Thursday 18 June 2009

23 things

How do you get people understanding, using, and engaging with Web 2.0 technologies? Well you could adopt the 23 Things on-line awareness and learning system, originally developed in 2006 by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. It's since been used by many libraies round the world, and I've just listened to an account of its implementation at the University of Limerick. Basically staff have to follow a series of short sessions encouraging them to do 23 things - set up a blog, learn about RSS feeds, set up a Flickr account, learn about tagging, podcasts and wikis - any many more. Staff who'd been through the programme had developed a good understanding of the technologies - which to use and those not to use. Also where they could be used in improving services with library environments.

It's an interesting idea - we've been wondering about how to help staff become familiar with these technologies, and this could easily be adapted to be used for different groups of staff, not just those in libraries.

1 comment:

Mike Nolan said...

I went to a session at SOLSTICE conference by some staff at Liverpool John Moores University covering a similar thing they ran for Learning Services staff.

Certainly got potential, but I got the impression that continued usage of the new technologies was limited.