~Tamara's article in the September issue of the OALT newsletterLearning 2.0 @ Mac: One Year Later…To be truthful, it’s been longer than a year since Learning 2.0 wrapped up, culminating in May (2007) with a party to celebrate our hard work. Yes, it really all happened over 14 months ago, but I’m fond of my title, so I‘m sticking with it. (I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I inaccurately reported my facts; thank you, Stephen Glass, for the valuable lesson) The content of the 2.0 lessons was and continues to be useful and relevant to many aspects of daily work and communication in the libraries. However, I noticed that it took some time (several months beyond the end of May) before I began to notice just how
many different tools were being used for different
situations. Now, there are new blogs and wikis being created regularly for projects, groups or departments.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Learning 2.0 @ Mac, the following passage is taken from Amanda Etches-Johnson‘s preliminary description on the ETG blog: “Learning 2.0 @ Mac is a hands-on, immersive learning programme that provides McMaster University Libraries staff an opportunity to explore Web 2.0 tools and the impact these tools are having on libraries & library service. Learning 2.0 @ Mac is all about exploration, discovery, and play!” Amanda, McMaster’s User Experience Librarian read reports and blogs from other libraries who had conducted successful 2.0 programmes, (one example is the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County) to put together a series of lessons for our staff. Before we immersed ourselves in everything 2.0,
Michael Stephens paid us a visit and shared his experiences and expertise with his presentation: Library 2.0: Planning, People and Participation. (I will provide the address for Amanda, Stephen and the Emerging Technologies Group blog at the end of the article).
In twelve short weeks (with several breaks to give us time to practice and complete assignments), we covered blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and tagging, online applications and tools, browser tools, online social networks, gaming and virtual worlds. Approximately 80 staff from across the libraries at McMaster were put into 10 groups. A leader was assigned to each group. Near the end of the programme, while helping a friend with several lessons I had already been through, she questioned why we needed to know about such things as wikis, etc. At that point, although my greatest joy during the programme was writing up my 2.0 experiences on my own blog, I could relate to her question: if a tool is being presented and explored but there is no underlying example of how it is to be used in "real life", a learner may be inclined to question it. At the time of her question, I had a difficult time defending
all the tools, because I had limited exposure to them in work and life. That changed as I began to pay more and more attention to these technologies. Now, I make use of a shared blog for staff working shifts on the Research Help Desk (extremely helpful).
All my favourite library blogs are added to Google Reader (RSS), which I can scan every day for new content. There is wiki for the planning committee of the Access 2008 Conference in Hamilton in October. Flickr happens to be a great place to look for photos suitable for using on our library’s website or publications (anyone with permission can post photos on our Flickr account). Every month, I check for new and interesting Mozilla add-ons (some are more fun than work: I would suggest you try
Stumble!). Oh, one last thing: don’t look for me on Facebook. I tried it out for several months and didn’t find it useful
or fun.
BlogrollEmerging Technologies Grouphttp://macetg.wordpress.com/
Amanda Etches-Johnsonhttp://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/
Michael Stephenshttp://tametheweb.com/
McMaster University, musings by Jeffrey Trzeciak, University Librarianhttp://ulatmac.wordpress.com/
Access Conference, 2008 (Hamilton, Ontario)http://access2008.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca/
I've converted my blog to a new template and colour scheme ~ easier to read than neon green against black. ;-)
