Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Week 7 Thing 16 and 17

My past experience with wikis has only been through Wikipedia. Which I have discouraged teachers and students from accessing as a valid reference tool as it has no guarantee of authority. Until participating in Library 2.0 I had no idea that wikis were a genre of their own with multiple applications. I am very surprised by the diversity of uses for wikis. I enjoyed checking out other uses for a wiki. "Wikis in Plain English" @ teachertube.com and the "Library Success: A best practices wiki" The Book Lovers wiki created by the Princeton Public Library.is great and it is something that a class/teacher/library could easily undertake.

Our senior English program is undergoing a complete overhaul; a new teacher and a new focus. I have already collaborated with the incoming teacher about publishing a senior class magazine but now I am taking to her the idea of a magazine wiki. The online format would allow for ease in composition, editing and publishing. An online format would virtually eliminate publication costs as each student can print their own copy. This is the idea that I added to the California Curriculum Connections wiki - idea #26.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Week 6 Thing 13, 14 and 15

I immediately thought of several people who should take advantage of Del.icio.us. Our District Librarian most definitely needs to become acquainted with Del.icio.us. He is organizationally challenged and needs any help he can get! My daughter is currently enrolled in two masters program and Del.icio.us would be a great asset to help keep her many projects organized. Personally, I like the advantage of accessing my bookmarks from anywhere. I had several occasions that this would have been useful while on vacation.



I didn't discover anything surprising or interesting during my exploration of Technorati's popular blogs, searches and tags. These 'most popular' were typically pop culture searches. Personally, I am not an avid follower of pop culture so I did not find this exploration interesting or appealing. The advantages/disadvantages of tagging depends on the purpose for the tagging. I see tagging as a tool whose greatest value is determined by individual users. It is probably most beneficial to that user as a personal bookmarking system.


I agree with Michael Stephens (Into a new world of librarianship) point that "Librarian 2.0, then, is the 'strategy guide' for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content." Students should have access to a wide range of literature and research materials. We should also provide them with access to a wide range of tools that allow them to tailor this information to suit their needs. As an educator, I teach my students how to gain access to the information they need. I also want to teach my students how to manipulate this information using the tools, which are so common within our culture, to serve their needs. In Rick Anderson's Away from the "icebergs" he addresses the issue of our insufficiently staffed libraries. I couldn't agree with him more though I am sure this is a little bit like 'preaching to the choir' but the longer and louder we sermonize . . . Anderson also references the patron-to-librarian ratio at the University of Nevada, Reno. I don't want to make any implication that high schools and universities are in any way comparable but I would love to have a 680 to 1 ratio. I'd be in hog heaven. Currently, mine is more than twice that. I find reading the blogs, articles, or soap-box sermons of my library peers very enlightening. Some of my best ideas are a result of these readings. My commitment to Library 2.0 will start with turning my Pathfinders into wikis, creating a podcast of our library orientation and starting a book(s) discussion blog(s). I also need to put together a presentation for my teachers about Library 2.0 and what they can incorporate into their curriculum. I better get busy!

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm