1. From eLearning to Learning: The Library, Community, and Learning Innovations
Facilitated by Paul Signorelli, Writer/Trainer/Consultant Paul Signorelli & Inservice Day Twitter Hashtag: #mpplsid Mount Prospect Public library Staff Inservice Day May 13, 2016
Seeing this sign yesterday here in the Mount Prospect Public Library, I knew we finally had a metaphor for what we’re going to attempt to accomplish here today. We’re not going to be presenter and audience. We’re not going to be instructor and student. We’re going to be co-conspirators in examining a topic of high importance to ourselves, our colleagues, the library, and, most importantly, those we serve. If we’re successful, we’ll more effectively and creatively engage our extended learning community in ways that transform individuals as well as the entire community of which we are a part.
Let’s start by seeing where we are and how we’re doing with the opportunities that surround us.

2. eLearning Spaces?

3. eLearning Spaces?

4. eLearning Spaces?

5. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (30,000 Feet Above the Fray)
We’ll start by looking at some obvious and some not-so-obvious learning opportunities that take us online as well as into that blended onsite-online place that so many of us are finding to be a wonderful and often-overlooked part of our learning landscape.

6. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Webinars and Online Courses)

7. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Webinars and Online Courses)

8. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Webinars and Online Courses)

9. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Webinars and Online Courses)
#etmooc = The Educational Technology and Media massive open online course offering free, online from January to March 2013; learners were so engaged that they decided to continue as a community of learning that continues to operate to this day with Tweet chats, Google Hangouts, and other virtual gatherings.

10. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Alternative Learning Opportunities)
Asynchronous online learning opportunities are abundant, as we can see from just a few examples.
The Khan Academy has done a great job of providing videos that learners can see when they rather than we are ready.

11. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Alternative Learning Opportunities)
TED talks are a tremendously wonderful source of learning and inspiration for many of us, and can be incorporated into learning opportunities onsite as well as online.

12. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Alternative Learning Opportunities)
YouTube clearly has more than videos of our babies and cats; imagine a topic you want to explore and you’ll probably find a video leading you through the learning process on that topic.

13. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Alternative Learning Opportunities)
Blogs are another often-overlooked learning opportunity; my own “Building Creative Bridges” blog is designed to offer self-contained lessons with plenty of links to the best resources I can find on the topics I cover, and I’m far from alone in this approach.

14. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Alternative Learning Opportunities)
Google, of course, is a tremendous resource in terms of eLearning if we stretch our definition a bit to include resources that curious learners can utilize to help meet their at-the-moment-of-need learning challenges.

15. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Professional Associations)
The American Library Association, with numerous online and blended onsite-online offerings

16. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Professional Associations)
The Library and Information Technology Association

17. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Professional Associations)
The eLearning Guild, with numerous online learning opportunities and research reports

18. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Professional Associations)
The Association for Talent Development (formerly ASTD—the American Society for Training & Development)

19. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Online Learning Communities)
Online learning communities are abundant—formal as well as informal. Here are a few samples:
T is for Training, Maurice Coleman’s biweekly hour-long podcast for those involved in library training-teaching-learning efforts

20. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Online Learning Communities)
#lrnchat, a community of trainer-teacher-learners who meet weekly online for hour-long tweet chats that begin every Thursday at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT

21. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Online Learning Communities)
Google+ communities for those immersed in learning

22. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Selected Social Media Resources)
Facebook, with public and private learning communities

23. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Selected Social Media Resources)
Twitter, with is shared links to learning resources and its online tweet chats centered on training-teaching-learning

24. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Selected Social Media Resources)
Pinterest, for visual “pins” to a variety of wonderful resources

25. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Selected Social Media Resources)
Scoop.it!, for text-based links to a variety of wonderful; often accompanied by short annotations by those who post items on Scoop.it!

26. From This…
Informal learning is a huge part of our learning landscape—some of our training-teaching-learning colleagues say it comprises upwards of 90 percent of all learning that takes place in our workplaces.
The face of that informal learning has clearly shifted in many ways…

27. From This… …to This
…if you have a mobile device, you have the portal to a seemingly infinite number of virtual classrooms and learning resources

28. Library Learning Landscapes: District of Columbia Public Library
Let’s look at a few library learning spaces with an eye toward how they combine onsite and online learning.
As we look at these images, let’s ask ourselves how the spaces themselves might inspire us to redefine what we mean when we talk about eLearning…

29. Library Learning Landscapes: Chicago Public Library (YOUmedia)
The fabulously inspiring onsite-online space for teens at the main library in Chicago

30. Library Learning Landscapes: Loyola University (Cudahy Library)
A creative learner creating his own onsite-online learning space in a wonderful library reading room…

