TBQ : New Skills and Knowledge for Learning Professionals

The Big Question: New Skills and Knowledge for Learning Professionals?

Specifically, when discussing this Web 2.0 'thing', how can a Learning Professional keep up to speed.

Well, what is Web 2.0 to me?

I have always thought of it as the movement of the user's applications from their desktop, to their web browser. The natural progression of this being an increase in the amount of collaborative use of common applications. Or, as the rest of the webernet would say 'Social Networking'.

Many technologies have become associated with Web 2.0, but it is important to realize that it is the application of a technology that can be defined as being Web 2.0, not the technology on it's own. Thus, when discussing what a learning professional should be following to leverage Web 2.0 for elearning, I believe it would not be useful to go out and start purchasing intro books for AJAX, FLASH, PHP, XML, .NET, PYTHON, CSS, HTML 5 etc.

Instead, learning professionals should be interested in the application of these technologies and leave the developing to the developer.

As a learning professional you should immerse yourself into sites like Twitter, Blogger, and Facebook, not only to understand the possible elearning applications of these sites but to also follow other professionals and to open yourself up to a wealth of resources so that you are aware of new sites or 'Web Applications' as they become available.

Aside from hanging out at the elearning guild, and reading various blogs, I try to check out aggregate web development sites such as
delicious.com and bestflashanimationsite.com to keep myself aware of what is going on in the web.