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I have previously written about “Having the Right Digital Mindset” where I covered six topic areas to help shape your Digital Mindset.

In this series of blog posts I will expand on each of these topics.

Having the Right Digital Mindset: Learning

How much learning have you done today? this week? this month? Keeping your skills up to date by regular learning is an important part of developing your mindset and keeping it active. So why bother with learning? This is easy to answer in that if you don’t, others are. The next generations of IT Professionals are already learning from an early age supported by Government Educational Curriculum’s.

Learning is easier with the internet through online courses, videos and podcasts allowing it to be undertaken at anytime. The topics that you choose to learn will be down to your role and there is no magic course on being Digital. Its an amalgamation of different skills and knowledge, both hard and soft skills.

One key factor though is that software is eating the world and the delivery of things as code is becoming common place. having an understanding of what is going on in the coding world helps with today’s advancing technology. Learning to code is a great way of understanding these advancements and everyone should have a knowledge of this.

Re-enforcing your learning through explaining it to someone else or blogging about it is part of  The Nature and Cycle of CPD and a good way of checking you have learnt correctly.

There are two main types of learning that we do:

  • On the Job
  • Focused Learning

Learning that comes as part of our regular day can be classed as “On the Job” where as focused learning is where you take time out to do some research, reading or a course.

Everyone has their own preference for learning and the amount of learning that you do is also down to preference. Looking at other industries where learning is mandated as part of ongoing professional development, such as a Dentist or Doctor who must do a number of hours to maintain their skills and knowledge and also their registration to practice. Why should this be any different for IT Professionals? Some wold argue that they don’t need to keep their skills upto date and others that you should. For me considering that IT Professionals produce, code and maintain systems that the Densists and Doctors use everyday in support of patients, why would it be any different for IT?

You should be looking to do 50 to 60 hours learning a year as a minimum (some professions require higher number of hours). Number of hours that some professions require learning:

CPDTable

The number of hours that you commit to learning is down to personal choice, but if you did at least 1 hour a week, thats 52 Hours of learning you have achieved.

Further Reading

Blog Posts and Articles: