So a funny thought has been swirling around in my head lately. It’s because I’ve been in a few situations with people outside my field of Learning and Development and on various conferences unrelated to this field, who are now talking about the importance of professional development. Given the pace of change that we’ve all […]
Women, Be Like Rita
Since subscribing to Netflix this year (yes, I’m a bit late to the game because I had tons of other content I was accessing – and well, basically, life….until COVID hit), I have been watching some wonderful shows. Sure, there are some crap ones on Netflix (oh boy, are there some shit shows on Netflix) […]
Reducing Screen Time
Last night I received a notification on my phone to tell me that my screen time had reduced by 10% this week. What wonderful news! I was on leave for the last week and used much of my time catching up with various chores around the house and garden as well as long stretches of […]
What My Cat Teaches Me About Myself
I love my cat. Let me introduce you to him. His name is Pud. He is about 5 years old and he’s been with us – his forever home – for the last couple of years. Every day I’m thankful that he’s come into our lives because he’s brought with it so much joy, laughter […]
Learning French
By now you would have seen the tweets where I bang on about learning French. Many years ago in the (*cough*) I did six years of French but I failed. What a waste of six years of doing a language at high school! Since then, the only time I spoke the language was three times […]
Writing in a Journal
A funny thing happened while I started writing in a paper journal once again after many years. I’ve become calmer as it allows me to start the day with a positive note rather than reading something on social media and getting anxious about answering tweets and direct messages first thing in the morning. I’ve now […]
How to Prepare Yourself for a Future of Learning
Yesterday I had a lot of fun being part of Table Talks for Microsoft Ignite. Table Talks are 30 minute Teams Meetings that simulate the ’round the table’ talks we have at conferences. A group of us Mathew, Megan, Pradeep and Renganathan worked together to devise a high level outline of what we wanted to […]
Table Talks at Microsoft Ignite
Next week I’ll be participating in Microsoft Ignite as part of a group moderating two Table Talks. How to Prepare Yourself for a Future of Learning Working from Home: How Are People Doing It? Microsoft Ignite is one of the largest technology conferences in the world and last year I had the opportunity to be […]
Little Joys of Lockdown
The whole world knows by now that Melbourne has experienced one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. Having gone through the first lockdown in February-March and then getting some reprieve afterwards, numbers escalated quite quickly and our premier decided to go to Stage 4 lockdown. This meant that all businesses were closed except for […]
The Social Dilemma
Last night, my husband and I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, a 90 minute documentary where ex-employees of social networks spill the beans on how these platform capitalists are using their products to manipulate the public to become addicted on them. It was a blend of interviews in front of the camera, a short […]
Behaviours That Don’t Serve You Anymore
Back in early 2000s, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and go for the Prince of Wales Award. It’s an award where one Defence Reservist is selected to spend time in a host country to explore a project of interest in their field, research their topic and share their findings. At the […]
Learning Active Campaign
One of the things I have been learning at work is about marketing campaigns. I’m the Community Manager for Adopt & Embrace and as part of the role, I am responsible for looking at ways to have the community be continually aware of what it in there by way of interesting and informative discussions and […]
CoVid Lockdown Version 2.0
I haven’t written much in my blog about what I have been experiencing in lockdown and in all honesty, I have no idea why. When I think about it, I keep thinking that my Twitter feed is enough to tell you how frustrating it has been because it hasn’t been consistent. In the first lockdown, […]
Re-Assessment During Covid
This time of isolation and lockdown has been an eye opener where I have re-assessed a lot of things in my life. To be fair however, I think this re-assessment has been happening for quite a while for me, at least the last few years. The pandemic has simply confirmed my actions. Where in the […]
How Effective Are Newsletters as Personal Learning Resources?
A couple of days ago, Ramses Oudt @rroudt tweeted an excellent question on Twitter that generated a discussion concerning who writes newsletters focussed on learning how to learn. You can see the thread here which has some recommendations although I might add that many of them aren’t about tips, techniques and strategies for learning how […]
Cleaning Up My LinkedIn Feed
Right. Tired that LinkedIn automatically makes me follow everyone and what they “like”. I like to be in control of what I see in my feed. Found this piece of code and now going to do a mass unfollowing. pic.twitter.com/BUpwG6RTOz — Helen Blunden #AlwaysBeLearning ????? (@ActivateLearn) May 11, 2020 Recently I decided to clean up […]
Learning Is a Mindset
This week I reflected on an event that made me feel very uncomfortable but in hindsight, my mind made it into a mountain than a molehill it was. I have been learning French for a while now and doing it in my own way through creating my own personal learning plan which I have blogged […]
My Top Ten Learning Tools for 2020
It’s that time again where it’s time to list our top 10 learning tools for the year and submit our responses to Jane Hart’s annual Top Learning Tools survey. Why not take the time to consider what tools you use on a daily basis to learn from and with and share your results too? I’ve […]
The Artist’s Way
Have you heard of “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” by Julia Cameron? The book was published many years ago in 1991 and was written for people who may have experienced a block in their creativity. It’s a 12-week program that enables the reader to rediscover their creativity and curiosity through reflection […]
What Would a Future Office Space Look Like?
This is a question that a few of my friends and colleagues have been asking. It’s a weird question to ask admittedly because I have been working from home for some years and cannot even contemplate ever going back to an office for the rest of my working life. The period of the pandemic thrust […]