I used to blog religiously on Saturday mornings. While not quite so religious about this any more, I have blogged (sometimes unrelentingly) since I started four years ago as the TL consultant for the Vancouver School Board. My thought is now that, while it was first about mentoring the local TL community, my blogging is bigger than that, bigger than Vancouver but always reflective of the threads and currents of discourse that impact our work and our place in teacher-librarianship in Vancouver. There is so much to know, in practical and professional terms, so much to think about and share, and to be engaged in with others. From resources to relevant videos to new tools and educational commentary, I have blogged on.
There is a flow of tweets today from the UBC Northern Voice 2011 blogging conference (#nv). Seems like interesting stuff and a pretty young crowd. But their blogs contain interesting content -- way too many other tweeting conference attendees simply emit messages, like "This is great stuff," so you never know what the stuff of the conference or un-conference has been. I must have missed the brochure, but then mentors miss at least half of what is going on. It's good there are VSB people there (@maryakem and @audreyvan) so we will undoubtedly get the feedback.
On becoming a member of the Twittyverse, I have to say what intrigues me is that it is something of a flat community. There are the active ones, the incomprehensible ones, the profound ones, the straight communicators of news, the political ones, and the lurkers. It's a good place to start, lurking, by the way. And linking -- you have to click onto some of the "bittlies" to get at the meat of Twitter.
One to follow is Superintendent Chris Kennedy (West Vancouver) who blogs at The Culture of Yes, contributes to the discourse frequently, and comments on the nature of the conversation on Twitter @chrkennedy. You would add him to your watchlist on Twitter. Kennedy describes the conversations that include all committed educators. Administrators, superintendents, trustees, teachers -- geographically disbursed -- share ideas and information both openly and privately without the barriers that hierarchical positioning within workplace sites and bureaucracies can create. That's what I mean by "flat." You share others' news as re-tweets, or openly add to the commentary on topics or in groups identified by hashtags (#). You get to follow and assess what others think is important enough to share. I am not seeing too much of the frivolous daily activity stuff, like, "Went shopping today" or "Just finished breakfast" that newcomers might expect to find.
Kennedy gets teacher-librarians and their role in relation to inquiry-based learning and leadership for change. Librarians, he suggests, are more important than ever. Working collaboratively with teachers, they bring a different and important skill set to the instructional conversation that helps make sense of information. He gets the importance of teaching for information literacy and for learning to be information literate. Tech-savvy administrators and TLs have powerful potential to engage and support teachers shifting into optimal pedagogical participation in the new digital environments. In the blog post "It's not the tools, it's the team" is a slide presentation Leading and Energizing Learning given to Ontario superintendents: check slide 15. In his recent half-hour Your Education Matters broadcast with Dr Paul Shaker at UBC, TLs are included as is discussion of inquiry, inquiry-based learning, and the significance of teacher professional judgement. Arlene Anderson's important groundwork with Points of Inquiry at Rockridge is included. In his role as West Van's Chief Learning Officer, he sees that we are moving beyond technology-as-place (that is, the lab); soon every child will have his or her own personal device, and thus a new learning space. Students will engage in real-world or authentic publishing; literacy is reading and writing a blog, for example.
In direct "tweets" with Chris, I have appreciated his vision that sees TLs as worthy lead partners with admin in the move to digital literacy. Schools moving ahead with digital literacy have strong teacher-librarians and dynamic and responsive school library programs. I for one am happy to have his voice in the provincial conversation.
2011 May YEM from SFU Education on Vimeo.
In Vancouver, we have a small but active community of educational tweeters. I have a watchlist and I follow trustees @janebouey, @lombardimike, @pattibacchus. I follow administrator @gmbondi and teacher colleagues @solitaryvox, @zzsu, @aaronmueller, @physicstweet. I follow VSB tweeters like our superintendent @myphronesis, our district librarian @maryakem and our new District Principal for Learning Technologies @audreyvan. In fact, I follow over 50 tweeters and about that many follow me. And so I have been lured from the lurking -- I feel bound to have profound tweets occasionally! No time for conferences -- too busy with my social networking on Saturdays.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Saturday, December 13, 2008
What is Web 2.0? Why Do We Need to Know?
***
All kinds of social networking software characterize the phenomenon known as Web 2.0. Blogging, building wikis, joining Facebook, using Wikipedia, and trying out new tools in our school library programs, tools like Jing, Skype, Animoto, Moodle, googledocs (for more, check the 25 Tools recommended by Annabelle in a previous blog) are Web 2.0 activities. The feature of Web 2.0 that distinguishes it from the traditional web is that it is intended to be built and used socially and collaboratively. Wikipedia represents the powerful capacity of building on collective knowledge. Google leads the field in creating opportunities for working together in different formats to build projects of our own design and suited to our own purposes.
