The OLD Top Shelf

Wow – it’s been a while since I posted here. Things are really busy getting ready for TLA and the Strong Libraries Strong Scores conference, but that’s a topic for another day.

I have several blog postings, annoucements and resources that I’ve been wanting to share, so here goes:

In his blog 2¢ worth, David Warlick writes about 12 steps (a 12-step program?) we can take to become educators who are literate in the skills needed for the 21st century. I found it very interesting that several of his steps advocated the use of the web 2.0 tools that we used in our Learning Through Play program.

The Cool Cat Teacher summarizes a great podcast in her post, Envisioning the Future of Libraries, and posts a link to the original audio file. Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza were the presenters. One of the most interesting things they discussed was the idea of the “invisible collection” which is the same idea we were all starting to kick around at our last librarians’ staff development. With the advent of this invisible collection, we are going to have to revamp our idea of what a “balanced” collection really is – especially at the secondary level. Give this podcast a listen! (BTW, Joyce Valenza will be presenting two programs at the TLA conference – you should try to go to at least one of them!)

Another post from 2¢ worth that I found fascinating is one in which David Warlick reports on a conference session he attended that was led by brain research guru, Patricia Wolfe. Pat points out that good teachers often do things intuitively without knowing why. While that’s great for the intuitive teacher’s students, the students in the non-intuitive teacher’s classroom don’t get the same level of instruction. Educators must start being aware of the educational research that is being done and using the findings to improve their teaching. In other words, teachers should know and be able to tell someone else why they are use the strategies they do. (Sounds like a TEKS student expectation, huh?)

Apparently we won’t have to worry anymore about whether we should still be ordering encyclopedias in print and feeling guilty when we find other ways to spend our money. The Blue Skunk Blog by Doug Johnson tells us that the New York Times has declared the traditional multi-volume encyclopedia to be the first casualty in the world of print. Read Doug’s post here.

Here’s another feed for your RSS reader: AASL has a new blog! The AASLBlog is intended to be a source of general AASL news, as well as a forum for important discussion on issues and concerns of school library media specialists. Recent topics include, for example, copyright issues and parent involvement in school library media program advocacy. Voice your concerns, share your experiences, and be a part of the broader AASL community on the new AASL blog! Visit the blog (and comment) at http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/.

April is School Library Media Month. Celebrate by giving your teachers a little “thank you” from the library, having a contest for students or hosting a special event. For other ideas, see the page on the AASL web site.

Julie Andrews, Academy Award recipient and honorary chair of National Library Week (April 13-19, 2008), shares her view on the value of libraries in a video available on YouTube. Library media specialists are encouraged to use the video on Web sites and blogs to promote National Library Week. Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUD9vCeXu0

Now that I’ve shared these little items with you, I can go home and watch American Idol with a clear conscience!

I already have many library and technology blogs that I read as I mentioned in my last post. Some of my favorites are:

Doug Johnson’s BlueSkunk Blog
Diane Chen’s Deep Thinking
David Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth

One I just discovered during this exploration time was School Library Blogs on Suprglu. From the About section:

A selection of blogs by and for school librarians as noted on LM_NET and other sources. This list was compiled by Christopher Harris from Infomancy as a way to showcase school librarians who are blogging. An additional selection of more general education and instructional technology blogs can be found at http://schoolblogs.suprglu.com.As for the search tools, Technorati was the one I had heard the most about, even though I had never really used it before. It seemed to work pretty well, but I’m still confused about how a site earns its “authority” rating. I’m sure if I took time to go into the Help and read, it would tell me, though.

Feedster was a little confusing to me; Google Blog Search seemed pretty thorough. I loved Blog Pulse and how you could track conversations.

One new app that I learned about in my blog reading for this exercise is Twitter, which is a web site where you post what you are doing at any particular time. All of the bloggers that attended NECC came back all a-twitter about it. (Pardon the pun – couldn’t help it…)
I’m not really sure why, although David Warlick did have some neat application ideas for it. His suggestion was that students could read silently for 15 minutes, then post something to Twitter about where they are in their reading at that particular moment in time. Of course, others can see and respond to the posts since this IS another social networking site. Anyway, time will tell if it will have any use in the classroom or not.

That’s it for now. I’ve spent way too much time “playing” this week!

I’m ahead on thing #8 because with Bloglines I’ve already been there and done that! I created a Bloglines account a couple of years ago and I try to read library and technology blogs on a somewhat regular basis. Recently I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader – it works well also and allows you to “star” blog posts that you want to save and go back to later.

In my experience, blogs are becoming the new place to go for “professional” reading. Instead of having to wait for the next School Library Journal or other professional journal to be delivered to your mailbox, you can find out what the movers and shakers in the profession are thinking about on a daily basis. I’m always amazed at the quality of thought put into these blog posts.

Of course, there are also”fun” blogs I like to keep up with – and these folks are just as passionate as the professional bloggers!- like Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch, the Unclutterer, and Stage Notes (Broadway theater blog.).

As for sharing blogs, Google Reader does not allow you to share your blogroll. but it does give you a public page on which to share individual items. Here’s mine:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/16266143818895262220

Chris Harris’ Infomancy blog details a successful reading project that took place in NY this year. The project, a brainchild of Chris and the Special Education Training and Resource Center coordinator, takes the social aspect of reading and book clubs and moves it into the realm of web 2.0. Chris writes:

The idea was simple, re-introduce reading to students as a social activity by providing them an online space where they could review books and share their thoughts with teachers and peers. To accomplish this, we built a book review site using the powerful open source content management system, Drupal. There was already a book review module available, and with a bit of tweaking we had something that would work. The focus would be on student summaries and reviews, with additional opportunities to tag and rate the books using a five-star system. The results were simply astounding.

Read more…
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Wes Fryer posted this on his blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity:

The Young Adult Library Service Association officially went on MySpace a few weeks ago! (www.myspace.com/yalsa) According to their current page:

YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) is the fastest growing division of the American Library Association. Our mission is: “to advocate, promote and strengthen service to young adults as part of the continuum of total library service, and to support those who provide service to this population.”

In addition to their website and Myspace page, YALSA has a Flickr site, a blog, podcasts, and del.icio.us links.

That’s a forward looking and acting organization for you! Let’s hear it for librarians on the cutting edge of communication technologies! Is your local library on MySpace?! You might be surprised. A search on MySpace tonight for “library” turns out over 200,000 results!