Top 20 Best Careers in 21st Century

Top 20 Best Careers in 21st Century

To make informed career decisions you must have reliable information about opportunities in the future. Career opportunities result from the relationships between the population, labor force, and the demand for goods and services.

The growth or decline in population ultimately impacts the size of the labor force—individuals working or looking for work—which constrains how much can be produced. Demand for different types of goods and services determines employment available in the industries providing them. Career employment opportunities result, therefore, from demand for skills needed within specific industries. Opportunities for medical assistants and other healthcare occupations, for example, have increased in response to rapid growth in demand for health services, due to the aging population.

Once you have determined your choosen career field, you must determine which is the best career training program. Career training diplomas and college degree programs are available through distance learning. You can now get much of the training and education that you need for many of these occupations entirely online.

The U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook reports that for the period 2004-2014 the 20 fastest growing occupations will be:

1. Home health aides
2. Network systems and data communication analysts
3. Medical assistants
4. Physician assistants
5. Computer software engineers, applications
6. Physical therapist assistants
7. Dental hygienists
8. Computer software engineers, systems software
9. Dental assistants
10. Personal and home care aides
11. Network and computer system administrators
12. Database administrators
13. Physical therapists
14. Forensic science technicians
15. Veterinary technologists and technicians
16. Diagnostic medical sonographers
17. Physical therapist aides
18. Occupational therapist assistants
19. Medical scientists, except epidemiologists
20. Occupational therapists

While these may be among the top 20 best careers in 21st century, other occupations are growing as well. Professional and related occupations will grow the fastest over the next 10 years and add more new jobs than any other major occupational group. During the 2004-14 period, a 21.2-percent increase in the number of professional jobs is projected, which translates into 6 million new jobs. Professionals perform a wide variety of duties, and are employed throughout private industry and government. Nearly three-quarters of the expected job growth will come from three groups of professional occupations—computer and mathematical occupations, healthcare practitioners and technical occupations, and education, training, and library occupations—which will add 4.5 million jobs combined.

Employment in service occupations is projected to increase by 19 percent, or 5.3 million. That equates to the second largest numerical gain and second highest rate of growth among the major occupational groups. Food preparation and serving related careers are expected to add the most jobs among the service occupation sector, 1.7 million by 2014. However, healthcare support occupations are expected to grow the fastest over the period by about 33.3 percent, adding 1.2 million new jobs.

Management, business and financial occupations are expected to grow faster than the average. Accountants and auditors and management analysts will add the most jobs, 386,000 combined, in the business and financial sector, while employment, recruitment, and placement specialists and personal financial advisors will be the fastest growing occupations in the group, with job increases of 30.5 percent and 25.9 percent, respectively.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook 2006-2007 Edition

Tag: Top 20 Best Careers in 21st Century

Online Auto Mechanics Training

Online Auto Mechanics Training

Train to be an auto mechanic online. You can earn a career diploma, and in some cases start working towards your ASE-certification with an accredited online training program. Work at your own pace, at your convenience. Even if you currently have a job, you can train in your spare time for a high-paying, rewarding career in auto maintainence and repairs.

A good mechanic does more than repair broken cars. They keep up-to-date on automotive technology, and communicate with customers to help them understand the needs and problems of their cars. Good training programs prepare prospective mechanics to meet their customers needs and expectations, as well as to be good auto mechanics.

Here are some of the things people look for in a good mechanic:

• Recommendations from friends and acquaintances. Be sure not to burn your bridges with your customers when you start your career, because it is that word of mouth advertising that will bring the customers.
• ASE-certificaiton, career diplomas, and other types of certification. Many people look for signs that you have completed accredited auto mechanic training and certification programs as an indication of your competency as a mechanic.
• Honesty - this goes without saying. Customers want to know that the people that they deal with have integrity and honest y. It only takes one bad situation to lose your reputation as a good mechanic.

If you love cars, and are good with fixing and repairing things, get in gear and earn a career diploma in auto mechanics.

Tags: online auto mechanics training

Ring-Around-the-Rosie! Day Care Start-up Budget

Ring-Around-the-Rosie! Day Care Start-up Budget

If you are thinking about a career in child day care, you should first consider your business plan and start-up budget.

Planning a day care start-up budget is one of the basic business management skills you will learn in a child day care career training program. If you are serious about starting a child day care business, you need to have good business management skills as well as child development and child care skills. While many of the child care skills may be intuitive, the business side of things are what can make or break your new business.

