Kathleen Gilroy at the Otter Group is doing some neat explorations on how the Web 2.0 concept impacts organizations and education. I found the site while searching for Web 2.0 information for some research on distributed workforces and have been listening to their podcasts (see this recent post). The organizational stuff is really good and should be interesting for Extension Professionals working in teams, communities of practice or communities of interest. Even more important, I’m impressed with Kathleen’s ideas for what she calls "Learning 2.0". It focuses on how to leverage Web 2.0 resources to create more collaborative learning environments (see this related post from FutureWire about IBM’s study on TV as we know it converting to a more collaborative model). Environments that are cost effective, convenient to the learner, and focus on team building. To see an example check out this paper by Kathleen with some really cool ideas on using an aggregator as a primary tool, supported by blogs and podcasts. So use your aggregator and subscribe to their site. Here is the post that led me to the paper.
If you read only one thing this week, read Kathleen’s paper. Then think of your current and future clientele and how you could use these new tools. At least start to stretch your thinking about how can provide and access information, organizational structure and learning.
Hmmm, the OTTER group appears to have an access control on that PDF. I’m guessing it’s only allowing downloads from .edu locations. It wouldn’t let me d/l it from home.
In case others are having problems…
[...] Here at OSU Extension we’re on the cusp of selecting a pilot group of internal students (cutting edge OSU Extension Professionals) to test our ability to teach Knowledge Economy programming via Web 2.0 tools. More information about the program can be found here. An initial source of inspiration came from the Otter Group and their work with the American Library Association (see this link for more on Kathleen Gilroy and the Otter Group). As I’ve repeated for the last year or so, the librarians continue to impress me with their experimentation with newer technologies to reach audiences (see an older post here and a new one here). [...]