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2008/08/13: Do-ocracy barcamp mutation style

Meredith and Steve and Dorothea were prescient. They wrote about mid-level tech training and conferences as Los Angeleno librarians were planning the latest installment of techbootcamp.

It''s been over a year since we went on hiatus. We've begun the revival with more librarians participating. Here we are with our resident expert, watching the big screen, while I'm coached through a Drupal install. Through the command-line. Hands-on.

We talked through questions as they came up which led to nice side discussions on *nix, and relational database modeling with a smattering of local industry gossip. Oh yeah -- there was also good beer.

Needless to say I'm glad to see others recognizing the gap in tech training and networking opportunities for middle-grounders. And I'm thinking "no duh," hand slapped to head, when I read so many comments on the thread at See Also about the need for a library related project or problem to make the learning relevant (we had one for techbootcamp: using Drupal plug-in for 2.0 OPAC interface. Just sayin'). Middle-ground tech librarians have no time or money to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps! There is no other choice but to teach ourselves as we go. And we're doing it!

I see murmurings about an asynchronous combo online unconference barcamp somethingorother on the comment threads. I see portions of it happening with my participation in techbootcamp and the Semantic Library Learning Program. It would be great to have somethingorother coalesce. Let's marry the common elements between them all and beget the somethingorother mutation!

The take-away ideas are:

The "conference" never ends as long as it's online. There is always discussion, new content, and ways to connect with fellow participants over time.

Curricula and programming are co-created by participants hence intrinsically meaningful and thus motivating.

Curricula and programming resources are digitally distributed with asynchronous media. The web is the best vehicle for sharing instruction widely given that there are more learners than teachers in the middle-grounder community. For now.

Local communities of practice create shared opportunity for hands-on problem solving ... feeding back into curricula...etc. And most importantly: the chance to ask questions and get help from local coaches/teachers/experts

So what is stopping it from happening? Absolutely nothing. This is a do-acracy. Those that think it's a cool idea will run with it like the California Librarians in Technology participating in techbootcamp

Labels: techbootcamp

posted by Laura @ 9:36 PM