new concepts that are taught, expand abilities, and get constructive expert feedback.

The 'My Resources' area of the web site contains industry relevant Application Notes (App Notes) that allow users to access information directly from vendors and subject matter experts. Application Notes provide vendor or application specific information that supplements the courseware and other reference material.

The assessment engine is a tool used to create and generate robust assessments that help create a pervasive learning solution through thelearningport.com. When developing courses we use the tool to carefully incorporate an Assess-Learn-Assess cycle in the form of a pre-assessment (to aid in the selection of the most suitable learning path) and a post-assessment (to provide useful feedback to track learner progress). Assessments are also offered as standalone products and can be used by individuals and corporations to measure the knowledge and to identify performance metrics necessary for talent development. The assessment engine also has granular reporting capability.

A continual quiz and testing process designed to measure and improve learning through: setting learning expectations, criteria for learning quality, performance appraisal, documentation, analysis, explanation, and individual performance improvement.

Blended Learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. It can involve the use of virtual and physical resources, like technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to deliver instruction. For example a student might attend a classroom session for face to face instruction, and then be directed to complete a self paced course, or to participate in online activities such as blogs, polls, wikis, chat services, virtual meetings, projects and discussion forums.

A blog is a website that provides commentary or news on a particular topic. It combines text, images, links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of blogs.

The case study is one of several ways of doing research, and learning, that utilizes in-depth study methods to examine a single instance, event, or case. A case study affords the learner a sharpened understanding of why the instance happened as it did, creating a setting, background and frame of reference so that the learner can then create and implement an opinion and solution.

A Chat Forum is a virtual place that accepts and displays text messages simultaneously from individuals who have logged in. It offers a way of communicating with other people, in the same space in real-time, as well as archives and posts the messages allowing users to view and respond to old messages at anytime.

Online chat is a way of communicating by sending text messages to people in real-time.

Community learning (often referred to as social learning) refers to learning that happens in a social setting or group. Social learning depends on group dynamics to overcome the limitations of traditional instructor led teaching. It does this by promoting the development of individual competence and the acceptance of others with their individual competencies and limitations.

A content repository is used to store digital assets such as, documents (white papers, case studies, app notes), videos, slide presentations, reference materials, books, etc. The content repository can be accessed by clicking the <My Resources> link. Users can view the resources stored there and can also search using key terms to find assets pertinent to their interest.

Contextual Search can be thought of as a combination of the best parts of a database and a search engine. Whereas search engines are designed to return fast results, databases are designed to return a very thorough list. A contextual search is still extremely fast relative to most databases, but also utilizes relevancy ranking models, multi-field sorting, advanced linguistic models and joins which traditional search engines do not generally use.

A discussion forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Many blended classes host discussion forums where students, SMEs, alumni and instructors form a virtual community to learn from one another.

Employment for Education (EfE) is an SQL Star initiative that targets colleges and universities. Supplemental technology and industry relevant classes and projects are taught along with the university’s standard curriculum. The key objective of this program is to increase students’ knowledge and practice of technology combined with personal skills so that upon graduation students are ready for employment.

Electronic learning or eLearning is a general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. It deals with both the technologies and associated methodologies in learning using networked and/or multimedia technologies. Many technologies can be, and are, used in eLearning, including: WBTs (web based training), multimedia, e-mail, blogs, wikis, and virtual classrooms.

Elluminate is an application that is part of our learning solution that provides live Web conferencing, eLearning, and collaboration for academic and corporate markets. It provides a rich environment for live chats, break out sessions, remote training, and online meetings.

ILT (Instructor Lead Training) is the traditional hierarchical “classroom” approach to teaching with an instructor leading the class. SQL Star delivers this kind of training, (among other methods) in its Knowledge Centers in eight major cities throughout India, as well as in classrooms on college and universities campuses that partner with SQL in the Education for Employment (EfE) initiative and at corporate sites.

Instructional Design is the practice of packaging various learning delivery systems and content in a manner that most effectively supports the teaching and learning process. The process involves a pre-assessment of the learner’s understanding, defining their instructional goals, and then creating the appropriate learning plan that may take place in student-only, teacher-led or community-based settings.

A journal is a daily record of events and learning experiences. It is most often peer-reviewed and is sometimes referred to as a serious scholarly publication.

