informal learning 3: building your knowledge library

Building your knowledge library: Sharing what you

have learned

Stan Skrabut@uwcesedtech#uwceshttp://www.slideshare.net/skrabut

You have formed your career around information both retrieving and sharing.

As an extension educator, you can shape the information available for self and others.

You may be unsure of what tool possibilities there are for sharing your knowledge.

You want to be able to select the right tool to help develop and share your wealth of knowledge.

I am going to show you four tools that you can share your knowledge.

Blogs are great tools for sharing

your insight as well as a reflective tool.

What is a blog?

A blog is a syndicated column arranged in chronological order.

Individuals can subscribe to blogs through RSS feeds.

Blogs can include images, audio, and video.

What tools can you use to create a blog?

University of Wyoming Extension uses WordPress for program and department blogs.

Blogger is free and very easy to use.

TypePad and Moveable Type are common for self-hosted and as part of a blogging service.

What are some ways you can use blogs to support informal learning?

You can read blogs written by others and learn from them.

Blogs do not have to be on serious topics, you can post images, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc.

Participate in a subject as a lifelong learner, use a blog to reflect on content and share your knowledge.

Share your half-baked ideas and get feedback from your readers.

Write a guest post for someone else's blog

Expand your writing skills, write on specific topics, specific word counts, or creating a topic list, etc.

Flickr is one of many tools for

sharing and reflecting on visual

imagery.

What is Flickr?

Flickr is a Web-based photo and video cataloging service.

Photos can be arranged in albums called sets.

Photos can be annotated and commented on.

You can share your works through creative commons licensing.

What are some alternatives to Flickr?

Picasa is a free service through Google.

SmugMug is a fee service with a very professional look and feel.

Photobucket is a free service that integrates with Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Facebook has a solid photo storage capability with album features.

What are some ways you can use Flicker to support informal learning?

Collect and organize photos into topics that can be referenced by others.

Become a better photographer by posting photos to Flickr and learning from the critiques.

Search through Flickr for personal inspiration.

Take pictures of a project during different phases to show growth over time.

Conduct a visual field trip, capture the images to flickr, add captions, and share them with others.

Attempt a photo a day activity, and see what you can learn about yourself.

More than 72 hours of video is

uploaded to YouTube each

minute, how much have you

contributed?

What is YouTube?

YouTube is main site for uploading videos.

Videos can be collected in playlists.

YouTube is the second most popular search engine. It focuses on how to do things.

What are some alternatives to YouTube?

Blip.tv tends to focus on webisodes and other serial content.

Vimeo caters towards high-quality videos.

Flickr also stores videos but they are limited to 90 seconds.

Viddler is focused on companies and corporations.

What are some ways you can use YouTube to support informal learning?

By subscribing to channels, you will be alerted to new content when a new video is uploaded.

YouTube has millions and millions of videos on countless topics; it is a great resource for learning something new.

Video is a great way to observe someone else demonstrate a skill or method.

Create a playlist focusing on topic of interest and share it with others.

Create a video to show others how to do something.

A wiki is a collaborative

workplace where lasting knowledge

can be massed.

What is a wiki?

Wikis are collaborative work spaces.

Wikis can be created for any discipline, project, or program.

The most known wiki, Wikipedia has almost 4 million English articles starting in 2001.

WoWwiki supports the game of World of Warcraft and has over 96,000 pages.

What tools can you use to create a wiki?

University of Wyoming Extension uses MediaWiki for program and department wikis.

PbWorks is a Web-based wiki available for free or at a cost.

Dokuwiki is popular for maintaining documentation for teams, workgroups, and small companies.

What are some ways you can use wiki to support informal learning?

Use the wiki as a place to collect artifacts in an eportfolio and reflectively write about personal learning.

You can develop a knowledge base on different topics.

Use a wiki to record ideas and flesh out project ideas.

Here are the sessions scheduled for the next five months.

Individual Strategies

Collection Strategies

Interpersonal Strategies

Creation Strategies

Organizational Strategies

Questions?