Mission Accomplished!

I think that our Learning 2.0 program has been very beneficial for me. I have learned about a lot of resources, programs, and technologies that are available and free, and that I would not have otherwise discovered on my own.

This program was very good for me because I tend to be a little hesitant to test and try out new things on the Internet. There are quite a few technologies that I would never have dreamed of finding or using, such as Twitter, tag clouds, RSS feeds, Skype, wikis, and blogging itself. However, having to explore these different programs by myself and as a requirement for this class has helped me to overcome my initial fears of new technology, as well as to help me realize that there is always something new to learn about and use to make life easier.

I really appreciated this program for its reliability as well. When exploring and searching for new resources, one has to be very careful of scammers and unreliable online programs. I liked exploring the links and sites that were embedded in each "thing" from our Learning 2.0 blog because I knew that they were sources that I could rely upon, and that they wouldn't give my computer a virus.

So Learning 2.0, I thank both you and Anne for all that you have taught me this semester. And I think it's safe to say that my mission has been accomplished - my quest for library science and media has been a success!

My Wordle

This is my wordle creation.

If you click on it, a new window will open, and the words are easier to read.

Listen to This: Podcasting

After searching a little bit for a school library related podcast, I decided to listen to this podcast from NPR, entitled Digital School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind, about a school in Massachusetts that decided to get rid of all printed books. They have turned everything over to digital references. The school library now houses a cafe, easy chairs, and a few flat-screen TVs. Although the library has become a hub of activity for many students, there are some who feel that without books, this new library doesn't really feel like a library anymore.

I thought this podcast was very intriguing, and it brings up a potentially controversial subject for librarians, parents, students, and administrators. For instance, this school seems to have a large bucket of resources to draw from since each one of the 450 students that attends the school is provided with a school laptop. Also mentioned in this podcast is the fact that most schools don't have the budget or funds to afford such a drastic move to all digital. At any rate, the administration is tossing out its 20,000-volume collection of print materials for a database containing millions of online resources.

Another point of controversy is the concept of an either/or library. The headmaster of the school feels that it doesn't matter what type of resource (book or digital) is used by a student, as long as they are learning. However, students at this school no longer have the choice of using print materials and/or digital sources for research. They are now only provided with one option to choose from, and there are some who are not happy about the changes. Some students who were quoted in the podcast said that the library feels more like a study hall than a library. It's not the same quiet place where one could indulge in a good book.

I find it very interesting that the reporters for this podcast contacted the president of the American Library Association, Camille Alire, to ask her opinion on this course of action. She stated that libraries need to keep up with all the technological changes and advancements. And yet, I couldn't help but sense that she thought that this library had gone too far with their decision. Whatever her response, I think her opinion is one of great importance in a situation like this.

Learning by Video

I really like this Thing in Learning 2.0. I think that students learn a lot by videos now than they did 20 or 30 years ago. There are just so many resources available for our children now that it is mind boggling at times. I was so excited to explore TeacherTube. Before this class, I didn't even know that it existed! I've embedded a couple of videos that I found on libraries. The first is school related, the other two are more just for fun. :)

Video Contest Submission - Whitmore Bolles School Library

I really liked this video. This is a group of students who made their own video about their school library. I thought it was very creative. It's interesting to see how the media has influenced children in their view of who a librarian is and what they do. I'm referring to the shushing and shouts of "Overdue!". Hopefully, these kids have a librarian who does NOT fit this stereotype. They look like they are having fun, and I think they really do love their library. I also love that the girls are using atlases, a great library resource. :)

Sesame Street: Cookie Monster In The Library

I couldn't pass this Sesame Street video up. It's just too cute! And I love Cookie Monster. :) I hope that none of us ever get so perturbed by a patron that we lose our cool like this librarian, even though the patron is asking for an unrelated service. :)

A Day at the Library

I really liked this one too. Librarians should always have ideas and should not be afraid to suggest those ideas to others. I think this video is inspiring for librarians as well as students. I also think that the end line is true: we need to remember that we do have the ability to change the lives of our students and teachers. Love it!

