Week 12 Wrap up; social networks and catch up

Welcome to week 12 – this is the last week of our Learning 2.0 program for test pilots.

This is a short week which includes four key activities:

• learning about social networking and how libraries and other organisations are using it


• catching up with any activities you haven’t finished


• providing feedback via our survey


• revisiting the self assessment survey

Discover: So what is social networking?
You have probably heard of Facebook and MySpace, they are just two examples of social networking services. See this map from LeMonde which shows the popularity of different services around the world.

Explore: How can government, museums and libraries use social networking services?

• Some interesting work in the UK is creating 'Communities of Practice' for local government which “are an attempt, according to their creators, to harness the power of social networking to share problems, ideas and expertise.”


• Another example is East Renfrewshire Council in Scotland using Facebook to boost its libraries and sports centres.


• The Renaissance West Midlands blog, a collaborative online diary for museum professionals, has some great suggestions in a fascinating post about social networking potential for museums.


• This article from NewsGrist discusses the rationale behind museums social networking in more detail.


• The American Library Association’s MySpace page includes a Meebo widget to contact them, embedded videos of recent events, more than 4,000 friends and highlights from their blogs.


• The British Library is in Facebook.


• Newcastle City Library Service (UK) has a MySpace page


• Rotorua Public Library is on Bebo


• The ALIA symposium Beyond the Hype: web 2.0 used ning to build a community for the event

But what about libraries in Second Life?
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. It is inhabited by avatars and yes, there are libraries and even library islands! You can find out much more from the Second Life Library Project.

Discuss in your blog possibilities for our library using social networking for client interaction, marketing and networking opportunities.


Feedback: There’s no adventure this week – please make sure spend a few minutes giving us your feedback via:
- completing the feedback survey Click Here to take survey
- revisiting the self assessment survey Click Here to take survey

Congratulations on successfully completing your mission of discovery paving the way for your colleagues at the library.



This image was generated using an image generator from BigHugeLabs and an image from NASA.

Week 11: Online applications and tools

Productivity software
Word processing, spreadsheets, calendars, presentations, project management, and web conferencing are all examples of productivity software. Online versions offer many of the same features yet are quite different from what is installed on your computer. How so? The online software we're looking at today is quite inexpensive - it's free. There is a reason for this - it doesn't do nearly as much as the software installed on your computer. The core features you see in Google Docs and Zoho match up surprisingly well. No installation of software is required. All you need is a web browser and an internet connection.

Collaboration
It's much easier to work on projects with others - colleagues, community group members, family, friends, whomever. Say, for example, you are working with your colleagues in a number of institutions. You post the first draft of a letter or a report, your colleagues make edits or add text to the document, and you bring the completed letter or report to your next meeting. The shared workspace means that no one is accidentally looking at an out-of-date version of the document. Watch this video to find out how Google docs works.

Other useful online tools
Converting file formats is easy at Zamzar. For example you can convert a document to a pdf file.

Sharing presentation and slideshows is easy using Slideshare and Thumbstacks.

Explore: Look at this slide show from Slideshare for some more examples of free online productivity tools.

Discover: Using your gmail account log into Google Docs and create a document.
Share it with us at slnsw2.0@gmail.com. In your blog consider possible applications for this in your work.

Adventure: Set up a Zoho account and compare it.

Week 10: Podcasts

This week we look at podcasts and audio files.A 'podcast' is a non-music audio or video recording that is distributed over the internet. The distribution is what makes a podcast unique. It's also what makes a podcast powerful - interested listeners or watchers can receive updates through RSS when new content is posted.

Variety
Podcasts come in many shapes and sizes. They can be brief (just a few minutes) or considerably longer (interviews, panel discussions, radio shows, etc). They can be slickly produced radio broadcasts or home-grown recordings. They can be audio only or they can be video. You can listen to them on your computer (don’t forget to use headphones in your work area) or play them on an MP3 player. Despite the name, you don't need an iPod or a MP3 player to listen or watch - all you need is a computer with headphones or speakers.

Discover: Listen to a podcast from the British Library and one from the ABC. [Hint use the subject option to see what is available].

Explore: Listen to some of the podcasts linked on the Library Success wiki. Blog about how the State Library could use podcasts for our clients and staff.



Adventure: Contact the team leaders to collect an mp3 player to further explore podcasts and recording audio files.

Listen to one of the podcasts on the Online Education Database.

