For my big paper in Information Services, I have to write a ten page proposal trying to convince an entity (this is all "pretend") to adopt two to three Web 2.0 services to the website. If anyone has a great library website to share incorporating 2.0 and a short statement on how you convinced your admin to accept it, let me know.
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For my big paper in Information Services, I have to write a ten page proposal trying to convince an entity (this is all "pretend") to adopt two to three Web 2.0 services to the website. If anyone has a great library website to share incorporating 2.0 and a short statement on how you convinced your admin to accept it, let me know.
- Scasl Blogs! The South Carolina Association of School Librarians sponsor a blog, and I am lucky enough to be a contributor. I wish i could say it is as popular as Sunlink, or some other state association blogs, but I'm proud of it no less. I just appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it.
- Cathy Jo Nelson's Professional Thoughts This is my personal space to share little tidbits of information i think is relevant.
Technology and the world wide web are fomenting a major paradigm shift in education. Gone are the days of Dewey, Hirsch and Bloom, the idea that knowledge can be categorized and compartmentalized, that the "educated" person knows a core set of facts/ideas carried through time by series of experts charged with enlightening the masses and initiating the unknowing into the heady atmosphere of intellectual elitism. This world is run like the Encylopedia Britannica (or the OED), where a core set of editors decide what is important and significant, than pass that information on to the rest of us. With the WWW and 2.0, our neat, graphically organized flow charts of knowledge became a whole lot messier. Social tagging and wikipedias break down the direct, linear flow of ideas into a far more randomly connected (and interconnected) web of relationships.
While working to understand more about wikis, blogs, and Education 2.0, I've increasingly realized that as we adopt and adapt these technologies, the earlier movement towards student-centered education is no longer creeping along, but running madly downhill. While the "sage on the stage" vs. "guide on the side" pedagogical controversy has been around for yonks, technology is forcing educators to give up control and allow students to construct their own meaning through collaboration and social interaction. The introverted, Hamlet-like scholar, immersed in learning the Trivium, is a thing of the past. Textbooks, if not obsolete, are merely the jumping off points for students to explore and engage in active learning. For example, WashingtonWatch just started a wiki that "allows public editing of information about the bills pending in Congress." What a great opportunity for Civics classes! (http://www.washingtonwatch.com/wiki) Ironically, this comes at a time NCLB puts increasing stress on meeting standards and traditional methods of teaching. I just read that a member of Congress is trying to ban the Wikipedia and other social networking sites from schools. Now, I have problems with Wiki, but it's a great teaching tool and denying complete access to social networking tools seems not only backwards, but draconian.
This increased randomness and student-centered learning makes the LMS more important than ever before as education struggles to catch up with technology. Face it, students (and many adults) are clueless about information problem solving. Thus, as teachers struggle to adapt to changing pedagogical strategies, we need to be ready with ideas, support and enthusiasm. Now, I'm old fashioned enough to believe there are some things an educated, literate individual needs to know. Though I'd be hard-pressed to give reasons the average teenager would accept! I was trying to explain the dichotomy to my fiancee (core knowledge vs. individualized learning) and he wisely asked why I was seeing them as oppositional. Good point. Yet I think that, in the educational field, we DO see them as diametrically opposed. ( I can teach content, or I can be touchy-feely with the kids, but I don't have time for both!) However, we need to MAKE time for both and work out solid strategies for students not merely to learn core curriculum, but to synthesize it, creating their own meaning.
On looking back over this, it seems pretty garbled! I'm still trying to work it out in my own head!
At BookExpo America, they announced this year's Quill nominees. It's the third year for these consumer-driven awards. The last two lists helped me plan my summer reading and helped me to discover newauthors and titles to include on our high school shelves. Scroll down to the bottom of the list for youth titles.
I visualize this course as a combination of a traditional current events class (emerging issues, world economy, geography, politics, etc.) and library skills instruction (plagiarism & copyright, fact vs. opinion, media "genres", effective research). Setting the kids up on Google Reader, would be one of my first steps. Blogs, a wiki, podcasts, video clips, might follow. A Zoho notebook publication would be the perfect culminating project. Or, perhaps, a videotaped news show.
If we are successful, I anticipate having my students function as instructors for other students - and teachers.
Has anyone done something along these lines? I found hundreds of lesson plans in a quick search but I'd like to hear about professional successes and failures from real people, my online colleagues.
LIBRARY TRUISM #1: Popular wisdom says kids are very tech savvy. This is true to greater and lesser degrees; however, they're not very information savvy. They want the quickest way to find the easiest information and often fail to search beyond the first few hits on Google. Moreoever, they find it very difficult to infer, so often don't even recognize that they've found their answer, because it's not stated directly.
Implications: It's not enough just to provide a plethora of links and resources. The virtual library must:
a) provide access to quality information up front (no hunting for the database link!) so it becomes almost as quick to search SIRS as it does to search Google. I saw several library pages that offered a Google search bar right on the front page. This disturbed me, as it seems to promote bad habits!
b) Provide online information literacy tutorials through pathfinders, podcasts, direct instruction pages. The pathfinders could even be a (moderated!) wiki, allowing students to add ideas, links, etc. and giving them more investment in the process.
