Learning and me

If someone had said to me 2 weeks ago that I would be blogging and contributing to wikis I would have laughed at them. If they had suggested that I would be doing it and enjoying it no less then I'd probably be rolling around on the ground unable to breath because I was laughing so hard. But here I am now working on 4th post no less for my blog and I'm excited about wikis. I'd also heard all about Facebook, BeBo, YouTube etc etc but I wasn't interested. Then a friend said have a look at my Facebook page and see the photos of my little girl. Well it was inevitable then that I would end up with a Facebook page of my own where I have added applications, posts, video and family photos. I have also posted to friends pages. So just another example of my developing relationship with 2.0 technologies. I am a library technician of quite a few years experience. I am also just about to commence a degree via distance education (DE) in librarianship. I tried DE many years ago and all the info was mailed to me. This time however it is very different with most things being online. In my mailings I received recently, for this semester's 2 subjects, I got a subject outline, study guide and book of readings for 1 subject but the other subject only had a subject online. All resources for this subject are online in a specially created area where we can submit assignments, contact our teacher via forum posts, talk to my fellow students via posts and view the actual subject content. I have thus far access the first 2 modules for 1 subject, replied to several posts from fellow students and posted a question for my lecturer. So yet another example of technology I've had to get my head around (quickly) but still I'm excited to be doing it all. So the saying old dogs can't learn new tricks definitely isn't true in this case. I'm not saying I'm going to be a wizz at this and maybe some of the things I learn about won't end up being used by me at work but at least I will know about them and understand how they may be used and that's the important thing isn't it. I don't want to stagnate, I want to keep learning things. I may need a little (or big) push sometimes but that's fine too. What I learn today helps me to help you tomorrow.

Wikis

Wiki's - wow. I knew basically what they were but didn't see their value to a library... I knew wikipedia and thought, how can this be good? How can you trust the information it has if anyone can edit it, and if you can't trust it what use is it? However as part of this learning experience I have looked at several wikis - some library based, some not - and found that the purpose of these wikis is quite exciting. One wiki was a library subject guide which users can add to and there was a wiki devoted to worldwide law, just to mention 2. Having tried to create a subject guide previously and worried whether the sources I put in it are the best for the subject it now seems, after thinking about wikis, that it makes sense to let the people who are meant to use the subject guide to actually have imput into it in a more hands on way. Naysayers could bellow but a user can always make a suggestion but how often do we find ourselves thinking 'gee that would be a good idea' but then we can't be bothered to go to the effort of letting someone know or we can't find someone to let know. With a wiki, if a person has a contribution, all they need to do is to click edit and add then add their 2 cents worth. In terms of my library, having wiki functionality on my library catalogue would be great. Instead of users asking me what is the best book regarding this subject, and me not being sure because I haven't read it or I don't understand the technicial information contained in it, they could look at what previous readers have thought of the book. And what about the backend of library processes... How many times has someone been away and no one else has known the answer to a problem/question which has come up? We all carry a lot of information in our heads specific to our job and whilst we can sit down and create a manual of our 'jobs' but these sorts of things tend to only be updated rarely. Hence it's a big job and it's easy to forget to add some information. If our manuals were in wiki form they would be easier to update, all in 1 place and any library staff member can update or annotate someone elses manual where necessary or appropriate. Of course this is just a couple ideas and I'm sure there are many more out there waiting for me to discover them.

7 1/2 habits of highly successful lifelong learners

I've just l listened to a podcast which details the 7 1/2 habits of highly successful lifelong learners which was quite interesting and sounds really simple in theory. Of course now comes the tough part, putting what I've learnt into action... Of all the habits, the hardest for me will be Habit 7 - teach/mentor others. I'm get so nervous when trying to show people things that I'm sure I end up just confusing them and/or missing vital information. Groups are the worst, I can't get my act together at all if I'm faced with teaching a group something. If it's just 1 or 2 people then I get by but I'm sure I could do it a lot better. People who I have trained/mentor have told me I do it just fine but I usually think they're just being 'nice'. As for the easiest habit I think that would have to be Habit 1 - begin with the end in mind. I usually know where I want to end up when I start a task of any sort - sometimes the process to get there may be a bit fuzzy but the end goal is usually pretty clear. So I'm now looked at the habits of successful lifelong learning and I've created my own blog so I guess I've definitely started my quest to know a bit more about Web 2.0. Next task for me is delve into the wonders of wikis, so wish me luck for the next stage...

Ok here we go...

Hi, This is my brand spanking new blog. In this blog I'll be chatting about the learning process I'm going thru regarding all the cool Web 2.0 technology out there is cyberspace. Please feel free to add any thoughts or to give me pointers about anything I write, and if you know of some cool technology don't hesitate to share it with me. All I ask of you is to please be kind and remember I'm still wearing my L plates!