Welcome

Welcome to Learning 2.0 at SEMLS.  Over the next seven weeks, you will explore interactive tools, social communities, and applications commonly used by many of your library patrons and students.

Although you will learn much about how the tools work and will consider ways your libraries can use them to connect with patrons, I'm also hoping you will have a lot of fun as you explore these applications.

Why is it important to learn about these Web 2.0 tools? For many librarians, the Internet is primarily used as an information source: a place to seek out the answers to reference questions and to assist in student research as well as their own personal research. However, over the past ten years, the Web has evolved to a medium where many Internet users, especially younger users, are primarily using it for interaction and to build and maintain social connections.

To reach out and provide service to these users, library staff needs to feel comfortable with the tools they are using.  The mission of many libraries is to support community. These tools will assist libraries in continuing that mission in an online world.

This class is based on the Learning 2.0 program, also known as 23 things, offered by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Because I reduced the length of the course, I have cut out some of the things, but I have also added a thing along the way. PLCMC has recently updated its program to Learning 2.1, where they are now up to 47 things. If you enjoy this program and want to continue exploring Web 2.0 services, check out some of the applications on the original 23 things site as well as the Learning 2.1 site.

Please take a moment to review the syllabus for the course. Each week, I will post an assignment on Friday to the course wiki, located at http://semls.wiki.zoho.com, that will ask you to explore one or two social and/or collaborative applications on the Web. You should explore these sites by Wednesday and post your experience in the comments section of the wiki page for that week's assignment. I will provide questions each week to which you can react when posting comments. As part of the course requirements, you will also need to post two responses to comments written by your classmates by the end of the day Friday. A reading will also be assigned each week.

The class will run from January 21 to March 7. However, we will take the week of February 18 off for school vacation week. If you aren't planning to be on vacation or will be taking vacation during another week of the class, you can also use the week of the 18th to either catch up or skip ahead on assignments.

To get the most out of this class, you will need to be a person who feels comfortable browsing on the Web, completing online forms, and adjusting account settings on your own. Participants who complete all of the class assignments will receive a certificate at the end of the class.

Because this is one of our first experiments with online learning, we will also offer a special incentive for participants. Those of you who complete all of the assignments on time will receive an Amazon gift card.

I look forward to working with you over the next few weeks as we explore Learning 2.0. I hope you have fun and learn some new ways to reach out to your patrons and students.

Kathy Lussier
Asst. Admin. for Technology
Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System