By far what I got out of this course was the mass amounts of information I could then pass on to my collegues.  In the past if I came accross an article or two I might pass it along, but there was never a larger purpose, an information sharing to try to accomplish a goal.  By taking this course I felt I was prepared enough to actually speak with my collegues in an informal 30-45 min session about blogging as well as a brief introduction to wikis.  Since I was relaying infromation from this course, it didn't add the pressure of "this is new so we have to do it."  It felt more like they got to participate in the exploritory level and throught process behind why I am suggesting the directions I am suggesting.  Of course, now the real work begins of not only infusing these tools into our library but giving the other librarians the confidence to use them beyond the initial novelty stage.

Reading over and considering the class materials on "selling social software," I've noticed that many librarians run up against resistance to new technology from involved staff.  This can definitely be the case in school settings (where the concerns about safety and security for students is paramount) but I also find that teachers are often very interested in new technology.  I find that most teachers at my high school are always on the lookout for technology that might do the following: grab students attention, add another dimension to the learning experience, be easy to use, save some time!, jazz up the class experience, etc.  

Here is a link to my final project which I published on the wiki:

http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/wiki/index.php?title=Holly%27s_Final_Projects

this was a fantastic and successful online offering for a variety of reasons.  One signficant reason is that the creators of the course provided "mulitple learning opportunities"....chatting, listening, watching, practicing, reading....to accomodate multiple learning styles.  Fabulous. Another reason: bleeding edge practitioners were recruited to provide presentations.  A third reason: fantastic participants representing every kind of background, library, and level of exposure to social technologies.  Most significant reason: enthusiastic, supportive, reliable, bleeding edge course facilitators and creators.  Round of applause coming out of Seattle...thanks much.  

My favorite part of the course was being able to chat with a small group about the various tools and each other’s own experiences. This really helped me to gain a better understanding of the full features of each tool. Also, generation of ideas from the individuals was great. It definitely aids in your own creation when you see and discuss how others are using something or plan to use something.

For my personal use, I found the photo sharing software to be the most interesting. It was fun to load pictures and tell my friends and relatives to go to this site to see photos, rather than getting “doubles” at the photo-shop and mailing them to Aunt Glenda. :) I also thought the photo sharing tool was interesting professionally, as I had never thought about the different ways in which it could be used. I think using Flickr as a tutorial or conducting a library tour is really neat and an exciting endeavor.

You may never again hear a student of any kind say this, but my favorite part of the course was the homework (a.k.a. activities). Without the expectation of producing something every week, it would have been very easy to put everything else off with good intentions of catching up later but never getting around to it. There's no replacement for getting in there and getting your hands dirty, and it provides a point of reference for everything else.

The "everything else" was wonderful too. The readings, the screencasts, the presentations were all practical and interesting. (My one suggestion on the screencasts was to indicate how long they are so we know how much time to plan for them). The chats were a great way to connect with other colleagues, and I'm looking forward to keeping that up in some way. I love my colleagues at my institution (well, most of them...), but it's really refreshing to step outside of our little world here and talk to others. You can do that to some extent at conferences (when you have the time and money to go), but that opportunity is rare, and it's harder to make connections at conferences, I think. You have too many social conventions getting in the way. You can't just walk up to a complete stranger and start sharing ideas about a particular project (well, you can, I guess).

One of my favorite experiences was the weekly chat session.  My group was really diverse and it was great to pull on each person's experiences during the weekly chats.  It made much of the material in the screencasts and readings really come to life.  Of all of the technologies we covered, I cannot think of a single one that wouldn't be good for me personally.  I have a blog currently and I want to explore wikis and RSS feeds and so on.  I find all of this really stimulating.  On a professional level, at least to begin with, blogs and wikis are the most useful tools.  For me, they are the easiest to implement and explain to my users- both faculty and students.  I do believe that many of my folks are already tuned into feeds and other things like social bookmarking on their own.

I really liked the screencast called "Library 2.0? No, Thank you!"  Many of the obstacles they pointed out are my obstacles, and I think they presented very creative workarounds for the problems.  I can really relate to technical obstacles since I don't control the web server and have to beg the lone IT guy we have to make any changes.  At least he is open to open source software!

After the screencast, I was encouraged to try many of the things I learned in this class including starting a blog for my faculty and redoing our library website.  I am also exploring the whole social networking concept as I look to mounting digital collections on the library website.  What can I carry over from places like Second Life that will work to put gallery talks together?  I found it very helpful to have many ideas to draw on as I plot the digital future of my library.

I really liked the presentation from Czarnecki and Gullett on Second Life because it made me once again think of the vast number of applications I might be able to take advantage of.   Since I have my own Second Life avatar, I am somewhat familiar with cruising around in Second Life, and I like the idea of using it with my students.  My students as second career folks don't have a lot of time for this kind of stuff, but I think they need to be exposed to it in order to keep up with where many of their congregations are.  Plus, some of my doctoral students will have their own students some day soon who are going to be very aware of the technology.  So, the presentation really spoke to me about the potential for use and where all of this may take librarians some day.

Now that the class is drawing to a close, I am excited about the new possibilities that blogging offers me.  I have already started a new blog for my faculty and I think for the time being, blogs are a great way tool for outreach and communication.  Further, I would like more of my faculty to launch blogs of their own so maybe it's time to do a faculty workshop on blogging for academics.