Eating the elephant in 23 bites
Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 08:06AM Illinois librarians were aghast last Friday.
In nearly every session of of Northern Suburban Library System and Metropolitan Library System's Library 2.0: Delivery Twice the Value conference, school, public and academic librarians were being introduced to Web 2.0 (and 3.0) tools. In nearly every session, the question was raised - "When do we find the time to learn all this stuff!"
Same thing I hear from teachers all the time. And to be honest, the question crosses my mind now and then.
But I was impressed by the solution of Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for The Charlotte & Meckenburg County Public Library System and a co-panelist at the conference. She has developed a philosophy of "discovery and play" and urged everyone to invest even 15 minutes a day in learning new things. And to help guide learners, she developed a discovery learning program called Learning 2.0 - a list of 23 things that can be done in short periods of time. (The program for her staff runs nine weeks.)
Great idea! Eating the Web 2.0 elephant in 23 small bites. I thought, "I'm going home and using her model to create a similar program for my school library media specialists and teachers."
But I was beaten to the punch. Check out School Library Learning 2.0 created by the California School Library Association's Library Learning 2.0 Team.* Great stuff. Now how does our district and state media association make this work for us?
(Thanks to Carolyn Foote at Not So Distant Future blog for the heads up about School Library Learning 2.0 work!)
*Doug Achterman, Diane Alexander, Jamie Boston, Andrea Catania, Rob Darrow, Lizz Dodds, Steve Grant, Byron Heiser, Mary Holst, K.E. Hones, Barbara Jeffus, Thomas Kaun, Teresa Lai, Judith Martin, George Pilling, Maria Petropulos, Jane Ritter, Martha Rowland, Robert Skapura, Deb Stanley, Alison Steinberg, Susan Thompson
Reader Comments (8)
Doug
Second, I try to tell people to take this in small bites as well. Do the things that make sense for your own organization, pick off the technologies that potentially can have the biggest impact with the lowest overhead and demands on your time.
Using IM and getting used to dealing with Photos on Flickr are two good examples.
Also, a whole lot of these things are just plain fun and it's completely appropriate to apply a work/play approach.
I mean, you can put together a piece of multimedia for family and friends (say in Powerpoint and then convert it to a movie) and then use the _exact same skills_ to put together a presentation for more professional purposes.
One of the nice things about such a list at the 23 things is that it’s a concept can be adapted to any situation.
Thanks for the tip on libSite.
All the very best and have a great weekend!
Doug
A) Join us in the experience and we can make this thing nation wide!
B) Take what we have done and make it your own for your school library organization - no doubt each iteration will improve.
C) We have added "Curriculum Connections" as part of our 23 things to relate the 2.0 aps to school curriculum applications.
Thank you for your generosity. This a great resource! I have workshops on Web 2.0 to do this summer and you can bet I will be adapting this (with full credit.)
Why had I not heard of it before? Had you blogged it? I always feel I am the LAST person to know about stuff.
Thanks again,
Doug
I think Helen's program was the model for the California project. I am using both to develop something here for my teachers and media specialists.
Appreciate the heads up!
Doug