Learn the child care business online from accredited career training schools such as Professional Career Development Institute or Penn Foster. Both highly respected schools offer distance learning career diploma programs that offer both the child care skills and the business management skills you will need to be successful in this high demand career.

Distance learning programs allow students to work at their own pace, anytime and anywhere. If you are currently employed, but want to increase your skill level or change careers, distance learning allows you to study for a new career will still maintaining the responsibilities of your current job, as well as your family obligations.

You could be on the playground sooner than you think, when you complete an online day care career training program!

Tags: day care start-up budget, online distance learning career training

Once Upon a Time...How to Start a Children's Book

Once Upon a Time...How to Start a Children's Book

Have you ever thought you would like to write a children's book, but you didn't know where to begin? Use your talent and achieve your greatest creative potential as a children's writer! Now you can learn how to start a children's book and even publish it successfully, when you take a children's writing course online.

Online lessons are self-paced, convenient and useful for learning a new career. Once you complete your online training, you'll be surprised how quickly you are ready to start on your way to being a published author.

Once upon a time fairy tale kingdoms were a wonderful place for your imagination to meander, or perhaps it was with dinasaurs or dragons. Wherever your creative muse takes you, it is a wonderful thing to be able to share with children who are open to the possibility of all things imaginative and playful.

Vistit eLearningYellowPages.com today to obtain more information about online writing courses, and begin your journey to how to start a children's book!

Tags: how to start a children's book, online writing courses

Register-Mail.com - Galesburg Register-Mail Online

Register-Mail.com - Galesburg Register-Mail Online
"Higher education comes home
Online degree can be convenient alternative to campus

Saturday, February 17, 2007
By JANE CARLSON
The Register-MailWhen Darlene Smith wanted a bachelor's degree, the 47-year-old Galesburg woman went online.
Smith, a life-long Galesburg resident, finished a degree in business and management of information systems from Kaplan University last fall without ever setting foot on a campus. She and her two daughters, ages 6 and 17, will travel to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., next week to participate in graduation ceremonies.
Based in Davenport, Iowa, Kaplan University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The for-profit school offers associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees online and on its physical campus.
Because she works full-time and is a single mother, a more traditional pursuit of a bachelor's degree was not an option for Smith, who is an administrative assistant at Carl Sandburg College and received an associate's degree in marketing from the college in 2003.
"I always wanted a bachelor's degree," said Smith, noting that her job at CSC is her "bread and butter," but she wanted to learn more about business and technology to help her launch a part-time sewing business on the side.
Local colleges didn't offer the upper-level evening and weekend classes Smith needed to fit with her schedule, but commuting to a university would have been too time-consuming, she said.
Smith had high standards when she began researching options for online degrees. She was most interested in gaining the knowledge that would help her achieve her goals, so the curriculum was important, but she also wanted the degree to be legitimate, so only considered schools that were accredited.
She also contacted the Better Business Bureau to check for complaints about for-profit colleges. Her research led her to Kaplan, whose affordability also was a factor in her decision. Kaplan was among the first institutions to join a distance education demonstration program of the U.S. Department of Education that allows students in online degree programs to seek federal financial aid.
Smith was assigned an academic adviser and began taking classes in September 2003, reading class material and writing papers on her own time, but using instant messenger programs and software provided by Kaplan to participate in class discussions and seek input from her professors.
Just as in brick-and-mortar institutions, Smith said, faculty took extra time to answer her questions. But instead of face-to-face, it was via programs like Yahoo! Messenger.
"You learn so much because the teachers are so dedicated," Smith said.
Just before Smith finished her coursework at Kaplan, Carl Sandburg College finalized the first of two arrangements with universities to offer bachelor's degrees online for local students.
CSC students complete bachelor of arts degrees at Western Illinois University through the Board of Trustees Bachelor of Arts, or BOT/BA, program, which maximizes transferability from associate's degree programs and was approved in September 2006.
The BOT/BA program, designed for non-traditional students who are unable to earn four-year degrees by traditional means, utilizes distance learning technologies to offer courses on CSC's campus and in students' homes.
In December 2006, CSC launched a partnership with Franklin University of Columbus, Ohio, to offer four-year degrees in 15 majors to its students through the university's Community College Alliance Program. "

Tags: accredited online degree programs for busy adults

learnability matters » Blog Archive » Rapid eLearning

Rapid eLearning as a tool for business skills training is developing quickly. Here is an interesting discussion on rapid eLearning, and how it can be used as a cost effective business skills training tool.