Many of us work together on last-Wednesdays in a real sandbox (as opposed to virtual sandboxes, a Web 2.0 concept that refers to locations within the tool sites where you can simply play with the tool). Rather than the high-anxiety learning that often accompanies learning new technologies (just-in-time) and tools, in the TL Studio context, the focus is relaxed, we have no strict agenda, we are engaged in social learning, and we are involved in the important and supportive process of discovery and thoughtful consideration of the ways these can be useful for school library programs. What has become clear is that there is great interest in more opportunities for learning about Web 2.0!
And on the platforms where the 2.0 cyberworld meets edu-world, there are more contradictions that pepper the discourse than answers.
In Facebook, we know, bad things happen. Yet our wonderful Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) campaign had a Facebook presence. Ironically, if you were at the October School Library Day / FOSL event on Cyberbullying, you would have heard a parent request for educators to provide workshops for parents on using Facebook so they can better understand the software that puts children at risk. Some of our colleagues use this software; our teacher unions advise caution and with good reason as not everyone is clear about the conventions. Administrators and counsellors know that, while our students may not be able to access this at their schools, they don't have any problems using it outside the school. And any student with internet access on his or her phone has full access within our sites to precisely what we block, and we all know there is a certain appeal to circumventing what is "banned."
Think of the notion of "the box." In schools, we have always worked inside it. We use the tools provided by the employer and have learned the rules for engagement. (This week, some of us learned to refine the use of the "reply-all" feature!) You may remember, when I started the job here at Head Office last year, I thought I needed to pass along all the information that came to this desk ... and you were inundated with email, a "box" tool that forces the receiver to do something with the communiques as they accumulate; this "box" is down at the moment, meaning that its availability as a tool is not always guaranteed, and we all know it can get overloaded and be overloading. My next "iteration" was the once-a-week email, but it soon became clear that these large missives clogged up your already-burgeoning mailboxes, required you to do something with the pieces in the email, and didn't have any durability or searchability. My days in the "chair" are never without email; it arrives on my phone if I am off-site. I struggle to keep within the size of the box I have been given.
By November, I was blogging. The TL Special Weekly Report blog sits in a place in the cyberworld, and you can ignore it for a while, forever if you wish. Or go to it when you have time, scan for relevant information or use the search feature to look for the bits that apply just-in-time (that is, when you need them). Problem solved, or sort of! You see, it's outside the box. I love the blogging (a common Web 2.0 tool) and I gather ideas all week to send to you on Fridays! Meeting the Friday self-set deadline often finds me spending my Friday evenings getting the post finished. Today is Saturday and the "box" is down again so notices I received this week will have to wait!
When I work "outside the box," I do so cautiously and respectfully, attentive to ingrained rules I know apply "inside"; see the blog entries from Joyce Valenza, well-known US teacher-librarian, and Lisa Nielsen, NYC educator, below, as they grapple with the rules for blogging engagement. I want "the employer" to have confidence in my moving in unfettered ways as I highlight the ways we build our community and give (global) awareness to the scope, nature, and changing landscapes of our work in school libraries. No similar tool presently exists inside our box.
What makes sense is that all the rules that apply for working with resources, students, and communications in schools also apply to our work on and working with Web 2.0, or "outside the box." We know that information about our work and our students and our colleagues and our employer, our social interactions and personal insights, our building learning experiences for students, that is, what is worth doing and using online, will be easier, more relevant, and interactive, but it will also be subject to far greater scrutiny; we need to attend to what lasts in the ether. What is clear is that what we put into and take out of Web 2.0 needs to be of exemplary quality, that it reflects sound current educational thinking, and that we carry on the discourse to create a profile of best practice in our field.
Thanks, Jo-Anne, for these links that give the first space to the discussion of "conventions" for blogging that I have seen:
The Innovative Educator, blog by New York Department of Education Instructional Technology Manager, Lisa Nielsen, showed this post in May 2008: Mandate Against Professional Blog URLs in NYC DOE Signature
Joyce Valenza (from Neverendingsearch in SLJ, a link in the sidebar of my blog) also posted on the topic:
All kinds of social networking software characterize the phenomenon known as Web 2.0. Blogging, building wikis, joining Facebook, using Wikipedia, and trying out new tools in our school library programs, tools like Jing, Skype, Animoto, Moodle, googledocs (for more, check the 25 Tools recommended by Annabelle in a previous blog) are Web 2.0 activities. The feature of Web 2.0 that distinguishes it from the traditional web is that it is intended to be built and used socially and collaboratively. Wikipedia represents the powerful capacity of building on collective knowledge. Google leads the field in creating opportunities for working together in different formats to build projects of our own design and suited to our own purposes.
