Performance Support Systems
Introduction
In all of the research and documentation used to create this paper Performance Support System (PSS) and Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) are used synonymously. The term Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) will be used in this paper.
Defining EPSS.
Performance Support (PS) is the concept of integrating knowledge and learning experiences, with software tools to improve the quality and quantity of worker performance with as little support as possible from other people. PS also provides an electronic foundation to enable organizational learning. EPSS is the computer system the results from applying the concept of performance support (EPSS website). Some people may confuse EPSS with an Information System (IS), an electronic manual, or Computer-Based Training (CBT). IS are designed to help a user use the application, whereas EPSS are designed to provide support on how to do the work. An electronic manual is just an on-line book. An EPSS may contain an electronic manual, but EPSS not only shows you the information, but how to apply it. CBTs facilitates what you need to learn EPSSs facilitates performance.
Why Use an EPSS?
"The rate of change in organizations today is tremendous. Just when one downsizing or reengineering effort ends, the latest business software is released and there is something new to learn. The result? An environment in which employees are continuously novices again" (Dawson 29). An EPSS can be used to continually train and retrain employees while providing task specific assistance and training at the touch of a button. An EPSS can also provide assistance to infrequently encountered problems as well as create a consistent set of answers to customers’ frequently asked questions.
In many corporations today, the time, length, and cost involved in training is excessive. EPSS solves those problems. First, EPSS provides a cost effective way to train employees. Although the initial setup cost of EPSS can be expensive, these cost normally relate to start-up and maintenance. "Instructor led class where teaching time takes roughly 3 times longer compared with computer based instruction. The overhead costs of instructor led training are also much higher. [Also] with instructor led courses, the more students use the program, the more the program costs. Technology based alternatives eliminate these costs" (Winslow & Caldwell 76). Secondly, EPSS provides an alternative to training where employees are absent from work by bring the instruction to the employees.
The focal point of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is the devastating fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II, an event which was experienced by the real-life Vonnegut as well as the fictional Billy Pilgrim. Through the novel, Vonnegut renders his account of an occurrence which is, in itself, indescribable. In order to tell this story to the world, Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim's Tralfamadorian experience as a window that allows the reader some relief from the horrors of war. According to the author, the war was a traumatic experience which is virtually impossible to describe. As Vonnegut says in the introduction, " . . .I thought, too, that it [the novel] would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big . . .but not many words about Dresden came from my mind then"(Vonnegut 2).
Kurt Vonnegut is the author of Slaughterhouse Five and he was a soldier during World War II. Slaughterhouse Five is a fictional story of what a man named Billy Pilgrim went through as a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II. Vonnegut experienced the bombing of Dresden in Germany when was a prisoner of war. Vonnegut's prison in Dresden, Germany was a slaughterhouse that the Germans forced the prisoners of war to live in. He relates some of his experiences during World War II to help him create the fictional story about Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is a fictional character that Vonnegut created in order to somehow tell his store of Dresden. Most of Billy Pilgrim's experiences are similar to what Vonnegut actually experienced as a prisoner of war during World War II. PTSD is a disorder that disrupts someone's life keeping them from having an normal life because of a traumatic event that they experienced. PTSD is very common among soldiers returning from war because they went through many traumatic events during their deployment. It is very obvious to see that Vonnegut and Billy Pilgrim are suffering from PTSD after their deployment in Germany during World War II.
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is the tale of a World War II soldier, Billy Pilgrim. His wartime experiences and their effects lead him to the ultimate conclusion that war is unexplainable. To portray this effectively, Vonnegut presents the story in two dimensions: historical and science-fiction. The irrationality of war is emphasized in each dimension by contrasts in its comic and tragic elements. The historical seriousness of the Battle of the Bulge and the bombing of Dresden are contrasted by many ironies and dark humor; the fantastical, science-fiction-type place of Tralfamadore is, in truth, an outlet for Vonnegut to show his incredibly serious fatalistic views. The surprising variations of the seriousness and light-heartedness allow Vonnegut to show effectively that war is absurd.
One of the most devastating and forgotten battles of World War II was the battle of Dresden. The book Slaughterhouse Five, narrated by Kurt Vonnegut, attempts to describe the war and its destructiveness. The war provides no advantages to the lives of soldiers and in some ways destroys the mind of the soldier as well. Billy after the war is deceptively successful. He has a good job and a family, while in reality he has no connection with his kids, and most of the time cannot express what is on his mind. The destructiveness of war shown throughout the book causes much harm to the lives of civilians and soldiers after the war.
Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt." A Taoist is not someone who is
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five the main character Billy Pilgrim experiences few emotions during his time in World War II. His responses to people and events lack intensity or passion. Throughout the novel Billy describes his time travel to different moments in his life, including his experience with the creatures of Tralfamadore and the bombing of Dresden. He wishes to die during most of the novel and is unable to connect with almost anyone on Earth. The fictional planet Tralfamadore appears to be Billy’s only way of escaping the horrors of war, and acts as coping mechanism. Billy seems to be a soldier with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
Vonnegut uses his own trauma and the opinion he has on killing, which was shaped by the war, to spread to his readers or listeners a message of pacifism and a plan of action in order to mankind from its destructive ways. “Throughout this first chapter there is a kind of pleading insistence, a desire to impress upon the reader the fact that the author has experienced the horrors and sincerely felt the grief” (O’Sullivan 125). Again, despite this discussing a chapter in his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, it applies to the speech being discussed. Although the mentioning of the traumatic experiences in his speech are subtle and a listener must think deeply, it is still obvious that one must know of Vonnegut’s traumatic life in order to understand
War is the destruction of all things it take emotion, childhood, and beauty away from the world leaving crumbs of chaos behind for others to clean. In the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five”, Kurt Vonnegut display the bitterness of war with the sweetness of live from Billy's experience in WWII. Billy is a war prisoner who see the destruction of Dresden firsthand. Kurt Vonnegut show his hate for war through demonstrating war corrupting soldier innocent, people normal trait, and the physical beauty men create for themselves.
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