If you’re in the e-learning field, you know how intensely skilled the field is. It’s hard to keep up (I always say it’s a great field for us ADDers). Here’s the first of two articles on this topic that I wrote for Learning Solutions Magazine. And I just found a great list of conferences related to the e-learning world. Between these two resources, there’s some great food for thought for considering what you might want to do in the coming year to keep your skills up-to-date.

My own goals for next year include keeping up on some of the new authoring tools, PPT tips and tricks, HTML 5, Excel, and upping my game in survey design and analysis (been working on a graduate survey stats and analysis certificate with the University of Illinois at Chicago Survey Research Methods Program).

My colleague Terrence Wing died unexpectedly at the age of 42 on Dec 1, 2011. Like many others who knew him, I have spent the last week in a complete funk, trying to make sense of how this could have happened. I’ll miss his sincerity, openness and his great insights. He also added something that I value very highly to our field, an ethic of sharing with others without reserve. I’ve listened to others in our field talk about his gifts (Make sure you see Rick Zanotti, Trish Uhl, Jean Franzblau’s tribute to him on eLearnChat 40 http://vimeo.com/33296901) and you’ll hear the same words over and over: mentoring, sharing, helping, and so on.

I value sharing because it allows our gifts to multiply. By sharing with others our own gifts grow as well. Terrence personified this.

I knew Terrence mostly through Learning Solutions Magazine (see all of his LS articles here: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/authors/329/terrence-wing) and the eLearning Guild and finally got to meet him at DevLearn 11 just about a month ago. We had been talking on Facebook and Twitter for a while and I was moved by his spirit of generosity. At DevLearn, we spoke about things we could do together. But mostly, I just enjoyed his company. He was one of the good guys and is going to be remembered for a long, long time.

If you didn’t know him, you can learn a lot by reading his articles.Then share something with someone who needs it.