Many of us work together on last-Wednesdays in a real sandbox (as opposed to virtual sandboxes, a Web 2.0 concept that refers to locations within the tool sites where you can simply play with the tool). Rather than the high-anxiety learning that often accompanies learning new technologies (just-in-time) and tools, in the TL Studio context, the focus is relaxed, we have no strict agenda, we are engaged in social learning, and we are involved in the important and supportive process of discovery and thoughtful consideration of the ways these can be useful for school library programs. What has become clear is that there is great interest in more opportunities for learning about Web 2.0!
And on the platforms where the 2.0 cyberworld meets edu-world, there are more contradictions that pepper the discourse than answers.
In Facebook, we know, bad things happen. Yet our wonderful Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) campaign had a Facebook presence. Ironically, if you were at the October School Library Day / FOSL event on Cyberbullying, you would have heard a parent request for educators to provide workshops for parents on using Facebook so they can better understand the software that puts children at risk. Some of our colleagues use this software; our teacher unions advise caution and with good reason as not everyone is clear about the conventions. Administrators and counsellors know that, while our students may not be able to access this at their schools, they don't have any problems using it outside the school. And any student with internet access on his or her phone has full access within our sites to precisely what we block, and we all know there is a certain appeal to circumventing what is "banned."
In a nearby school district, teachers grieved the practice of blocking internet access on the basis of professional autonomy and won. Decisions about suitable resources to support teaching are now made by teachers in an unblocked arena.
Nings are an example of these Web 2.0 applications; they are frequently blocked in districts as Facebook is a ning. In a recent graduate level course in LLED at UBC, School Library 2.0 (the class that converted "our Mary" to the tech-side) with Marlene Asselin and Ray Doiron, the discussions between the UBC and PEI classes and the products of their learning were posted on iBrary. This ning won two of Canada's leading TL educators international recognition for technology innovation.
- Koyczan is an amazing performer who rivets audiences, young and old. He has performed for audiences around the world.
- His first book, Visiting Hours, was a Book of the Year Selection by both The Guardian and The Globe and Mail.
- Maya Angelou writes of him, "The future of poetry is in good hands," and that's a recommendation hard to beat.
- You can see him on YouTube: We are More (on Poetry Network, about being Canadian, for the Canadian Tourism Association), Gramma's Got It Going (on the importance of the inspirational and caring adult in the life of a young person struggling for meaning in his life), Beethoven (on the struggle for expression of the passions of the genius against a stark and brutal family life), and more.
YouTube, like Facebook, is subject to blocking. Teacher-librarians generally prefer not to fetter the access to information but to select the best (like Koyczan's video clips) and to "educate" and guide our students and colleagues in making responsible decisions about using resources, tools, ideas, and the readily-available and highly social internet environment. The school library is a place where teaching for ethical and responsible use happens daily. TLs know what is required to publish and unquestionably see that "online publishing" must be subject to the same rigorous conditions. They see that blocking access at educational sites, as is the present trend, means we lose really valuable educational and professional resources and teaching opportunities.
In an aside, it occurs to me, ever attentive to how we can promote the use of valuable resources, that perhaps we should "block" the databases; that would surely generate keen student interest and awareness and possibly more discourse amongst educational stakeholders requiring us to explain what they are, how they work, and what all the fuss is about!
Web 2.0 represents a shift in the locus of power for knowledge construction, for what is worth knowing, and for who decides what is worth knowing, a role traditionally played by those who wrote and delivered the curriculum; it requires a shift that challenges our traditional notions of teaching and learning to the core. While Prensky rather simplistically applies his concept of "native vs immigrant" to those who enter the cyberworld, some so-called "immigrants" (a concept surely based on age) have lots of savvy while others have simply a lot to learn and a shortage of time, and the so-called "natives" have a lot to learn about responsible "travel" in the cyberworld. We, the "immigrants," not only can learn about this but should, I would contend. After all, we are teaching for lifelong learning and we know the importance of modelling what we are teaching. As educators we need to be there to help and guide our students; we also need to look carefully at the options and consider "the standards" for engagement.
