It seems that no matter what we call it, one will have to continue to learn new skills, ideas or concepts in order to be relevant in their field. One thing that I love about my wife is she is always taking classes, attending PD, researching new concepts in her field so that she can be relevant in her field. She recently shared with me that when she was pregnant with our twins she "missed" the ombre craze and by default missed training on it. Later after the initial craze passed she still had the desire to go back and learn it so that any customer who came to her requesting an ombre, she would be able to accommodate. She said it would have been better to learn it earlier as the better teachers/presenters had presented it a few years earlier and she was stuck learning it from, well less than the best stylist.
When I think of myself as a learner I want to learn everything almost to a fault. I often find myself learning just enough about something to talk about it but not enough to become an expert in that field. (A.K.A. start my own consulting firm on that topic) Although I will say with a few exceptions Google Apps for Education, itunes, podcasting and that collection of skills related to Apple, and of course the Safe Schools Training classes. But today I am jumping back into the online learning by signing up for a class on edx. They have a course on Active Directory and although I think I understand forests and trees and so on I feel taht I can pick up something from the course. Strike that I KNOW I will because being a life long learner I have realized that I can always pick up new information.
I also signed up for a Blackbaud Foundations course. Our school has the learn everything package that is set to expire at the end of our contract with Blackbaud sometime in June. Therefore if I am going to learn this beast of a software I had better get on it. I am really excited about learning BB - specifically Education Edge (EE) as it seems everyone here assumes that I know what I am doing with EE so I figure I had mise well learn it.
Plus they tout the fact that your certification never expires but they recommned you update your skill set on a regular basis. Oh and the fact they send you a BB logo to add to your business cards upon successful completion of the course and exam. Any one who knows me can attest to the fact that I will do just about any training for a certificate but some little logo I can add to my business card well now we are cooking with fire.
When I think of myself as a learner I want to learn everything almost to a fault. I often find myself learning just enough about something to talk about it but not enough to become an expert in that field. (A.K.A. start my own consulting firm on that topic) Although I will say with a few exceptions Google Apps for Education, itunes, podcasting and that collection of skills related to Apple, and of course the Safe Schools Training classes. But today I am jumping back into the online learning by signing up for a class on edx. They have a course on Active Directory and although I think I understand forests and trees and so on I feel taht I can pick up something from the course. Strike that I KNOW I will because being a life long learner I have realized that I can always pick up new information.
I also signed up for a Blackbaud Foundations course. Our school has the learn everything package that is set to expire at the end of our contract with Blackbaud sometime in June. Therefore if I am going to learn this beast of a software I had better get on it. I am really excited about learning BB - specifically Education Edge (EE) as it seems everyone here assumes that I know what I am doing with EE so I figure I had mise well learn it.
Plus they tout the fact that your certification never expires but they recommned you update your skill set on a regular basis. Oh and the fact they send you a BB logo to add to your business cards upon successful completion of the course and exam. Any one who knows me can attest to the fact that I will do just about any training for a certificate but some little logo I can add to my business card well now we are cooking with fire.