Twitter. Hm.

So, Twitter. It was very easy to create my Twitter account. However, even after reading all the help articles that were cited on our learning 2.0 blog, I was still a little confused about how to use my twitter and create tweets. The tagging and @ sign posts lost me. But I will figure it all out with practice and "play".

I think that there is a potential benefit to using Twitter for the school library. It would be a great way to connect with a lot of students, who seem ever more technologically savvy than me. They could see announcements and tweets from the library all the time and know everything that is going on in their school's world of books.

However, I personally don't really like Twitter very much. I've always wanted to be a bird, but not exactly in this manner. Twitter just doesn't appeal to me. I think it's too similar to Facebook, and it seems a lot more complicated than Facebook. If I had the choice, I would probably let a library aide run the Twitter account for the school library, if I had an aide in my library. That way, we could still inform our students about goings on in the library.

Feeding on RSS

My experience with RSS feeding and subscribing is a somewhat interesting one. As it may have been noticed, I had some issues using Bloglines and subscribing to RSS feeds while using the Internet Explorer browser. Setting up my Bloglines account was simple and easy, so no problems there. However, when I started searching for feeds to subscribe to, I kept having issues with adding feeds to my account. I tried several different techniques and sites to no avail. I finally decided to try using a different browser (Mozilla Firefox in this case) and was successful within one minute of opening the browser. Why I had problems, I will never know. It could have been me, my computer, or Internet Explorer. At any rate, I divided and conquered.

After creating my Bloglines account, I searched and scanned through numerous school library related blogs to find some that I thought would be interesting and useful to me in the future. There was no sense in adding blogs that I wouldn't look at after this class had ended. I wanted blogs that had good information on books, technology, libraries, and successful librarians.

I liked blogs that had non-novel-like posts. I know I don't have the time to read everything that I want to, so posts that are short, sweet, and to the point are very appealing. Some of the blogs that I perused were somewhat scandalous and superfluous in their content, and I wondered why they had come up in my searches. I did not like these blogs because they seemed unrelated to my query.

I decided to follow Seth Godin's Blog and Learning.Now for PBS Teachers. Seth Godin's Blog is a non-librarian blog about technologies and other musings by Seth Godin. It seemed to be an interesting blog, so I hope that there will be good technology-based things to learn from Seth Godin. Learning.Now is a very impressive site. Its focus is to help teachers and educators (librarians) integrate the Internet into education and the classroom. I really liked this blog because it is divided into grade levels, so lesson plans and suggestions are created based on the age group of students. I think this site has the potential to give me good ideas about teaching children about the Internet in a positive way.

Keeping Up to Speed

I really liked this article by Christopher Harris about libraries keeping up with the times and technology that fills our world today. I loved the title of his article - "Say Good-bye to Your Mother's School Library". It is so true! Libraries of three decades ago have been changed so much that a lot of moms wouldn't recognize them as the same "places of knowledge".

Mr. Harris sums up his reasoning for this title so well. In one paragraph of the article, he states, "Redefining the school library is not a response to some inherent failure on the part of the institution. It’s an opportunity for library professionals to engage in some exciting activities that will enable our institutions to remain effective in the midst of fast-moving technological change. It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment."

I love that paragraph because it tells me that libraries really are important, now more than ever, and that we need to become competent, techno-savvy school librarians if we want to keep our jobs. We have to comply to the times, or as Harris puts it, "we library professionals have continually sought to establish the media center as the central foundation of a school. We must persist in this effort." We need to do all in our power to promote the library, especially "to extend [our] services beyond the four walls [of our establishment]". And all of this means, becoming intellectuals of the Internet and its vast resources.

This is where Library 2.0 comes into play. Librarians need a resource that they can turn to for technological support and learning. Why not put it into a program like the one we are completing for this class? This type of program makes it so easy to go step by step and learn about all the different things that are available on the Internet. Even better, we don't have to waste our time looking for good resources because the sources for these programs are reliable. I think that all school librarians need to have access to library 2.0 programs to help them engage their students, teacher peers, parents, and school administration and remind their schools of the importance of libraries.