News & Views, April 2010 (mp3 file; 5.1 MB; 5:27 min.)Learning Communities;SLP Ideas; Mother Nature ECL Kit
I was privileged to be part of a presentation on webconferencing at the Public LIbrary Association conference a couple of weeks ago, and to hear what my co-presenters had to say about what they're doing in their states and organizations. Cindi Hickey, from the Kansas State Library, told us about several "cohort" groups of librarians getting together to attend virtual classes (or view the archives) and then discuss, both in person and online. And that started me thinking....a few years ago we tried a pilot program in which we helped librarians develop ILPs, or individualized learning plans. It wasn't a huge success but the idea still seemed viable. Now, with much more technology and many more tools available, an amalgam of several forms of learning and collaboration is an idea with some potential, I think, especially in bringing together librarians who are geographically isolated from colleagues, or even those who are next door. They would be "communities of learning," or perhaps "communities of practice," or both.
You, the librarians, would come together based on common interest or need--we want to raise money for a building project, or we want to work on marketing, or we want to explore social media and the library. SWILSA would facilitate in any way we could, or you needed us to--identifying librarians with a particular interest, bringing them together in a classroom or in person, helping you to find resources, setting up ways to share information and ideas--whatever you need, in whatever creative ways we can imagine.
I hope many of you will find this an intriguing possibility for sharing with your colleagues, helping each to learn what you need to learn, and getting whatever support and assistance SWILSA can give you. You'll be hearing from us soon as we begin to build these learning communities.
Links from today's podcast:
SWILSA's SLP 2010 Ideas
SLP 2010 Bulletin Board
