PADI eBusiness - Atomic Online - 800 Pound Gorilla in the Room

[boulderjohn]

May I suggest doing so via e-learning?

Good idea!

When I decided not to do the dissertation for the Ph.D in English Literature, I knew it would come back to haunt me later. My inability to read subtle nuances in messages here has turned out to be a curse. Perhaps a remedial reading course online will help me better interpret the controlling tone of the messages in this thread.

 

[Azza]

Good idea!

When I decided not to do the dissertation for the Ph.D in English Literature, I knew it would come back to haunt me later. My inability to read subtle nuances in messages here has turned out to be a curse. Perhaps a remedial reading course online will help me better interpret the controlling tone of the messages in this thread.

Mind you, it's hard to relay tone in writing. Especially on a forum like this
Glad you took my post in good humour

 

[boulderjohn]

Mind you, it's hard to relay tone in writing. Especially on a forum like this
Glad you took my post in good humour

Hey, if I learned anything about Kiwis in my all-too-brief visit to New Zealand, it was to take almost everything they say in humor--or humour.

 

[Azza]

Especially on a Friday Arvo with a pint of Guiness in hand

 

[boulderjohn]

Especially on a Friday Arvo with a pint of Guiness in hand

I have several on hand at the very moment--perhaps I shall raise a toast.

On the other hand, I am actually still working (9:00 PM my time), so I can't. One of the joys of working in an online environment. When you are having a crisis deadline, you can work from anywhere. You made a reference to cubicles earlier--I am not in one now. I need to go to Hawaii for a little work tomorrow--my wife will join me for some R & R afterwards. Whilst I am there, I will have to do many hours of work--whenever I can get an Internet connection.

In past years, I have continued to teach online education classes while I was traveling in Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Germany, Thailand, Holland, Italy, and even various places within the U.S. You can never get away from the classroom.

 

[RonFrank]

Again: jeez, who does??? ...........
(Why would this suddenly be of more concern with discussion of online academics when it's certainly not resolved with traditional training? I know it's not really, but the tone of this thread certainly belies that...)

Exactly, the tone of this thread is that people shop LDS's like they shop for a new car. The reality is that the public thinks that diving is like going hiking. It combines swimming with sucking off an extra long snorkel, the REAL danger is those sharks!

Despite the reality, diving is viewed as safe, easy, intuitive, and downright natural! And why not?

PADI wants to HOOK the impulse buyer into training! Why Not! The end result is more divers, more money, more gear sales, more everything. Phil is correct this will be good for the dive industry. There is already a huge percentage of divers who get certified, and dive only a few times (like maybe a honeymoon), so we are likely looking at a larger percentage of short term divers, vs. long term divers. Short term divers = bucks, and that is not bad for the diving economy. It can increase gear sales, training sales, travel sales, and a bunch of other sales! When those sales dry up, there is the next batch.

It will increase the overall long term diver population having more divers getting certified, and I think that will be the end result of more certifications.

 

[boulderjohn]

Exactly, the tone of this thread is that people shop LDS's like they shop for a new car. The reality is that the public thinks that diving is like going hiking. It combines swimming with sucking off an extra long snorkel, the REAL danger is those sharks!

Despite the reality, diving is viewed as safe, easy, intuitive, and downright natural! And why not?

PADI wants to HOOK the impulse buyer into training! Why Not! The end result is more divers, more money, more gear sales, more everything. Phil is correct this will be good for the dive industry. There is already a huge percentage of divers who get certified, and dive only a few times (like maybe a honeymoon), so we are likely looking at a larger percentage of short term divers, vs. long term divers. Short term divers = bucks, and that is not bad for the diving economy. It can increase gear sales, training sales, travel sales, and a bunch of other sales! When those sales dry up, there is the next batch.

I think I was a fairly typical beginning diver, and my experience suggests that no agency takes any particular blame for this.

I decided to get certified because I was planning to go to Cozumel, and I knew it was a great diving location. I made the decision to get certified before I went there, during a vacation somewhere else. I didn't know one organization from another. I assumed they were all OK. Before I went to the vacation, I borrowed a SSI book from a friend. I read it carefully and took lots of notes. I nearly memorized it. As far as I knew, they were the only organization in existence.

When I arrived at my vacation paradise, I asked at my hotel if there were any good dive shops, and they directed me to one. It was PADI. I had no idea if there was any difference, and I didn't care. In fact, I found almost no significant difference between the SSI book I had nearly memorized and the PADI book on which I would be tested.

I was trained, and as far as I knew at the time, I was trained well. When I became a professional and saw what was supposed to have happened in my training, I saw that they had taken more than a few short cuts, but I can't blame the agency for that. I would be fired immediately by my LDS employer if I took those short cuts.

My decision to get certified had nothing to do with any marketing by any agency. My choice of agencies was pure luck--it was the shop I walked into. The quality of my training was determined by the individual dive shop and instructor, who did a great job with what they taught me and made conscious decisions to ignore other parts of my training.

I think that the idea that marketing to the mass public is responsible for new divers is questionable. The only marketing I ever saw before or see now is in places and magazines I would never visit or never read if I weren't already a diver.

 

[Thalassamania]

Are you honestly saying that the underlying message in your entire work in this thread has not been that every thing PADI does is always wrong? If so, then I need to readjust my reading skills.

Yes, I am not bashing PADI as compared to any other agency. We have been discussing PADI's e-business initiative here, that’s all. Had we been discussing a similar initiative from any of the other "majors," I'm sure that it might have seemed that we were bashing (or praising) them. I apologize if it came off any other way, the "Indian Call Center Dive Instructor" was just a figment (fragment?) of my often weird sense of humor, it kind of came to me as a "Saturday Night Live sketch" in my imagination and made me chuckle. I did not mean to disparage distance learning in any way, I know that when done properly it can be as rigorous (or even more rigorous) and at least equally effective.

 

[TCDiver1]

.... it kind of came to me as a "Saturday Night Live sketch" in my imagination and made me chuckle. I did not mean to disparage distance learning in any way, I know that when done properly it can be as rigorous (or even more rigorous) and at least equally effective.

Yeah, kinda like; "cheeseburgy, cheeseburgy, cheeseburgy, no coke only pepsi ....

Like many, I don't agree with everything PADI does but like it or not what PADI has done is bring diving to the masses. eBusiness is just a logical extension of that effort when considering todays technologies.

I'm all for a multi-media/online academic education component of this eBusiness proposition. When mixed with good face to face instruction, it is a potent learning tool imo. It is not surprising that some in "Academia" might have a problem with this approach to learning.

 

[Thalassamania]

It is not surprising that some in "Academia" might have a problem with this approach to learning.

Actualy the biggest problem that I personally have with distance learning has to do with the division of education into a have/have nots sort of situation (as is occuring) whereby, right or wrong, classroom students are the "upper class" and distance learners (who be every bit as competent) are relegated to a "lower class" social status.