Final 2.0 thoughts and feedback.

This series of lessons was very convenient, in terms of time and ease. I appreciated being able to leave it for a few months and come back at will. It took me a long time to complete all the lessons, but in the end, I am very excited to be finished.

I think this way of self-directed guided lessons worked very well for me. As I mentioned in the survey, I appreciated the Discovery Exercises and liked how they forced me to delve deeper into the application. My general social networking, 2.0 application behavior is to join, noodle around for a bit and pass it off as some extra thing that I don't have time to develop either for myself or for my school. This experience gave me suggestions for how to delve and some examples for how to use the information as I go through the lessons.

As I mentioned several times before, I would love to see MORE examples of how these applications can be used in the classroom both for information professionals as well as teachers. A breakdown or brainstorm of what kinds of skill development each application would teach would be great. Some applications merely have a cool factor. Others actually teach something. I would love evidence from folks who have tried these things out as to what kind of success or challenges they faced.

Many thanks to those of you who organized all of this! I am grateful for the opportunity and grateful that it was FREE.

#23 week 9... Creative Commons and THE END!

I still struggle with understanding copyright and Creative Commons. I am fully supportive of people sharing their work. I appreciate it. In light of trying to make things like blogs and Power point presentations interesting with photos and video, it is very difficult to understand what images and videos are available for use without breaking these rules. Flickr has some explanation of the concept and also what is available on their site under which license, but understanding the details is still very difficult. For instance, if I want to use a photo on my blog, what sort of use is that? It's not for profit; it's not for commercial use; I am not changing the photo. I just want to use it to make things interesting and more aesthetic. AND there's the whole issue of book cover imagery. Hmmm...

So, from what I can tell, this quote links the 2.0 lessons to it's Creative Commons cousin in another incarnation. "Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License."

#22 week 9

Wow, I had no idea how many famous authors' works were online and in the public domain. What a great resource for students and teachers alike. Especially for some of our students with learning differences, audiobooks and e-books would be a great service.

Personally, I would like to take advantage as well. Perhaps I can get through some of the drier classics if they are read out loud to me. Of course, that might put me to sleep too.

#21 week 9: podcasting, etc.

Oooooh, I am very interested in learning how to make podcasts. Apparently one can make a podcast with video or photographs on Garage Band. A smarmy Apple salesperson came to our tech meeting recently and showed us how. Since then I haven't had much time to experiment with it. Maybe next week.

Other than that, I haven't found any regular podcasts that I absolutely need to follow. I think it is one technology that I haven't added to my information reviewing portfolio. I am sure there are ones out there that I would appreciate, so if anyone has any suggestions. I should browse other blogs.

#20 week 9... finishing the job

So, after quite a long hiatus (part 2 or 3), I am intending to finish this here 2.0 lesson. Before the hiatus, when I was working on this lesson, I found a few hilarious library/librarian related videos that I promptly put on my Ning (which noone looks at, but that's fine). My favorite being the Cookies in the Library Video featuring the one and only Cookie Monster.


Since then, HNHS has developed a youtube presence. Our recruitment video is there as is the video from our 140th celebration walk. I tried to add to our cadre of HNHS videos by putting a student's video about our brand-spanking new school garden on Youtube, but because the file was so big, the server reset before the video was done uploading. This led to much frustration. So far, no gardening video online. I will keep trying.

Today's the day...

For all the events... This morning I had a pretty good workshop on collaboration: Maximizing Your Impact. There were decent lesson plan examples that could help me. An ongoing issue I have though with information literacy attempts is that I haven't found a good curriculum set for high school students. Most of the stuff I encounter is for the younger-aged student (middle-ish) or the college student. Has anyone in high school found a way to not re-invent the wheel?

On another note, I got Francesca Lia Block's autograph this morning on my very own copy of Weetzie Bat. Next up, I am going to hear her speak (or read). Then it's off to hear Greg Mortensen (Three Cups of Tea). Pictures to follow this evening!

Nothing official to do today...

Well, as there was nothing official to do today, I spent the day planning my attack. It took considerable time and I haven't really gotten it worked out yet. There is always too much to do. I am pretty excited for tomorrow. My mom has put me in charge of getting my picture taken with Greg Mortensen and I am stoked to get my picture taken (or maybe just a dorky autograph) with Francesca Lia Block. I am so in love with Weetzie Bat. My favorite book in her series though is definitely Missing Angel Juan. Other highlights for tomorrow are a workshop on information literacy collaboration and if I can squeeze it in a workshop on the Millennials and one on ethnic literature. The title of that one has evolved from Street Lit to Bestsellers of a Different Color. I like the second title better.

