You’ve heard the saying, “two heads are better than one.”  As we all take the journey as life-long continuous learners, this statement rings ever true. Earlier this month, Betha and I had the opportunity to explore this idea of learning together for the joint conference for Pacific Northwest Library Association & Washington Library Association. During our session (sponsored by WLA/WALT),  Learn Better Together – Discover the potential of cohort-based learning, we introduced some of the characteristics of cohort-based learning:

Learners move together through a program/event.

Learners form a group identity and engage the power of relationships.

Learners are active, not passive.

Learners take control of their learning.

We then shared 4 examples of successful cohort-based learning.  Roddenbery Memorial Library led a Library Internet Skills Cohort working to increase knowledge and use of the Internet and social media tools. The Arizona State Library facilitated a leadership skills cohort – Arizona Library Institute, Virtual Extension (ALIVE!),  a leadership program to help front line staff excel in their job at the public library  A group of librarians led the Kansas Web Conference Groupies Cohort – leveraging the 2010 Handheld Librarian Online Conference from their offices and with others in their state. WebJunction led web-conferencing and self-paced course creation cohorts helping WebJunction admins maximize the tools they had available.

Diving into a new idea or technology with others on your immediate team, in other branches or within your state is a great way to harness existing motivation and light the fire of excitement for others who aren’t quite  sure what the fuss is all about. Whether stepping in to basic internet skills, developing leadership skills, exploring handheld technology or instructional design strategies for self-paced courses, cohort-based learning can build a momentum for learning that just doesn’t happen alone.

While no learning effort is, well, effortless there are some basic steps to take to build your own learning cohort. Start small. Ask a friend to explore a new topic with you and set a time once a week to discuss or explore. Then, build that idea out with the colleagues on your floor. Before you know it, not only are you building your skills you are also sharing ideas and building relationships with others that can take your work further than ever expected.

(What a view on the commute from Seattle to Victoria on the Clipper. Wow!)

Before I mention the competency learning goodness Betha and I got to be a part of, check out the wide variety of *ahem* unusual ribbons at the registration desk. Hanging a “My Ribbon Is Better Than Than Yours”, “Know It All”, “Politically Correct”, “I READ YOUR EMAIL”, “OCD”, “Been There, Done That” or “Worker Bee” on your name badge added some fun to the proceedings right off the bat. Too funny!  Unexpected little things always add up to a rich conference experience, plus they are mostly just plain funny, so it seemed like the thing to share.

Aside from all that, the real highlight for me at WLA/PNLA was being able to present to a live audience about Library Competencies with our very own Betha Gutsche (shown in that session presenting below).

Our Friday session was a great back and forth with lots of practical info for attendees. The description is below, but in addition to what that tells you about the session, each attendee got a copy of the Competency Index and had a chance for some constructive back and forth.
“Competencies: Buzzword or Stepping Stone?
You’ve heard the buzz about competencies, but do you have a clear idea of how to use them for your library? You may be wary of starting down this path without knowing how to define competencies, much less how to implement them. It’s time for straight talk about competencies. How can they help you achieve your staff development goals? Learn more about strategies and resources from libraries that have been there. We can help make your journey far smoother!”

While that session is over now, you can find much of the info we discussed, including past events with Betha and Michael and some of the folks who have actually *used* competencies to help their libraries and staff grow and thrive here: http://www.webjunction.org/competencies.

Additionally, on the topic on competencies we’ll also be having a couple more live events here at WebJunction about competencies before the year is up and you’ll be able to attend those as well, so stay tuned!

(Here’s Betha sharing some of here knowledge of Library Competencies-and cracking some pretty good jokes along the way).

While this is just a tiny taste of the great time had at WLA/PNLA by WJ folks, we hope it was fun to see and also hope that you know we are eager to help you and all our fellow library professionals learn whatever helpful info we can.  And hopefully we’ll see you next time we are out and about!

First slide of today's IFLA presentation

Many thanks to everyone who attended the WebJunction presentation today at IFLA. This presentation was part of a joint session of the Knowledge Management, Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning, and Information Technology sections.

Visit the IFLA site to read all of the papers that were presented in Session 107 — it was wonderful to be part of a session that included examples of knowledge management and staff training projects from around the world.

Here are some highlights in the video showcase:

• Emerging Leader Group M and Group N (including Angela, Natalie and Sonnet), both sponsored by LearnRT, talked about the Staff Day Success Wiki and Webinar Project.
• Tom Taylor from WJ-Kansas talked about their successful Ethics for Libraries project.
• And of course, WebJunction’s Betha Gutsche!

