 |
Posts tagged ALA Learning
ALA Conference 2010: Trainers Talking and Acting as Leaders
Jul 7th
You can’t, as a few of us suggested during a presentation on trainers as leaders sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) Learning Round Table at the Association’s 2010 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. last week, be in that city without thinking about leadership. The monuments, the government buildings, the sense of history that surrounds you makes it an undeniable presence—something that permeates your entire being as deeply as the hot and humid weather which greeted us.
So it was natural that a few of us—Maurice Coleman, Technical Trainer for Harford County (MD) Public Library and host of the biweekly T is for Training podcasts; Sandra Smith, Learning and Development Manager at the Denver Public Library system; and Louise Whitaker, Training Coordinator from Oklahoma’s Pioneer Library System—chose leadership as the topic for a 90-minute conference session that was part formal presentation, part panel discussion, and lots of interaction with approximately 50 colleagues who joined us for that Sunday morning gathering.
Drawing from interviews Lori Reed and I have been doing with Maurice, Sandra, Louise, and several others for Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers (to be published by ALA Editions in May 2011) to document the leadership roles that workplace learning and performance professionals are assuming in libraries and other organizations across the country, we began with the idea that leadership is positively explosive. When it is effective, it lights up skies. Draws people together. Creates collaborative opportunities and results which are not achieved in any other way.
Leadership, for most of us, doesn’t mean we have to be bombastic. It’s the day to day incremental efforts we make that lead to long-term and sustainable changes within our organizations. And that’s what our colleagues seem to appreciate most from us.
Lori and I, in our interviews and our own experiences, are not finding a one-size-fits-all model of leadership, nor is that what we expected. Interviewing colleagues from the ALA Learning Roundtable and from other organizations throughout the United States, we are, instead, finding a group of very passionate, creative, and dedicated people doing what they believe is right. And even though Lori couldn’t be with us in Washington, D.C. last week, we were lucky to have a few of the people who have been guiding us so they could share a little of what we’ll be dealing with in the book.
Maurice, for example, discussed how the T is for Training podcasts draw colleagues from a geographical cross section of the country together every other week to discuss workplace learning and performance issues and solutions. Those live shows provide a first-rate forum for the exchange of ideas and have been instrumental in further developing a community of learners among those responsible for fostering organization-wide communities of learning.
Shifting gears a bit, Louise talked about how she revamped the entire way in which evaluations were conducted at Pioneer to determine whether the learning opportunities she was designing and offering to staff were actually producing results of benefit to the library, its staff, and its users.
During the final segment of our discussion, we moved to the heart of library trainers as leaders within their own organizations: Sandra provided examples of how she works from a position at the library management table to help shape and implement workplace learning and performance programs. By consistently working to be part of the decision-making process in terms of designing and offering learning opportunities for staff at Denver Public, she shapes as much as implements what her colleagues need and appreciate in a workplace learning and performance program.
Exchanges between presenters and audience members were as lively and creative as the topic we addressed; in briefly discussing ways to create something sustainable from our initial 90 minutes together rather than having that session be an isolated learning experience, one member of the Learning Round Table offered to collect business cards and set up an online discussion group for those who wanted to continue the conversation.
If that’s not creative leadership in action, I need to go out and do more interviews.
N.B. – For a different view of leadership on display at the 2010 ALA Annual conference, please see Paul’s Leaders Emerging article.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...ALA 2010 Training Showcase On YouTube
Jun 28th
Howdy from ALA 2010.
It is hot and humid. Really hot and humid. If you are attending ALA and missed the Training Showcase to take a dip in your hotel pool, I understand. So if you were otherwise engaged in cooling off activities or were unable to make your way here to Washington DC, do not fret.
Here is Stacy as an excellent example of the brief but effective videos. You can find the rest bu clicking the playlist links above. I hope these videos give you a flavor of the great Learning RoundTable ALA 2010 Training Showcase.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
8 Easy Ways to Get Connected With ALA Learning
Feb 1st
I hope you enjoyed getting to know the ALA Learning authors these past few weeks. Tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled posts bringing you the best training and learning news, information, best practices, and thoughtful discussion.
Today I’d like to share some additional ways for you to get connected with ALA Learning, the official blog of the Learning Round Table of the American Library Association.
- Comment and join the discussion on our posts.
- Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ALALearning
- Join our Linked In Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2700921&trk=anet_ug_hm
- Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ALALearning
- Subscribe to our posts or news by RSS or email: http://alalearning.org/subscription-options/
- Join the Learning Round Table Email List: http://alalearning.org/about-the-learning-round-table/email-discussion-lists/
- Become a Learning Round Table Member–Only $20 on top of your ALA Membership: http://alalearning.org/join/
- Plan to join us for one of our events at PLA, ALA Annual, or ALA Midwinter.
As always feel free to comment and contribute to the discussion. If you have a topic to suggest for a post drop me (or any of the authors) a line at webmaster@alalearning.org.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Paul Signorelli’s “Getting To Know Me” Post
Jan 19th
1. Your One Sentence Bio
I was born; have been deeply immersed in writing, training-teaching-learning, and working with libraries and nonprofit organizations for many years; am honored to sometimes be mistaken for ALA Learning colleague Peter Bromberg when the two of us are lucky enough to be on Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training podcasts at the same; and plan to die someday—which, I believe, covers all bases.
2. Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
You’ll find me blogging here at ALA Learning and at Building Creative Bridges. I came up with the name because “Librarian In Black,” “Library Trainer,” and “(almost) Bald Trainer” were already taken by writers better than I’ll ever be, and Building Creative Bridges seemed like a good way to describe what I hoped to accomplish through the blog and everything else I’m doing.
3. What is your professional background?
As far as I can tell, I’ve worked for newspapers, magazines, a couple of schools in Japan, the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Public Library system, and with a variety of other groups and organizations, but if you’ve heard differently, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
4. What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
My position as Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training for the San Francisco Public Library system had me providing orientations, software introductions and updates, and other learning opportunities for staff and volunteers; current training-teaching-learning efforts include writing e-learning courses for Infopeople and LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop)–http://www.leadonline.info/–and conducting workshops at professional conferences.
5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
We need to be combining sessions on practical matters (software upgrades, customer service, leadership and collaboration skills, conflict resolution, health and safety issues) with inspirational/visionary/long-term matters (how to continue serving library members and guests on site and online, maintaining libraries as on-site and online community centers, becoming collaborators with members of the communities we serve rather than one-way providers of information and services).
6. Where do you get your training?
For training-learning, I try everything I can think of, including conversations with colleagues; on-site and online workshops and courses; blogs/RSS feeds; books; journals, magazines, and newspapers; webinars; conferences; speakers at ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) and ALA (American Library Association) meetings and conferences—and I’m sure that’s only about half the list.
7. How do you keep up?
Keep up?
8. What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing
right now?
One of the many large challenges is to recognize and respond to their increasingly huge role in being learning centers for their local and online communities while not abandoning any of the important and life-changing roles their members and guests still expect them to fulfill.
9. What are biggest challenges for trainers?
All too often, we have training-teaching-learning as part of our job rather than as the entire focus of our job, which leads to lots of half-finished projects, lots of stress for everyone, and less than optimum learning opportunities; focusing on our own continuing education and our primary roles as workplace learning and performance providers might be the best lesson-by-example that we can provide to colleagues whose workplace focus is equally divided to their own detriment and the detriment of those they serve.
10. What exciting things are you doing training wise?
Trying to be creative face-to-face and online in the way I respond to learners’ needs: delivering a synchronous online learning opportunity through live Google Chat, for example, was a fun distance-learning experiment with a University of Nevada, Las Vegas colleague and his class in October 2009.
11. What do you wish you were doing?
Writing; oh, wait, I am writing.
12. What would you do with a badger?
Teach it to use Google Chat so it could more effectively participate in synchronous online learning opportunities.
13. What’s your favorite food?
Pizza. Purchased somewhere in NY, NJ or the Philly area. If you’re not buying pizza in one of these geographic areas it’s not really pizza. Sorry, it’s not. (OK, an exception for Chicago deep-dish. As long as you qualify it.)
14. If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want
to have with you?
A confirmed flight back to the mainland.
15. Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds
out of a pickle?
I live in San Francisco; can someone tell me what a grasshopper is?
16. Post it notes or the back of your hand?
No, thanks.
17. Windows or Mac?
OK, but definitely not on the first date.
18. Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
Can’t remember; must be an occupational hazzard since at least one other ALA Learning colleague has responded similarly.
