Learn 2.5

We are busy working on building out the Learn 2.5 blog for the new course. Things are gettting hectic as we discuss graphics and content and at the same time, continue to gather survey data and content ideas from you, our learners. Somewhere in my notes, I have a collection of possible module ideas and I will share them as soon as I can put my fingers on them.....here we go:

These ideas were shared with me by you the participants of the course. These are pretty much uneditted, I just copied and pasted them into a doc, so, in no particular order:

Life organization - (ok, I might need to study up on that one before we discuss it!!!)
Different features of tagging and open source
Technical vocabulary terms
Web safety - more of the darkside
Twitter
Hard Tech Skills - how to use software - This is more of the CRC's specialty
Open Source Software - Open Office, Firefox - We can share examples
"Anything that will get me on the web"
"Creating simple web pages for your business"
"How to improve your life" -
"More group activities" - that is a great idea and I will try to do just that.
"Ireporting. CNN has really embraced this"
Medical sites - WebMD
"On the same vain as google docs - we could have an all things google module talking about all the tools google has."

These are all great ideas and they are great start for the new course! Are you sure I can only do one module per month??? If you have an idea that you think would make a good module - add a comment and I will add it to the list! Thanks!

Tom

Why Change?

By now, most of you get the change thing. You understand that the need for change is a constant one and that if you don't change, the Library will become outdated and loose relevancy in peoples lives. You get that.

This morning, on my way to get my haircut, I passed by the library in the picture above.(click the image for a larger size) That was my childhood library. This is where I received my first library card and did research for school projects. Obviously, it is closed now. I wasn't here when it closed, so I am not sure as to why, but I can guess that budgetary reasons closed this branch. I remember Kelly Pepo telling the story about the Edgewater branch was going to be closed and how the community protested and convinced the Library Board to keep it open. Why didn't that happen here? Why wasn't this branch seen as being so vital to the community that it would be devastating to loose it?

Change is difficult and not easily done. An organization needs leaders that have the vision to see the end results even when chaos is happening. Employees have to have trust that the direction they are going is the right one. There are benefits for not changing. Looking at the image, one could say that the staff of this branch don't have to learn about new technology, or deal with smelly restrooms on the first floor, or get frustrated or worried over new policies or procedures. The former patrons now have the opportunity to travel to other communities for their library needs. Maybe even go to the Main branch downtown. Its nice to get out of the house, espcially in the winter when there is five feet of snow on the ground... ;)

Enjoy your relevance, embrace the changes and avoid the For Sale signs.

Behind the Scenes at TDD Inc.

Some of you have emailed and sent cards and letters and few telegrams asking what my new office was like. So I thought I would take a few moments and show you some of my coworkers here at Talent Discovery and Development Incorporated.

This is my most senior employee right now. His name is Beau. He came on board in early 2002. We recruited him from his family business in Brockville, Ontario. He was still wet behind the ears when we first met, but I could see his potential. We did relocate him to FL when we moved, but there just wasn't enough for him to do so we had to lay him off. He came with us back to NY and he hit the ground running. As you can see, he does quite a bit of the heavy lifting here at TDD Inc. Beau's a good guy, he runs with me at lunch time and we hang out on the weekends sometimes. He has a strong interest in Ornithology, is an avid bird watcher and loves to pick up a new specimen. He even has his own webpage, it is sort of social networking site for Golden Retrievers: K-9 Data

Here is a pic of our newest team member Chloe, though everyone here calls her Miss Kitty. I think the nick name comes from the fact that you never know when the claws are coming out! Here she is holding down the office while Beau and I are out chasing something or other.

Here she is going over some paper work on my desk. I believe this is something that Patricia Quinones sent me. Looks like Chloe found something that needs my attention.

Here is our Tuesday morning 10:00 AM Huddle. Trying to get these two to collaborate has been difficult. Beau is very task orientated and Kitty can be...well, flakey at times. It is almost like oil and water with these two.

We ordered in from Ruth Chris' Steak House and they both were useless after lunch. I don't mind an occasional cat nap, but the snoring is distracting~!



Tom

Technology Wellness and Health??

I have to admit that the motivation from this week's lesson comes from my own experiences. Most of the lessons in Learn are about what is going on in the outside world, this one comes from the inside.

I participated in the annual Health and Wellness festival at OCLS about three months after I started working there. I thought I knew what my health issues were. I knew that I needed more exercise and needed to loose maybe a pound or three. I was SHOCKED when the results indicated that I had high blood sugar. There is no family history diabetes so I was floored. My doctor confirmed the results as pre-diabetes and suggested aerobic exercises to loose weight. Not my cup of tea! I had not run since I was in the military and it was not fun then! I had always enjoyed strength training and did a lot of it as a younger man, so I went back to the gym. I worked out for a year and lost a little weight. When I went back to my Dr, guess what - no change. I had reacted to my situation by doing what I knew how to do. The Managers that were part of my study group have heard me say that when presented with a new challenging situation, humans typically fall back on their experiences or training and do not step forward into a new situation. I did exactly that and got the usual results. Being human, it took a while for that to come into focus. I realized that if I wanted different results, I had to do something different. If I wanted major changes in myself, I had to do something major.....that is how this module came to be.

None of this "awakening" changed the fact that aerobic workouts were not fun to me. For me ( and you may be different) it was a stepping stone process to begin to appreciate aerobic activity. After researching the technology tools in this module, I bought some of them and used them. I wear a heart monitor every time I work out. For me, it is a speedometer. Regardless of how far I am going or what I am doing, I always keep an eye on my heart's "speed". I use a handheld GPS when I am changing my running distance or riding my bike. After listening to Cardio Coach on their website, I bought it and both my wife and I have used it for the last six months. Our elliptical trainer was like some type of mental black hole in that it would suck all of your thoughts out and leave you in a catatonic state of boredom! I HATED IT!!! Cardio Coach has made it something that I like to do. One of the really cool tools is Nutrition Data. Everyone plateaus when they workout. Nutrition let me analyze and create menu models that let me tune my diet to my needs. Once you see what it is you eat, it is easy to make changes that get you through your plateau.

Believe it or not, I don't use my MP3 player when I run. I have found that running has a mental benefit too and I use that time to sort out things while I run. I actually had the idea for this blog and "wrote" this blog article during two different runs. The mental/mood benefits of running are becoming just as important as the cardio benefits.

So what does this all mean, or mean to you? The statistic not in the course is that 66% of all Americans are over weight. Do you really want to be part of the majority? If the meaning of life is Love, and you can't take your money with you when you go, doesn't it make sense to invest a little in yourself so you can enjoy both while you are here?

In the Begining....

Before I left, several folks asked me (ok, two, and they sat next to each other) to create a blog to share my after-OCLS-life experiences. Well, I can tell you that, just as you may have heard, there is a bright light and you do feel drawn to move towards the light. You look down and you can see yourself driving north on I95, but you can't really feel it, it is like a third person experience. Two days later, you wake up in your house, 1000 miles away and you realize, "I have lived here before". Then you begin to wonder.....were the last two years all a dream? A coma? Maybe I was in a sitcom that got cancelled......Then the Loving Wife (LW) hands you a list of honey dos to fix all the things that have gone un-repaired in the last two years and it hits you; your real name is Schnieder and this is One Day at a Time!