George Siemens stated that “The most critical skill that individuals need to master today is how to manage information.” Skills such as critical thinking, detecting information that is not accurate, creating personal learning networks, and similar 21st century skills are all based on how we manage information. This is the focus of our Fundamentals Of IMD course, that involves experiencing social networking tools that can become an extension of how we learn in a digital world. Hopefully, you continue to build your personal learning environment that began in Fundamentals.
It is important to learn the topics of our domains of study such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PhP, Flash, image manipulation, and planning processes. But these languages and tools are constantly changing as are the types of problems potential clients will ask us to solve.
We will only be as successful as the way we manage the overwhelming maze of information that is available to us. We are only as “smart” as the way we choose to manage the information that is the basis of our domains.
How do you manage information? What tools and processes have you developed and customized to support your design creativity? What networks or communities have your found that support your domain of learning?
If you only do your assignments, you may not develop the real skills necessary to become a successful designer. If you only create what teachers ask you to create in classes, you may never find out how to solve real problems that will confront you when you graduate.
I will add another article here about how I manage information, and I encourage you to share your methods and practices as a comment to this blog, or in discussions with your peers and instructors.
Webstuff 2 