Today's muffin (vegan as always) is a cupcake! In celebration of my 1st anniversary at MPOW, we had an extra special batch of carrot cupcakes with creamy-cheeze frosting (how I did it vegan style is a trade secret).
Today's metadata movie:
The Clanger's Guide to Microformats . At some point we'd like to experiment with microformats and other ways of enhancing the metadata in
CODA, our institutional repository.
Labels: 4M
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 S
ee 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
This week's muffin (vegan as always) Oat Bran Surprise! Each muffin is filled with fruit preserves. To be completely honest, we actually had a reprise of the Hearty Spiced Cocoa muffins, due to a special request from my wife for me to make an extra batch as a hostess present. We ate the Oat Bran Surprise! muffins at last week's 4M. Which I forgot to blog.
This week's movie:
What is My WebJunction? We have a lot of WebJunction users within the department so we're getting accustomed to the new interface and features.
Labels: 4M
