I received this certificate and a nice letter in the mail today and that reminded me that it’s time to start thinking about and planning for Employee Learning Week which takes place December 8-12, 2008.

What is ELW?
Employee Learning Week is an awareness campaign highlighting the important connection between learning and achieving organizational results.

For last year’s ELW I kept things simple and sent out a daily email to all staff highlighting a learning benefit/opportunity available to them from the library. It seems like such a small thing but the response from staff was amazing. So this year I want to raise the bar.

So what ideas do you have? How will you celebrate learning at your library? And if you work at PLCMC what ideas do you have for this year?

p.s. You don’t have to be an ASTD member to participate.

Over the past two years Web 2.0 has opened up a whole new level of communication for us as a profession. I remember when I began working in libraries nine years ago I felt very isolated as a trainer. I remember asking, “Where are all the handouts?” At the time each person in our system was doing his or her own thing and a few people shared materials. Eventually we established a system for sharing handouts for computer classes for all of our locations.

Every time I begin to work on materials for a new class I wonder, how many other librarians have already created a handout for this class? How much time do we spend recreating the same materials? Imagine what we could accomplish if libraries across the country, world even, collaborated and shared training materials. And now that so many of us are developing online learning materials how great would it be if we shared those as well and pooled our resources as facilitators/producers for synchronous learning.

OK I will admit there is some training that is unique to a system, but how customized does a Word handout have to be? I had a conversation with a colleague today who is rushing to put together Outlook training materials. I happen to have some and gladly sent them her way. Two other colleagues are also sending her their training materials. So we have four librarians/trainers in four different parts of the country sharing materials.

I feel lucky to work in a time when technology has made it so easy to connect with other people who have the same job as me in other parts of the world. I have a core group of four librarians/trainers who I talk to on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. We brainstorm, share our successes, share our challenges, seek advice. It’s really been great to get to know Sarah, Stephanie, Marianne, and Maurice.

And now I’d like to cast the net a bit wider. I’ve created a Google Group called Library Learning that is open for anyone to join who wants to participate in these kinds of discussions and sharing. I hope you will come join us so we can take learning to a new level!

“When librarians work together, our superpowers increase exponentially!”

- Louise Alcorn, Reference Technology Library from West Des Moines Public Library

shared via LSLC Training Blog

p.s. If anyone has training materials for MUNIS please contact me!

p.p.s. Be sure to also check out the Library Instruction Wiki another great idea for sharing resources.

If you missed Tuesday’s WebJunction webinar, you can view it here, and you can join in on the follow-up discussion over at BlogJunction.

Last week Nicole Engard posted about going green for conferences by not printing slides and handouts. I can’t agree more with everything she said and I’m glad to see that the comments were mostly in agreement with her ideas. Lately I’ve been tossing around the idea of the “un-handout” but for different reasons.

For years staff at my library has made elaborate handouts for each and every technology class we offer. We provide step-by-step instructions on basic functions in Windows, Word, Excel, and so on. It takes hours upon hours to create these handouts. The handouts can be up to 20 pages long for a 2-hour class, and we go through thousands of these handouts in a year.

For the most part the handouts are great. Especially for basic Office products or basic computer skills. But now that we are doing more and more training on Web 2.0 tools such as blogging, Flickr, wikis, and so on the handouts seem to be overkill. First of all by the time we complete the handout the interface is probably going to change. Second I am beginning to see that having such detailed instruction laid out for people prohibits them from exploring and using intuition to navigate new products. Our we doing a disservice to our staff and public by not giving them the opportunity to learn and explore on their own?

I’m working on a needs assessment for staff training on the social networking sites MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I’ve been wanting to offer this for the past six months but have not had time to create a handout. Without a handbook I could probably put this together in a week or less. A handout would take at least an extra month. I think I might just try it and see what happens.

In defense of handouts

Anyone who has ever taken a class with me can tell you about the assortment of highlighters and pens I use to color code my notes and handouts. I always thought I was a visual learner and needed to have the colors to make associations. Recently through a more in-depth assessment I learned that I am actually a kinesthetic learner. If I am not actively participating I’m not learning. So my technique of coloring and highlighting every word in a book is actually my way of processing the information by keeping my hands busy. I’ve gone to training or presentations and actually been distracted by not having a handout to write on.

