Blue 2.0: Twelve Weeks to a Connected Library

We're launching our version of the "23 things" learning 2.0 program on Monday. We're calling ours "Blue 2.0"--partly because of our campus' See Blue campaign, partly because it sounded cool, and partly because we were all punchy trying to come up with a name. Blue 2.0 is a twelve week program covering these topics:

Weeks 1 & 2 (Jan. 14 - Jan. 27)
Chat and blog

Weeks 3 & 4 (Jan. 28 - Feb. 10)
RSS, newsreaders and wikis [I'm the guide for this topic!]

Weeks 5 & 6 (Feb. 11 - Feb. 24)
Tagging and Online Applications

Weeks 7 & 8 (Feb. 25 - Mar. 9)
Play week! [this is a catch-all for a number of topics--participants just choose a couple from a long list: project management tools, virtual worlds, image generators, and much more]

Weeks 9 & 10 (Mar. 10 - Mar. 23)
Photos, video and podcasting

Weeks 11 & 12 (Mar. 24 - Apr. 6)
Social networking

I served on the small workgroup that planned the curriculum for Blue 2.0 and so far we've had a blast. It's fun to come up with RSS feeds your colleagues might find useful, excellent library wikis, interesting YouTube videos, etc. To promote the program to staff, we held a pizza and gaming party in December. As you might expect, the Wii bowling was a huge hit.

82 library staff have signed up for the program so far (out of ~200). Many are excited about the program and some have even asked if they can get started NOW. What excites me even more is that some non-library staff have heard about Blue 2.0 and want to participate with us. Cool! Even better is that we're talking with other folks on campus about helping with a campus-wide (staff and faculty most likely, though open to anyone) Blue 2.0-type program down the road. What a great way for the library to play an active role in providing information about free, useful web 2.0 applications.

In addition to helping plan Blue 2.0, I'll be participating as well so several future blog posts will be a report of my completed activities for a given module. I'm labeling these posts "blue 2.0"--feel free to follow along or just keep on scrolling :-) Either way, thanks for visiting and I'd be glad to talk with you more about our Blue 2.0 experience.