Yesterday was a pretty amazing day of presentations from some of the big names in diversity and librarianship. I got to meet my personal library celebrity, Sandra Rios Balderamma. I read many of her publications when I was doing research for school. At one point after I had completed my last culminating paper (Topic #2 2005, about the diversity among library employees), I wrote her an email to tell her how much her writing meant to me in the process of my experience in school. She wrote me back with a gracious reply and thanks. So, it was pretty awesome to meet her to say the least.

The pre-conference was a pretty small group of people, 30 or so. It was a great thing to be able to have conversations with the presenters and with each other about our experiences with diversity work. I shared with the group about my own attempts at diversity work and they were incredibly supportive. It was pretty powerful that the people I look up to professionally applauded my attempts to create a more accepting environment.

So far, so good...

Jeez.... I am here.

Well, I made it via the ATL. So far so independent and fancy free. I checked in and snagged one of three hard-wired internet rooms. (The wifi is acting funky here at the Best Western: Stovall Inn. Beware.) I moseyed to the 7-11 and got myself some cereal and milk for tomorrow morning (mmm... Grape-Nuts), checked in with the local labor dispute folks about the Garden Walk development, and I took some photos for this here blog on the way home. Look, they put our name on the sign...!

I also connected my bloggie and my Twitter to the ALA wiki. It was great fun. I am coming to realize that this blogging stuff takes time to do well even with a snazz-o-rama computer and DSL in the hotel room. I like it. Nerd-out!

Forever off topic!

I hope to finish the 2.0 lessons in the near future. The last few seem to have not gotten done yet now that it is summer. But they will. Soon-ish.

In the meantime, I am going to the ALA conference tomorrow. So, I think I am going to use this here blog to do what lots of other folks will be doing too, blog my experience. Woohoo! Stay tuned.

#19 week 8... Library Thing.

I had had a Library Thing account for a while. As was the case with many of these 2.0 applications, I had created an account but hadn't explored the many features. Thanks to the 23 things group for outlining different ways to noodle around. It has been helpful.

That being said, I looked at the review features, the popularity of the title, and a few other things. I think most helpful for me are the suggested reading lists generated by Library Thing. Because I am always looking for new ways to develop our collections and forever making wish-lists, this feature is especially helpful. I would love to make my catalog more accessible and user-friendly.

#18 week 8... as posted from Zoho Writer!

One of the problems our students have is document compatibility. They create documents at home in some program other than Microsoft Word and get to school only to find that all their hard work turns into symbols, bleeps and bloops. These online word processing programs could go a long way to solve this problem. They also provide an equitable solution to some digital divide issues. Can't afford to buy Word? Then you can use Zoho or Google Docs. One thing that I discovered last week is that one can create a document in Google Docs and save it (download it) in a .doc format. This is pretty amazing. I discovered it as a friend of mine wanted to create a resume and was concerned about file compatibility since she didn't have Word. We noodled with it and made it work. It was a pretty revelatory experience (for one who deals with compatibility issues and teenagers on an almost daily basis). I haven't explored Zoho yet to determine whether or not a similar feature exists or not. We'll see.

#17 week 7... curriculum connections wiki.

Well, no longer can I really complain about the lack of ideas about how to use the 2.0 applications. They are here in the calcurriculum wiki. There are some great ideas. Just reading them gets my brain going and thinking about what we could do and how things could work at our school. The thing that gets in our way is time and willingness to try new things, but that's a different story all together. It's great to have a place to share the ideas. I just looked at the photo editing site, Dumpr... creating coloring sheets/ sketches from photos... how fun!

#16 week 7.... wiki, wiki, wiki...

The variety of wikis are pretty amazing. I really like how some of the libraries on the list are using their wikis for pathfinders and book reviews. I appreciate that wikis are free (for teachers) and also accessible for lots of people. Nothing like information access. And wikis take things to the next level. Not only are they accessible, but they are edit-able. It is great to encourage participation from the community. Another positive feature of wikis is that that they can be whatever you want them to be. And they are flexible in terms of content. You can post pictures, documents, links, etc.

In my school community, the Physiology teacher is using a wiki for collaborative note-taking. I have brainstormed with teachers about how they can use wiki technology in the classroom. So far, no one has jumped on the band wagon. Although for the library group I belong to Bay Area Independent School Libraries (BAISL), we are using a wiki to collaboratively edit position papers that we publish. I could see school libraries using a wiki to post procedures of how to access databases or the catalog. It would be great to have a whole "how-to in the HNHS library" where students could go when they had a question.

#14 week 6... Technorati

Help, help...! I am feeling the information overload. I know I am partially doing it to myself by trying to cram all this SLL 2.0 stuff in by May 1st, but... There is just so much information out there! Technorati tries to organize it and I guess it does a decent job, but golly-gee, there's a crap-load of words and opinions and links and blogs and videos and... 298 blogs featuring the words "school library". 125 posts tagged with "school library". At least one of those posts is about doing unsavory things in the school library. Woohoo!

#15 week 6... the 2.0 debate.

