What new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?

I invite you to click the Learning Circuits blog link above, first, and then read my post.

My blog response to June’s The Big Question began with these words:

e-Learning. m-Learning. iPhone apps for learning. Wikis. Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web. Social networks for collaboration. What’s an e-learning instructional designer and developer to do with the rapid pace of technology change and innovation?

In a way, July’s The Big Question is a sibling to June’s. We learning 2.0 professionals not only face the challenge of how best to manage our time in a 2.0 (or, 3.0) age, we also struggle with where to focus our own professional learning efforts and growth.

My July Response

Because I’m arriving late to The Big Question, and it’s also the day after I went to Comic-Con 2009 (the 40th Anniversary) in San Diego, California, I’ll keep my response brief. After my day at Comic-Con, I now understand what Dr. Karl Kapp and Clive Shepherd have been blogging about for quite awhile, and why The e-Learning Guild has had so much on immersive games and learning.

I’m now convinced that we learning professionals in a 2.0/3.0 world need to focus on:

1. Perfecting our storytelling skills.
2. Collaborating seriously with the gaming industry.

Storytelling

Although I list two ideas, if we can only choose one skill to focus on, I’d choose storytelling. Comic-Con made that abundantly clear to me. It doesn’t matter if we’ll be facilitating online communities of practice, wikis, or whatever we choose. In the technology that forms the 2.0/3.0 learning space, we must be the best storytellers we can be to keep learners engaged and contributing to the learning space.

I’m drafting my Comic-Con blog post this weekend, and will post it as soon as I can. In that post, you’ll read about my “A-Ha!” moment at Comic-Con, and how I relate to it as an e-learning designer and developer.

And, Dr. Kapp… I’m going to buy your games book. Can’t wait to read it!

How’s that for an answer to The Big Question? Let me know your thoughts.

@jenisecook (on Twitter)