Week 13 Pulling Together the Vision

I think being a librarian, SLMS, teacher librarian is all about the first amendment- and keeping that in the frontal lobes of your brain is important. You need to make sure students are able to express themselves with what the read, expressing themselves in their writing print and online, giving them space and opportunity in the library. If children don't feel you believe in freedom of speech they will never open up to you, share their inner thoughts, tell you about abuse, ask you about a book concerning a topic that is difficult to deal with. The old adage, about the more you listen the more you'll hear is great advice for the SLMS.
Helping students express themselves with more multimedia presentations will now come with a better understanding of correctly citing sources and following (now understandable) fair use guidelines, more accurately. Not many of our teachers are using many Web 2.0 tools and I have the confidence to introduce, and encourage them to use them with working together on projects that assimilate these tools easily. Our fifth graders are going to debate online with their Famous Americans projects almost complete. Using moodle, students will debate Rosa Parks vs Harriet Tubman, Thomas Edison vs Alexander Graham Bell, trying to use their research to prove their Famous American has contributed more to history than the other.
With a great collection of PlayAways we are going to order some ebooks through BOCES to try a new format for our reluctant readers. With the excitement generated with PlayAways, I think many of our students will jump at this new option.
I have learned much this semester and feel connected by blogs, RSS feeds, del.isio.us to some of the 'spokespeople' of our time., and following their thoughts and views will be much more convienent with web 2.0 tools.
Starting an Internet safety program can not begin fast enough and with iSafe and its ready, relevant videos, action lesson plans and student involvement, it couldn't be easier. Its been a long 4 months that have flown by! Continuing to learn and this time in a new format using Web 2.0 tools has brought real relevancy to the subject. Strong connections to SLMS new to the field. Great.

Week 12 Participating in a Professional Community

Well -Spring break certainly is not a 'break'. As SLMS Knickerbocker Chair, my job is to take all nominations for the 2011 winner, have the membership status of the nominators checked and then the nominations must be vetted for NYS residency and a body of work that aligns with the NYS curriculum. Thank goodness for a wiki I set up a year ago as our committee is located all over the state. We'll be done in a week and ready to post them to the SLMS listserv for member vote throughout May. At the same time, I am the new Scholarship chair for my union, and received all hard copies of all PR and applications/information. The previous chair thought she was being generous but I asked for the electronic files (she refused) I have retyped all 11 forms and they now have my own 'spin' and are on a flash drive for posterity. All information will be rolled out the Monday we get back....two large responsibilities almost resolved....all part of the participation in our professional community that is critical for growth and continued competencies. (But a few days off would have been nice!)

Week 11 eBooks and Copyright

The videos on some of the Cyber Stalker/Bullying sessions were unnerving, and gut wrenching to view. I had to get up and move away at times as the outcome was so painfully obvious. I worried that blogging would be held up as a dangerous venue for children but was relieved to see the more obvious chat rooms and bullying done from web pages was more emphasized. There was a fair amount of repitition in many of the videos, as if we didn't get it the first time. I am anxious to talk this over with my superintendant. I wish we had known that we would be encouraged to begin implementaion with a plan of action but I for one cannot until I get clearance from her.

There were so many great quotes in the readings this week from the time line of many of the tools we now can't live without!. One aspect I didn't hear was this....IM took off from the moment it hit the ground, so did Facebook, downloading from iTunes, and they alluded to the success of the iPod because of the success of iTunes, a commodity that young people desired. If eBooks were going to be a web sensation, it would have happened. They will have a following for sure, but for a new tech tool to be an overnight success, it has to be something kids can't live without....and what will that be? tune in tomorrow!