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Well, here it is, the link to the presentation I gave a little while back on Learning and Second Life and Social Networks. It’s the slides and handouts so far, with video and podcast coming, if I recall correctly. Enjoy!
As I think I mentioned, I recently gave a presentation on Learning in Facebook and Second Life (I’ll post the links as soon as they’re up). I thought I’d ramble a little on Facebook, but not on the academic/library side of things.
One of the things I really like about Second Life is the ability to collaborate and network with people you’d never dream of working with, either because of distance or time constraints or any other number of reasons. Recently though, I’ve found Facebook acting in a similar manner. I knew this was possible, but I hadn’t intended to use Facebook that way, just to hook up with people I presently know and look into applications for libraries. Well, I have had friends who I haven’t seen since grade 7 contact me, I’ve made new connections with librarians through groups I’ve joined. It’s been quite amazing really and I’m starting to see a whole new realm of potential for Facebook. It’s amazing the people I’m finding, or who are finding me, in Facebook. It isn’t an addiction … yet.
With our learning 2.0 initiative, I’m sure we will all be creating accounts soon. Many of us already have one, and in a strange yet distant way, I feel closer to them - I can see what they’re up to, if they’ve had a good or bad day, start conversations - either online or when I see them. This is one of those odd things about social software though - in some instances, the only contact is through an online medium, when in fact, they are in a nearby, if not the same building. This closeness with distance is a bit of a strange phenomenon and one I might look into more at some point.
Yes, I have survived 3 straight days of statistics! I think I deserve a badge of honour. The Winter Institute on Statistical Literacy for Librarians was actually quite good. The small size allowed for lots of conversation and connections. As I’ve often said, the informal discussion is often some of the most enlightening parts of any conference. I like to find out what others are up to and how they’re approaching similar problems. As it turns out, I knew more than I thought about statistics. Sometimes you just need to be reassured that you are indeed on the right track.
Now it’s time to start my first 2 week research leave. I’m quite excited about the chance to concentrate on research again - it’s been a while. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this leave will be devoted to some work on Second Life. I’ll let you know if anything comes out of it!
We are in week two of our Learning 2.0 and participants are being introduced to and creating their own blogs. People are really quite excited by this program and it will be interesting to read their blogs.
On another note, I’m frantically trying to put the final touches on a presentation I’m giving tomorrow - Learning in a New World: Social Networks and Second Life (I’ll link to the slides once they’re up). The presentation is for the McMaster Learning Commons Partners’ Learning on Learning Forum. It’s been interesting research and I’m hoping all goes well. Then, in an attempt to pretend to be a jet-setter, almost as soon as I’m done the presentation, I jump on a plane and head out to Edmonton for the Winter Institute on Statistical Literacy. More on that when I return!
I realize that a plethora of library blogs have mentioned this video on Web 2.0, but if you haven’t watched, make sure you do. We recently showed this video while demo-ing possible web 2.0 applications to pursue - it highlighted both YouTube and explained web 2.0 in a great way. I think it helped explain why we should be looking closely at web 2.0 applications. All in all, a great video.
McMaster has been the talk of the town for a while - mostly because we have a new, exciting, innovative University Librarian, Jeff Trzeciak. We have lots of cool new positions (including a gaming librarian) and we’re doing lots of new things. He’s been very supportive of my exploration in Second Life. It seems we got some media attention for what we’ve been doing too! They even managed to take a picture of the McMaster Library space in Second Life while I was there (I had no idea they were taking a picture or that they were associated with the paper)! All in all - pretty cool.
I just thought I’d warn you that you will see a lot of library 2.0 posts in the next while. This is not a bad thing. Starting Monday, the Emerging Technologies Group will be launching Learning2.0 at McMaster and will last for 12 weeks - each week a new library 2.0/web 2.0 technology will be introduced. Although I have played with many, if not all of these technologies, I’m quite excited by the program. In fact, many of the staff our excited - which is great! We even had Michael Stephens come and give a talk and start the excitement!
On a related note - I’ve finally gotten a hold of Jenny Levine’s Gaming and Libraries report! Can’t wait to read it. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on virtual worlds and gaming and teaching and libraries and have a couple of talks coming up on the topic. I’ll post on that another day.
I was particularly interested in this session, as I have been doing a lot of reading about gaming and learning in the last while. I will be doing a session on learning in virtual worlds and social networks and gaming has been a side to my research. The presenter is working on creating a game for her library and I’ll be interested to see how it goes.
What an amazing panel of experts! Michael Stephens, Amanda Etches-Johnson, and John Blyberg (all bloggers I regularly read). Amanda Etches-Johnson brought up three trends to watch - RSS, websites, and meaningful online outreach. I think she was right on the money when she mentioned that our websites are in dire need of help. This is where many of our patrons start - they are virtual library branches - and more thought and time needs to be put into them. We need to stop organizing them in ways that our meaningful to us and start thinking about how our patrons use our sites.
John Blyberg was also amazing. I had also gone to hear about the great work he has done on his library’s OPAC, or should I say SOPAC (Social OPAC). He has integrated social software into their OPAC successfully - a great model for other OPACs to strive for. He spoke of the importance of open source.
This was the first session that I got to hear Michael Stephens speak. He had been at my library early that week (while I was conferencing) to launch our library’s Learning Library 2.0 session (which is going to be great! More on that later I hope). Michael rose a number of points for us to consider when thinking of library 2.0:
- conversations
- convergence
- content
- redefining LIS job descriptions
- citizen journalism
- openness and sharing
- participation
- experience and play
This session highlighted that we need to think more about what our patrons think about when they approach the library. Is it a place for them, will they succeed, does it fit in their busy life, are they trusted to participate? It seems my library is doing well in most areas but there are always areas for improvment. A couple of the important points:
- information is easy to find now - patrons want information rejection not retrieval
- patron success is important - if they can find 2-3 things on their own, they are 2 times more likely to ask for assistance
- think of reference as “World of Search Craft”
- The final slide was on moving foward and had a number of important points, including plan for success. While this is important, I was particularly found of the last point - laugh a lot. This is a good library and life point. We have to remember that this is about people -that we work with and for - if we can’t enjoy them then maybe we should rethink things. Things won’t always go as planned and the ability to laugh will help us get passed them. Enjoy our successes and be happy.
This session was a panel with Rob Hyndman, Matthew Ingram, and Nora Young - a panel of non-librarians who gave an interesting view point for Web 2.0. The panel was more of a discussion, which I really enjoy. Here are some of the important points I took from this session:
- Web 2.0 still isn’t for everyone - it is largely those who are already technologically inclined - how can we keep a democracy and not let one group (the techies) have too much say?
- It isn’t all techies though - motivation and passion is extremely important - the desire to get the message out
- concerns about connections - allows for global conversations but there is lack of accountability as you don’t have to look someone in the eye when you disagree -can be solitary but may see that virtual connection is made first and then taken into the real world
- truth and trust are now currencies and are no longer given by default - questioning is the norm and shows us we should have questioned “trusted” sources more
- echo chamber phenomenon - how do we keep from becoming too narrow (ie. rss feeds and the loss of serendipity)
Yes, it’s that time of year again. So many conferences, so little time and money! It’s amazing how energized you can be after a conference and how drained! The OLA (Ontario Library Association) Super Conference has just wrapped up. It was a great conference, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned. I won’t blog about all of my sessions - I’ll do highlights instead. I hope to mull the sessions over a little more and may have more to post on the sessions later. Here’s a list of the sessions I attended (unfortuantely, I missed a couple due to illness):
- Is Social Software Too Social? - Rob Hyndman, Matthew Ingram, Nora Young
- Information Is Not Enough: Shaping the User Experience - Joan Frye Williams
- Search and the Emerging Social Web - Tomi Poutamen
- Not So Confidential: Exposing Web 2.0 Sites - John Blyberg
- Digital Game-Based Learning and Information Literacy - Christy Branston
- CODOC to LC: The Long and Winding Road - Jim Ford and Cary Daniel
- Solutions for a New Generation - Max Valiquette
- Top Tech Trends - Michael Stephens, Amanda Etches-Johnson, John Blyberg
The next conference scheduled - the Winter Institute for Statistical Literacy for Librarians in Edmonton.
