Learning 2.0

Promoting Play Through Online Discovery: Lego Building
Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
Meredith Farkas, Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University

Meredith began the session and explained the different social network solutions used in creating and facilitating the online course, "Five Weeks to a Social Library." Most of the resources they used were free, open source products or sites. They did use OPAL for webconferencing. Other resources included drupal, mediawiki, and blip.tv.

Some of the things that Meredith took away from this project: playing with technology is essential; reflective learning makes ideas stick; learning from peers is vital; and online learning can happen on the cheap.

Helene made sure everyone knew this wasn't going to be a rehash of "23 Things..." but you can hear about that, if you want! Due to staff demand, they have developed Learning 2.1, with 2-3 new opportunities to learn new things presented every month. Helene believes that we need to shift from thinking about "training" and start thinking about "learning." She prefers to think of herself and other "trainers" as "discovery guides." Learning is ongoing, training is often abandoned once a certain skill has been taught.

Discovery guides need to think of themselves as players, not experts. Don't put off training because you don't know everything about a topic. Be open to learning as you go and learning from the people you're guiding!

Helene recommends giving yourself 15 minutes a day to explore something new online. Some of the blogs she looks to for new ideas are Techcrunch, What I Learned Today, Librarian in Black, Wired, and Learning 2.1.

Her final advice? Duh. PLAY!

Lego Building: Learning Through Play
Building a Foundation with 5 Weeks to a Social Library