Thursday, 24 February 2011

Web 2.0 Training

Well here I am blogging on my own blog site instead of adding to everyone else's.  What I hope to learn from Web 2.0 training is how to more fully utilise the web technology that I already participate in and learn something of some of the web content/sites that I have only heard about.  The trap in doing this is a little like visiting a particular clip on You Tube.  Then being enticed to view another one, then another, until hours have passed.  It is all very interesting yet also very time consuming/addictive.
I love the fact that we all still learn something every day, well we usually learn more than 1 thing a day.  Learning does not have to be in a class room,  I have learnt far more since leaving the class room.  Life's experiences, both good and bad ensure that we are continually learning during our entire lives.  We learn at work, at play and quite often from people we come across during social gatherings. 
I recently found myself in need of a blog that contained information from families who's brain injured newborn babies had received 'Cooling treatment'.  The medical treatment is still in its infancy and having never heard of it, I required as much information on the subject that I could find.  As well as providing me with real life stories and outcomes, it also provided me with a network of people who had been in the same situation who were able to provide support and comfort, even though many of them are on the other side of the world.  Isn't the Internet wonderful!
The library where I work has recently begun it's own staff blog. (clever library) This allows staff at both branches to communicate on a range of subjects allowing a host of opinions and ideas to flow on a range of subjects.  As our website is managed by our corporate entity it does not allow us the freedom of adding day to day information as easily as a blog site will.  I wonder if we will be allowed to freedom to blog what we feel we need or will it still have to be approved by the all controlling marketing department.  Perhaps it will be possible to add a blog on what groups are hiring our rooms as a form of promoting them to the community.  What activities and events are coming up in the future.  Book discussion groups.  The applications are endless.
Libraries do have to be in the 'space' where people are.  With more and more people using technology like myspace, twitter, facebook, blogs and so on, we must also have a presence in those spaces.  We must understand how they work and utilise them to our advantage.