web 2.0

Due to the fact that I was not able to understand the audio, I wasn’t able to appreciate it. However, over the next few days/weeks, I hope to be able to read your comments and gain some insights from those.

I went and took a look at the educational social network sites and one struck me immediately. Teacherlibrarian.ning published by Joyce Valenza, who just happens to be one of the leaders in our school library media field. I was also hoping to find a social network link to the field of deafness,and/or deaf education, but didn’t find anything of interest. But, it could be that I didn’t look hard or long enough. In the teacherlibrarian ning, which I did become a member of, I liked it because it was nothing but school librarians and their concerns. I am a member of LM_net, which is a listserv for those in the library media field, but it is a huge listserv and simple requests for help could be overlooked very easily. The teacherlibrarian ning is small enough that it’s almost personal. I’ll be looking for more, never fear!

Ummmmmm….What an interesting web 2.0 tool. I can see some benefits, such as increased personal interaction among students, collaboration on group projects and the like. Very useful for constructivenist type of learning and lesson plans. Naturally, the school’s filters would have to be adjusted to permit the use of this tool. Some disadvantages would be the learning curve on both the teacher and student’s parts. It took me awhile to set mine up but I can see where I could use it in a much more professional way. I could use it as a research tool, a way to experiment with some of my lessons, getting feedback from others in my field, in short, my own personal learning network.

I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but given time, I would most likely develop a wiki related to the research process and a list of links such as the APA or MLA bibliography sites. But, because I cover pre-k to high school, it will take a lot of time to design an appropriate wiki and to list all of the resources that our students would need.

As a very visual learner, wiki’s would appeal to me. However, since I have a hearing disability, the audio track is meaningless to me. And I visited several wiki’s and have come to the conclusion that for a wiki to be an effective tool, information (i.e. the audio) needs to be visable. Captions are a must, but how do we include them?
As a librarian who is always teaching students the research process, a wiki would be a great tool for the students to review in their classroom prior to visiting the library.
I enjoyed watching Adam Controy’s Google Earth wiki, because of its highly visual and interactive format. He also included links to related websites and internet links for powerpoint presentations. Another wiki that I visited, Salks preiodical table was nicely done with lots of color and clean graphics.
If I were to develop a wiki for me, it would be related to the research process for all grades and then would incorporate visuals of each part of the library…the stacks, the reference sections, how to use the web-based library catalog and perhaps some links to other reference materials or websites appropriate for their grade levels.

I read David Warlick’s blog, my 2 cent’s worth. In his most recent post, he was trying to predict the future or rather, comment on the questions about the next decade in the field of education. For example: he asks if we (teachers) are going to be digital users or subscribers? What’s to come of social networking? What technologies constitutes a true ubiquitous personal digital learning tool? How would the personal digital tools affect the learning cultures of schools and classrooms?
Yikes! Profound questions.

The one problem I see with all the various blogs is that they will quickly consume a great deal of your time!

I have been in the educational field for many years and comparing what I knew then compared to now, WOW! Technology has made a huge impact and I’m all for bracing it.
In my field, school library media, I have heard this phrase, “I’m so isolated!” countless of times. It doesn’t mean physically isolated, but mentally isolated, because of the nature of our work. Blogging will keep me in the loop of what’s happening in the school library media field, and ways that I can apply what I’ve read to my own unique program.

The use of technology to enhance my learning will be the most challenging one, if not keeping the end in mind.The most important is to have confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner. And I’m most comfortable by accepting responsibility for my own learning.  I often take a minute to look  back and think, okay…what should I know and how would I learn? Most all of the habits would be important for my role as librarian. I learned a long time ago that I need to be a life long learner in order to stay on top of everything.  Not only does it help mentally, but I also think it helps by prolonging your life. Boredom is deadly!

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