WebJunction

Susie grabs a cup of coffee, turns on the computer, and gets a welcome from the instructor as she enters the classroom. She chats about the rainy weather with a colleague from a few hundred miles away, and listens to the instructor ask another participant about the proposed hotel/motel tax that might benefit the library. Then the class begins and the instructor shows a few slides about today's topic (blogging), demonstrating how to do it, showing actual blogs, and doing a live demonstration of how to create a blog. Susie then opens a browser on the computer and creates her own blog — all without leaving her library in a community of 430 people.

SWILSA includes 68 public libraries, as well as community college and special libraries. View more photos or a map of SWILSA Member Libraries

Southwest Iowa Library Service Area offers a variety of classes, in a variety of formats, including Live Space, WebJunction's web conferencing service. Live Space uses Wimba software, and so in SW Iowa they affectionately refer to it as "the Wimba room." The classroom is available as a result of the State Library of Iowa's community partnership with WebJunction, and it is making "just-in-time" and "just-in-place" learning a common occurrence. In addition to regular classes, both face-to-face and online, SWILSA offers two series of online classes.

Curl up in your fuzzy slippers for a Computerside Chat

Computerside Chats are monthly, one-hour sessions that cover Library 2.0 concepts and tools. During the first six months of sessions, participants have learned how libraries can use instant messaging, blogging, wikis, podcasts, Library Thing, and RSS feeds to serve patrons.

All the sessions follow the same outline:

• What is it?
• How can I use it in the library?
• What do I need to do it?
• How do I do it?

Each session has a supporting webpage with links, additional information, examples of libraries using the tool, and often a self-paced tutorial that will guide them through the "how-to" again, step-by-step.

Random Acts of Continuing Education (RACE)

It's the end of the fiscal year, and librarians have to report to the State Library on funding, collections, and usage. This is Jackie's second time doing this report, but it's been a year since she last did it, and she'd like a few reminders about accessing the report form online. Mary had some money coming in for a building project during the year and she's not quite sure how to report it. And she had a little trouble with the online form last year. They are gathered with others from the area to hear about some tips, see a live demo of the online form, and ask questions. The statistics guru at the State Library is there to answer questions, too. It will only take an hour or so, and they are all a long way away from each other, but they don't have to spend money or time to travel, or find a substitute to cover the hours in their one-person libraries. Jackie is attending from home, where she can watch her two children, and Mary is attending from the library, where the Internet connection is better than at her home.

A view of SWILSA's Live Space classroom

RACE (Random Acts of Continuing Education) are irregularly scheduled online sessions in Live Space on timely topics, often scheduled on short notice as SWILSA staff notice that they're hearing a lot of questions on a particular topic. The online format enables them to send out a message and say, "Let's meet in Live Space next week to talk about this topic"; it doesn't require finding a meeting place, and a day on which librarians might be able—on short notice—to take a half or full day to travel to a workshop.

This is Sherry's first time in Live Space and she's a little nervous about it. It's new technology, and a new way of doing things, but SWILSA staff have assured her that she can do it, and Karen met her in the classroom a few days ago so she could familiarize herself with the tools a bit when others weren't there. She has viewed the self-paced tutorial on SWILSA's website, and that session they did on "Being a successful online learner" got her interested in giving it at try. Karen will be there, along with some of her cohorts from other libraries in the county, so she'll be among friends. Besides, she really wants to try a blog and she wasn't able to make the face-to-face class earlier in the year. This way, she'll be able to create the blog using her own computer.

Oh, Karen says she has opened a new window for everyone on their own computers, on the blog hosting site but she doesn't see a new browser window...Karen asks if everyone has found the window and Sherry clicks on the "No" button. So, Karen says that she could check the task bar...and Brian, an old pro in Live Space now, types in the text chat area, "In my Firefox it came up as a new tab." Ah! That's it. "Thanks, Brian."

Sherry notices that Joy, who is pretty comfortable with technology, is chatting with the producer in the chat area. Sherry remembers from the Successful Online Learning session that people learn differently, and for some people that chatting "opens the gate" in their brain that lets them absorb more. It just distracts her, though, so she ignores the chat area unless the instructor comments on other participants' comments or questions.

All right, Sherry has been following the steps for creating a blog, going to her own browser to perform each step as they go and...Yes!! Her blog is published! She's a blogger now!

Becoming comfortable with Online Learning

The SWILSA staff have noticed a growing comfort level of participants in Live Space. Participants enter the classroom much closer to the start time now, which is actually a pretty good indication that they aren't worried that something will go wrong or they don't know what to do. The more time they spend in online classes, the more they use the interactive tools, such as the chat area, or microphones. They ask more questions, use the tools to indicate they have questions, and more readily utilize the eBoard tools to share with other participants. They comment on, and add to, what the presenter is saying, they help each other out with questions, and aren't hesitant to take full advantage of the tools.

"If anyone wants to stay and see some of the PowerPoint presentations that other participants have been working on, we'll do an application share of their computers. Sharon, shall we start with you?" We didn't even have to give instructions about how to accept the share invitation — she just did it.

Karen Burns, Administrator, Southwest Iowa Library Service Area

How did SWILSA get to this point?

SWILSA staff are regularly offering online classes with growing participation and increased acceptance of the technology. Karen Burns, SWILSA Administrator shares that they "were fortunate to be asked to "tag along" with the State Library when they participated in an online learning beta project with WebJunction. There were learned a great deal about designing online learning, presenting and producing. And we were able to put what we learned into practice. Can it be done without that beta project experience? Absolutely! There is a growing pool of information and tools and cohorts to make it possible." Here are some key factors to success that they discovered from their experience:

1. Commitment of the administration and the board. Everyone has to be "on board"; without that support, it's difficult to make it happen successfully.
2. Understanding of learning styles, and design of online courses. Books, websites, for-profit companies and organizations offer help. The assistance and support of colleagues who have begun the process is critically helpful!
3. Time to develop the courses. The more you do, the easier it is, but it still takes time—longer than face-to-face courses and workshops.
4. Trust of the participants. If they trust that you aren't going to take them down a path they can't handle, they'll be willing to try it, and stick with it for a couple of sessions until they begin to be more comfortable with it.
5. Orientation for participants. First, give them information about learning styles and how to adapt to the online environment. Give them courses and workshops that they need, then help them get started with a modicum of confidence. Be available in the classroom at times, so they can come in and get acquainted with it. Have orientation sessions, do online tutorials, coach them through it. It's a risk for a lot of librarians —give them a reason to take that risk.

What's ahead? "More online classes, of course, and we're planning an online conference for small libraries this winter, with our cohorts just to the north of us, in Northwest Iowa. Yes, it's winter and it's Iowa, but it's online!!"

If you're interested in more information or details about SWILSA's online offerings, both in Wimba (formerly Live Space) and other delivery methods, contact Karen (kburns@swilsa.lib.ia.us) or visit the following webpages:

Tutorials: http://www.swilsa.lib.ia.us/CE/Online.htm

Computerside Chat home: http://www.swilsa.lib.ia.us/CE/computerside

RACE home: http://www.swilsa.lib.ia.us/CE/RACE.htm