A big thank you to the organizers, presenters, and all who made this course happen.  I don't feel I've expressed my appreciation clearly enough.  I appreciate your time, perhaps most enough, as I found it hard to find enough of it to participate fully so I realize your commitment.  I admire your thoughts and ideas that went into this course and the advocacy and promotion that this will help build for implementing social software into librarianship. This course will always remain a highlight of my library career.

Well, I found out something pretty neat about Second Life today (and if you read my previous blog post about it, my perspective about it wasn't a glowing one). The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is using Second Life to reach out to its members and is having a pretty big impact. According to the Nonprofit Technology Network, "...members from far flung locations can come together to talk and collaborate in real time. Judging by the response so far, ISTE members have been hungry for this kind of community. In just a few short months the number of members visiting EduIsland has grown from 17 to 630, and weekly events are packed to capacity." For more information on how ISTE is maximising Second Life to reach its members, please check here: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Membership/Member_Networking/ISTE_Second_Life.htm

Personally, I LOVE Flikr. I love taking photos and looking at them and making comments and sharing them! What a great concept!. Professionally, I think learning about wikis and more about del.icio.us will benefit me professionally. I never quite got the hang of RSS feeds, although I do understand their use.

  An unexpected outcome from this course was that I didn’t expect all this stuff to be so much FUN! I found it very interesting and although there is still a bit of a generation gap, I was glad to learn that the baby boomers are embracing this technology as well.

The only thing I would suggest to improve upon the program would be for the presenters and facilitators “dumb” things down a little. Be aware that not everyone knows what you are talking about. Many times during the presentations, words were being thrown around and I had no clue what they meant. Even though a word may be in your everyday vocabulary, it doesn’t mean it’s in everyone’s. And even if it is a word we’ve heard, we still might not know exactly what it is or what it can do. At least this is the way I felt. When I read to the younger grades I always stop when I come across a unfamiliar word and make sure they understand it.

This course has been a terrific experience! Really, my favorite experience has been the interaction with fellow librarians, whether in chat or comments on the blog posts. It's a rare activity for me to be able to talk about technology such as we have with other librarians, and that has been great. I've had some experience with many of the social software tools we've been learning about, but this course gave me a better understanding of how they work, clarification of their differences, and how they might work in conjunction with each other. I think what I have found most interesting is how to use del.icio.us and using it with tools such as grazr or feed2js- a concept I think I may find most useful. Experiencing the course, too, and how it has been constructed has provided me with an excellent template that I hope to use in the future as I hope to promote and teach the use of these tools with other librarians.

In addition to being able to close my door for a few hours every week, I really enjoyed the variety of readings and presenters-- and the presenters seemed to care what we said AND responded! I've also told many people how much more meaningful and practical the readings became when I could talk to the organizers, other participants, and presenters about random thoughts I was having, questions I had, problems I saw. It was like being in grad school again, but without the books, tuition, and bureaucratic nonsense. And, I must admit, I really liked having this blog.

Personally, I can't see myself jumping into the SecondLife pool, nor can I envision setting up a Facebook or MySpace account. It may be that I can't overcome my own preconceived notions of thos programs being for the young'ens, but I also think social software tools are only useful when they are useful-- at this point they aren't. However, if I've learned anything in these five weeks, it's that I never know what I'll suddenly find indespensible.

Time for another victory report to this group. Here at CSU-Pueblo, we now have the following technologies in place;

• A Wiki--"CSU-Pueblo Library Project Management"
• A Blog--"CSU-Pueblo Library News and Events"
• Del.icio.us--"Librarians' Suggested Links" (it also appears as a widget in our blog)

We are in the process of configuring a Flickr addition -- "Tour the CSU-Pueblo Library"

We just finished training on the blog. When everyone was told that these tools could cut down on meetings, eyes lit up. 'By George! I think she's got it!'

What were your favorite experiences?
Like those who have answered before me one of my favorite experiences was the weekly chat. The weekly chat, for me personally, added the element of being able to get to know those in your group. I have taken online course before and one of major grips about these courses was that I never had the opportunity to get to know those who were learning alongside of me. I also enjoyed the OPAL-Online lectures, the webcasts, participants’ blogs, and the readings.

What technology did you find the most interesting for your personal use? What technology did you think would be most useful professionally?
The one technology that I find myself using the most is social bookmarking (Del.icio.us); I found that once I transferred my favorites to my Del.icio.us account I use it all time, including at work. Professionally, I think a blog would be the most useful because it would allow museum visitors and library patrons to be able to more actively participate in our public programs and various events.

I sure did have fun this winter!

And it is all because of Five Weeks to a Social Library!!!

What were your favorite experiences in the course?
Working, playing and discovering with all of you! My favorite experiences were the webcasts, screencasts, activities and the group chats. I looked forward to my 11am group chat on Fridays. What a great group! Thank you so much for all your support and inspiring conversations. Honestly, I loved everything about this course.

Do I have to pick one?  My favorite part of this course is the variety of ways to learn.  To read an article, listen to a webcast, experiment with the technology and then chat about it - what a great combo.  Each part built on the others to help deepen my understanding.  Also, it was great being assigned to a specific group.  That helped me to feel that I had some more personal collaborators.  My group really fueled my thoughts with new approaches and helped me expand my ideas of the possibilities for using these technologies.  Great encouragement too. 

So now that we know everything we can know, until more is said and we're lost again, how do we convince our colleagues to jump with us? Which magic words will we find that will open up the budgets, the time, and the energy reserves (anyone else tired?). As one last random stream of consciousness ramble on the readings, I’d like to talk about two of our readings, which actually seem quite different now that I write about them.

I like the measured and practical approach that Karen Coombs takes in "Helping Technology spurred change take." To steal directly from her article, she suggests that we keep these things in mind when introducing our new techy ideas: