Why Employee Surveillance is Absolutely Must?

Where s the Line Between Security and Privacy Issues?
Using spy cameras for secret surveillance is not a surprise anymore. There are many examples, like banks, super markets or parking lots. However, one example of secret surveillance is widely debatable. And that is employee surveillance.
Sure, the company has to protect its equipment or intellectual property. However, employee, as every civilian of a modern society has to have rights to his or her own privacy.
Let s look at the popular examples of employee surveillance in restaurants or casinos and decide if monitoring employees is really such a bad and offensive practice.
Restaurant Business
Restaurants are a savior for those of use who do not have time to have lunch or dinner at home. When we go to a restaurant, we expect everything to be smooth from clean plates to nice service. And of course, we expect to have a tasty meal every time. But can we always be sure that we get exactly what we want?
You probably seen those videos on various television shows where employee surveillance disclose incompetent (and many times psychological problems having) employees who do some really nasty stuff.
For instance, they may sneeze into the plate, spit into your coffee, and do much much worse things that you probably wouldn t want to think about right now.
There may be many reasons for that (excluding quite obvious mental illness). Some may have a bad day, some may not like a person, some maybe didn t get enough tips last time, and so on But these situations should never be tolerated.
So how can we be sure that we eat a clean and tasty food? Well, secret employee surveillance helps us this time. Maybe no one would ever knew that such things happen, if no spy cameras were installed to monitor employees during their work day. In this case, employee surveillance at least, gives us some hope that such employees will think twice before doing something nasty.
Casino Business
Casino business is probably the largest industry for employee surveillance. Almost every casino in Las Vegas has some kind of security camera or hires specialized companies to spy on their employees and clients.
Without secret (well, many already know about security cameras in casinos) surveillance, a casino would lose millions of dollars in the long run. So employing a company to monitor gamblers or employees is much more financially beneficial, because casinos can save a lot of money.
Again, without closely monitoring their employees and clients, it would be impossible to discover and have a proof that someone is stealing the money or cheating over the table.
Intellectual Property
Another example of employee surveillance is various IT companies who track if employees don t abuse their email systems or leak valuable information outside the company itself.
You probably know how much employees love to abuse a company s network. They download movies, MP3 s, share files and browse porno websites very often, in some cases every single day.
Well companies who want their employees to work efficiently and stop abusing their systems, install special software for tracking their employee activities at work. That software can alert system managers about various inappropriate actions and help company to control their employees work better.
It is especially important when companies don t want the information to be sent outside their network. Employees might send a new movie script over the net and ruin film studio s plans. They might send some important application via email to the other company expecting to get a payment for such traitorous activity.
So once again, employee surveillance is a must in such situation.
Companies usually have their own rules for surveillance and inform their employees about such things in the contract or otherwise.
Conclusion
While, employee surveillance is very important in some cases, there are many people who disagree and claim that monitoring employees infringes employee s rights. They say that employee has to have privacy at home and at work, feel safe and secure all the time.
Some say that even if you monitor employees emails or their working space, there are still mail, phone calls, fax machines and other ways to leak very important information outside the company. If employee wants to violate their company s policy, no one will stop them.
Well, that might be true. However, employing various surveillance tools to monitor employees will definitely decrease the chance of money fraud or other illegal activity. If you warn your employees about spy cameras, they ll definitely think twice before doing something illegal.



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Developing Learning Activities and Simulations in e-Learning Content

