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  • Joyce, I had the opportunity to see you at Internet@Schools East last week and you were great - I only wished that you had more time to spend discussing each topic so that I had more time to have all that info register in my brain. I plan to review your info and that of the other excellent speakers and "educate" myself on Web 2.0 over this summer. Hopefully, come the fall, I will be able to pass on/share my knowledge with other librarians in my district and with the faculty in my building. Since I am in an intermediate school, (3-5) and not in a secondary school setting, I am not quite sure how I will apply this knowledge in the classroom .
    Since I signed on to the your network, one of the things I will be focusing on is the use/impact of social networks. Thanks for all the tools that you have provided (this network, your wiki).
    Sue Lercher/New York
  • A slight twist - 23 things we should be learning in a Web 2.0 world this year as teacher librarians. The use of the social technology in leading learnng is a given... we need to trial, to innovate. But we also need to develop our social networking skills - the skills of building community for our students and our colleagues...community where each finds a place to share.... sharing puts us in a vulnerable place and if over the past many years we are still grappling with successful collaboration in a face to face world then we need to be mindful of getting it right in an online world. Social networks can take us into wonderful pathways where we can get lost and hopefully in losing ourselves we are developing our creativity and knowledge but we can get lost to the point that we don't know our way back. And so concept of building community may need to operate on the principle of less is more. This is just a thought - a Sunday morning musing - on the richness of Web 2 and the power of social networks... and we have students to lead in building community.
  • I'm thinking that what we need to do is develop our advocacy skills. Obviously many teacher librarians have the courage, the knowledge and the skills to lead the Web2.0 revolution, but need to hone their advocacy skills in order to convince others of the wonderful opportunities awaiting them.
  • We are working on this very "thing" in California. A group of us in the California School Library Association are putting this together and it will ready to go "live" in mid-May. I will post the URL and how you can sign up to join us with "23" things - school library style - this summer.
    • I can't wait to see it, Rob. Please share. It will help me plan this summer.
  • Why 23 things? :) Hmm...I going to have to think about that one. I could name the top four tools I use daily- but your question is a great one- the things librarians should be learning to do over the next year. I think it is way beyond the tools- more like a way to embrace change. Try things that are emerging, and then use them effectively to help teachers and students (in school settings) I'll keep thinking though...
  • The three tools that have had the biggest impact on my job this year are Wikis, blog software (specifically Wordpress) and del.icio.us

    Wikis are so easy and such a natural collaborative tool that I can't stop talking them up. Here's a blog post I wrote about one I created with my students:
    http://lib.surruralist.net/2007/02/02/our-wee-little-wiki/
    Now that PBWiki has a wysiwyg editor, it's even easier. It's a great first step into 2.0.

    I used Wordpress to make a new site for my school, and in just a few months it's made an incredible change in the ways we use the website. It used to be so static. It's a good way to keep your site current and useful and for teachers wary of creating a blog for every student, I think a classroom blog is a great first step.
    http://lib.surruralist.net/2007/03/31/our-schools-new-web-site/

    And del.icio.us has revolutionized the way I keep track of resources and update our website. I use a plug-in that displays the right tags on the correct page, automatically. I can't believe how much time it has saved me. I'm also creating a local del.icio.us networks with some of my librarian friends as well as some of my teachers, so they can collaborate with me on resource selection. I love it. I wrote a little more about it in this article I wrote for our local newsletter.
    (pdf: http://homepage.mac.com/crowleyvt/vema/docs/MarchNewsletter.pdf)

    I hope you don't mind the links, I love to share!
  • Joyce,

    This sounds like a great presentation for an AASL strand program at an ALA Conference. Oh wait...They are accepting proposals right now =) http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/conferencesandevents/aaslannual/proposa...

    Want to co-present on this?
    • Sure, Chris! I'd love to do that presentation, but we're way too late for AASL. Pick another!
      • Noooo....an AASL strand presentation at ALA Annual 08 (in California).
        Or maybe the schools strand of CIL next year? Missed again this year with student teaching, but I WILL be there next year!
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