Alternatives to handouts

A great alternative to reach out to your kinesthetic learners like me is to have toys available. Anything that keeps their hands occupied. Play-dough, simple puzzles, pipe cleaners, stress balls all make great learning toys. Check out the dollar store for some inexpensive ideas or Trainers Warehouse. If you are on a very tight budget, who isn’t these days, don’t be afraid to have a box at the back of the room and ask the participants to drop the toys off on the way out. If you’re not into toys just put out some paper and markers. This small step will go a long way to reaching your kinesthetic learners.

From Web Junction:

Upcoming Learning Webinars

Cultivating a Culture of Learning in the Library
6/10/08 11 AM - 12 PM PT / 2 - 3 PM ET
How much time does your library spend on “training?” Statistics show that most learning takes place on the job or with a coworker, yet as trainers we spend an inordinate amount of time preparing for and delivering classroom training. In this webinar you will learn why you need to get your staff out of the classroom and instead focus on creating a culture of learning in your library.

We will explore:

• The differences between training and learning
• The benefits to libraries for creating a culture of learning
• The key elements of a learning organization
• Tips for creating a culture of learning in any size library

Presented by guest speaker Lori Reed, Training Specialist for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County.

This has been shared on a few sites (thank you Polly-Alida Farrington for posting). The information is so good I wanted to pass this on as well.

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has released its list of top 100 tools for learning from a survey of 155 educators (81 from the education field and 74 from workplace learning). Each of these educators listed their top 10 tools for learning for both their personal learning and for creating learning solutions for others.

You can view the full results here.

Below is a table of the top 10 broken down by workplace learning and formal education.

What does this show? It certainly seems to confirm my feeling that formal, traditional (Learning 1.0) approaches (i.e. content-based courses, tutorials, etc) are still dominant in the workplace, whilst educators are embracing a much wider range of Web 2.0 tools to create more social, collaborative and informal approaches to learning.

I can’t agree with this more. I attend monthly chapter meetings for ASTD and it seems that educators and librarians are light years ahead of most of corporate America when it comes to using Web 2.0 for learning.

Take a look at the full list and share your thoughts. I’m surprised that Bloglines or another news reader is not higher on the list. I know for me personally that would rank as #1.

How many times during a training session do you use a story to illustrate a point? If your answer is never you might want to consider adding storytelling as a powerful way to reinforce learning.

The art of storytelling traces back to prehistoric times and it’s legacy remains even today through cave paintings, art, and even oral history. I often hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, “Slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady wins the race.” Everyone remembers the story of the tortoise and the hare. No matter how many decades go by, no matter how many languages you learn, no matter how many degrees you earn…a well told story will stay with you for life.

Today I had the privilege to attend a workshop at ImaginOn called “The Power of Storytelling” presented by Dr. Rebecca Isbell, director of the Center of Excellence in Early Childhood Learning and Development at East Tennessee State University.

Though this workshop was geared for library staff and educators who work primarily with children, I found that much of what I learned applied to working with adult learners as well.

Why use stories? Stories help learners to…

• Remember and reinforce key points and concepts.
• Give meaning and deeper understanding to a new concept or skill.
• Stay awake! How many times have you ever been in a workshop where you had to pinch yourself to stay awake?
• Make learning fun! I wrote this quote down from Dr. Isbell today during the workshop, “Learning should be joyful–not painful.” I know that my 4-year-old son loves learning. What if we could always inspire that passion for our learners?

I recently attended a customer service workshop and the facilitator told a wonderful story about the Lincoln Memorial Mystery. The story illustrates why it is so important to not just accept the way things appear on the surface and why we need to look at a bigger picture. The facilitator could have just told us that this was important, but using a story to teach the concept really helped to transfer and retain the learning. Not to mention it made a three hour workshop not as dry and boring as it could have been.

Some tips for getting started with storytelling:

• If you think you are not a storyteller, think again. We’ve all shared a story of an interaction with a patron or a bad driver.
• Build a good repository of stories. You can adapt the same story and use it over and over with different audiences just make sure it is relevant.
• You must love the story! You may become identified by this story so be sure to choose one that you like.
• Practice, practice, practice.
• Work on pace, pauses, and inflections.
• Try the story out on a friend.
• It’s ok to make mistakes!