What turns your best dress into a showstopper? Accessories. And what turns your online course content into dazzlingly useful learning content? Learning Activities. What is a Learning Activity? In e-learning content development, we use all forms of questions for test and quizzes:
1. Multiple correct, which presents a number of choices as answers to a particular question. There may be more than one answer to this question. The students chooses all answers that are correct.
2. Single correct, which presents multiple choices as answers to a particular questions. One answer of the possible choices is correct.
3. Item matching, in which there is one column of possible answers that relate to another column of questions. Item matching is commonly used for matching the correct term to the definition.
4. Fill-in-the-blank, in which the students enters the correct word or words that complete a sentence.
5. True/false, in which the student answers whether a statement is true or false.
6. Short answer, in which the student enters a one to two sentence answer to a question.
7. Essay, in which the student responds to a question with a page (or more) long response.
All of these question types are useful for testing knowledge gained from taking a course, as well as testing the level of knowledge prior to a course. In addition, such questions are useful in the course itself as learning checks. The learning check enables the student to determine whether he understands the material. Most companies consider these questions to be adequate learning activities. However, learning activities can be much more. Learning activities that are simulations can involve the student and give him a safe environment in which to practice skills gained through the course. .
Learning Activities are interactive activities that help to explain concepts and involve the student with hands-on learning. This may include all forms of drag and drop questions (one to one correlation, many to one correlation) as well as interactive ordering of graphics or text, and finally, simulations.
An IDC article and survey, Technology-Based Simulations: Cloning the Work Environment for More Effective Learning, June 2004 by Michael Brennan, states, "By 2008 the use of simulations will quadruple.... Simulations provide a parallel universe in which employees hone their skills... Innovative companies have realized this, and others will follow."
Simulations are currently the most expensive learning activity. Simulations must be individually designed and programmed. For example, suppose you have a sales course in which you are testing the sales student s retention of the message that the company wishes to deliver to its customers. You could do a question workshop: several questions that give situations requiring an action in multiple correct or single correct formats. Another, more entertaining, method would be to have the sales person run through a scenario in which he indicates what he would do to sell his product. The learning activity indicates whether the customer would buy this product based on those actions. This feedback could be indicated by a graph indicating customer readiness to buy. It could also be complimented by video, in which the customer appears aggravated when the sales person gives his message incorrectly and pleased when the sales person gives his message correctly.
Online courses are taken privately and at the student s convenience. If the student requires several attempts with a particular scenario, praise the student for continued effort and eventual competency.
Adding humor to simulations and learning activities is essential yet can be controversial. As the simulation developer or content developer, you do not want to add any humor that could be perceived as offensive, sexist or worse, unfunny. To extend our sales example, when the sales person is unsuccessful at selling his product in the learning activity, you would not want your customer video or simple animation of the customer to offend the sales person. Yet you want him to laugh and try again. Perhaps the customer morosely shaking his head and leaving the room, with text indicating how the sales call went dreadfully south would be acceptable and could be done in a humorous fashion. You would not want this animation to be disturbing the customer should not shake his fist and yell for a restraining order against the sales person, for example.
In the past, I participated in designing a simulation of patient anesthesia. The computer program consisted of a patient on the operating room table and two dials that the student could turn. One dial administered oxygen, the other dial administered anesthetic. The patient s parameters could change (height, weight, age). As the student administered the anesthesia, a graph showed the patient s stats. If you administered too much anesthesia the patient would die! It was a great simulation, but scary. The death knell of the patient was accompanied by funeral music. . Ouch!
On the other hand, sometimes we encounter simulations and learning activities that add nothing to the content or the course. They are superfluous, added to maintain interest. You must be very careful in these instances. If you want to add something to maintain interest, it should still be useful and explore some aspect of the topic. A Flash movie of interesting fractals may be colorful and fun - useless in a course that is not about fractals, art or Flash. For example, suppose you are teaching contractual document details. You can still relate the content of the course to a learning activity in which the student must put the correct elements from a list into three different types of contracts. As dry as you may think detailing the elements of a contract might be, if you add audio that indicates whether the addition was right or wrong, you can keep your student s interest. Wrong! can be contrasted with Oh, not that element, it does not belong said in a beautiful feminine voice. The second response can add a smile and cause the student to remember how the contractual elements are added to a contract. A booming male voice that states, You sir, are correct! can bring that same acknowledgement.
In conclusion, questions and quizzes while useful are not the end of interactivity. We need to provide the means for simulations inside online courses to provide the hands on learning that students need. Through clever activities that allow seeing the consequences of your actions on the simulation model, we can provide activities that enable retention of material and practice. If these activities lead the student to greater understanding, we have provided not only an entertaining activity but also great value for our online courses.



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Blogs-Why Do People Blog?

Blogs are becoming very popular. The rate at which the numbers are increasing is mind-boggling. Why is this happening? Why every body wants to create a blog? Who else will read that blog? If everyone is busy writing his/her blog why and when will they get time to search for other blogs and read them? Because of this over population and density, will blogging become another failure? Is it a fad, which will pass away? Let us examine?
Why do people blog? Most of the people write blogs to express themselves. They are sure that on their blog they will get what they want printed. If they write articles or columns for newspapers they may or may not get printed. Writing a blog gives the power to each of us to get printed immediately. I personally write my blog http://painsandpleasuresoflife.blogspot.com to express myself freely and feel good to see that what I wrote got printed immediately.
Another reason of writing in a blog and website is freedom of design, layout and structure. Blogging gives this freedom. It does not need navigation architecture designs of a website nor a structured menu. You write and get printed - as simple as that. This has a flip side also. In a website one can lay out the information in an easy to access and read format. You can lead your reader to a particular page in a website. You cannot do that on your blog.
Do blogs get read? How does one popularize one s blog? These are difficult questions to answer. For most of us, it is difficult to find time and submit our blog in the increasing number of directories. It is also difficult to make sure that our blog will get one of top rankings in a search. Only the search engines know the secret of that and others only speculate. If we try to read the articles written on this subject, not only the quantity but the difference of opinions will leave most of us tired, frustrated and undecided. One more issue- before you decide that you would want to popularize your blog, please think - whether you search for blogs and read them? A lot many of us are so busy writing our own blogs, that we find no time looking for others. Why should this not apply to our potential readers?
Whatever the pros and cons of blogging, one outcome is certain. Blogs give us the opportunity of writing what we want and get it printed.
CD Mohatta writes on issues that affect life like management, love, motivation etc. His writings can be found in motivational wallpapers, free online greetings and love greetings.



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