What is this project?
Our students are exposed to technology in a completely different way than we are. Most of our incoming students are digital natives. They incorporate the web into their daily lives in a way that we don't (texting, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc). As you know, it's difficult to keep up with all the changes that happen. We all get bogged down with too many things that we have to do to just do our jobs. The hope of this workshop is to give you some time off of your regular work tasks to learn some of the new Web 2.0 technologies in a gentle and fun way. You can spend 1 or 2 hours a week practicing the lessons in this project. Let me say that again ... you can take a few hours each week off of your normal work tasks to play around with this Web 2.0 stuff.
If you follow along with the lessons, you'll be able to tweet "@nsdlibrarian #textbooks LOL", get a Facebook account, make a blog, follow a blog, Twitter and hopefully we'll have some fun and get to know each other better.
If you'd like to work on these lessons on your own, that's great! If you'd like to form a team with one of your colleagues, that's great, too. Either solo or as a group ... working through the lessons is the goal. There aren't going to be any tests or exams. This isn't that kind of project. What you choose to learn is completely up to you. You'll have to want to learn about this 2.0 stuff, though. IMHO, this is part of all our jobs if we plan to provide good service to our incoming digital native students. If you find that you like Twitter, that's great! If you find that you don't care that much about Twitter, but really like keeping up with blogs, that's great, too. I hope that this can be a fun and educational project for all of us!
What is Web 2.0?
Back in the mid-1990s, when the Web was new and fresh for most of us, we learned where to go and how to use it mostly by just playing around. Now that all of us have Web-accessible computers at work and most at home as well, "surfing the Web" is so commonplace as to have lost its luster, and we, collectively, have pulled back from the edge of innovations and play. The main thrust of this workshop is to encourage you to once again go out and play to learn how the Web works!
In the world of "Web 2.0", many lines are blurred, most especially the line between producers of content and consumers of that content (i.e., website users). More and more websites are focused around the idea that users produce their own content. Social networking is big news in 2.0-land; even websites that primarily provide another service (such as photo hosting) often include a social-networking aspect. And organization of data is spontaneous and organic, growing by use of user-applied keyword-based tagging systems, rather than rigid folder structures devised by a website provider.
Spend a few minutes watching these videos about Web 2.0
For more information on "Web 2.0" and projects like this one, check out the following websites:
- Wikipedia article on Web 2.0
- Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, "the original Learning 2.0"
- InfoPeople's "23 Things"
Are you designing and writing this entire project, Jay? Is this project funded by a grant or campus mandate?
ReplyDeleteYes. No.
ReplyDelete