As an independent consultant, one of the things I missed the most about working in a company or organization is the exchange of ideas.  When I worked for the Educational Technology program at Michigan State University, I was always learning new things through my fellow colleagues in the College of Ed and being able to apply them to my job.  Now, it is up to me to make sure I stay on top of the latest research and technologies related to my field.  

Luckily there are a plethora of ways to do just that.  As part of my own professional development plan I have become a member of the Association for Talent Development and the eLearning Guild.  Both of these organizations have helped me to develop my skills as well as stay on top of the latest research and technologies in the field of instructional design.  I wanted to highlight two of my favorite tools from each of these organizations - the ATD Career Navigator and the eLearning Guild Learning Exchange.  

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently attended the Learning Solutions 2015 conference.  When I look at the different sessions that I want to attend, I usually try to pick ones that will be helpful for an upcoming project or will help me professionally for all of my projects.  The session titled - 6 Rules for Revising Bad Elearning Scripts by Daniel Brigham fell in both of these categories.  

As a former English teacher you would think I should have all the skills I need for writing and editing scripts. However, I have found that my background in writing narratives and short stories is much, much different than writing Elearning scripts. Whereas I have learned to be descriptive and more flowery in my writing, Elearning scripts need to be more direct and to the point.  BIG difference!  

I just returned from a recent trip to Orlando, Florida to attend the Learning Solutions 2015 conference. I absolutely love learning new things and try to take every opportunity available to do so.  So LSCON 2015 was one of those opportunities.  There are so many great sessions as well as vendors at the Expo Hall that it would be hard not to come away with something from the experience.  Over the past several months I had been toying with the idea of writing a weekly blog about some of my projects and things I have learned along the way, and LSCON 2015 motivated me to finally make it happen!

I'm not sure if there was one specific thing that caused this newly found motivation or just the overall excitement that the conference generated.  However, meeting Tom Kuhlmann, from The Rapid E-Learning Blog, in person definitely was one of the highlights that finally lit the spark.  For the past two years, I have read Tom's post on a weekly basis.  I found his blog to be extremely helpful in my professional development and have recommended it to many of my colleagues.