My Courses is only available to registered or enrolled students. Demo courses can be accessed here (during the first 48 hours after registering with the site). Most importantly this is where instructors and enrolled students access their courses, course material, grades, course calendar and course schedules from the web.

Digital assets such as industry relevant white papers, videos, case studies and application notes that are aggregated in the content repository, indexed and tagged and made available to students and teachers as reference and reading materials.

Pervasive learning refers to the ongoing learning process that extends beyond the classroom, usually including web 2.0 technologies such as wikis and discussion forums. This encourages the student to continue the learning process beyond the scope of the courses they take into their daily lives to allow for a deeper understanding of the concepts and tools being provided through the learning experience.

In computing terms, a platform is some sort of framework which allows software to run. This can refer to the hardware that the software is running on, the operating system that the computer runs, or even specific programming languages and their libraries.

The SQL portal functions as an entry point to the Pervasive Learning Platform, providing useful content and linking to the various features on the platform. It is designed to attract the best minds and offers both batch and personalized modes of education with innovative features designed to make learning fun and rewarding.

A post-assessment is a test or quiz that provides useful feedback to track a learners progress in a completed course or other training activity. When compared to a pre-assessment, it can provide a view of the progress that has been made since instruction began.

A pre-assessment is a test procedure that helps predetermine the level of an individual’s knowledge before instruction begins. It is useful for planning the type of training to be taken. It can provide a useful starting point to begin tracking a learner’s progress.

A resume is a document containing a summary of relevant job experience and education for the purpose of obtaining an interview for employment. The resume or CV (curriculum vitae) is frequently the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker. Therefore it creates a very important “first impression”.

Self paced learning allows trainees to take prescribed coursework at their own pace.

It puts the learner in control of their own learning allowing them to fast-track through learning modules that they can easily grasp, while affording them the opportunity to slow down through more challenging material.

Subject Matter Experts, also known as SMEs, are technical experts in their field of study who meet a high set of standards. They are members of a project team who are the most knowledgeable about the content being taught, and are often responsible for selecting and reviewing content for accuracy before it is added to a repository or course.

Social learning (often referred to as community learning) refers to learning that happens in a social setting or group. Social learning depends on group dynamics to overcome the limitations of traditional instructor led teaching. It does this by promoting the development of individual competence and the acceptance of others with their individual competencies and limitations.

Virtual classroom refers to instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both, and the teacher provides instruction through web conferencing tools (like Elluminate), course management applications, multimedia resources, discussion forums, wikis, blogs, videoconferencing, etc. Students receive the instruction and communicate with the teacher via these technologies.

Web-based training (WBT) is a type of training that is delivered over the Internet using a web browser. It is usually a self-paced learning medium, although web-based training can also includes interactive methods, such as bulletin boards, chat rooms, forums, blogs, instant messaging, videoconferencing, discussion threads, etc.

Web 2.0 is a perceived second generation of the World Wide Web and web design. Some people use this term to refer to the “web” slowly evolving into a full-fledged platform, as opposed to a collection of websites. Examples of web 2.0 technologies include wikis, social networking sites, blogs, and other technologies that are new to mainstream use that allow for more interactive and real-time sharing of information.

Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet. It refers specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, as opposed to the posted message threads of discussion known as a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board".

In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer, and is connected to other participants via the internet. Web conferencing may be one-way, from the speaker to the audience but can also allow interaction and collaboration between participants.

A Webinar is a specific type of web conferencing used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet. It is typically conducted much like a regular seminar, with “live” or “synchronous” meetings between a presenter and an audience. Web conferencing may be one-way, from the speaker to the audience, or may be interactive and collaborative between the participants.

A white paper is an authoritative report used to educate customers, collect leads for a company, or help people make decisions. Many white papers expose the benefits of particular technologies and products. These types of white papers are almost always marketing communications documents and are designed to promote a specific company's solutions or products as it relates to the issue or topic examined. White papers, when written objectively, are often regarded as a credible source of information and/or education.

The word “Wiki” comes from the Hawaiian word for “rapidly”. In computing terms, a wiki is software that allows users to collectively create, edit, and link content quickly and with relative ease. This means that while they are useful for gathering general information one must be cautious with what they find there as it is generated by community members who may not always be experts, and the information within them is always changing. Many businesses and educational portals have recently adopted this technology as a part of their private intranets, to allow team and project members to keep a continually updated bank of information and ideas that is easily shared.