The holidays are fast approaching, which means the Train Like A Champion 1-word resolution post will soon be here. Before we get to resolutions, however, we have some ideas for you in the event you find yourself with some extra funds that need to be spent before your finance team can close out the books for 2019.
Books for Your Professional Library
While you can always browse our list of must-read books for any L&D professional, a few more have come to my attention in the past year, including:
- Microlearning: Short and Sweet (Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice)
- Interact and Engage: 50+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings and Webinars (Kassy Laborie and Thomas Stone)
- Dare to Inspire: Sustain the Fire of Inspiration in Work and Life (Allison Holzer, Sandra Spataro and Jen Grace Baron)
- The eLearning Designer’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to the eLearning Development Process for New eLearning Designers (Tim Slade)
- Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-connected World (Lauren Hug)
Handy Gadgets
There are a few little gadgets that can make any trainer’s life a little more fun, including:
- A basic PowerPoint remote to advance your slides without standing behind the podium
- A fancy PowerPoint remote that does some cool tricks
- A Bluetooth/wireless speaker for playing video or music during a session
- A really good power bank to re-charge your devices when you can’t find an outlet
- A good travel backpack for your computer
- Mr. Sketch Markers (I know they’re not really an electronic gadget, but I had to sneak them into this list somehow!)
Cool Online Tools
- Snagit for screen capturing and more
- Camtasia for video editing
- Soapbox for creating your in-person training sessions in about 5 minutes
- Storyline for rapid authoring of elearning
Professional Development Opportunities
- Take an employee out for a cup of coffee and some informal coaching (formal training isn’t always the answer!)
- Join your local ATD chapter
- ATD TechKnowledge (February 5-7, 2020)
- Learning Solutions 2020 (March 31, 2020 – April 2, 2020)
- ATD 2020 International Conference and Expo (May 17-20, 2020)
What did I miss? If you have extra use-or-lose money budgeted for this year, how would you spend it?