learnability matters » Blog Archive » Rapid eLearning Rapid eLearning
Today rapid eLearning is the buzzword in the eLearning industry. Rapid eLearning is emerging as the fastest-growing category of online training. It is web-based training created in far-lesser time than traditional eLearning. Rapid eLearning is beneficial on two key counts:

It meets the current demand to rapidly create learning resources to address business events, competitive developments, product trainings, or other business needs.
It helps minimize the time and resource contribution from the client.
Here’s a case study about Kern’s foray into rapid eLearning. The client is a leading training organization in UK. The client has been conducting classroom training for several decades and now wanted to create an online training programme for the same audience. The client wanted Kern to create a WBT on “Tendering for UK/EU Public Sector Contracts” for small and medium enterprises.

The client’s requirements were:

A complete training module on ‘Tendering for Public Sector Contracts’ to be created in 1.5 months (6 weeks) and rolled out to the market by end-March.
The course duration to range from 8-12 hours.
The course had to be SCORM-compliant.
One hour of online course should have 45 minutes of learning time and 15 minutes of practice.
Each session should not exceed 20 minutes.
The course should cater to audience in the age group of 35-65 years.
Approximately 50% of the audience had no experience with online training.
Comparing Requirements vis-à-vis Traditional eLearning

Kern conducted an in-house analysis about the requirements and resources available for the task on-hand vis-à-vis traditional eLearning. The comparison is given below.

Current Project Requirements Traditional eLearning
Purpose
Urgent business needs; had to be rolled out in a short timeframe Difficult to rollout in such a tight timeframe
Timeline Minimal resources (2 for scripting and 3 for development) Requires approximately 3 person months to create an hour of eLearning.(The current project would require 16-20 people to rollout the product in the specified timeframe.)
Costs 20% of the traditional eLearning budget Would involve US$7000-US$10000 per learning hour
SME Availability Client was committed to providing content and help to help meet deadlines SME availability over longer duration becomes a problem

Typical Challenges in Rapid eLearning

Creating rapid eLearning is not an easy task. The typical challenges are listed below:

Ensuring a look and feel that is consistent with traditional eLearning
Using good and effective instructional design principles in a short time frame
Integrating with LMS
Creating detailed and consistent media elements in a short time frame
Integrating the programming and HTML
Providing advanced features such as links, tests, and glossary
Meeting schedules without compromising on quality or learning effectiveness
The challenges faced by Kern while implementing rapid eLearning were:

Tools: Kern had no rapid eLearning tool
Resource: Kern could spare only 5 members for the project
Deadline: Kern had committed to deliver within a deadline of 6 weeks
Quality: Kern had to adhere to quality standards despite the stringent deadline
Budget: Kern had proposed a budget that was 20% of the cost of a traditional course
In short, Kern had the challenge of rolling out an output that would match or surpass the output of a traditional eLearning course at a fraction of the traditional eLearning budget and with minimal resources.

Implementing Rapid eLearning

Kern adopted different strategies to meet these challenges. Let us look at the actions taken by Kern:

Focus on design: Kern first defined the scope, guidelines and workflow for the course. The scope covered the extent and depth of content coverage. The guidelines included the strategies, look and feel, and the level of interactivity. Kern finalized the use of page-level presentation strategies such as tabbed pages, drag and drop, rollover text, click text, checklists, and so on. The standards document specified the rules for the use of fonts, audio, positioning of graphics, course length and slide and frame formats. The workflow outlined the tendering process in the form of a flowchart. The design document and the workflow were signed-off by the client at the beginning of the project. The design team created and finalized the design interface of the course.
Content categorization: To meet the course duration and provide adequate content to the audience, content was categorized and segregated into two parts, main content and additional content. Main content was covered in detail in the course. Additional content was placed in the Reference section of the course. It was included as optional reading at appropriate places. This helped maintain the course duration at 8 hours without resulting in content overload.
Tool used: Kern decided to use PowerPoint to create storyboards. The storyboards were scripted using PowerPoint called wire frames. They had detailed visualization and instructions for the graphics and construction team. The storyboards sent to the client for content validation looked like the real screens of the course. Visualized scripts ensured that there was no additional time spent by instructional designers with the graphics and construction team to clarify graphics and presentation-related doubts.
Parallel processing: The team at Kern worked in parallel. There was no time wasted by either graphics or construction in waiting for inputs from the ID team. Let us see how this happened:
ID team of 2 people worked on the table of content and content categorization; 2 people from the construction team created the shell; graphics person created common icons and graphic elements for the course.
ID team starts scripting using existing templates. The smallest module, module 1 is rolled out in 2 days. The module is passed on to the graphics and construction team. The module is also sent for client feedback. Based on module 1 feedback, other modules are modified and created.
Client feedback is incorporated by one person of the ID team while others continue scripting the other modules. The graphics team creates the icons. Development team is simultaneously working on the shell and integration of module 1.
This synchronized process resulted in the constructed modules being rolled out quickly after the completion of scripting, resulting in successful completion of the project.
Critical Success Factors

Let us summarize the critical success factors for rapid eLearning based on Kern’s experiences:

Ensure all content transfer happens in stage I. We had access to all relevant materials upfront and they were shared with us at the beginning of the course.
Define course guidelines and workflow upfront and share it with all concerned.
Ensure ready availability of SME. Our client was very prompt and clear about the requirements. There was no ambiguity in expectations and the scope of content was also signed-off by the client early in the project. Since the client was also the Subject Matter Expert, it helped close content issues faster.
Use simple tool such as PowerPoint and user-friendly templates to script the course.
The key is team work and project management. Define the team, expectations and schedules from the beginning. Ensure that the team works closely in coordination with the schedules, and timelines are tracked on a daily basis.
Have constant communication with the client on a daily basis about the progress and requirements. "

For more information about Business Skills eLearning, go to the eLearningYellowPages.com directory.

New Year's Resolutions - E-Learning Paves the Way to Success

What was your New Year's resolution? To learn a new language? Or, maybe it was to learn a new trade or vocation? Others of you may be contemplating going back for a college degree - possibly a graduate level program. Now is the time to develop new skills and training to take your career to the next level. And it couldn't be easier. All of these goals can be successfully achieved with high quality online programs.

Perhaps you want to learn a new language. With the globalization of our economy, knowing a second or even a third language is a great benefit when doing business in other areas of the world. Many employers are actively seeking speakers of Chinese, French, German, Spanish, and many other languages. Knowing another language can make you more employable, and possibly entitle you to higher levels of income.

Learning a language can be successfully achieved through e-learning programs via the Internet. There are several good programs available, including the Rosetta Stone Language Learning program, used by NASA, Fortune 500 corporate executives, US diplomates, and many schools and universities worldwide. Rosetta Stone's teaching method incorporates native speakers, and an innovative speech recognition program that provides a total immersion situation for the learner. The program can be used online conveniently from anywhere you have an Internet connection, or with audio CD's.

Language learning is not only recommended for business people, but these programs are also great for children too. In addition, adults who are looking for mental exercises to keep their brains young, are often encouraged to learn a new language. The 30 different language learning programs offered by Rosetta Stone are a great tool for this purpose.

For those of you who want to learn a new skill or vocation, don't despair. Several top career schools, such as Professional Career Development Institute and Penn Foster Career School, offer certificate and diploma programs online in careers as diverse as medical/dental office assisting, animal care, paralegal, bridal consulting, locksmithing, and many other careers.

You can complete these programs completely online, and start your new career in a matter of a few weeks or months. Study at your own pace and at your convenience, anywhere you have access to a computer with an Internet connection. Upon completion of your target program, you will be ready to start your own business, or apply for jobs in your new vocation.

According to the Sloan Consortium Survey, more than 1.9 million university students were studying online in the fall of 2003, 40.7% of schools providing online courses agree "students are at least as satisfied" with their online courses. Online enrollments are rapidly growing, as employers are willing to accept degrees from accredited online schools. Whether you have family obligations, work responsibilities, or both holding you back from obtaining your degree, pursuing an online education can be the best avenue to improve your career opportunities, income and increase your level of education.

Degrees from top online schools such as University of Phoenix Online, American Intercontinental University Online (AIU), Capella University. and more are widely accepted and highly regarded. Curricula are normally the same as on-campus programs, and more often than not, core faculty members are teaching the online courses, for the highest quality available.

Some schools, such as Kennedy-Western University, offer credit for work experience. Many students can finish a degree program in as little as 12-18 months, with qualifying prior work experience.

Isn't it time to make your New Year's resolutions a reality. Check out an e-learning program today to find out how to make your dreams a reality.