A Jack or Jill of all trades and master of one.

I've always had a passion for learning design, a skill that is my specialism and has provided opportunity and involvement in a range of projects.

The project experience enables development of secondary skills, you learn so much from others. I know a little about designing web sites, sufficient to build my own with minimal support, I can find my way around a learning management system, I can do a little coding, and I can usually get to the root of any conflicts or errors in an online environment. 

Being a specialist and knowing a little about the other stuff does open doors. People recognise the specialisation first, and see the secondary skills as a benefit. A person capable of performing a broad range of disciplines is more self sufficient and often knows enough when faced with small obstacles to reduce the need to call for specialist help.

There is a caveat though and that is,

know your limitations!

Opportunity knocks

One of the traits of Jack's and Jill's is their thirst for knowledge, like a dog chasing a stick we cannot resist chasing after new experiences. However that also leads to frustration from never having the time to master one particular skill.

Being self employed took up a disproportionate amount of my time prior to Covid, any investment in personal learning and development came with opportunity cost. Yet now during lock down I find myself with opportunity to develop and connect many of those bits and pieces of knowledge together. 

Let's do this

How hard can it be to build an online learning site? Its certainly an experience that is reminding me of how learning to learn feels. The motivating parts of the journey occur when I'm building on existing skills, designing lessons, activities and assessment it's a comfort zone.

Then there is the challenge of getting the LMS, and theme builder to play nice together this is problem solving there is some new learning in that and some stuff I forgot. I realise I'm building connections, refreshing and recalling old knowledge in a new environment, the challenge here is good.

But some technical aspects overwhelm me and that's when I realise that asynchronous learning can be a very lonely place. I miss learning from others. I also learn that trying to be a Jack or Jill of All Trades has its limits and there comes a point when persistance puts productivity to death. I’m proud of being good at many things and yet I appreciate those who are a master of one.