To search for other podcasts use ‘podcast’ as a keyword in your search engine or you can use Yahoo podcasts search.

Week 9 : Mashups

Mashups are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a mapping program). With this combination, for example, you get Mappr.Wikipedia offers a slightly more detailed explanation.New mashups come out, literally, every day.

Some examples include image generators. Here are a couple of examples we created using big huge labs.
Another popular mashup tool is Google maps. Have a look at this example from the British Library called London: a life in Google maps. Voicethread is another type of mashup tool which could be really useful for adding information to our digital objects. Another example of combining Google Maps and historic maps is a mashup of César-François Cassini's 18th century map of France (the 182 sheets of the map took Cassini over thirty years to complete). Thanks to GeoGarage you can now view all 182 sheets on their Cassini Map.

Explore: Keir Clarke has developed Star Viewer using the new 'sky' option in the Google Maps API:

Discover: Using Big huge labs, create a mashup and add it to your blog. Hint it will save the image to your desktop so you will need to upload it to your blog from there. Blog about how we could use mashups.

Adventure: Find another example of a mashup. Blog about how appropriate it would be for work.

Week 8: Answer boards and social searching

Social searching

Social searching takes many forms, ranging from the shared bookmarks we considered in our last lesson (eg. Del.icio.us and Digg) or tagging of content with descriptive labels (eg. Flickr), question and answer services, to more sophisticated approaches that combine human intelligence with computer algorithms.

An example would include the Taste website which allows readers to rank recipes and comment on them. Amazon also uses social searching features like “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” and “Customer Reviews”.

Online brains trusts

Have you ever considered that your library is part of the knowledge market? There are, of course, two aspects of the knowledge market: fee based and free. Both types can also be found online. This lesson focuses on free knowledge markets or web forums also known as answer boards.

Answer boards are websites where an individual can post a question and have it answered by anyone else who visits the forum. Most sites have ways of assessing the quality of the answers usually through a process of peer review or voting.

Some examples of answer boards include: Yahoo!7 Answers, Askville and WikiAnswers.

There is a movement of reference librarians who are “slamming the boards” once a month around the world. They aim to provide answers on popular "Answer Board" sites clearly identifying themselves as librarians in the process. This provides an opportunity to highlight the question-answering skills of librarians to the wider community.

Discover: visit the Answer Board Librarians wiki and view the “Exemplary Answers” section. Note how highly the librarians’ responses were rated by members of the community. Also look at the “Signatures and Tag Lines” the librarians use when replying on answer boards.

Explore: Consider is there a role for your library in “slamming the boards”? In what ways might your customers like to rate or review items in the collection or services you offer? Share your thoughts in your blog.

Adventure: Post or answer a question on Yahoo!7 Answers. Use your Yahoo ID from the Flickr activity to log in.

Week 7: Tagging, folksonomies, del.icio.us and LibraryThing

Our lesson this week has two parts:

Part 1: Social bookmarking and del.icio.us
Watch this videoclip Social bookmarking in plain English to introduce this week’s topic.

We’ll be looking more closely at web 2.0 applications that take advantage of tagging (we've already looked at several - Flickr, YouTube, Google video and blogs all use tags). Tagging allows you to associate keywords with online content - webpages, pictures, posts, etc. It is considered a folksonomy or an unstructured categorization scheme.

Categorization scheme? As a library employee you know a thing or two about these – we use the largest categorization scheme on the planet, Library of Congress subject headings. Library of Congress, though, is much more formalized and is considered a taxonomy .

This week we’ll look at two applications that take great advantage of tagging – Del.icio.us and Library Thing.

Del.icio.us
In addition to having an excellent name (yes, that’s a real URL – the .us at the end stands for United States), Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that lets you save bookmarks to a central location instead of your computer and classify them all with tags.

How is that social? Well, in addition to tagging your bookmarks, you can see how other users have tagged the same links and see related websites are important to them. This is an excellent way to find websites that may be of interest to you.

Del.icio.us even offers RSS feeds - you can create a shared bookmark site (eg. for your team) and receive news every time a new link is added (eg. when one of your colleagues adds a new link).

Discover: Let's take a look at how a library is using Del.icio.us. See Sutherland Shire Libraries tag cloud . And what about museums? The Manchester Centre for Museology has a fairly extensive list of tags .

