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How Technology Transformed My Professional Development
By Michele Martin | January 28, 2008
This is a guest post from blogger Michele Martin, who also was a guest on this week’s podcast.
As a consultant with a background in career development and training, it’s not surprising that I’ve put professional development high on my list of priorities. If I don’t keep learning, it’s easy for me to lose my competitive edge and, with it, my business.
In the past, my learning plan included subscribing to and reading monthly magazines, taking workshops and classes, going to conferences and reading lots of books in my field, subscribing to email listservs–pretty traditional stuff. These strategies were very event-based, so learning happened in little compartments of my life. It also seemed to happen in spurts–sometimes I’d be in learning mode and then other times, not much would be going on and I’d start to stagnate. It made it harder sometimes to incorporate what I’d learned into my daily life. I also found that with these approaches, I was still pretty isolated from other people. We’d come together for an event–a conference or a class–but then we’d go back to our own worlds and didn’t always stay in touch.
Then, about a year and a half ago I began blogging. When I started The Bamboo Project I envisioned it as a place where I’d share my “wisdom” on career and organizational development. Very quickly, though, I was sucked into the world of Web 2.0, learning not only about blogging, but also about wikis, RSS, social networking and the huge number of online productivity tools available to enhance my professional practice. That’s when things really took off.
In a few short months, I began running personal learning experiments to explore how to use these different tools. I started a wiki on using new technology in a nonprofit setting and partnered with a blogger I met online who lived in the UK to further build the resources for it. In that process I used Skype for the first time and found myself talking over my computer with this stranger in Great Britain. Completely cool.
A few months later, I wrote a post on the personal learning environment I was constructing for myself using various online tools and quickly became engaged in a variety of ongoing “conversations” with other bloggers on the topic. Eventually I developed for myself a complete online library of resources related to PLEs and began exploring all the ways they could be used in organizations.
In August of 2007, I engaged in a massive learning experiment called the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Challenge. Through it I met bloggers from all over the world, including Christine Martell, and for 31 days we went through daily assignments to improve our blogging. It was a sort of learning bootcamp that left us all exhausted and exhilarated and it showed me yet another way that being online could transform the learning experience.
As a result of using blogs and wikis and any number of free online tools (I’m a big fan of free) my approach to professional development has been completely transformed. Learning is something I do every day now, not when a learning event presents itself. Through the various blog subscriptions I’ve set up, I’m engaging in conversations with people from around the world on a variety of topics. These people help me challenge and refine my perspectives on my work and serve as a wonderful sounding board to ideas and issues I have going on. If I run into a professional problem or have a question, I just post it on my blog and I soon have several people offering me resources and suggestions. The generosity of this online community of learners is astounding–they’re willing to share just about anything to help each other out. And you can’t believe the wealth of information and ideas that people are sharing!
One of the most amazing benefits for me has been how these new technologies have changed my approach to learning. I now routinely run personal learning experiments for myself, challenging myself to learn about a particular topic and blog about it. A few months ago, for example, a client asked me to do a webinar for her. This led me to “liveblog” a webinar I attended where I had to pay some serious attention to the experience from a user perspective. This completely transformed how I went about planning my own webinar. I ended up doing an entire series of posts, including surveying my readers on their webinar experiences and then writing up my own experience to share what I learned from running my first webinar. I have no doubt that my work improved as a result of this.
For me, technology has been an incredible learning gift. I have learned more in the past year and half than I did in 4 years of college and the past 10 years of professional development activities. And this learning was free–just the cost of an Internet connection. Now I spend most of my time helping others see and explore the possibilities of these tools for lifelong learning. They’ve transformed my practice and I’m on a mission to help others gain the same benefits.
If you want to learn more about how you can do this for yourself, I encourage you join the Social Learning SIG and to listen to Kevin Jones’ webinar where he gives an intro to social learning. I’d also invite you to drop by The Bamboo Project where you can poke around in what I have available. I’ll be doing a series of “Beginner’s” posts over the next several weeks, so they provide the perfect opportunity for you to dip a toe in the Web 2.0 water. I promise that you’ll love it!
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Topics: - BlogCascadia |