Thing 3: Lifelong Learning – a little bit of back story

Ok, So I’m a little delayed in keeping up with my Learn & Play blogging. But after being gone for a week and half (sans all wireless and laptop I might add) I’m still swamped a bit in trying to catch up. For thing # 3 I’m suppose to blog about my Life long learning habits and since I was actually there at the beginning when Lori Reed was searching to come up with the original idea for the tutorial, I thought I’d blog about this as my “thing.”

The funny thing was that when I developed the Learning 2.0 program approach in the first place, I intentionally left the first few exercises open to cover a series of “lifelong learning” posts. I can still remember the day when Lori walked into my office and asked is I had any suggestions for an online tutorial that might be good for her to develop to help fulfill an online learning course that she was participating in. We brainstormed a bit about options and talked about the L2.0 project I was working on and then Lori came up with this amazing idea to cover Lifelong learning habits in the form of an online tutorial. It was brilliant... nuff said!

7 habits of highly “effective” lifelong learners was the first working title for her creation as I remember, but since Stephen Covey’s empire disapproved of her request -- some copyright thing, you know :) -- she did the next best thing and altered the title to reflect 7.5 habits that highlighted 'successfula' -- who needs effective, when you can be successful? :) --lifelong learning.

Lori Reed’s tutorial is incredible and really sets the foundation for the entire online discovery adventure and I’ve been privileged to watch Lori rise from a branch technology trainer to a featured presenter at Web Junction... and to think it started with a small idea sbout learning.

Anyway, for those that might be curious about my own struggles/successes with lifelong learning habits, the easiest habit for me has always been 7.5 – Play! The most difficult one? That’s hard, but if I had to chose one it would probably to have to be to “view problems as challenges.” It’s not a natural inclination, but rather one that I’ve worked hard to develop. Once I can view problems as opportunities, my brain seems to open up more to creative problem solving - which of course, means stretching myself to learn and grow more. :)

PS: If you're interested in learning & libraries, I highly recommend Lori's blog, Library Trainer, as well.