#1... Thanks to the giant pictures accompanying each article, I happened to notice that all of the contributers except one were white men. This is in stark contrast to the populations I serve. It is interesting to think about demographics of information technology... who invents the technologies, promotes them, and profits from them AND who is using them.

#2... If we ARE going to champion 2.0, how can we use existing 2.0 technologies to increase access and to educate? I think some folks are thinking about this, Jessamyn West for one. Jessamyn is a proponent of social networking and libraries for sure.

#3... One of the other issues for me with Library 2.0 is outlined below in a quote from Michael Stephens' article from the OCLC.

"Librarian 2.0 controls technolust This librarian does not buy technology for the sake of technology. “Techno-worship” does not exist here. Without a firm foundation in the mission and goals of the institution, new technologies are not implemented for the sake of coolness and status. Technology is put to the test: Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek?"

I am not sure in our application of 2.0 technology that we are always asking these important questions. I know I have struggled with this in my library.

#4... Related to all of the above issues, in our schools as librarians, how are we using these things right now? I struggle with a staff that is partially technophobic (some folks) and incredibly busy (read as: also not interested in changing their curriculum to incorporate 2.0). These issues are understandable, but from my perspective unacceptable. Administration is supportive of a push to increase use of technology in the classroom, but it all takes time to implement. And in the case of the techno-phobes and other folks that are willing but perhaps not as tech-savvy, it takes time. For me, I click-ity click and I am there. I have created my profile on twitter, I have created a Ning for the library, but for others, there is a much more severe learning curve. It is easy to forget that and become impatient.

#5... Implications and other things to consider... already in my experience with attempting to incorporate 2.0 stuff into my library, I have run into problems with privacy. My Ning site is completely private thanks to the math teacher who pointed out that strangers, even when they could just see the main page of the site, had access to students' names and the location of the school. Oops, I didn't think about that. Despite my ability to jive with these applications, there are many, many factors that I haven't thought about yet. Hence, it is incredibly useful to have community discussions about it. Whether that is within the library community or the school community or both.

I reckon that this post has turned into a not so organized rambling mess, but there is a lot to think about as I (we) learn about this stuff. I think I might have contradicted myself even, but that's ok with me. I think the other main point is that it's hard. I struggle and the more discussions and sharing I have with other librarians that are doing the same, the better.

P.S. I have a myspace, a Ning, a blog, and a Twitter account for my library... no one looks at any of them or reads any of it.... That perhaps is my fault for not marketing it well enough or using these tools the few times I do actually get my hands on some direct instruction time. But also the students just don't really care about the school library. There are so many other, more interesting things (to them) that compete for their time and energy. These applications don't serve the needs of my students or my school community right now. That is frustrating but true.

Off topic: Plagiarism and Lupe Fiasco

For any of you (I suspect all of you) who deal with plagiarism in your lives, here is an incredible post from an education blogger. She tells a story that is not uncommon in my experience and probably yours too about a poem plagiarized from a popular song. See the posting here.

It makes me think. How often do we see that popular culture has an incredibly powerful effect on our students? All the time. It speaks to kids in a way that we don't and probably can't. It captures something of their experience that we don't get. How do we or how can we harness that power to use in conjunction with educating... whether about plagiarism or otherwise?

So, I guess I am asking... how do YOU use pop culture to educate, to inspire, and/or to reach the previously unreachable student?

Off topic: Animoto

Animoto is very cool, you can produce your own 30 second videos set to music by simply uploading photos. The 30 second videos are free, but there is also an option for full-length videos if you pay the big bucks ($3 per video or $30 for an unlimited year of video making). There are a couple of down sides... you can't edit your video once it's made without starting the process over again and waiting for the photos to upload (although an edit feature may be available with the paid service)... the video production and effects are not controllable so you have to kind of guess which photo will looks best at a certain point in the video sequence.... also, it can take a while for the video to get made (probably less time if your photo file sizes are smaller... I didn't bother to change mine the first time). That is what I know about it!

#13 week 6... del.icio.us and such.

I have a personal del.icio.us site. I have a professional one for work. My personal one is such a mess that I would like to start over. It is really hard to organize bookmarks well without simply having lists of lists. I am not sure that this idea of tagging works particularly well to sift out unnecessary stuff either. One has to be decent at tagging for it to really be effective. and perhaps even to have designed a system beforehand. I should look at other folks' sites to see how effective their set-up is.

For me, I initially created my personal account so I could save bookmarks from several places... home, work, work computers #1, #2, and #3, etc... Since then, two-ish years ago, I haven't really used it again. In my professional account, I have kept things pretty simple. There are only links to pathfinders I have made and a couple sites that I just found through the SLL site. I am working on how to keep it organized. I really think it takes a lot of practice to get good at the organization and until I get good , the KISS (keep it simple stupid) solution is the best.