Explore: We created a Del.icio.us account for this exercise. Look at the tag list and see how it looks as a cloud. Contact slnsw2.0@gmail.com for the password then post some tags yourself. [Hint: do not use commas between the tags.]

Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about using this tool in libraries.

Adventure: Using the notes from Colorado State Library set up your own delicious account and put a link to it in your blog. [Hint: it will still work even if you can’t download the toolbar icons]

Part 2: LibraryThing
LibraryThing was developed by booklovers, for booklovers and its basic function is to quickly and painlessly create an online catalog of your personal book collection. What makes it even more special is its social networking component - once you've entered your books, you get to see everyone elses via book titles, authors, and the tags you assign to each entry. Look at the Library Thing tour. Take a quick run through these seven or eight screens for an overview of key Library Thing features and functions.

This link will take you to the SLNSW LibraryThing account set up for this exercise. If this takes you to the 'cover view,' look above the titles and click on 'list view.' From the 'list view,' look to the far right side of the screen - it shows you how many others have entered the title in question.

You can also add a widget to display titles that are in your catalogue or install a Library ThingSearch box on your blog or any other website you've set up (instructions are here).

So why join the ranks and create your own library online? With more than 21 million books to date it’s already half the size of Libraries Australia. Some libraries are adding LibraryThing for libraries to their catalogues as a readers advisory tool. Try searching the Bedford Public Library catalog for Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and scroll down the catalog entry to see the tags.

Adventure:
1. Create your own LibraryThing account.
2. Add a least 5 books to your library.
3. Blog about your findings and be sure to include a link to your LibraryThing catalogue.
4. Already have a LibraryThing account and want to try something new? Give Shelfari or GuruLib a try instead.

Next up: Answer boards and social searching... (a shorter week next week!)

Week 6: Videos online

Online video has improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years - there's more of it, for sure, but the quality is much much higher (bigger screen sizes, fewer pauses when watching).


This change is largely about improvements in technology - digital video cameras are much more common (including on standard digitial cameras and mobile phones), highspeed internet access is much more common (important for watching videos but also for uploading them to the internet), video editing software has become far less expensive (often free online or pre-installed on newly purchased computers), and online storage (server space) has dropped dramatically in price.That last one, the price of online storage, has been revolutionary - without it, companies like YouTube and Google video would not be able to host videos from millions of users without charging them a cent. Note: Google can host longer videos than YouTube.


The (relative) ease of creating video, uploading it to the web, and storing it in an easy-to-access environment is starting to impact the way our society gets its news. Think about it - anyone with a digital camera can capture a news event on their mobile phone video camera and save it to an online video account. Anyone remember the recent election when both the government and opposition used YouTube video clips?


Video Embedding

All YouTube videos offer code that allow you to embed a video (it doesn't have to be yours - you can embed any video you find on YouTube) on your website or blog. Look below where we've embedded an outstanding video on Web 2.0 - click on the play icon to start it up, press pause to make it stop.

It's not just serious stuff - reporting, politics, web 2.0. There's thousands and thousands of fun, even useless, videos on YouTube for your watching pleasure.

Explore: Try searching these examples in YouTube “lego” or “Matthew Flinders”.

But what about state libraries? Check out We love our NJ libraries.

Can you find any other interesting examples?


Discover:
How about showcasing oral histories [follow the links through to a story], the building of new facilities, staff orientations, guides to using library services or exhibitions? There are many opportunities to use video out there.


Blog about your discoveries in both YouTube and Google video [hint try searching Mosman Library]. What possibilities can you think of for our organisation?

Adventure: Find a YouTube video you like and embed it in your blog.


That's it for this week, thanks for reading and doing.

Week 5: Wikis

Watch this videoclip for an introduction to the concept of wikis or have a look at the Library Success Wiki overview. You might like to look at both of these.

Wikis are built by their contributors - readers who add, remove and edit content. This typically goes one of two ways - an open model where anyone (and we mean anyone) is invited to contribute or a closed model where a select group are invited to contribute. Either way, it is an exercise in collaboration and trust - whomever contributes is expected to meet certain standards of quality and accuracy and should expect, should they not reach these standards, that another participant will edit their contributions. The goal is to use a wiki to create a collaborative piece of information, sharing the knowledge of all contributors.

The collective Wikipedia is the best known example of a wiki - anyone can participate in contributing and editing entries. Wikipedia does, however, employ staff who will freeze a topic if foul play is reported by readers. Errors and obvious fakeries are often (though, not always) corrected very quickly.

