On the journey of 23 things

First, some commentary on the experience of 23 things. The nature of web 2.0 leads to a sort of solitary blogging in the dark. I know my friends are out there somewhere. It is just that while you are blogging it is more of an internal dialogue that you would wish someone else was interested in but are not really sure that they will be.

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

It takes courage to venture boldly into new territory, to try new things and to try to rush through the learning experience so you can get back to all your work with ticking deadlines. I waffled between the joy of discovery and the frustration of trying tools that just did not seem to do what I thought they should do. I did enjoy sharing my frustrations and successes with my co-workers. Searching through everyone else's blogs for ideas was very helpful and illuminating.

Blogger was perhaps the most in-depth of the learning experiences. I enjoyed adding items to the layout, sending pictures and widgets back to my blog and commenting on other people's blogs as well as picking up some really great sites and widgets.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

This program reminded me why I stayed in college as long as I did: The joy of discovery! Having to spend a specified amount of effort on some of these tools helped to encourage my interest. Many of these tools I have looked at before but have not attempted to use.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
We discovered far more things than the 23 things assigned. I also gained more knowledge and appreciation of my fellow library employees in this experience than all of our Annual Training Days combined.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Perhaps the only improvement I would suggest is not to ask for a blog for each thing. Some things were easy to blog about. Others were hard to take an interest in much less find something entertaining or blog worthy to say about them. It left many of us without an opportunity to blog additional topics of interest.

The branchs that linked each other blogs seemed to be more successful. I think it encouraged group competition as well as provided emotional and technical support.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

This is perhaps the most fun I have had at work in ages. The program was well designed and the directions were very helpful. Some of the links to what to write about were found in odd places and I am not the only one who missed the directions about the seven habits. I do think a little slower pace would be helpful. We have had an unexpectedly busy summer and this impacted the amount of time available for this project.

And last but not least…

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate? Yes!