If you’re not a member of ALA’s Learning Roundtable, this set of videos will surely inspire you to get involved!

And we were pleased to hear that Betha’s session with Sandra Smith went well, all about Building with Competencies. Their slides and resource handout are now available on WebJunction.

Safe travels to all who will be traveling this week!

Next Thursday’s webinar, Expanding Your World Through Web Conferencing, will showcase success stories of library staff who are using web conferencing tools to host virtual conferences, produce e-learning activities, collaborate with remote staff, and host virtual meetings. As budgets tighten and as technologies improve, more and more staff are gathering together both online and blended with face2face settings to learn from each other and to get work done. Come hear about the benefits of meeting virtually and learn how a variety of web conferencing tools are being integrated with other technologies and in other settings to overcome both cost and distance. Join panelists Karen Burns, Cindi Hickey and Jennifer Peterson on Thursday, July 1 at 1:00 pm Eastern, for a session filled with experience and expertise in online engagement!

And speaking of online conferencing, mark your calendars for WebJunction’s second online conference coming December 1 & 2 focused on Serving the 21st Century Patron. See you online!

Register Now for July 1 Webinar»
All Upcoming Events »

For more Learning RT events at ALA, check out this handy one-pager with all the details. It’s not too late to attend Friday’s preconference, Beyond Face to Face:
New Methods for Staff Training; registration will be taken at the door, complete with member discounts. WebJunction’s own Competencies expert, Betha Gutsche will be presenting on Saturday and you won’t want to miss Monday evening’s ALA Battledecks session featuring WebJunction’s Michael Porter, defending his title. Battledecks is the best in powerpoint improv: Each participant is given 4 minutes to present (unrehearsed) a 12-slide presentation created by someone else. Based on the list of defenders, contenders, judges and all the rest, this event is guaranteed to entertain!

We’re providing additional details for other WebJunction related events at ALA here on BlogJunction. Safe travels to those heading to DC!

If you’ll be there in person though, we’ll be hosting “WebJunction’s Library Learning Receptions” on Sunday, June 27th in the OCLC “Blue Suite” at the Hyatt (happily just right around the corner from the conference). We would love to see you there! The receptions are back to back but we’re asking folks to come to either the 6:00-7:00pm reception or the 7:00-8:00pm reception. We’re in a more intimate reception space this time so we are asking folks to please register for the time you’ll come.  We’ve split it into two slots to make sure we get to talk and visit well with everyone. We’ll have tasty munchies, beverages and free goodies there for you related to competencies, library services to the unemployed, learning and continuing education for libraries and librarians. Come meet your fellow WebJunction members, recharge your batteries a bit and get some valuable resources all at the same time.

WebJunction is also one of the sponsors of the ALA Learning Roundtable’s “7th Annual Training Showcase”. We’ll have a table there and are looking forward to meeting lots of folks, sharing and talking about resources and tools related to library training and learning. That event is on Sunday, June 27, 2010 from1:30 – 3:30pm in the WCC Ballroom.

Betha and Michael are also doing several different sessions and presentations throughout the week and would love to say hi if you happen to attend one of those. We’ll be keeping a keen eye out for our WebJunction community all week so be sure to come to one of the above events and say hi as we join with you in filling the nation’s capital with Libraryland goodness.

PS- If you would like to meet in person and talk, share ideas and collaboration opportunities please drop us a line!

I encourage you to review the session slides and handout now available on the PLA site, but here are some of the gems I jotted down. The presenters touched on all these aspects of a successful staff day:

Planning Process

1. Be clear with management about your intentions and about their buy-in for the event. Use your evaluations from previous staff day as ROI. Emphasize the importance of staff day as a way to build productivity and staff morale in the work place. This is an investment in your employees. For example, 72% of the library’s budget is spent on staff, so shouldn’t you be investing in the retention and development of this resource?
2. Location, location, location: make sure your venue has room for breakout sessions, catering is in place, you can hang things on the wall, there’s adequate parking, and lots of women’s restrooms. Don’t assume anything.
3. Provide clear guidelines for staff: will student staff attend, is it required, how will the day be recorded on timesheets…work with your HR department early on to have these guidelines in place. It’s not possible to “over communicate” the plans with staff. You can avoid the “I never heard about that” sentiment. Put yourself in the shoes of a new staff member, avoid jargon, and even if you try to go “paperless” be sure to have a print version of the program available the day of. Be sure to communicate about the menu and the room temperature eg. bring a sweater.
4. Picking the day: what about book drops, deliveries, will closure impact pubic service?
5. To your staff, don’t refer to staff day as a “training day“…it’s really “staff development”. But your patrons might feel better if your “closed” signs refer to “training” or “staff education day”.