Think of the notion of "the box." In schools, we have always worked inside it. We use the tools provided by the employer and have learned the rules for engagement. (This week, some of us learned to refine the use of the "reply-all" feature!) You may remember, when I started the job here at Head Office last year, I thought I needed to pass along all the information that came to this desk ... and you were inundated with email, a "box" tool that forces the receiver to do something with the communiques as they accumulate; this "box" is down at the moment, meaning that its availability as a tool is not always guaranteed, and we all know it can get overloaded and be overloading. My next "iteration" was the once-a-week email, but it soon became clear that these large missives clogged up your already-burgeoning mailboxes, required you to do something with the pieces in the email, and didn't have any durability or searchability. My days in the "chair" are never without email; it arrives on my phone if I am off-site. I struggle to keep within the size of the box I have been given.
By November, I was blogging. The TL Special Weekly Report blog sits in a place in the cyberworld, and you can ignore it for a while, forever if you wish. Or go to it when you have time, scan for relevant information or use the search feature to look for the bits that apply just-in-time (that is, when you need them). Problem solved, or sort of! You see, it's outside the box. I love the blogging (a common Web 2.0 tool) and I gather ideas all week to send to you on Fridays! Meeting the Friday self-set deadline often finds me spending my Friday evenings getting the post finished. Today is Saturday and the "box" is down again so notices I received this week will have to wait!
When I work "outside the box," I do so cautiously and respectfully, attentive to ingrained rules I know apply "inside"; see the blog entries from Joyce Valenza, well-known US teacher-librarian, and Lisa Nielsen, NYC educator, below, as they grapple with the rules for blogging engagement. I want "the employer" to have confidence in my moving in unfettered ways as I highlight the ways we build our community and give (global) awareness to the scope, nature, and changing landscapes of our work in school libraries. No similar tool presently exists inside our box.
What makes sense is that all the rules that apply for working with resources, students, and communications in schools also apply to our work on and working with Web 2.0, or "outside the box." We know that information about our work and our students and our colleagues and our employer, our social interactions and personal insights, our building learning experiences for students, that is, what is worth doing and using online, will be easier, more relevant, and interactive, but it will also be subject to far greater scrutiny; we need to attend to what lasts in the ether. What is clear is that what we put into and take out of Web 2.0 needs to be of exemplary quality, that it reflects sound current educational thinking, and that we carry on the discourse to create a profile of best practice in our field.
Thanks, Jo-Anne, for these links that give the first space to the discussion of "conventions" for blogging that I have seen:
The Innovative Educator, blog by New York Department of Education Instructional Technology Manager, Lisa Nielsen, showed this post in May 2008: Mandate Against Professional Blog URLs in NYC DOE Signature
Joyce Valenza (from Neverendingsearch in SLJ, a link in the sidebar of my blog) also posted on the topic:
Meme: What NOT to blog (Part 1): "For three years or so I've been blogging and NOT blogging. Often it's hard to not blog. My blogging absences and omissions ..."
What not to blog--Part 2 (from my colleagues): " In the last post, I explored my own blogging off switch. In this post I report back on what happened when I asked my Twitter ..."
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BC Red Cedar Young Readers' Choice Award 2008/9
Group Leaders Support Site and Bookcase is posted.
_______________________
Kari-Lynn Winters, children's lit author, writes that she is available for schools visits: Her first book, Jeffrey and the Sloth, is a picture book about writing. It won the ABCs of Education Award and the Honour Book Award for the BC Book Prize. This book is also recommended by Adrienne Gear--as a "connect book." Kari-Lynn also has eight other picture books accepted for publication. She is very interested in doing more school visits and provides interactive presentations and workshops for students or teachers about literacy strategies, publication, children's literature, and/or drama. If interested, you can email her or visit her website .
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Winter Tonic Evening - "Love your Library"
Tupper Library, Tuesday, February 10th, 2009: 4 pm
Welcome at 4 pm will be followed by two workshop sessions and the usual -- 6:30 pm lovely dinner. Watch for the registration flyer in the first week back in the New Year. TLs from other school districts and TLs in training are always welcome, as are colleagues.
This event is sponsored by the Vancouver Teacher Librarians' Association. Cost will include dinner and VTLA membership (where appropriate) along with refreshing ideas, passionate presenters, the ever-popular book give aways, adult reads, and some other lovely surprises.