LIBRARY TRUISM #2: Kids are social animals. If you want the library website to be an integral part of the school, it needs to do more than provide information. It must provide opportunities to personalize the learning process and allow students to express their individuality, creativity and ideas.
Plagiarized ideas to achieve this: a) Create an interactive blog for teachers and students to share what they're currently reading. 2) Work with classroom teachers to create book trailer podcasts and post these on the site. This would also be a good place to post student art work, writing, original music, etc. making it a sort of virtual cafe. 3) A "Sound Off!" page of student podcasts or digital storytelling projects on topical issues. 4) an "Ask the Librarian" link. 5) Online surveys/questionnaires to improve library service, seek book recommendations, etc.
Wow. That's a lot of work when you're starting from scratch! I laugh now to think a mere week or two ago I thought I'd have the site mostly finished by the end of summer. I'll do well to have it mostly finished by the end of NEXT summer! Of course, "finished" is a relative term, as this obviously is an ongoing project.
Anyway, next time-- Supporting the curriculum: moving beyond research papers.
BTW--I'm putting together an annotated bibliography of articles, books and exemplary sites if anyone wants a copy when I'm finished. (grin--how's that for hubris??)
I've heard about blogging but never really understood what it is. I've perused what a few people had to say in the TeacherLibrarian Ning and their comments were interesting and food for thought. As one completely new to blogs, my initial concern is that there is so much to say and millions of opinions to be heard! I also feel like I did when I first went online. There is sooo much information and so many people, it is difficult to navigate through everything.
I'm trying to figure out how I could use this particular forum in a classroom or library setting. I like how UCD has the discussion going; that is particularly helpful. In the classroom, I suppose I could post a question about a particular reading and have students respond. But I'm still trying to figure out how I could use blogging in a library...
Dear TeacherLibrarianNing-ers,
This is to invite you all to join this newly formed group at: Building a Culture of Collaboration Group
It is my belief that as teacher-librarians we must continually develop and refine our collaborative skills and strategies in order to serve as effective instructional partners.
Share your successes. Share your challenges. Share your ideal of what you believe classroom-library collaboration can mean for you, your classroom teacher colleagues, and the students, families, and communities you serve.
Join us!
Best,
Judi
Anyway, we are going to the zoo. It is a nice zoo because it is small. It only takes an hour to an hour and a half to see all of the animals. There is a great playground right beside the zoo, too. Probably later this summer, I will take him to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. If you have gathered by now that I love zoos, you are correct! I have visited the Jacksonville Zoo, Charleston Landing, Charleston Aquarium, Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, Greenville Zoo, Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina Zoo, Atlanta Zoo, Minneapolis Zoo, Houston Zoo, Vienna Zoo (yes as in Austria), and the Salzburg Zoo (again in Austria).
To see the Greenville Zoo, go to Greenville Zoo
More specifically, I'm wondering how to use them as I design my own library website. I looked around several websites Joyce listed as "exemplary" in her Library webquest. Pretty impressive, but as she pointed out in her blog a few days ago, almost none of them incorporate aspects of the read/write web. How much of this is a time factor? I realized during my practicum that this "library thing" is FAR more intense than simply teaching English. Multi-tasking is the order of the day! If we really try to incorporate the ideas behind Information Power, we're heavily involved in teaching and collaborating--so just when will we have time to maintain an interactive website?
Assuming we DO find the time, how do we put these technologies to best use? I love the idea of a (moderated!) reading recommendation blog for students/teachers. Of course, a library blog on "what's up" at the library each month seems obvious, too. I thought of including a page of student podcasts where they "sound off" on topical issues. But this all seems fairly mundane and not the most creative use of media.
I've ordered a book--just out!--called "Using Technology in the Classroom" that, if the blurb on Amazon is right, looks like it will provide some good ideas. I'll post more as I continue to investigate.
OK, here goes.
I'm Becky and I'm a little stressed at the moment because this is graduation eve for my stepson. There are about a million family members at our house right now and they're not likely to leave any time soon. The good news is that we'll get to see Stefan play in the 2A HS All Star Baseball game on Sunday.
I'm librarian for Center MS/HS/Public library. It's pretty tiny, but becoming mightier all the time. Looking forward to reading my cohort's posts.
There are a few that are filled (NSLMPY, Advocacy Special Committee, Interdivisional Committee onInformation Literacy, 2008 Annual) but lots are not and that's what Iam doing this weekend--and the next few weeks. The awards and award subcommittees are wide open exceptfor NSLMPY. Many have virtual slots for those of you who can't come to Annual and Midwinter where the committees meet face-to-face. Much of the work is done between the conferences via e-mail, wikis and online communities.
Just go to the AASL Committee page to take a look at the available committees, let me know your choices, download the PDF form and fax it to AASL. Even if the form is not sent yet, we can work with getting you on the committees.
One in particular that the Ning brings to mind is the AASL Blog editorial board. It needs a few good people to work with Alice Yucht and company and I need:
--geographic representation: West Coast, Northwest, Midwest, Plains, South.
--familiarity with technology, big issues, etc.
--willing/able to post at least once a month as a topical reporter.
You can see why Ning members came right to my mind for the blog! Just contact me at <johns@northnet.org> if you are interested in any committee. THANKS!
