Engaged + Motivated = Learning

Sounds like I’m quoting from The Business of Knowing again, but actually this post title is from Helene Blowers‘ ILI2007 presentation Learning 2.0: it’s all about … PLAY.

I’ve followed the development of 23 Things with interest, though from a distance, but this is the first chance I’ve had to hear Helene Blowers speak. And it was a particularly good opportunity as in the same session we heard Bente Jensen and Dara Jorgensen on how they adapted and implemented 23 Ting in three public libraries in Denmark. Adaptation is on my mind at the moment, following feedback from information professionals at Elisad that they were struggling a bit to get started with Web 2.0.

Perhaps because of the stage I’m at, thinking about ways of helping my AOD colleagues into 2.0, I found Jensen & Jorgensen’s section on consideration most useful. From the volume of Collected presentations:

Before starting this project, a lot of considerations had to be made. Should we use the American version? Should we make a straight translation or should we adapt the programme to Danish circumstances? Did the American version contain topic which were not useable in Denmark? Should we run the programme homogenous or should we allow for each library to make any adjustments they saw fit?*

Indeed. One of the things I’m mulling over is how access to some programs and facilities might differ across different areas of the globe if we managed to sort out a subject-orientated version of 23 Things … I suppose in that (international) sense it’s a bit like Five Weeks to a Social Library … hmmm.

Coming back to Blowers’ presentation, I was particularly interested to hear how she had started out in information as a library trainer, but that by the time she was developing the programme that would become 23 Things she realised that what would really help the learning process was taking the trainer at the front of the room out of the equation, as illustrated in this slide. This makes complete sense, especially in a fast-evolving area like Web 2.0, where things are changing and developing all the time.

From the evidence of both presentations, it seems that the breakthrough with 23 T(h)ing(s) is not in teaching people about Library 2.0, but in giving them the confidence and experience in discovering for themselves how applications work and how they might wish to utilise them in their work setting.

The key to all this success seems to be the voluntary nature of the programmes. In the Q&A after the presentations, an audience-member asked if people undertook the programme in work time or at home. All three speakers highlighted the importance of actively encouraging people to do it in work time, but observed that almost everyone who completed all 23 of the ‘things’ ended up doing stuff in their own time … because they were having so much fun.

Hence Blowers’ stress on the word ‘play’ in the title of her presentation. Lots and lots and lots to think about here. In fact, QED, I for one left my half day at ILI feeling both engaged + motivated … and having learned an awful lot.

Ref

* Nixon, Carol and Burmood, Jennifer (eds). Internet Librarian International 2007, New Realities, Roles and Resources: collected presentations. Information Today, 2007: 96.