RKCS Learning Solutions

As this is an e-learning blog, the majority of the topics I write about deal directly with e-learning, software, processes and things that have to do directly with e-learning. Most of the other blogs/bloggers that I am connected to do the same. However, this morning, I decided to veer in a slightly different direction. One of the things that I do as part of my daily routine is some general surfing, getting familiar with other blogs, randomly looking at information that may or may not apply to me. Why? It’s sometimes in this randomness that I find things that make life a bit clearer or even provide a perspective that I had either forgotten about or did not realize previously. This morning, I came across an article on health. It pertained specifically to men, but we are all adults here, so I figured I would link the article so that you could read it at your leisure. The article listed 25 health tips, but a few points hit home specifically. The first was #10 – Don’t be an island. As someone who works virtually a great deal of the time, it is extremely easy to become isolated. With the advent of social networking, twitter, Facebook, etc, it is also easy to trick yourself into feeling like you are connecting with people because you have sent them a text, posted a message on their wall, sent them a Mafia Wars or Farmville request, or some other action that may or may not provide specific interaction with other people. But the truth of the matter is, we all need human connection. It’s healthy for us. If we are not healthy, then this work that we do is not going to be at it’s best anyway. Yesterday, I had an issue that I was thinking about and because I had formed a connection with someone, I was able to speak to them via Skype and get another perspective. This helped to ease some anxiety and also let me know that I was not alone.

The second one that connected with me was #3 – Hit the sack. #10, then #3?? OK, so I read backwards a little. In any case, the benefits of getting to bed at a certain time and getting a sufficient amount of sleep cannot be denied. I have 3 young kids and so I am definitely guilty of not getting enough sleep on a regular basis. In fact, I often wonder if it is even possible to get everything done, take care of a family and still get enough sleep. Yeah, it is. I definitely have to re-prioritize some things. But, it definitely is possible.

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I am always on the prowl for new opportunities, contracts, call them what you may. One of the things I am learning is that keywords are extremely important. If you have the right keywords, you will come up with the just what you are looking for and even more. If not, you may come up with nothing, or the wrong thing. However, there are certain terms that seem to be intertwined or mean different things to different people. For instance, I am discovering that for some people, instructional designer and elearning designer are the same thing. But elearning designers and elearning developers are totally different. Yet, you can be an elearning designer and elearning developer all at once. It just depends on who is asking. There are some that are looking for training content developers, yet the job description is that of an instructional designer. In other situations, you may see a training content developer that only develops content that has already been fleshed out by an instructional designer.

Johnathan Atleson wrote something the other day about the different roles of an instructional designer. This is a great read and it is a great thing to understand these roles. However, in looking for opportunities, you can’t just type in ‘Instructional Designer’ and expect to be rewarded with all of the different roles to which he is referring. Here are some that I found that can refer to the same roles, are mixtures of roles and to some people are interchangeable. Because of that interchangeability, I will not attempt to define them.

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