19. What’s your take on handshakes?
A handshake is certainly a pleasant way to avoid open warfare in a learning environment.
20. Global warming: yes or no?
Best response I’ve seen is Jill Sobule’s “happy song about global warming”; who am I to argue?
21. How did you get into this line of work?
My supervisor at the time told me I had to take over the organization’s staff training program if I was going to keep my job; I found that to be tremendously motivating.
22. What is the best part of your job?
Being part of what ASTD refers to as the effort to “create a world that works better.”
23. Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
This question reminds me of a story from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidism, which I will now paraphrase to the best of my recollection. The gist of it: Samuel, a very devout man who is struggling to be good in the eyes of the Lord, approaches the Rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, should I try to be more like Moses or more like Abraham?” The Rabbi replies, “Rather than trying to be more like Moses, or more like Abraham, the Lord would be pleased if you tried to be more like Samuel.” And that’s all I have to say about that.
24. Sushi or hamburger?
Depends on who is asking.
N.B.: Special thanks to Peter Bromberg for allowing me to insert, verbatim, his answers to questions #13 and #23 here. I figured if I couldn’t match his responses for cleverness, I might as well just outright steal them and see if I could further confuse colleagues about which of us is speaking (please see response to question #1, above).
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Working With and For Each Other
Dec 14th
ALA Learning Round Table friend and blogger Maurice Coleman was right on target, as usual, with the first of two online discussions about what we’ve gained through workplace learning and performance offerings this year. (The second of the two discussions, under the auspices of Coleman’s ongoing T Is For Training biweekly sessions for those interested and/or involved in library training programs, is scheduled for Friday, December 18, 2009 at 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PST and will remain archived online for those who cannot attend.)
Coleman, like many who contribute to the ALA Learning Round Table and make it a first-rate resource for trainer-teacher-learners, offers an antidote to the isolation trainers sometimes experience. Through T Is For Training sessions, he provides a chance for trainers to talk with, listen to, and become familiar with colleagues from library training programs all over the country; share best practices and discuss why some practices are far from the best; contribute to a growing repository of training materials maintained on Delicious by T IS for Training participants; and have some fun while engaged in all the previously listed endeavors—all while becoming familiar, through practice, with how online communities develop and interact effectively.
The payoff is significant. Struggling with a training problem? So are others, and they can offer suggestions as well as useful resources so you don’t have to solve the problem yourself. Wishing you were feeling a bit more creative in resolving workplace learning and performance issues screaming for your attention? T Is For Training participants have been there, too, and can, with the sense of humor they deeply cherish, rekindle the creative sparks you thought had vanished. Looking for colleagues willing and able to commiserate, collaborate, and show you how they have already done what you are trying to do? They’re available, willing, and able because they understand that in giving, they also are receiving in ways they often can’t anticipate.
Even more significant is the reminder that one great resource often leads to another. The list of regular participants—“The Usual Suspects” on the left-hand side of the T Is For Training page— serves as a reminder that there is a tremendous amount of overlap between the T Is For Training group and those of us who are also involved in the ALA Learning Round Table. If you want to see what others are writing, you’ll find articles from those usual suspects on individual blogs as well as on a variety of engaging group blogs.
The more we explore, the more we discover—including the revelation that colleagues who at one time appeared beyond our reach are actually quite accessible. Participate in T If For Training or become engaged in the ALA Learning Round Table, and you’ll discover that first-rate samples of organizational learning plans are just an e-mail or phone call away from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Learning & Development Coordinator Lori Reed. Or that an E-Learning Preparedness Checklist is available from Gwinnett County Public Library Training Manager Jay Turner. Or that Huntsville-Madison County Public Library Staff Training and Development Coordinator Marianne Lenox has produced the equivalent of a semester-long course on learning theory and resources in a single article here on the Learning Round Table blog. Or that WebJunction Learning & Curriculum Developer Betha Gutsche has edited the highly detailed Competency Index for the Library Field.
We have, as the recent T Is For Training episode reminded us, learned a lot in 2009. And one of the most important lessons is that by participating in online discussions, or responding to a blog posting, or engaging in a Google Chat or Google Talk or Skype interaction, or simply making the time to pick up the phone and call a colleague for assistance, we are working with and for each other on behalf of all we serve.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
Recent Comments