31. Library Learning Landscapes: Loyola University (Information Commons)

32. Library Learning Landscapes: University of Texas at Austin (Main Library)
Opportunities, in an academic library, to combine onsite and online discussions through the use of tech tools that are an integral part of the space…

33. Flexibility: Anyspace, Anywhere
As we look at this image of colleagues at an educational technology conference held in hotel meetings rooms, we stretch our concept of what eLearning is even further:
It’s an onsite event where learners reset the room (i.e., rearranged the furniture) to facilitate their own learning process.
The two learning facilitators are not at all obvious in this image because they served as co-learners rather than lecturers.
The onsite-online element includes the use of a Google Doc so learners could add their thoughts to a shared document they could continue to access long after this conference session had ended.

34. BYOD/BYOT Bring Your Own Device/Bring Your Own Technology
…a movement that helps shape and redefine the underpinnings of our learning experiences and offerings…

35. BYOD/BYOT
a virtual-reality tool

36. BYOD/BYOT
…trying out Google Glass at an American Library Association Midwinter Meeting

37. Blend It!
…using an onsite space—the Networking Uncommons—at an American Library Association conference to bring onsite and online colleagues together; no more #alaleftbehind?

38. Blend It!
Using Google Hangouts in the ALA Midwinter Meeting Networking Uncommons

39. Blend It!
Using Google Hangouts to create a classroom that extended over a 2,000+ mile virtual space, connecting learning facilitators with onsite participants in a way that made everyone feel as if they were in the same room—which, in significant ways, they were!

40. A Glimpse at Our eLearning Landscape (Ground Level)
Let’s see what the pre-session survey to which so many of you contributed says about where we all are in terms of our perceptions of and engagement with eLearning…

41. Where We Are (1)

42. Where We Are (1)

43. Where We Are (1)

44. Where We Are (2)

45. Where We Are (3)

46. Where We Are (3)

47. Where We Are (4)

48. Where We Are (4)

49. Where We Are (5)

50. eLearning Spaces?
A return to our initial check-point…

51. eLearning Spaces?

52. eLearning Spaces?

53. Next: The Rest of Our Day
Bridging the gap between where we are and where we want and need to be…
A brief review of what we will be doing for the rest of the day…[discuss break-out sessions and lunchtime unconference]

54. A Visual Summary
We started with the proposal that our time together is going to be spent in a literal and metaphorical space where we explore and learn together. We’re all co-conspirators in the learning process, and our goal is to walk away with a concrete plan of action on how to use what we discover and create together.

55. A Visual Summary
We looked at a variety of well-accepted as well as unorthodox approaches to defining and promoting eLearning.

56. A Visual Summary
We looked at a variety of learning communities and professional organizations that can support our eLearning explorations and offerings.

57. A Visual Summary
And we saw a couple of examples of how we can bring eLearning and onsite learning together so that, in the words of eLearning professional Marc Rosenberg, we can move from eLearning to Learning.

58. Resources
Let’s look at a several suggested resources for you…
E-learning: Annotated Bibliography for Library Training Programs
Dynamic Web Conferencing and Presentation Skills for Effective Meetings, Trainings, and Learning Sessions
eLearning Guild Website

59. Additional Resources
Paul’s blog:
Paul’s Storify account:
“From eLearning to Learning” was originally developed in a highly collaborative fashion with staff at Mount Prospect Public Library over an eight-month period. The slide deck was designed to be a presentation tool as well as a learning object, which is why the speaker notes are extensive. The onsite event (a highly-interactive keynote session, breakout sessions, a mini unconference for those who wanted to take an even deeper dive into the subject during the 90-minute lunch break, and a final “what concrete steps do we take next so this has an impact?” wrap-up) blossomed in wonderful ways none of us completely anticipated, so this slide has been added to provide access to other resources that can be used by anyone interested in exploring a similar approach to eLearning in any worksite.
For help in designing, developing, and facilitating a similar learning event tailored to your needs, please contact me at
Let’s look at a several suggested resources for you…

60. Questions & Comments

61. For More Information Paul Signorelli & Associates
1032 Irving St., #514
San Francisco, CA 94122
@trainersleaders

62. Credits & Acknowledgments
Discovery Zone and Other Mount Prospect Public Library Spaces: Photos by Paul Signorelli
33,000 Feet Above: Photo by Paul Signorelli
Water Cooler: Photo from Doug Waldron’s Flickr photostream at
Surrounded by Mobile Devices: Photo from Luke Wroblewski’s Flickr photostream at
Library and Other Learning Spaces: Photos by Paul Signorelli
BYOD/BYOT: Photos by Paul Signorelli
San Francisco: Photos by Paul Signorelli
Question Marks: From Valerie Everett’s photostream at