For a dedicated professional, the learning process is a never-ending one. As the competition gets fiercer by the day and you’re expected to push your business forward in order to succeed, you need the skills and the knowledge to give you that competitive advantage. What’s more, the world is quickly coming up with new and more complex tech tools that challenge every professional. Knowing how to leverage the latest PM tools, cloud technology, and various communication platforms puts you ahead of your peers.
What about actual education? While traditional learning opportunities still abound, busy professionals have found a myriad of tech-driven ways to advance their knowledge, and thus their careers moving forward. If you’re looking for ways to build up your professional relevance and to become an even greater authority in your field, then tech-driven learning can be your go-to opportunity. Here’s what you can do to start using tech in your everyday learning pursuits.
Online tutoring and peer groups
Sure, you can still find an eager mentor and work with them one-on-one in an actual conference room, taking notes from their presentations, and wrap it up by claiming an obscure certification as a way to recognize your accomplishment. However, virtual tutoring and peer groups organized by industry leaders are becoming an alternative way to get ahead and learn from the best.
In addition to working with a single, dedicated professional on a specific set of skills, such as figuring out how to use a graphic design tool to advance your content strategy for your Sydney-based café, you can work in groups. Made up of many equally eager and experienced business owners, these virtual peer groups and their dynamic learning sessions are rapidly becoming a favorite among entrepreneurs everywhere.
Sign up for online courses
No matter where you are located and what kind of skills you’re looking to grow, digital learning platforms like Coursera have become a brilliant solution for ambitious entrepreneurs. The wide array of available lessons and courses create a genuine college experience (in a digital classroom, of course), and the multimedia formats of those lessons make the material easier to digest, master, and implement in your real, professional situations.
What’s more, some of the most reputable platforms and the classes they offer have earned quite a reputation globally. That means that you can qualify for a higher position in your company or even get a raise based on the knowledge you’ve managed to gain from these classes. The best perk of all? You get to take the courses at your own pace and enjoy the flexible learning experience that comes with the territory.
Use online study notes from top universities
The modern-day college classroom has changed, so students today rely on so much more than library literature and physical textbooks. Taking online courses at any university means that you don’t get the same interaction with your fellow classmates, but clever learners have found a way around this issue. If you’re enrolled at Monash University to make the most of one of their advanced courses in, for example, business studies, you can leverage other students’ notes.
With online platforms for exchanging notes and studying material, you can find a comprehensive Monash study guide for your subjects of interest. These digital note swaps have created immense knowledge bases for current students and eager learners to streamline their studying process with ease. As a professional wanting to focus on career growth, this can make all the difference in helping you find the most effective learning approach.
Spice it up with virtual reality
Some concepts and professions need a real-life dimension in order for any learner to internalize and understand the subject matter fully. Plus, certain learning materials are far more immersive when they’re studied in real life. However, if you, as a gallery owner cannot teleport yourself to visit Egyptian pyramids, or to conduct an open-heart surgery as a medical professional – virtual reality steps in to save the day.
VR in education for professionals of all levels is becoming one of the most effective tech-driven tools to excite, engage, and bring experiences to life. It generates a virtual environment that is both safe and inspiring for any professional to use in order to learn a new skill or improve the existing ones. Above all, VR provides a hands-on opportunity to learn, track your progress, and focus on the parts of your knowledge that might need improving.
Use a handy learning app to learn a new language
Learning apps have come a long way since their inception. They are no longer one-dimensional, stagnant, limited learning platforms that often fail at delivering the right content to the right person. Today, with rapid globalization, business owners are recognizing the benefits of learning the languages of countries where they want to offer their services. So, language learning apps deliver culture-specific experiences that don’t just focus on dry information.
Instead, you now get to learn about the target culture of that new language, but also communicate with learners from all over the world who cheer you on, follow your progress, and the like. You can also join online chat rooms to practice with native speakers and finetune your knowledge over time.
Over to you
Being a business owner and a professional in this day and age means that you constantly need to work on your abilities in order to stay competitive. Thanks to technology and a wide array of virtual platforms, learning for eager professionals is getting simpler every day. It’s up to you to find the most suitable learning opportunities and leverage them to boost your career moving forward.