But if anyone can edit an entry how reliable is the information? A recent survey by the major German language newspaper Stern found that the German language version of Wikipedia was more accurate than the leading German language encyclopedia, Brockhaus. “The study reviewed articles for accuracy, completeness, up-to-date information, and ease of reading. In 43 out of the 50 articles, the German Wikipedia came out on top.”

Communities of interest
Wikis can be used for sharing knowledge in a community of interest, for example :

• Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki


• Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World Traveling Exhibition Wiki


• Blogging libraries wiki

Workplace applications
Wikis can also be used in the workplace, for example the CIA developed Intellipedia - a collaborative intranet tool.

Some libraries have adopted intranet based wikis for their procedure manuals. Here is an example from Antioch University, New England. Please note many wikis like this one would be hosted on an intranet for staff only access

Government
Some governments are using wikis as ways of consulting with the community or for interdepartmental collaboration. The New Zealand Police Act review wiki is an example of a wiki being used for a legislative review.

Discover:
Take a look at at least 3 of the below:

• SJCPL Subject Guides wiki


• Wisconsin Heritage Wiki (hint – follow the link to "Explore other collections")


• Mint Museums, North Carolina use a wiki to highlight their objects


• Book Lovers Wiki at the Princeton Public Library


• Montana History Wiki (hint - follow the link to the subject guides)


• or some of these library wiki examples
  

Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?

Explore:

Search for the State Library of New South Wales entry in Wikipedia How could it be improved? Create a blog post about your ideas.

Adventure:
Still another variation in the world of wikis is where your wiki lives - you can install wiki software on a server at your institution (like we do with our website and email) or you can use a service that hosts the wiki for you. For today's exercise, we'll be doing the latter - our Visitors guide to the State Library of New South Wales wiki was set up with a service called PB Wiki. Look at the PB Wiki tour.

Once you have viewed the PB wiki tour add information or edit an entry in the Visitors guide to the State Library of New South Wales wiki. [Hint: PB wiki works best using Firefox as a browser. ]

Week 4: RSS

RSS or Real Simple Syndication. You may have heard the term before, but did you know what the letters stood for? RSS is a powerful tool that can help bring information to you. Take a look at this YouTube introduction to RSS.

The video mentions the following RSS aggregators or feed readers

• Google reader
• Bloglines
• My Yahoo
• NewsGator

You should already have a gmail account. You will be using it in the following activity.

Discover: Go to Bloglines and create a free account. Once your account is created, add at least 5 RSS feeds to your account. Make sure that one of them is the Powerhouse Museum’s picture of the day blog.

Some others you might consider are
ABS for librarians
Fine books
Librarian in black
Victoria and Albert Museum blog

Hint: To search for blogs use blogs or rss in the search term, or use Google blog search to find blogs on your favourite topic

Explore: In your blog, create an entry that reflects on what you searched for and what you found. If you are stuck, you can use these questions to help start you out:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?

What sites did you select for your RSS reader?

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work?
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

Did you find any good examples of other library blogs? Remember to take a moment and share your thoughts and comments on someone else’s blog.

Adventure: - (remember this is an OPTIONAL activity) Follow the tutorial on Yahoo pipes and create a Pipe and share it. This is a difficult challenge and may take an additional 20-30 minutes of time.

Week 3: Sharing Images

There are a number of photo sharing communities online. These include Photobucket, Smugmug and Snapfish to name a few. In this lesson we will focus on the one which is perhaps the best known, Flickr.

Watch Online photosharing in plain English (from our friends at Commoncraft)

Flickr is a website that allows users to upload digital pictures from their computer and share them with just their friends or the whole entire planet. Users can “tag” an image with key words that describe the picture. This allows people to search Flickr for pictures that interest them by entering tag words into the search window.

Discover: Go to Flickr. Type State Library of NSW into the search box at the top of the screen and take a look at the pictures that have been tagged with State Library of NSW. What do you think about what you find? Please comment in your blog.

You have looked for some work stuff; now let’s look for fun stuff. How about trying the Sydney Festival? Also try looking for Matthew Flinders, lamington, vegemite – you get the idea, try some of your own key words (tags).

The National Library of Australia is using Flickr as a way of engaging people around the country in building the collection – see Our town example - scroll down to read the tagging guidelines. Look at the advanced search option of Picture Australia you can search for Flickr images here.

