What I think of the program so far

For Week 14, our homework is give feedback on the program so far.

For me, the journey has been long, interrupted and not without challenges, a few of which I have written about in previous blogs. To recap, I have been doing the program out of sync with the original timing, so a number of links were broken, a few sites were no longer active and I grew frustrated with having to sign up for and log into multiple sites – remembering user names and passwords and just generally navigating around.

One of the major reasons why my progress through the program has been delayed, is that Daniel (my site champion) and I had taken a different approach when I had asked him for help. We began with his help on a one on one basis, but then structured it more formally with meeting times in a meeting room where he could spend more time explaining, demonstrating and giving encouragement (he is good at that!). It became a reverse mentoring that took on a life of its own. Although we weren't always able to stick to the meeting schedule, we persevered alongside the parallel challenge of the reverse mentoring relationship.

As I have mentioned, we decided to write a paper about our experience and this has taken a significant amount of our time and energy. In fact, it became more important than the program itself in terms of having to meet deadlines and submit progressively the written paper (nearly 5,000 words), prepare a powerpoint and prepare and practice the combined talk we are giving at the ALIA09 conference in just 6 days time.

So what I have thought of the program so far, is that is truly leads to so much more. I am quoting from part of our prepared talk when I say”..[the benefits include] confidence and increased competence in Web 2.0 for me and a learning and empowering experience for Daniel…The most positive outcome for us was that Web 2.0 was a catalyst for the strengthening of our professional relationship.
[Fot the actual program] (and looking ahead to Weeks 15 -21) Tools on sites such as Sclipo, bubbl.us and SurveyMonkey have uses for our Library. The more enjoyable elements such as signing up to Facebook and communicating via messages and chat resulted in a greater understanding of how our students, not to mention my own children, choose this medium to contact others. Using image hosting services such as Flickr and ImageShack extended my skills and presence in cyberspace and once I was into Skype, there was no stopping me. The complete 21 Lunges program contains so much more and is worthy of transferring or adapting to other library staff learning situations. Some modules are more relevant that others, but all were interesting'. This quote from our prepared talk jumps ahead to the areas I have already looked at - but as Daniel keeps reminding me - I need to document it all via my blog as homework. So I will do a few final posts to demonstrate that I have in fact finished and that I am ready to apply the skills I have learnt in my work situation.