Again, a plea... What are you doing with del.icio.us in your school library? How do you use it with teachers and students? Also, in the list of links to Discovery Resources, it would be helpful to see some links to school library del.icio.us sites! I linked mine above.

#12 week 5... Roll-yo

It was more helpful to me to go check out what other folks said about Roll-yo. I noodled around with it for a little while, but it seemed to be another piece of the 2.0 puzzle that created more work for us librarians. It does seem like an effective way to create very specific ways to search for specific things. Additionally, it could be an organizational feature for library-recommended sites in general. But how does this differ from delicious? I know it's a different way to organize, but I am not sure if it would be redundant with all these other wonderful applications. I guess one just has to decide which works better for the community.

#11 week 5: Ning, etc.

Web 2.0 is fun... Flickr, Ning, Pandora, Twitter, Craigslist, etc... I need more practical ideas about how to incorporate into library instruction. How are people using them? I can see uses. I have a Ning for my library. I would link it, but it's protected for the sake of the students' presence on the web. I'll put up a screenshot. On my Ning, I have RSS feeds and videos and a photo slide show and discussion questions. I got some initial activity when I first created it and now, not so much.

I would love to create an assignment in collaboration with English classes that required students to post reviews. This would be in conjunction with a lesson in how to write book reviews, etc. It is difficult though to create stand-alone applications that students will use or check out of their own accord. Out comes the marketing skills, but it is sometimes overwhelming to communicate (much less implement) all the great ideas that come with all the new technology. Aaaah, overwhelming at times.

Off topic: Goodreads

my 'read' shelf:

Ok, if you all don't know about Goodreads, you should. It is the most fabulous social networking site about books. It has widgets to add to Facebook or to your blog. It has features for making to-read lists, favorites lists, any kind of list you can imagine. Plus you can write or read reviews... and oh yeah, if you are a writer, you can self-publish there too. I can't say enough good things about it. I have included a widget that shows my to-read bookshelf in my right column under the "about me" information. There have been great discussions started on Goodreads.

There are also some students on Goodreads. It is a way for them to marry their online selves with their book-reading selves. Gotta love it.

#10 week 5: more fun with images!

Hooray for image generators! A student actually helped me find one to use... I used Lunapic. It was fun. I really like noodling around with this stuff.

For this I one used ImageChef.

#9 week 4: Blogpulse

OMG... Blog Pulse is very cool. It's another way to stalk people and things online. How exciting! I stalked myself, nothing. I stalked my school Holy Names High School and got one hit, which was good to see. Then I stalked Jessamyn West of librarian.net fame and got 303 hits... she's popular. (Do you like how I used OMG in a blog posting... the students use it in everyday speech. Stellar!)

#8 week 4: RSS and access

Today's lesson is all about RSS feeds. I have added a couple to my iGoogle page. This seems to be a better access point for me than Google Reader. I like the fact that the iGoogle page can be re-arranged and also that it features access to many different things, comics, gmail, google talk, date, time, weather, news, games... Google Reader represents one more place to look for information updates. I think Reader is effective for some folks who check out many sources of information and many blogs on a relatively regular basis. For me, there are only a few that I keep up with and there are other solutions I have found to be more accessible to me.

I have added an RSS feed to my library website from the SFGate, local news. I haven't used this with a class yet, but I came really close to convincing a teacher to letting me teach students how to create one for specific research projects. By creating a specific Google New search and adding that RSS to one's iGoogle page or to a email alert, students can get daily or weekly news updates on a research topic for example, pending legislation or court cases for a Government class.

#6 week 3... flickr fun.

Look what I can do! Woohoo! I edited this photo and added that clever thought bubble. This would be a good thing for adding cute pictures to a webpage or even to a Powerpoint.

... and this too! Just for fun....
I appreciate the curriculum suggestions section of the 2.0 blog. Overall, ideas for how librarians (or teachers) could incorporate each of these applications into the curriculum are very helpful. For me, the important part of Web 2.0 is learning how to use the applications in a teaching setting.

#5 week 3: flickr and libraries...

library
Originally uploaded by ~~ zorro ~~

So, as I am completing my "Discovery Exercise" I come along this photo. To me, it is interesting aesthetically and I am curious that the library is in London, where I spent a semester as an undergrad. By clicking on the picture, I learned about the techniques used to create the vibrant color in the photo, but also by reading the comments, I learned of the group "Show us your Library 2.0" and joined it... I love the noodling! Noodling that leads to new discoveries of new entities (the library in South London) and new communities (the flickr group) is productive noodling indeed.

Welcome to me...2.0!

Hello to all you webbies out there. This is my second attempt at the School Library Learning 2.0. I registered before and couldn't find the time to make it all happen. Since the first round, I have done some nifty 2.0 things for my library with Pro Snapz and Ning.com... among other things. I think this time I'll make it through. Bring it on.