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Free UBC Community Borrower Card
UBC Library extends a special offer to the community as part of UBC’s Centenary celebrations. From September 2008 to April 2009, BC residents can obtain a free community borrower card (a $40 value) and borrow books in person from any UBC Library branch. This special offer is UBC's way of saying thank you to the community that has helped support UBC throughout its 100-year evolution. They are also celebrating the opening of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, an innovative new facility on the UBC Vancouver campus. Thanks to the generosity of one of UBC's most distinguished alumni, Dr. Irving K. Barber, the University now has a vibrant meeting place for community members to take part in events and programs in the spirit of lifelong learning. Learn more about the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre . Click here for way-finding directions to any UBC campus location.
Our UBC Friend Jo-Anne sent this notice along with a suggestion that perhaps some Grade 12 students may want to access the physical UBC library with their families. Unfortunately, this card doesn't give holders access to reserve books and/or to electronic resources -- I know because I asked. Most commonly, our colleagues are engaged in research and would like access to the UBC databases, including JStor. I have had some recent success finding what they are looking for in EBSCO's Academic Search Premier, by the way.
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Better a late blog than none? I hope so. I may have missed some of you this week. It's well into Saturday and my Friday self-imposed deadline has passed. I have struggled with this posting; the issues are complex and answers aren't easily found, but searching for them is something we are committed to in school libraries. Next week's will be very short, I promise. Have a great weekend!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Web 2.0 - Why Should We Know About It?
What is this Web 2.0 phenomenon? What makes Web 2.0 dramatically different from Web 1.0 that in itself has radically transformed our notion of what constitutes information and resources is its social / interactive / collaborative capacities. Yes, I know it's hard to keep pace with the rapid pace of technology change and ways to work with it in schools. In fact, as many of you know, the tendency to embrace change is neatly and quite definitively offset by the natural inclination to stasis until such time as the pressure to change is overwhelming. This means technology learning is often called "just-in-time" learning and is usually accompanied by heightened anxiety.
CommonCraft video clips make plain sense of some of the Web 2.0 applications. The webpage says their product is explanations in plain English.
TLs Gwen and Mary, along with Susan from UBC Libraries, gave their "New Learners" workshop at Technology Day. Mary addressed the nature of the very steep learning curve for many educators as well as the benefits of the ascent from her own experience. I can tell you that the hardest course I ever took was David Brear's online session, "On the Ramp to the Information Highway." Those who attended David's workshop today left with insights and ideas about how teaching and learning are being transformed yet again by the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
At the blogging mini-workshop I gave for some co-workers at the "mother ship" this week, the STAR pupil was Meredyth: check this one out! There are more coming ...
DE Tools of the Trade is John Goldsmith's technology blog for educators and it's full of news and ideas about new applications of technology. John recently forwarded this Digital Natives video clip to the BCTLA Forum.
Whoo-hoo! Now you can go to TeacherTube.
Here are some more Youtube clips worth checking out:
CommonCraft video clips make plain sense of some of the Web 2.0 applications. The webpage says their product is explanations in plain English.
TLs Gwen and Mary, along with Susan from UBC Libraries, gave their "New Learners" workshop at Technology Day. Mary addressed the nature of the very steep learning curve for many educators as well as the benefits of the ascent from her own experience. I can tell you that the hardest course I ever took was David Brear's online session, "On the Ramp to the Information Highway." Those who attended David's workshop today left with insights and ideas about how teaching and learning are being transformed yet again by the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
At the blogging mini-workshop I gave for some co-workers at the "mother ship" this week, the STAR pupil was Meredyth: check this one out! There are more coming ...
DE Tools of the Trade is John Goldsmith's technology blog for educators and it's full of news and ideas about new applications of technology. John recently forwarded this Digital Natives video clip to the BCTLA Forum.
Whoo-hoo! Now you can go to TeacherTube.
Here are some more Youtube clips worth checking out:
A Vision of Students Today
NOTE: This clip from the U of Kansas Anthropology Dept was used by Gwen, Mary, and Susan in their workshop at Tech Day earlier today.
Bringing 21st C Learning to Your Classroom
A Vision of K-12 Students Today
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Information R/evolutionDid You Know 2.0 -- Thanks for this one, Lana.
ShiftHappens -- Love that U2!
Happy Viewing!
See you Tuesday .... Gladstone, 4 pm
Friday, February 1, 2008
WINTER TONICS
Have you registered for Winter Tonic?
