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Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted - as with most people I know, I’ve been incredibly busy. Luckily, I can now say that I’m on research leave! Unfortunately (or not, depending on how you view it) it will not be a slow, easy going research leave. I have tons to do - I am preparing for 4 conferences (presenting at CiL in a week, and preparing for presentations at CLA and WILU, as well as writing a paper which will be presented at IFLA). Busy, busy, busy!
It does mean that I get to catch up on some reading and do some much needed thinking (it’s also annual performance review time, which means goal setting and general planning). Once I have all of my presentations done, I hope to start spending some more time on exploring the role of technology in teaching - something that has certainly become a growing interest since I started Second Life.
In the reading department, I finally got to read Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail and Learning 2.0 (it’s only been sitting on my desk for the past couple of months). I quite enjoyed the article and it fits in to my new interest in teaching and technology. It notes that there is a change towards social learning, focusing on not what we learn but how we learn. The culture is changing from “I think therefore I am” to “We participate therefore we are”. Students are moving from learning about subject matter to learning to be a full participant in the field, and this is being aided by the internet and the social web.
While this has some interesting educational applications, it got me wondering what it means for academic libraries. If we are becoming a culture of participation, are libraries adjusting to meet this? We have always been the keepers and houses of information - how can we be key players in the culture of participation. Learning commons are one way to help this culture - providing the space for students to work in groups, become teachers to their peers - but is there more we can do? We see some libraries leading the way in the use of new technologies, such as Second Life. What else can we do to engage our students in a new culture of Learning 2.0?
One research leave just started and I’m already brewing up ideas for next year’s leave!
It’s official! I’m Learning 2.0 certified!
Well, it seems the Emerging Technologies Group snuck in one more activity for us - a sum up of the program. What can I say, I think it rocked! I think that communication in the library has already gone up thanks to all the Facebooking going on. We tend to hide out in our areas but by creating Facebook accounts, we’re chatting more online it seems. I’ve chatted with people I hardly ever actually see in the course of my day and I think that’s got to be the best part of this program - it’s for everyone and the applications truly are social. Even though I knew many of the applications we were introduced to, I still learned new things and would certainly do it again if it was offered in the future. The one thing about social software and applications, there are always new ones and this program is a great way to keep up-to-date. Again, kudos to the ETG!
Yes, learning 2.0 is winding down. This is our last week of assignments and then a couple of weeks to catch up. It’s been a great program and I think a lot of people enjoyed it or at least learned 1 new thing. We now know how to keep up to date with some of the latest web 2.0 applications - which is a good thing, seeing as there are constantly new things to learn and try! Congratulations to the ETG group at Mac - it was a lot of work on your part and greatly appreciated.
This week we’re looking at extensions and add-ons. I’ve had a couple of add-ons for firefox for a while, such as the del.icio.us tag which makes tagging extremely easy, I suggest trying it if you have a del.icio.us account (which I know you do if you’re in the learning 2.0 program). I thought I’d give another a try - this time it’s Clipmarks, which allows you to clip parts of a page and share them if you’d like. Sounds like it could be useful - I’ll let you know how it goes. Add-ons are generally a great short cut to your normal routines.
In case you’re wondering, I did change my image header. It is now showing some of the hills along the coast of Cape Breton which I took during a lovely sunset on a summer’s day.
Well, we just finished our gaming week for learning 2.0, so I thought I’d post something (although I promise it will be short. People are likely tired of hearing my thoughts on gaming and Second Life). The week itself was great, with demos of MUSHs, World of Warcraft, Dance Dance Revolution (which I unfortunately wimped out from trying - must do it some day), and Second Life.
Gaming has become a huge discussion and research topic, with academic and library conferences on the issue. Gaming certainly isn’t for everyone or every course, but for many gaming offers a new more engaging way to learn content and theories. The biggest problem at the moment is that while lots of theory has be written and shared, there remains to be enough concrete evidence, especially for critics, that gaming truly makes a difference in the learning process. With the present emphasis in gaming in education, we should hopefully see some good strong results in the next couple of years.
Learning 2.0 has started up again after a break for everyone to catch up and I’m back to post my experiences. I love this weeks topic - applications. There are a ton out there and I never have time to find or play with them all. We’ve been given a list of applications to go and play with. Great assignment! I love playing with new toys! I’ve played with a number before, such as Google Docs, Last.fm (which I love - a great way to find artists similar to ones you know and love) and flickr toys. Rollyo looks intersting and I think I’ll come back and check it out again. Here’s are some avatars I made
Web 2.0 applications are generally easy to use, free and neat. In all web 2.0 applications are great!
The next section of learning 2.0 is tagging and folksonomies. I’ve been a fan of Flickr and del.icio.us for a long time now and I think that there is a lot of power in tagging and folksonomies. To the shagrin of many librarians, I can’t wait to be able to add tagging to our catalogue. I think it will help students find what they need in a new, easier way and am always excited to see it being added to more and more library catalogues.
I’ve placed a number of my better pictures on Flickr already (you can link over to them from my blog, if you haven’t noticed). I’ve used del.icio.us for research a number of times - I’ve found a number of items that I might have missed otherwise thanks to others tags.
It was hard to limit my flickr photo to just one, but I thought this one was great! I’m a sucker for trees and fog (must be because I’m from N.S.).
I’m trying to catch up on my learning 2.0 exercises. Wikis are the first up to bat. I’ve played around with wikis before and I’m still trying to figure out my exact position on them. I’ve set one up for the CLA presentation I’m doing in May since the panel is scattered around the country. I set up a PBwiki but it hasn’t had a lot of use. This may be due to the fact that when I set it up, you had to know basic html to edit the page - I’m glad to see this has changed and it should convince more people to try to use a wiki. I’ve also recently worked on a project using Google Docs, which allows collaboration, and I’ve had a more positive response to using that than the wikis. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I must admit though, the ability to use social software such as a wiki to collaborate on projects has made life much easier!
I just thought I better write something about rss, since that’s what’s up this week in our Learning2.0 program. What can I say about rss that hasn’t been already said? I’m hooked, that’s all I know. Once I discovered them (thanks Amanada!), I’ve been a mad subscriber to rss feeds. I likely have too many feeds now. I love that they keep me up-to-date about what’s happening in our field, technology, and the world. My bloglines account is always open; I probably should seek help. I’ve become very reliant on my feeds but I hope in a good way, as it helps me keep up with my professsion and my patrons. If you’ve just started using rss, watch out! It’s addictive!
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!