Theme/Branding/Communication

1. Set the theme to align with the current goals of your organization, or in conjunction with a library milestone.
2. Use the theme in everything! The branding, the communication, the awards, the session titles, the menu, the decorations, the t-shirts, name tags…

Program Ideas and Resources

1. Get staff involved early on to help plan program and develop presentations, especially if they’re staff day “resisters”.
2. Put the “staff” in staff day. Tap staff expertise for peer presented sessions.
3. Consider a panel of “emerging leaders”. SPL hosted a panel of former “student assistants” who have now become assistant managers in the organization.
4. One of my favorites was the “So you want to get your MLIS?” session.
5. Bring other community members in to present. Consider a panel of community partners. How about folks from other local workforce development agencies to share how they’re supporting patrons? What a great opportunity to build local understanding and collaboration.

“Day of” Considerations

1. Plan for all contingencies.
2. From catering to ill presenters, there’s plenty that can go wrong and you need to be sure you’re not the only person who can fix it!
3. Delegate anything that can be delegated.

Leaving a Legacy

1. Make sure the resources shared are available to staff afterwards.
2. Evaluate the day and make changes next time based on the feedback.
3. Share pictures!
4. If you gave out T-shirts, encourage staff to wear them on “casual day”…retain the team spirit!

Staff Development Day Survey: Emerging Leader Project

The presentation and handouts reference an exciting project being taken on by a group of Learning RT- sponsored Emerging Leaders. The group is in the process of creating a staff development day handbook. If you are involved at any level with planning staff development day events and have recommendations or materials that others may find helpful or if you have attended a staff development day and have insights, they would like your help! You can find the survey here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/StaffDaySuccess (All respondents will have a chance to win a $25 gift card from Amazon!)

Epilogue

At the beginning of the presentation the audience was asked a few questions about the size of their staff and the budget available for a staff day. I was struck by the large number of folks who come from smaller or medium-sized libraries who have little or no budget to plan their staff days. In these tough times, I think we need to include a number of contingency plans or cost efficient ways to build organizational morale and learning. I’d love to hear from libraries who insert learning and staff development into every day or from those who are using presentation archives or online meetings to bring staff together. There are examples popping up all over the place! I’ll mention the WebJunction Online Conferencing group here as a place to explore innovative approaches to online “staff days”. And for ideas on integrating learning into “every day”, be sure to check out the presentation and handouts from another PLA session, Power Up Your Learning Organization.

I’m co-facilitating the session with MaryKay Dalgreen from the Oregon State Library. After we introduce some of the published research about library use and perceptions of Latino’s nationally we’ll share some of the great Spanish language outreach that Oregon libraries have been doing. And then we’ll let the group get some work done!

Using the World Café model for discovery discussions and guided by the key findings of the research, we’ll look at ways to:

• Know your local Latino community
• Create and promote services for learning English
• Promote and provide access to computers and job related services
• Be welcoming and demonstrate respect for confidentiality

If you’re here in Portland, we hope you’ll join us tomorrow, and if you can’t make it, fear not; we’ll be posting the great ideas, stories and questions gathered back on WebJunction.

PS: Don’t miss another great session just before this one with some of  WebJunction community’s best and brightest. Power up Your Learning Organization (Thursday, 2:00-3:15 pm, Oregon Convention Center – A105-106) and checkout this list for more PLA sightings of WebJunction members and staff!

Cindi, Karen and I created the group to share handouts, reference additional resources and invite participation from anyone who uses or is interested in using web conferencing tools to get work done when you can’t meet f2f with colleagues. We define web or online conferencing broadly, but we’ll focus our session on web meeting and collaboration tools and ways to use them including best practices from participating to production. And we’re so excited to share some of the success stories from libraryland as more and more library staff are meeting together to get work done, online. We’ll be asking folks to contribute top tips and tools either via twitter (#webconf) or on trusty index cards. However you contribute, please be sure to come to the new group to stay connected and informed in these exciting times for online conferencing.