Keep On Learning

Seven tasks down, one to go and you'll have completed Round 1 of Tenn-Share Learn & Discover for 2009!

"How will I keep learning without a weekly mission to keep me motivated?" you ask.

Don't worry. We've got some independent study ideas, sources for information, and favorite websites to get you started. Plus, you can always keep in touch with the friends you made over the last nine weeks!

This week we'd like you to choose your own site and report back to the community. Take a look at this year's Webware 100 Winners for 2009. They include familiar names like YouTube, flickr, facebook, and picassa, but there's sure to be sites you've never heard of before.

You can also choose one of the sites we like:

From this year's contributors:
Christi U.: Lifehacker, Web Tech Guy & Angry Staff Person
Wendy:Keepass
Deborah:Etsy, Footnote
Robbi: Wolfram Alpha, Cake Wrecks

And great repeats from last year's pioneering L&D folks:
James: Hulu, dealnews, 
Jenny: Wordle, Mr. Picassohead
Kyle: 30 Boxes, Remember the Milk, BillMonk
Sue: Sketchcast, LOLinator
Tricia: The Daily Plate, YouContertIt, Virtual Tourist
Pam: StumbleUpon, Dead or Alive?, TinyURL

Or you can look through this dizzying list of sites.

Ways to keep on learning:

Take a look at other Emerging Technology sites.
Like the Learning Technologies Centre "Tools" page which talks about using Web 2.0 tools in an education setting in much more depth than we were able to cover here at Learn & Discover.

Read Blogs.

Pick out some blogs written by librarians, like Tame the Web, Stephen's Lighthouse, or Resource Shelf. Next, pick up a few technology blogs. Webware, Read Write Web, and ALA Tech Source are a few good ones. They’ll mention crazy things you won’t understand or ever need. But they also have things that you will want to remember. You don't have to follow 200 blogs. Find a blogger who does this for you, and then tells you about the good stuff.

And add some fun stuff to your feeds!


Realize you cannot know everything, nor do you need to.

We're all short on time. But, staying current doesn't take long. 15 minutes a day is all you really need. If you don't get through all your RSS feeds, don't worry about it. You don't have to read everything. But, doing a little bit will keep your mind fresh with new ideas. You can pick and choose which ones are appropriate for your library and your projects. You don't have to do it all.

Share your finds.

When you find good web sites, don't keep them to yourself! Email them to your colleagues, tag them for friends in your delicious, or share them with your social network.

Hello, Rock 107? Am I the 107th caller?

On Tuesday, June 16, we'll post the link where you'll report when you have completed all eight activities. The first 100 survey respondents will win an mp3 player. Be sure to report as soon as you have finished the program.

Keep on Learning Activity: 1. Choose one site from this year's Webware 100 Winners for 2009. 2. Take it for a spin - what do you like about it, what don't you like? 3. Tell the group what you think in the Keep on Learning forum. Do you have any questions? Discuss them in the Keep on Learning Forum.

Contributed by Jenny Ellis and Kyle Cook, Robbi De Peri, Wendy Cornelisen, Deborah Babb and Christi Underdown.