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.