This quote from Dr. Isbell sums up the importance of storytelling, “Storytelling is an interaction between teller and listener. It ultimately becomes a mutual creation.”

For us as trainers I would add that it becomes a mutual learning experience.

Check out Amir Ahmad’s post The Ultimate List of 50 Kick Ass Blogs to Boost Your Learning Experience. Amir even has a section for librarian blogs. Amir’s site is less than two weeks old, but with a Web site name like “Passion Based Learning” how can you not love it!

p.s. Thanks Michele Martin for sharing this!

This was PLCMC’s first year participating in Employee Learning Week. Since I only learned about it a week before there was not much time to plan ahead. As soon as the dates for next year are announced I’ll have to mark my calendar. There’s a training group that I belong to that always concludes a presentation with two questions. What did you do right, and what would you do differently next time. So here goes.

What went right?

The timing was perfect, even with the short notice. Since I just returned from an almost year-long maternity/medical leave and our other trainer has been temporarily reassigned, not much training has been done this year. My only goal was to generate some excitement about learning and to inform staff of the opportunities available to them. I think I succeeded in that as long as they read their email.

What would I do differently?

Plan ahead! It seems like a small task to send out six emails in six days. But it’s funny how something so small can snowball into something bigger. It reminds me of the school house rock video about the bill. There is a chain of events that needs to take place. So to send an email out about a benefit the following has to be done first:

• Find the information about the benefit…in our case it is all on our Intranet
• Check with HR to make sure the information is correct
• Draft the email
• Revise the email
• Have someone else review the email (thanks Sarah Poole!)
• Revise again
• If needed, send to HR for review or approval

So in other words it’s more than just typing an email.

It’s the final day of Employee Learning Week 2007. Today’s topic is Learning @ PLCMC and Beyond.

Learning is a year round event, and we in the library know that better than any other industry. Whether it’s training in the areas of computers and technology or learning to manage your time, PLCMC offers a variety of opportunities for you to learn and develop.

While the training calendar covers many of our staff workshops, training, and meetings—that’s just a snippet of what’s available. Here are some additional sites you might want to check out

Mecklenburg County Power of Learning

• What: Through a partnership with Mecklenburg County, library staff can sign up for most classes that Mecklenburg County offers. Classes cover everything from basic business writing to effective management skills.

• Where: Power of Learning schedule is available on the training calendar. Look for the Spring 2008 schedule to be posted soon.

• How: Contact Julia Lanham to register for Mecklenburg County classes.

State Library of North Carolina Continuing Education Opportunities

• What: Training available to library staff at any North Carolina library. Training topics this past fall included NC Live products, Spanish outreach, and Web 2.0

• Where: Link to the State Library website can be found from the training calendar on PLCMC Central.

• How: For face-to-face classes follow the registration procedure on the state library website, and complete a Continuing Ed Request form. For online* classes follow the registration procedure on the state library website.

OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries)

• What: OPAL offers free programs online for both library staff and patrons. Programs include author interviews, book talks, Second Life, technology and more.
• Where: The schedule of OPAL programs can be found at: http://www.opal-online.org/progschrono.htm. You can listen to archived programs too! The list of archived programs can be found at: http://www.opal-online.org/archive.htm.
• How: Registration is not required. All of these programs are online* and require a plug-in for OPAL. At least one week before training follow the instructions on the OPAL website to test your computer to make sure the plug-in is current.

SirsiDynix Institute

• What: SirsiDynix offers webinars for the library community. Programs cover a variety of topics related to library service and technology. Programs are archived and available online at the site below.
• Where: http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/.
• How: Follow the registration procedure on the SirsiDynix website. All programs are offered online* and may require special software downloads.

WebJunction ELearning Institute

• What: WebJunction is co-op of library staff who share information relating to libraries and technology, training, outreach. In January look for “10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008.”
• Where: Current schedule and archived events: http://www.webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=12365
• How: Follow the registration procedure on the WebJunction website. All programs are offered online and may require special software downloads.

* Online classes and webinars may require special software or equipment for your computer. Contact Lori Reed for assistance at least a week before the program.