Still Week Ten: Wrap up

(image courtesy of http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ )


Well, that's me finally completed the course - trust me to leave it till the last day!

I have really enjoyed learning more about web2.0 and can see already that I am using my newly acquired skills.

I have started a new blog for my business ( http://karritreelane.blogspot.com/ )  and am excited about the opportunities that this year will bring, all those new situations where we can utilise our new skills in the library setting. The suggestion at COC libraries to create a procedure manual wiki is interesting, I can see great benefits in each staff member being able to edit and comment on current procedures.

The comments that I'd like to make about the course are pretty minor, so I'll just make them dot points:

• the timing of the course (over Christmas/New Year holidays) made it difficult to maintain momentum
• some of the technologies have been blocked by our council PCs. This made the 1 hour allocated to us during work time spill over into our home time. While that seems insignificant it's not always easy to find time at home to watch this clips or browse podcasts.

Some ways that I'd like to see City of Cockburn libraries take up this new technology

• combining with the youth workers to organise geocaching activities (perhaps as part of their school holiday activities)
• all staff members being able to contribute to and comment on the staff blog
• more staff members contributing to the public blog and facebook page
• all staff participating in the creation of and maintenance of a procedure manual wiki or similar

My favourite parts of the course were

• seeing a little part of each member's personality shining through in their personal blogs
• participating and understanding a little more about twitter, which I thought was a huge time waster initially however have come to appreciate more and more
• learning more about maintaining and personalising my own blog with widgets etc
• discovering the joys of delicious and other social bookmarking websites

And that's it from me!  Thank you to the coordinators and facilitators of the course, I think that you've done an amazing thing for WA public library staff :D