Monday we had an online discussion about this webinar that is available on WebJunction. Hopefully the link will work.  The page should show you the PowerPoint in .pdf and the scroll down to view either the June or August class.

 I learned more talking with the WALT group then I did from the webinar.  But it was a good catalyst to start the conversation.  I would not print the entire PowerPoint slides as they are supportive slides to Lori Reed’s talk — not standalone training.  (Just like we taught in our OLA/WLA class at the last conference!  Slide 28 has a list of resources which may be useful to print off.

Making a cultural change is tough!  I think it took us nearly 5 years for the culture around email to change such that now all but possibly pages check their email daily.  I have been offering online computer classes for the last 2 years — we had offered online classes about 5 years ago with moderate success.  Now, at least for the people who have taken the classes have found value.  However, they are still a bit clunky to get started.  In addition, I have done several short (2 to 6 minutes) narrated tutorials that have been fairly successful.  We do not have a way of actually counting how many have watched them, however.

I believe one thing we need to have change in our organization is the permission to spend 30 minutes to an hour a week doing online training or just searching our Internet or intranet pages.  However, that is not supported by supervisors at this point.  How do we support that type of self-learning when the back rooms are full of items to be processed, the front room is full of patrons needing assistance?

Our next WALT meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 18 from 2:00-3:30pm using the online meeting software, Wimba. This meeting is a virtual discussion meeting. The discussion is about the Webinar, Cultivating a Culture of Learning available at:  http://webjunction.org/learning-webinars/articles/content/3936430. If you are interested in joining this discussion group, please watch the Webinar (either the June or August version will work) and bring your thoughts and comments to our virtual meeting on Monday.If you have not used Wimba before, please visit the classroom a few days before our discussion meeting a run the Setup Wizard to make sure that your computer is ready. In order to fully participate, you will need either a microphone and headset or a headset/speaker and phone. I will be online by 1:45pm to help any new participants orient to Wimba.

Here is the URL for our meeting on Monday: The URL for the WALT room is http://208.185.78.171/launcher.cgi?room=wla_walt. 

Please log-in with your name and let me know if you have any questions. Once again, please visit the classroom before the meeting to make sure that your computer is ready by running the Setup Wizard. 

If you have any questions, please let me know. I look forward to seeing many of you online Monday!