Look at Flickr’s FAQ page on tags. And, if for no other reason that it's so well done, take a look at the image below - it was posted by Flickr user cambodia4kidsorg.

This photo illustrates the beauty of tags - there are many many ways to describe whatever it is you are looking at in a photo (in this case: Pen, Marker, Sharpie, Purple). Why not include them all as tags?

Flickr also makes use of groups. Groups are communities of like minded photo posters. And, yes, there are quite a few groups with a library theme. Let Flickr fill in the rest of the blanks - take a look at their FAQ page on groups.

Creative Commons

How you would feel if someone took your photo and made a poster out of it and sold it? Not too happy we would guess, and rightfully so. To help protect the artist’s rights, Creative Commons was created to provide artists the ability to put work out into cyber space but still have control of how their work is consumed by the public. Here is more info about Creative Commons from Wikipedia.

Examples of websites that use Creative Commons to protect their work:

Public Library of Science – scroll to the very bottom of the page and click the "Creative Commons Attribution License" link to see how they use CC.

Flickr – look at this picture that we took. If you look to the right of the pic, under Additional Information, you will see two small icons and the link “some rights reserved”. Click the link to see how we used Creative Commons to both protect and share our work. We even put our picture on a map.

Learning 2.0
The original version of Learning 2.0 was created by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. They licensed the course so that other libraries could use it. By agreeing to their licenses terms in Creative Commons, we also agree to allow others to use this content. We have permission to build on the work of Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, King County Library System and Orange County Library Service . You can see our license on the right hand side of the screen.

Photo posting etiquette
When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you unless you have the photographer's consent and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog (as we have above in the case of cambodia4kidsorg).

Explore: have a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image. Blog about it and be sure to include either a link to the image or a copy of the image itself in your blog posting. For the latter, you can either use Blogger's photo upload tool or Flickr's blogging tool (you'll need to set up a Flickr account for this).

Adventure: Take some digital pictures around the library, upload the pics to your Flickr account, tag with "slnsw2008" and share. Make sure the pictures are public, or we won’t be able to see them. Please respect the privacy of our clients - no pictures of kids or adult faces.

Note: for your images to be able to be searched by their tag (subject) you will need to upload five or more pictures.

Have a look at some pictures taken by our colleagues in King County when they did this exercise - click on photostream.

If you need a bit of help here is a video tutorial about Flickr.

Week 2: Introduction to blogs

What is a blog?
A blog is a shortened form of the word "weblog." A blog is a different form of website. A blog's content and purpose varies. Some are simply personal diaries, some focus on a specific subject such as politics or travel, and some are primarily "newsy" and informational. Also, links to other sites on the web are common. The main features of a blog which make it different from a regular website include:

• Content is presented in an ongoing series of data entries or posts-kind of like a diary or journal
• Typically displayed in reverse chronological order with the most recent entry on top
• Latest news or information is easy to identify
• Allows for comments regarding a specific post from the readers
• For the nontechnical person-no knowledge of HTML or uploading files is necessary. Source

Now to the big question - what use could a blog be in the State Library environment? Here are some examples of how other cultural institutions are using blogs ~ please take a look at each of them:

• Library of Congress blog


• Australian War Memorial exhibition blog


• Powerhouse Museum blog

As you can see blogs can be used to highlight collections, events and exhibitions and to contribute to professional knowledge sharing just for starters!

This week you will set up your very own personal blog - this is where you'll record your thoughts on Learning 2.0 discoveries and the exercises you take part in. Your Learning 2.0 Blog will be set up using Blogger, a popular free online blog hosting service that is extremely easy to use. How easy? It's so easy that the Learning 2.0 Team figured it out - this blog you're looking at is also on Blogger (look at the blog URL - it starts with http://slnswlearning20.blogspot.com/).

What about the SLNSW code of conduct?
Remember that what you put on a blog [either one you create or one you post to] is out there for everyone to see. Our code of conduct applies to all work related blogging. For general information about blogging etiquette it's worth reading the guidelines that IBM provides for their employees.

