Whew! -The 23rd thing (for now)

I have mixed feelings about this "end of the beginning". One is relief at not having another thing to do among all the "happened over the weekend" stuff when I get to work on Monday. One is a let-down feeling that I'm sure will surface next week because part of me looked forward to the new challenges this training brought.

My favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey: Easy and honest answer! Hands down favorite was Play Week. I found the Web 2.0 Awards interesting. Both Bloglines and del.icio.us are helpful. It was great to find an RSS reader that was web-based and great to have Favorites I can access from any computer.
How this program assisted or affected my lifelong learning goals: It's enhanced my lifelong learning and made me stretch myself a bit more. In fact, I should be 10 feet tall by now.
Take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised me: I kinda scoffed at the idea of blogs but I've been won over. I can see some practical uses beyond online journaling and cyber-exhibitionism. I'm hoping that I can get an ILL Informational blog approved by the higher ups that would answer the FAQs not covered by the policy FAQs. The beta version is at: http://jplinterlibraryloan.blogspot.com/ .

What can be done differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept:

• I would suggest either doing a self-paced tutorial-- kind of like the old LAP (Learning Assisted Program) packs ca 1970's--instead of the weekly releases. Some of the weeks seemed more labor intensive than others. While I knew to peek at PLCMC's program to see what was coming up, I knew I couldn't count on our lessons being the same as PLCMC's -- though they often were. It would have been great to have been able to pace myself and be able to fit the lessons in with my workload a bit better. Half my staff dropped out because they couldn't fit the lessons in with their workloads.
• I -and many of my colleagues- got the impression that this supposed to be geared toward newbies. There were a lot of times that I stumbled upon what I was supposed to do, rather than had it spelled out for me. Instructions needed to me more spelled out. My staff and I coached each other through this and nlisted the help of other participants from time to time.
• Speaking of which- having coaches on the sidelines help. We did have the online help offered during specific time periods in the later weeks but on-demand coaching would have been great. Having them a bit earlier would have been more helpful. Now that a group of us has been through this, we may be the source of a cadre of coaches for the next group.
• The program needs to be constantly updated and tweaked. It definitely is not a "copy and run" training. At times- links failed to link or I found myself at a site with a different name. When you're just learning, this can be unsettling.
• Having it come at the end of the FY as it did provided less of an incentive to follow through. My staff and I had already completed our training requirements so dropping out of this training didn't have any great consequences for them-- apart from missing out on the MP3 player. The MP3 player- hint, hint, hint.

If offered another discovery program like this in the future, would I again chose to participate: Yes. In fact there are opportunities out there in Library 2.0-land which I'll look at later after a short break:
http://explorediscoverplay.blogspot.com/
http://www.librarybytes.com/
No doubt others have already done this, but why not have a version of this for our library users (albeit without the MP3 prize) accessible from the JPL website?

Thanks for this opportunity. All in all, it was a great experience.