Reflections on LIS 629

• Tuition: $2,790.00
• Textbook: $36.00 on Amazon
• Gas for the week: $50.00 at the corner station
• Learning to navigate the world of Web 2.0: Priceless.

Each of my classes here at Post has been worthwhile and enlightening; but for sheer volume of useful information delivered and explained, this one has no equal. There is no doubt that this course is invaluable, or priceless, in preparing students for 21st century librarianship. Not only does it provide them with a multitude of tools to use in the library and the classroom, but they are also given the means to stay on top of it all by creating their own personal learning networks.

After taking this course and completing the assignments, I feel like a different person than the one who responded to the Unquiet Librarian blog post (except that "sheer" seems to be my word of the month). Even though I knew our textbook would be a useful resource, it was a slow read, since so much of the information was new to me. But sure enough, I found myself consulting it while completing the final project and lo! And behold - it wasn't difficult to understand at all! But that is not the only thing that has changed. I have to admit that I approached this class with a fair amount of trepidation, feeling somewhat like an outsider due to my lack of expertise. Over the last two weeks, however, I have gained confidence and am actually looking forward to the beginning of school so that I can share some of what I have learned. Glogster, LiveBinder and Wordle are three of my favorites - depending on the classrooms I'm assigned to, I plan to introduce them to the students and their teachers.

We learned about so many social networking tools - I am finding Nings such as TeacherLibrarian and wikis such as Doug Johnson's to be of particular interest right now. Joining LibraryThing and Shelfari is also on my "to-do" list, as is keeping current with Delicious. These will assist me as I continue to learn how to take advantage of all the web has to offer. But the beauty of all these tools is that they can change as I need them to - when (not if) I'm a school librarian, I'll want to collaborate with teachers and students, and they will become teaching tools as well. Imagine the excitement when students discover, using a ClustrMap, that someone half the world away has looked in on their wiki! Or commented on their VoiceThread, or... the possibilities are endless. An outsider no more, I look forward to navigating Web 2.0 (and whatever follows).

On to the final project.

Ok, so I've reviewed my accounts in Twitter and Google Reader (for my RSS feeds), and now it's on to our final project. I'll work on the Voice Thread first, so my collaborators don't think I'm shirking my duties. Just a word on our wiki's name (webspinners629 - thanks, Kerri!) - I loved it from the start but some days it's all the more appropriate 'cause my head literally spins from all this new-found knowledge!

A PLN for the "Information Encumbered"

I've been going over our class wiki in preparation for completing the final project. It's so chock full of information - I'm trying not to get overwhelmed! Anyway, I took the self-quiz from the Pew Research Group and was not surprised to be labeled "information encumbered," even though some of my answers were more technology-forward than they would have been a couple of weeks ago. Day 2, in particular, was loaded with information. I never added my Delicious tags to my wiki, so I'll attempt that now. Let's see how it goes. Then I'll revisit my Twitter account and RSS feeds. I know this is all going to help by channeling information to me so I'll keep trying not to stress my inexperience...

Last class.

Yesterday was our last class but by no means the end of the learning/work! We have until next Friday to complete our final project - I'm thinking that 3 or 4 hours per day should do the trick. So on to some tutorials and I'll blog some more later...

Fun Monday

Monday was full of great tools to use to get students involved and excited about reading. We created a book trailer using PhotoStory - kids would love this! (I sent it to the wrong page on my wiki but I think I can fix that.) We commented on a series of images in VoiceThread - it was fascinating to hear other people's comments. This is one way in which the web can create a feeling of community. Speaking of which, I'm still running over that YouTube video of the middle school kids flashdancing in my mind - that was an example of community at its best, and all around the idea of reading! Those kids will forever be joined by that experience.
Back to Monday. Glogster wasn't cooperating so we went to Plan B and used wix.com instead. With Karen's help, I actually got it to work! So I left class Monday much more optimistic that yes, I can and will become fluent in web2.0. But it's going to take practice...

Fun Friday

Fun Friday, indeed! It started out that way - the middle school "Gotta keep reading" YouTube video was awesome, the image generators seemed useful, and certainly it was enjoyable to walk around campus with our cameras. But that's where the fun ended... Our assigned presentation tool, 280slides, simply would not cooperate. Pictures seemed to be uploading (albeit extremely slowly), but we just couldn't figure out how to access them. I am using the term "we" loosely, here, because I was definitely no help at all. I'm usually adept at coming up with a Plan B, but with Plan A being totally new and a mystery to me, I had nothing to offer to the endeavor. Totally frustrating and more than a little embarassing! So I went back to it and tried again, the results of which can be seen on my wiki page, optimistically entitled "Presentation." 280slides has you share the presentation [I ended up with 9 slides - 4 pictures of different rooftops around campus and 4 inspirational slides (with a starry night sky background) + the title page] with SlideShare, which I did. But when I copied it over to the wiki, the photos were missing, the background wasn't there, and the text was all out of alignment. Will not be using this site!
However, this new (well, new to me) language that we're learning is nothing short of amazing, and I WILL become fluent! Oh, and thank you to Eileen Mann for emailing her Webspiration. Now this is one useful tool - I can see it being put to good use both in the library and in the classroom. Anything that encourages collaboration between teachers and librarians is valuable.
One more thought - On Friday, Karen mentioned that as school librarians we need to become partners with the principal. So true! But I'm thinking I better have a great rapport with the computer teacher, as well, since something tells me we'll be working a lot together...

Today's lessons.

I have to admit I'm feeling a little bit like Dorothy right now - Twitter and Wikis and Nings, OH MY! (And she thought she had it bad with the lions and tigers and bears...) I guess because I'm more familiar with Google, all those "tricks" we learned about this morning didn't seem quite as intimidating as this afternoon's tools. The more I'm learning, the more I realize I have yet to learn. I just have to have the same attitude towards all this technology as the kids do, and embrace it. I can't wait to be able to use it all in a library!