Hei! I am Ana Laws, lecturer for the Bergen version of ABM Utvikling’s “En smak av sosiale medier”, a course on web 2.0 technologies.

About this course

ABM utvikling’s course was inspired by the work done by Østfold, Vestfold and Buskerud libraries in 2008, which in turn was based on 23 things. 23 things was originally run by Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, USA. The course was based on the principle of self discovery. The idea was to get participants motivated to explore the world of 2.0 by themselves, yet also provide assistance when things got too technical. You can read more about the course’s history here.

What we will do

In the Bergen version, we are also following the principle of self discovery, but we are trying to make it even more exciting for participants by encouraging you to pick up an exhibition, educational program, or collection that you want to promote and disseminate online through the use of social media. By doing this, we are using a “real life situation” approach to learning, which allows us to cover several aspects that we feel need attention and that perhaps would not arise if it was possible just to “play around” with these technologies for a while. Such things include the type of voice and the professional vs. personal roles one assumes in social network sites, as well as other questions related to trust-building and copyright issues.

The course combines practical exercises and lectures, as well as plenary discussions. We will have three meetings, and you will be asked to complete a series of tasks along the way. Ragni Serina Zlotos, Hanne Årskog, and I will be available in the period between meetings to assist you with these tasks. You have to make sure that you have around 15 minutes per day to work on the assignments. A public document that shows the advance of all students will be posted and updated along the way using a Google docs spreadsheet.

Practical requirements

For the practical component of the course, it is essential that you have a Gmail email account, since we will be using Google services quite a lot and this requires a Google login. Please make sure that you have this ready before the first meeting. You also need to bring your own computer – please let us know in advance if you have problems with this in order to find a solution. Lastly, since we will be working with a real life project, think about the name of your blog and which exhibition, educational program, or collection you want to work with, and send it to me no later than Thursday the 28th of January. My contact details are at the end of this post and also in the blog’s contact page.

Course overview:

1. First meeting: We start with an introductory session in which we will get an sense of the different technologies we will be working with. These technologies include blogging, twittering, RSS, photo and video sharing, tagging, podcasting, social networking, searching and social bookmarking, wikis, and cloud computing. The practical component of this meeting will include the creation of your blog in wordpress.com, and the connection of this blogging account to Twitter and Facebook. We will also set up your account in Blip.tv (video sharing).
2. Interim period A: You will be asked to post to your new blog and video sharing service pictures and articles on weeks 1 and 2 of the course, and videos and podcasts on week 3. On weeks 4 and 5, you will be asked to join a social bookmarking / social cataloging service (Delicious, CiteUlike, Digg, StumbleUpon, LibraryThing) and write a post in your blog about the usefulness and advantages/disadvantages of these technologies for your project.
3. Second meeting: We start the session with a plenary discussion of the challenges and learning during the two weeks of self-study, with short presentations of the progress made in each blog. We will then do a recap of the theory we discussed in the first session on Web 2.0 technologies, but we will be focusing on more advanced uses of these technologies, such as mashups, wikis, map services, cloud computing, and future trends (maybe even take a sneak peek at Google Wave).
4. Interim period B: On week 7 of the course, you will be asked to do a review of an article in Wikipedia, including your thoughts on the discussion page of the article, and post it in your blog. On weeks 8 and 9 you will be asked to create a Google Maps mashup in your blog, integrating it with Flickr, NextGEN gallery, or Picasa.
5. Third meeting: We will finish the course with individual presentations of each blog and feedback from colleagues. You will be requested to review one of your colleague’s blogs in advance and be the first to provide feedback. Each project will also receive feedback from me, Ragni, and Hanne. After all projects have been presented, we will open the floor for plenary discussions and further questions. At the end, we will give you a certificate of participation. We hope this turns out to be a very social and fun meeting!

About me

I am a lecturer at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, teaching courses for undergraduate students about the use of new technologies. I am originally from Panama, and came to Norway for a PhD in Media Science with specialization in museums and new media (I defended in 2009). At the moment I am working on a project in Panama City with the Panama Viejo Museum and Monumental Site, which includes the development of their Web 2.0 strategy and prototypes of multitouch applications. I speak Norwegian, but not well enough to present a lecture on it (though I am working hard on improving!). Jeg kan svare på spørsmålene på Norsk, og har en bra muntlig og skriftlig forståelse.

You can reach me online at ana [at] ciudadpanama.org, or call me at 94 81 20 76. Don’t hesitate to call me or email me if you get stuck with some of the tasks, and remember that Ragni and Hanne are also just an email away.