This media guru always knows exactly what to say to make me feel I am right there with her! The media guru of the century, Joyce Valenza, admittedly calls herself a 1.8 person, not quite 2.0. She considers herself still in beta, but proclaims to all that it is okay to still be in beta. We are, after all, lifelong learners!
Valenza starts with a a pix of the soldiers from the story Stone Soup. Many want to believe they scammed the village, but in reality, if looked at a different way, they were instead an inspiration for change and a catalyst for collaboration in that village.
With the increase in Web 2.o tools, our students are living in a very rich media world. As literacy teacher librarians, we should be embracing these tools to teach responsible use. We can model the use of these tools as well through our instructional practices. An IDEAL way to model is to change the way we do pathfinders, and instead of publishing static webpages, make wiki pathfinders! Of course this is just one way, but what a way to jump right in!
Joyce Valenza created a wiki for this presentation that can be easily accessed, and she welcomes its use for us to teach our faculty and staff, and yes, even students. There are some GREAT examples of end products of project based learning here as well, and a ton of ideas for us to start small (while we are still in beta) and grow to become authentic 2.0 users and contributors.
Remember the intro with the analogy of the soldiers and their stone soup? We as professional teacher librarians can be the soldiers of Web 2.0. We can model the use of web 2.0 tools in our own instructional practice, and help teachers integrate their use as well through solid collaboration. I left this session so inspired! Check out her avatar–I’ve got to find where this was made so I can make my own too!
I went to a session at NECC by Doug Johnson called “Classrooms and Libraries for the Net Gen” that I really enjoyed. I read Doug’s blog, and so a lot of this content he had shared previously in his Blue Skunk Blog or other writings. But he is a captivating speaker too, and since he promotes literacy and libraries, I support him and attend whatever he is involved in!
Here is the blogged content from another attendee:
The session focused on various characteristics of the Net Gen and the consequences of those for schools. Here are some observations I took away from the session:
- Doug reeled off a long list of statistics of how the Net Gen is different from boomers or even Gen X. This made me feel old, but also to be happy to be living in a time of so much excitement, energy, and positive change.
- Students in the Net Gen WANT TO LEARN. They just may want to learn different content and with different methods than schools traditionally offer.
- It was suggested that the Dewey Decimal system is losing relevance. (This inspired defensive indignation in the crowd of mostly library media specialists in the audience.) Doug talked about user/student-generated tags as a more relevant system of organization. This is definitely a trend at NECC this year. Are organizations beginning to tag analog content like library books?
- Like others here, Doug encouraged us to be more flexible in allowing students to bring electronic devices, like iPods, handhelds, and even cell phones, to school. Again this is a theme here this year. Doug suggested including students on school and district planning committees to help administration understand the new paradigms of learning of this generation.
- On the subject of filtering, Doug says, “Safety comes from education, not blocking.” Doug’s site and handouts give some thoughtful ideas for how his district is handling these issues.
- Physical place is important. Schools need to be more comfortable and even fun environments. It strikes me that this could be done for little or no cost. I was at a university earlier this week that has done a lot of things like adding nicer student spaces, etc. while simultaneously generating revenue for the school. An associate dean there pointed out to me a Starbucks in the library and said that, while students love it, the librarians were not so happy with it.
- Librarians have a central role to play in information literacy and learning in the future.
See his web page for more thought-provoking details.
Labels: informtion literacy, libraries, n07s582, necc, necc2007, tagging
posted by Karen Fasimpaur at 8:14 AM
I did attend Edublogger Con in Atlanta
July 5, 2007
This event took place Saturday, June 23, 2007 in Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center. I arrived a wee bit late–9:30 or so, and most had been there since 8:00 that morning. This room was stocked slam full of most of blogs subscribed in my Bloglines account. To say that I was intimidated was an understatement! The day was broken into segments that lasted roughly a hour, and then a half hour set aside for “further conversations!” This was ideal because many seemed to desire and need to discuss topics of interst further with each session. I did find myself with Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson, and even David Warlick frequently during the day. I guess that means I have some of the same interests. The most dominant thread was that Web 2.0 tools are not going away, and that educators need to re-examine the pedagogy of teaching so that it includes these tools. The overwhelming agreement among everyone surrounded the idea that students need to be allowed to use web 2.0 tools, as these tools give students voice. So what does 2.0 look like? Here’s a laundry list compiled by David Warlick:
The school
- Walls are adaptively transparent, enabling real connections with all education institutions, local community, and any and all other potential resources.
- Leaders who are visionary, value collaboration, enterprising, and who “get it”
- Flexibly structured and valuing the time that teachers need to constantly retool their classrooms
- Shared vision and mission but respects risk taking
The classroom
- Walls are adaptively transparent, serving as a window on the world
- Life long learning is what happens here — new conversations that are rich, multi-directional, and respectful
- The classroom includes technology that facilitates and provokes rich, multi-directional, and respectful conversations.
- More happening in the Long Tail
The Learner
- independent
- playful
- adaptive
- resourceful
- self-directed
- sense of wonderment
- unrestricted
- international/global
- creative/inventive
- connected
- confident
- self-aware
- able to teach themselves
- respectful
Assessment
- Are we testing the right things? Should we be rethinking curriculum first, invent ways to teach it (facilitate its learning), and then figure out how to assess it.
