Posted on October 23rd, 2006 by Liz
Howdy from Internet Librarian 2006! Things are going well here, the weather is lovely and the sessions are so far ok. Just got out of my first session on emerging technologies… and even though they didn’t say anything about any technologies that I would consider “emerging” (Because, lets face it, blogs/wikis/online user collaboration… this is not emerging technology anymore… this is mainstream technology).
Michael Stevens said the same things he always does, so that was ehh… Jenny Levine was banging her same gong as well, so I was a little underwhelmed but I do appreciate their enthusiasm.
BUT… this lovely trainer from the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County had a GENIUS idea for technology training… make it like summer reading for technology training! Give librarians exercises, links to the tools, not a lot of direction, encourage PLAY with the tools (hey, how do you think I learned how to do this stuff… from the manual? HA!), and dangle a carrot (she gave away MP3 players and is going to have a drawing for a LAPTOP! Way, super, extra cool). She has a 1.0 meeting about the week’s exercises (we could do Opal sessions) and gives people a chance to show off. All of this takes place over an 8 week (!) period, just like summer reading. The idea is to get people into the habit of PLAYING with technology instead of fearing it or thinking that they need someone to “tell them how to do it with a handout.”
NEKLS could SO do this. We SHOULD do this. I’ve been disgruntled lately that traditional training just doesn’t seem to be cutting it for most of our librarians… they keep wanting more but claim that they don’t have time to extend their learning once they get home after the training. Well, I think this might be the answer.
Here’s the link to the blog they are using as the basis for their training. Great, great stuff.
Learning 2.0 – Main
