Trainers Are Learners Too

The sheer amount of information that can be found online relative to any subject can be extremely overwhelming.  Where do you start?  What is credible?  I suffered from this very problem for a solid year or two after deciding to get more involved in the leaning industry at large.

So what can you do?  There are only so many hours in a day and no one really wants to sacrifice all of their free time sifting through mountains of urls’s and Google Search results pages.

Well, it takes one person giving you that one resource that always seems to make the difference.  Below I am going to list a few of my favorite resources for you to do with as you will:

• http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/

- lrchat is my favorite resource.  It a group of Learning Professionals who all huddle around their monitors from 8:30-10:00pm EST every Thursday night to discuss questions selected by a group of moderators.  The discussion takes place on Twitter using the hashtag #lrnchat.  Go get yourself a Twitter account and check it out.  These can be the best way to make great professional contacts and grab a hold of interesting links and ideas.  Caution:  Twitter.com is not the place to try to participate in an event of this nature.  There are hundreds of tweets in this hour and a half.  Using a service like tweetchat.com is greatly recommended.

• http://www.elearninglearning.com/

- eLearningLearning describes itself as: “A Community Collecting and Organizing the Best Information on the Web About eLearning”.  What will you get?  Access to all of the best resources in one place.  It can be a little dauting when you first look at the site.  There a lot going on.  I suggest focusing on the bottom of the main portion of the page where it says “The Latest From the eLearning Community”.  There is bound to be an article, post or discussion that will spark your interest.  This project was started by Tony Karrer, CEO/CTO of TechEmpower.

• http://michaelhanley.ie/elearningcurve/

- This will help fire up the technologist in you.  The “headier” of the these three resources, Michael Hanley’s site will connect you with thoughts and ideas for your next training development project or platform.  An excellent writer who knows how to use his resources, Hanley clearly spends a large portion of his time doing research, a fact that we all get to benefit from.

• http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/

- Another great resource for the developer, Articulate’s Rapid eLearning blog will expose you to new ideas and resources for your next big project.  Admittedly I am more of an Adobe Captivate man to date, but I can definitely get into any discussion around the use of new tools.  Tom Kuhlmann manages the user community at Articulate and is great about discussing the use of many different types of tools to engage the learner and provide a stronger learning experience.

• http://ryan2point0.wordpress.com/

- Ryan Tracey’s blog may be the least recognizable of the list in this post but it’s very promising.  He caught my eye when a co-worker of mine sent over a link to his post on Adult Learning Schminciples.  He’s in the thick of things day-to-day.  Developing eLearning and constantly trying to improve his team’s offering.  I find that many times the folks who spend the most time talking about a topic are the ones who no longer practice or improve those skills, they are riding experience and “resting on their laurels”.  Ryan is involved and pushing the envelope.

Hope these are helpful for all.