Tuesday 9 September 2008

The Big Question: to-learn list


This month's the Big Question from Tony Karrer's Learning Circuits blog is 'What is your to-learn list'.

The most important drive behind my learning list is my goal in life. Without my goal, I just absorb like a very undiscriminating sponge (nice, but not in high esteem in this particular day and age).

Adding to my goal I make up my learning list. My learning list has varied through the years and it always featured a big amount of informal learning, but sometimes a bit of formal learning was on it as well. Most of my learning is done by absorbing knowledge through experiencing, talking to people from various disciplines and taking their advice (sometimes only after a firm discussion or ... time that showed me they were right), the need to survive financially...

Although I do not write my to-learn list down on a regular basis, it does keep me alert, because I aim high (= hungry for knowledge most of the time) when it comes to learning stuff though keep doing the things I set myself out to do. No deadlines though, just doing it one step at the time. Btw I do not limit myself to professionally induced learning, I just learn whatever fits my goal.

So for now my to-learn list is this mix:
informal (autodidact and/or exchange talks with knowledge rich people)
- learning more about marketing myself, while keeping in touch with my ethical side;
- learning more about electricity (want to build my own solar roof and wind turbine);
- becoming better at writing stories, papers and articles;
- finally learning how to pick a lock (after shutting myself out once again!);
- improving my French;
- expanding my Spanish;
- keeping up with new learning theories and technologies;
- letting go on the grasp of knowledge, meaning: I hope to become more relaxed in knowing I will never grasp a lot of knowledge because it is no longer possible (wrong era for this to be possible).

formal
- master in distance education module on Program Evaluation (for this I just need formal push, it is quite dry material - wow).
- keeping track of my (and my teammate's) eLearning successes and failures (let's call them near misses) in a more practical way.

The skills and techniques I need to learn for my work, I put into my personal to-do list. My eLearning blog (this one) keeps track of part of what I learn in eLearning. This enables me to track back when I need to. On a personal note and building on my informal learning, my capacities expand (if the informal learning works) so I just show those new capacities off ;-)

I will always learn, or at least as long as my mind allows me to.

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