My To-do List

My post for today is inspired by Ellen Wagner’s post: Why It Matters What They Call Us
I am more intrigued by what she has mentioned towards the end of her post.
She says: We have a while before the new economy picks up speed, so there is still time to get smart about working smarter, using our networks and letting technology mediate experience. We'll need to be ready. Sort of like training for a race. Or maybe even an ID-cathelon.

I was thinking what kind of training I should go through to get ready for the “race”. Surely, when the economy picks up and the industry gathers speed, I don’t want to be left behind. How do I gear up for the race and ensure that am on track and on par with everyone else…or even get better at that? I decided that I have a to-do list that I ought to draw up. Here are my thoughts:

• Get technology-oriented: By being technology-oriented, I do not mean learning new programming skills or learning about some new technology that’s not going to add value to my ID skills. I mean learning new technologies that will enable a better learning experience. Learning new technologies that will help me be less dependent on others to get my course up. New technologies that will enable faster, quality learning experience.
• Get better at meta learning: Really! Am so lost in this myriad of knowledge and sources of knowledge. Where do I start? How do I keep pace? Do I know that I don’t know? What more should I catch up on? How do I learn??? For this, I need to get better at all avenues of social learning. And I want to know how I can be up-to-date.
• A presentation at IDCI: Am working on this. Want to present some topic at any of our IDCI sessions.
• Learn Rapid e-learning: Tom Kuhlman is my inspiration. I want to develop at least one rapid e-learning course using any tool. So that also means I need to learn some new tool.
• Become a pro at Project estimation! Numbers confound me!
• Create at least one game-based e-learning course.
  I could come up with more. But for now, I think I need to do all of these before this year ends! And as we go further with the year, I know my list will expand. But for now, this is what I am focusing on.

Do you have a to-do list ? Would love to read them too.

Instructional Designers Community of India

Finally, a long-cherished dream comes true - an Instructional Designers community in India.

We have finally managed to get this community up and going. With two successful meetings, the third one is already underway. Each meeting gets richer, better, with new faces from the e-learning community joining us, sharing their knowledge, learning new things. When we all leave after the community meetings, we realize that we've learnt so much...and much more to catch up on. I feel it is a humbling experience too to know that there are others who know so much more.

Am glad this community is growing. We expect to spread the word around and be of maximum help to Connect, Collaborate, and Learn!

This month's Big Question: Where is your time spent?

I found this month's Big Question quite thought-provoking. It was like jamming my brakes and pausing to gather my thoughts. With so many new tools and technologies, it is definitely easier to update myself and get better at it.

And now for the answers:
How much time do I spend and how did I find time for all the relatively newer things like reading blogs, twitter, social networks, etc.?
Unfortunately for me, my organization still has most of the sites blocked in office. Except for Google and a few other sites, am cut off from practically all sources of knowledge. So, the only way I can catch up with the world is when I get back home and connect to my computer. Thankfully some of the blogs are accesible and so I catch up on them when in office. Infact most of my knowledge is gathered through the blogs I read. However, when am back home, I catch up on all that I missed during the day.

What am I doing less of today than I was 3-5 years ago?
I just remembered I have a television at home!

Am glad am not stuck to it any more. But books are something I cannot give up on for anything else. There's nothing like settling in with a steaming cup of coffee and a great book :-) I do find time for that.

Do you have less of a life with all of these new things?

Life has certainly changed.

Now, I know that there are so many ways in which I can be on par with others in my field. So in that way, life is certainly better - to know that you are connected all the time. I also believe in giving optimum attention to everything in life. If I spend most of my time blogging or tweeting with no time for anything else, I know life is getting lopsided. I like a fair share of everything. So life is certainly richer - never lesser.