Here are some other February "tonics" if you are looking for something to replenish your spirit, a little flair or fun or food for thought or passion to enhance your work in school libraries. Why not choose one or two --
- find a great gift or "branding" item for a teacher-librarian or for yourself at Cafepress. Here's where Sylvia got her bumper sticker that reads, "I am the librarian your mother warned you about." A new wardrobe item always helps the spirit.
- check out the best source of powerpoint templates at Brainy Betty. Put PIZZAZZ into your presentations.
- how about something fun to do on FAT Tuesday (Feb 5) or Mardi Gras? Try heading out to hear The Burke Street Blues Band now booked for Mardi Gras night (8-11 pm) at DaDeO New Orleans Diner and Bar, 3305 Cambie (at 17th-- former Tomato Restaurant location) 604-874-1053 -- and it's our friend Alan Zisman on keyboards!
- read this article to affirm the importance of your work as the information literacy specialist in your school: The more things change ... by IVOR TOSSELL from Friday's Globe and Mail, January 24, 2008.
- read this Richmond News Community Profile for Family Literacy Day; it's about Richmond TL Carole Wilson who is still making a difference after thirty years in the teaching business. Some of you may know Carole in her capacity as an instructor with the UBC Teacher-Librarianship program.
- find out more about blogging and its applications for school libraries: Teacher-Librarians Connect ... by Publishing Online, from Charles Best (Coquitlam) TL Judith Comfort provides lots of ideas. Check out her BCTLA workshop, online resources and activities which are blogs.
- register for something -- Feb 8 is Literacy Day at Killarney or Technology Day at Magee; Feb 12 is Winter Tonic at Gladstone; Feb 6 is Shari Graydon here at the VSB; Feb 18 is TL Studio at Kerrisdale; Spring Weeding (two sessions, last week of Feb and first week of March) at Dickens and Cheriee is promising much livelier refreshment to make the session fun... see VSB website and click onto Current Professional Opportunities.
- choose to attend one or two events put on by the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable: Authorfest 2008 is Feb 6 at UBC. Serendipity 2008 is, this year, to be a celebration of First Nations Children's Authors and Illustrators and is being held at the First Nations Longhouse at UBC all day Saturday, Feb 23. Membership to the Vancouver CLR is $15. For more information, read Tough City Writer's blog.
- bone up on the issues around new proposed Canadian copyright legislation which, as secondary TLs heard from Aaron M at their monthly meeting, could seriously affect us in schools because of the omission of educational fair-use clauses and of any educational representation. Aaron referred us to Michael Geist's blog for more information. Dr. Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the U of Ottawa and was educated at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Cambridge University, UK and Columbia Law School in New York. He is concerned with internet and technology law as well as privacy issues.
- read some more: I am passing along this Michael Geist article "Law Eases Net Snooping: Privacy watchdog fears new copyright regs" (Tuesday's The Tyee). Anne S forwarded it after our discussion at our secondary TL department heads' meeting.
- check out this article from eSchool News to consider the perspectives of American educators on educational fair-use clauses: "'Fair Use' confusion threatens media literacy."
- attend a lecture at the VPL: Speak Up 2008: My Virtual World, Tuesday Feb 19, 2008, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Alice MacKay Room. The Speak Up series brings together many voices, perspectives and experiences, and provides an opportunity for public dialogue. This year's series explores the role of technology in our lives. "Online Privacy: Is There Any?" will feature panelists Mary Carlson (Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Province of BC); Inspector Kevin McQuiggin (Vancouver Police Department); Richard Rosenberg (BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Asosciation). And it's free!
- find out who's blogging and what they are talking about. Click onto one or more of the Related Bloggers in the sidebar of this blog to see what the discourse is, more globally, for school libraries. Susan at Magee suggests Kathy Schrock's Kaffeklatsch blog January entry entitled Youtube is Cool! which would follow nicely with the secondary TL department heads discussion last week.
I have recently added Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog. I enjoyed reading, amongst his archives, articles with such enticing titles as Rules for Pod People..., "BS" Literacy, and Librarians Behaving Badly. Joyce Valenza's Neverendingsearch on SLJ offers such articles for your consideration as these: Google as white bread? (and ICT lit matters) or Databases: Can We Get Teachers to Love Them? I have also added James Herring's Weblog. Schrock, Valenza, Johnson, Herring ... have I missed any of the BIG names in the world of school libraries?
Thanks, Lana at Byng, for passing along this link to school bloggers with loads of examples, as well. Reading Rules is only one example of a school library application for blogging. And we are awaiting a new blog from one of our own French Immersion TLs, to be launched next week, I believe. I will be linking it here.
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