Discover: Watch this videoclip which shows step by step how to set up a blog using Blogger. Blogger: How to start a blog

Explore: Follow these steps to create a blog for yourself and start blogging
1. Create a Gmail account [if you already have one you can use it]


2. Go to the Blogger website: http://www.blogger.com/Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on'Create Your Blog Now'

This is what you'll see: [hint: Your display name does not have to be your real name - yes, you can be anonymous. The Learning 2.0 Team are the only staff members who need to know your true identity and we'll ask for it later]













3. Name your blog. This is what you'll see:




[hint: Your blog title? Be as creative as you like - remember, no one but the Learning 2.0 Team will know who you are unless you give yourself away. Your blog URL? The easier to remember, the better. And WRITE THIS DOWN... ]

4. Select a Template. There are plenty of options and you can change your template at any time.
5. Write and publish your first blog posting. This is the fun part - just click on the 'start posting' link and go...

What do you write about?
Try something on the theme of Learning 2.0. What do you hope to learn from the program? What do you think about Lifelong Learning? What other blogs have you discovered? What do you like about them? Remember this is out there on the web and may be read by anyone so keep the code of conduct in mind. Can you see a use for blogs inside the Library? How about blogging for a client audience? Comments are the fuel that blogs run on. Feel free to comment on your colleagues blogs – see the Test Pilots Blogroll on the right of this screen.

How much do you write?
The recommended minimum is 150 words The Learning 2.0 Team will be reading your blogs regularly.

Blog registration
Creating a blog is a requirement for completing the course. Click here to log your blog
WARNING If you skip this step you will not receive feedback, or any acknowledgement for completing the program. If you need more assistance contact the Learning 2.0 team

How do you get back to your blog, to add future postings?

1. Go to your blog(we, for example, go to http://slnswlearning20.blogspot.com/)
   
2. Look to the top right corner of the screen and click on the 'Sign In' link (If you've forgotten your blog URL, head to www.blogger.com and continue with the next step)
   
3. Look to the top right corner of the screen and click on the 'New Blogger' link
4. Log in with your Username and Password (these will be tied to the Google account you set up a few minutes ago)
5. Find your blog on the 'Dashboard' and click on it's 'New Post' link
6. Blog away...

Once you've logged in you'll also be able to change your blog settings - there's a series of 'Manage' links in your 'Dashboard.'

Should you run into problems and/or would like more information about blogs and using Blogger , take a look at Blogger’s Quick Tutorial - just keep clicking on the 'continue' buttons at the end of next screen to keep going...

Adventure: Search for other library related blogs using Technorati. Share your discoveries in your own blog. [Remember, this is an optional activity.]

Next week: Sharing images

Week 1: Let’s get started

Welcome to the State Library of NSW Learning 2.0 program. Learning 2.0 is an online program to learn more about emerging technologies on the web that are changing the way people, society and libraries access information and communicate with each other.

Watch: this short video clip Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us illustrates the rapid development of web based communication and information tools and the way they encourage collaboration. [hint: to enlarge the YouTube screen look for a small button at the bottom righthand corner]

Over the course of the next twelve weeks, this website will highlight a selection of these technologies with Discovery, Exploration and Adventure exercises to help you become familiar with blogging, RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis, podcasting, online applications, and video and image hosting sites. A new post will appear each week.

Each lesson will introduce a technology or application. There will be three exercises for you to complete

• Discover ~ what is it and what can it do?
• Explore ~ using the technology and commenting on it
• Adventure [optional] ~ a fun exercise to learn even more

You should be able to complete the program by spending 15 minutes a day working through these activities. If you need help with any activity please contact Ellen or Mylee, or work with your fellow test pilots.

To familiarize yourself with this project, be sure to read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. These FAQs should answer most of your questions about this program. And if you don't see your question answered just add it to the FAQ page as a blog comment.

Before we embark on this new online learning and discovery journey lets take a few minutes to review the Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners as identified by Helene Blowers who created the original Learning 2.0 program.

• Habit 1 – Begin with the end in mind
• Habit 2 – Accept responsibility for your own learning
• Habit 3 – View problems as challenges
• Habit 4 – Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
• Habit 5 – Create your own learning toolbox
• Habit 6 – Use technology to your advantage
• Habit 7 – Teach and mentor others
• Habit 7 ½ – PLAY!

Discover: Follow this link for a Wikipedia definition of Lifelong Learning

Explore: watch actor Stephen Fry discuss Web 2.0.

So fasten your seat belts, grab your mouse and get ready for a discovery adventure… Be sure to tune in every Monday, for the next "thing" or discovery item ... or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed. [Don’t panic we’ll cover RSS in week 4.]

Adventure: –We will have our first Adventure activity next week.

Next Week: Creating your blog so you can begin tracking your journey.