Since the introduction of SCPL Learning 2.0 at 2007's Staff Training Day, I have been doing its 23 Things Exercises. To recall my experience in the whole process, I have three phrases to describe about the program, and its coordinators & tutors: comprehensive curriculum, systematic approach, and strong supervision.
1. Comprehensive Curriculum
The curriculum of 23 Things is comprehensive in its inclusion of social networking softwares. Despite the exclusion of some newfangled sites such as Facebook and Second Life, the program has prepared its participants with the appropriate exposure to today's popular Web 2.0 utilities, from Blogging to Flickr, from RSS & newsreaders to playing with Librarything & online image generator, from tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati to Wikis, and from online applications & tools to Podcasts, videos & downloadable audios. The spectrum of exercises has covered the usage of simple texts in blogging to graphics and other multimedia options.
2. Systematic Approach
I am very impressed by the gradual but systematic pace of the curriculum for its participants to proceed. At the beginning, I had no firsthand experience with most of the software mentioned above. Take Blogger for instance. I have participated in Daily Refdesk's Blog and published a couple of posts. However there does exit a difference between the role of an author and that of an administrator. Prior to my own blog, I had no idea as to how to create, design and manage a blog. With the help of the exercises and tireless tutors, I have been exploring Blogger's three major elements on its Dashboard: Posts, Settings and Layout. I have not only customized my blog and profile, but also have used it fluently by adding new author and inserting live links, images, sounds and videos. The volume of my posts has increased as well. So far I have published 17 posts since September 2007.
3. Strong Supervision
The success of SCPL 2.0 program is largely due to the time and efforts by its two coordinators and three tutors. Their supervision can be seen from four aspects: 1) 23 Things Exercises are always there for participants to reference to; 2) "The 23 Things ... Hint o' the Week", a message with different content, is sent out by email, and then posted on Intranet; 3) Every Friday morning 8-10:00, one of the three tutors, along with one coordinator, is there to help interested participants and answer their questions; and 4) Coordinators are constantly and closely tracking the 23 Things Tracker maintained by 94 participants. Their strong supervision has anticipated and prevented numerous potential problems and concerns.
The SCPL Learning 2.0 program is all but over, although new challenges of Web 3.0 are on the horizon. I think I will miss our coordinators and tutors in the between time.
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