My friend Robert and I have been discussing the merits and drawbacks of Web 2.0 technologies in the comments section of a couple of my recent posts. I’m buying into it whole hog, while he has some pretty severe reservations about the whole operation. He makes some excellent points, but besides dabbling in Myspace, I wonder how much of the Web 2.0 experience he’s had. In that vein, I’d like to challenge Robert and any other skeptics out there to dive in and take part in the 27things project.
I first read about Learning 2.0 and kcls27things a couple of days ago when those two tags started popping up on Technorati. The program is designed by the King County Library System in Washington state and modeled on a similar program created by a librarian in Charlotte, NC. Their goal is to get the KCLS staff up to snuff on some basic Web 2.0 technologies (Blogger, del.icio.us, Technorati, Flickr, etc.) in order to enrich their interactions with patrons. But the program is an excellent, step-by-step introduction to the world of Web 2.0 that can be used by anyone — not just KCLS staff.
The program is unfolding as I type this. The 27things blog is updated two or three times a week, and each post details one of the 27 steps. The posts themselves tend to be very basic, but within each post, there are external links to some excellent sources — podcasts, tutorials, and wikis — that delve deeper into each topic.
What’s great about how they’ve set it up is that each step only takes about 10 minutes to complete. Of course you can take more time exploring and playing, but to get a flavor of what’s out there, you only need about 10 minutes a day to get started. So far, they’ve covered blogging, RSS feeds, Myspace, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Library Thing (similar to aNobii). And while these technologies and sites might seem like second nature to a lot of us, there is still a large population (the majority?) of folks out there who don’t have a clue about them.
Besides librarians, I can see the benefit of the 27things program for all kinds of educators, parents, and older folks who keep hearing the Web 2.0 buzzwords (blog, tag, myspace, etc.) and want to learn more about it. And for Robert, once you get more of a taste of what’s out there, you might start to come around to my way of thinking (not holding my breath, though, buddy).
