Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Next week right here in little ol’ South Carolina, I will be privy to two expert voices!! Welcome to true southern charm and manners Marc Prensky and Ewan McIntosh! Welcome Marc! Coming to Rock Hill (my official hometown) Marc Prensky is giving a keynote at a local conference for this school district. My husband is [...]

Today I did a session at our annual principal’s conference on social networking. Since the vast majority of tools like MySpace, Facebook, and even professional networks like Classroom 2.0 are blocked, I took the stance that we as educators must educate ourselves and our parents, especially in light of how issues stemming directly from student [...]

June 18, 2008 I am scheduled to give a half day a.m. workshop on Web 2.0 tools and I’ve been given some freedom and flexibility on what I do and how I do it.  I am planning to show a few short videos, get a Twitter hello w/ advice, and Skype in a few folks.  [...]

That was the title of my session Friday, March 14, 2008 at our annual SCASL conference. This was the 3rd time I had given this preso, and quite honestly, I am still getting feedback from my attendees. The preso in one of its earliest formats appears on my “preso” page, which is supposed too serve [...]

Today I did a workshop for LMS’s and their principals. The principals were only required to attend for 1 hour, so I divided my material up into 2 parts. Part 1 included some interactivity, and part 2 some humor. These are the cover slides, but the entire preso (for both) can be found on my [...]

Next week, March 12-14, the South Carolina Association of School Librarians will meet up in Columbia, SC for the annual SCASL Conference. This year’s theme, Power Up @ Your Library, is very fitting, as there are some POWERFUL guest speakers, authors, and more coming to rejuvenate me! Annette Lamb, Larry Johnson, Joyce Valenza, Gail Dickinson…I [...]

For the last few years I have asked annually three times during the school year to attend Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Conference. I would ask in August near the beginning, just before Christmas break, and again in March.  Each year I was turned down due to lack of funding.  I didn’t overly complain b/c [...]

My youngest son (17yo) objects heatedly when I talk at the table about friends I’ve connected with. He always asks “real” or “virtual,” as he does not agree that the people I network with using 2.0 tools can be anything more than people somewhere else that you really don’t know. Well I beg to differ, [...]

I’m still reeling with the knowledge that my wonderful advisor from the University of South Carolina, Dr. Donna Shannon, is reading my blog. This just blows me away! Look at the bottom of this email she sent me: W00T! Best of all she wants me to “virtually” join her SLIS 761 class to talk about [...]

Do Ostriches really bury their heads in the sand when frightened? According to “Phrase Finder” this is a myth. Ostriches basically when frightened lay down and flatten their heads along the ground, so as to disguise themselves from possible predators. But this reminds me very much of how our schools and IT deal with content [...]