Friday, February 22, 2008

Week One Update

Welcome aboard!
This weekly newsletter will keep you up-to-date on NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0 and offer hints on the activities. If you have hints to share, send them our way at nswpln@gmail.com .

It’s great to see that just four days into week one we already had 322 people who completed the self-assessment survey. We also had a few who have completed week two with 35 blogs already registered.

Blocked websites:
We know some of you have problems with websites that are blocked so where possible we’re including alternative links for the video clips eg. TeacherTube Versions which may not be blocked.

Useful links to keep and bookmark:
NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Our colleagues in Minnesota are also working through their own Learning 2.0 program called “23 things on a stick”. The hint below appeared in their newsletter …

Read the directions, people!
Seriously, it will make doing the Things a lot easier! There are dozens of first posts on the 23 Things On a Stick participants' blogs saying just that, "If only I had read the directions for Thing 1, setting up my blog would have taken me 5 minutes, not an hour." Or "I wouldn't have registered a blog about death in Danish, if I had followed the Blogger instructions. OK, that last one is made up, but there were a lot of weird blogs registered that were clearly not what the participant intended. Individual online learning is a great thing, but reading the directions is not optional!"


Of course, we’re sure everyone in NSW is reading the instructions - most of the time! Next week we will be building blogs using Blogger http://www.blogger.com/. The basic instructions are included in the lesson.

Hints for week two:

  • Create a document or find a safe place to write down all of your passwords and URLs.
  • Write down the URL of your blog when you create it and save it in your favourites as well.
  • If you forget or lose your blog URL log in on the http://www.blogger.com/ website using your Gmail account details.

Once you have created your blog to get back to the Dashboard click on “New Post” at the top right hand side of your screen.

Weeks three and four will be uploaded on Monday morning.

Keep learning and having fun,

Sincerely,
The NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0 Pit Crew
Ellen, Mylee, Leanne, Kathleen A., Oriana and Victoria
nswpln@gmail.com
pls@sl.nsw.gov.au
State Library of NSW