Grande Finale

As a reward for completing ECU Learning I’m giving myself a Web2.0 certificate. You can have one too when you get through all the 23 Things!


Well it’s been a terrific journey and I’ve learned heaps.

My responses to the questions posted on #23 are:

What have you personally learned from this program?

I have picked up some useful skills and have connected all the dots so understand how this all fits together. By the time you get to the end of this program you realise how important the tagging is as it enables you to really connect with others. Having a My Space to gather all your feeds is a great idea and helps you to organise the information flow.

What have you learned about yourself, others and the organisation in which you work?

It’s been terrific working though this with a great bunch of staff in the Pilot Group learning from one another. Now we know who the experts are, so you can’t hide any more! I like the idea of starting this with a pilot group, so that when it is rolled out to all the staff there will be a willing group to spread the word.

Discovery learning is an appropriate methodology for such a program since many of these technologies you need to USE, before you really understand them. Through the program I have made many connections outside the ECU Library, with instructional designers, professional development staff, academic staff.

What was the most important skill you have learned and why?

I would have to say Blogging was a useful skill. I had blogged before through Bloglines and through the trial of the Blackboard blog . Those two interfaces are not as friendly as Blogger. The whole set up of Blogger is superior to either of the others and actually makes the whole journey fun. But blogging is a bit of a sole pastime, so unless you use social tagging you may be blogging into the never-never.

What action will you now take if any?

Start a library blog aimed at the faculty.
Investigate providing faculty subject guides for students using Wetpaint.
Commit time to a library blog to be aimed at students

Would students use these technologies as part of the library’s online environment?

Absolutely. The Wiki subject guides would be focused on students. There have been discussions about starting a library blog to be aimed at students, to promote the library and respond toe students’ queries. Podcasts, YouTube, the lot is student NetGen territory and we need to meet them where they congregate.

Is there some specific technology that you would like to see the library adopt ?

Start a library blog
Use Wikis to replace some of the collaborative work currently done via email
Develop our podcasts more.
Come to an agreement re tagging and tags to use corporately.

I look forward to sharing more ideas with the Pilot Group when we have our Focus Group and Wind-up as there’s NOTHING that can replace face to face. Let’s all wear our Just Ask @ Your Library T-shirts and rest on our laurels for a while..

Web 2.0 Awards

The Web 2.0 Awards site was a revelation. In the subject categories I first of all checked out Hosted Wikis. They rated Wetpaint ahead of PBWiki. Now that we have some experience of the Wiki in Blackboard this provides a nice comparison. I found Wetpaint more straight forward than PBWiki. I found the peanut butter in PBWiki a bit too corny!

ECU Library should investigate using Wetpaint to develop a Wiki. It provides a pleasant looking interface and is easy to master.

Then, under the caterory of Books I looked at LibraryThing and joined this. The introduction says its purpose is to “Connect with people who read similar books to you, and get suggestions as to what you should read next”. Joined added my book which only 7 others had added, as its quite a new Australian novel.

I then discovered the Australian LibraryThingers. "A group for everyone who connects with Australia (residents, expats, lovers of Australian literature) and who are part of the LibraryThing collective". So that was a good find, as the rest of LibraryThing is quite US oriented. I'll explore more when I have some more time. (famous last words!)

Learning 2.0 around the world

Helene Blowers has placed a Google map on her blog showing all the libraries around the world that are into Learning 2.0.

She’s also launched a follow up called Learning 2.1. Read all about it on her blog. Makes sense as the technolgy is moving so fast and the original Learning 2.0 is about a year old now. So if you want to keep going.....

There are now quite a few universities running Learning 2.0 including some in Canada, and the Queensland State Library too.

You Tube and Podcasting

I tried searching the terms “library education” in the YouTube and found one that is pretty quirky. It’s Richard Sly is the coolest librarian talking about Databases. (This was a project for the USF Tampa Library). I really like the use of humour and it’s been well rated and watched with 776 Views and 4 and a half star rating

Rsblg helped me to Master the embedding part, as I was looking in the wrong place for the link. Thanks! That's what I like about this project.
This video takes about 6 minutes to watch and has quite a few credits at the end, but the overall idea is sound. Coupled with a follow up with more details on how to access and sue the databases would be helpful.
The ECU podcasts are a great start, but with the Camtasia software we will be able to do much more now. jmcg