"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power.

... You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." - Jesse Owens


Wikis! "At last we visit a 2.0 tool that I know about," said she so innocently. However, as you read on, you will see that this week I have gained even further insights into wikis and the ways they may be used in education or for social purposes. Wikis have many possiblities - you can go in any direction with them - and as fast or as slow as you want! There is always some new sight to discover.

Several weeks back I decided to create a wiki about Maus as a visual presentation for my graphic novel course. Since we hadn’t explored wikis yet, I readthe chapter on wikis in Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms and decided upon his recommendation of Wikispaces for educators. After watching The Commoncraft Show’s Wikis in Plain English, exploring examples of wikis, completing the Wikispaces tutorials and doing a little planning on paper, I was ready to build my wiki.

Although I was very nervous to start, I found the wiki surprisingly easy to create and I was soon able to use a logo, embed videos, add clipart, establish links, change fonts, and play with background colours. I soon felt quite comfortable with Wikispaces and its features and loved the freedom to have some artistic input into its design. This is not to say that I didn’t run into snags along the way. One problem that took me hours to try and fix was the correct order of the pages on my menu bar. Although I couldn’t find any assistance from the help section or accompanying help questions, I’ve since learned that one can rename page titles using A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 as a preface to achieve the desired order. I was very pleased with the end results and decided that a wiki is great way to share information with other group members, especially when video, audio or images are part of the format.

I hope you will find time to visit Maus for a quick snoop at my efforts. You may notice that the comments pages on my Maus wiki weren’t accessed as my classmates had to respond on the Web CT site instead, so this wiki didn’t develop into a true Read/Write experience with everyone collaborating. I am presently creating a second wiki using PBWiki with two classmates as a presentation for our curriculum class on the Teacher as a Change Agent will use a more collaborative approach both in its design and function. One gal set up the wiki, and after some initial hassle getting started (my account password kept going to my School Board’s spam folder), we were up and running. The three of us have been able to add content, edit and create our presentation long distance, an interesting alternative to emailing or calling back and forth. Each edit is saved and reported in an email to group members (a strikeout format is used) so other members can easily see what has been changed, a feature I love! I have found that PBWiki is also very user-friendly and our only concern is that we are having some glitches with spacing between notes being saved properly. When the presentation is complete, we will give full access to the wiki so that comments may be collected and the collaborative dimension of wikis may be utilized. I am also creating another wiki for my graphics novels course on Watchmen, partly so I can revisit wiki creation and strengthen my skills.

Just to further expound on the Read/Write potential of wikis, it is interesting that Richardson encourages teachers to teach Wikipedia to students and quotes Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) as calling “Wikipedia one of the world’s most accurate encyclopedias”. This is certainly the opposite of what I had been taught in Internet workshops. Last year I also remember reading a newspaper article where the founder of Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham, questioned authority as he mentioned that he found errors in his own Wikipedia biography. I have always cautioned my high school students against relying solely on Wikipedia and encouraged them to verify its comments with additional sources. Since Richardson raves about this online encyclopedia, I have felt more confident using it for research answers. I am finding it to be a quick useful reference and consults with other sources have proven its information accurate (so far). I have definitely changed my “snobbish” attitude towards Wikipedia, and am now using it on a daily basis.

In this week’s Trailfire I explored every listing, wanting to learn as much as I could about the potentials of wikis. I love the useful bank of Web 2.0 tools which Tracy Poelzer has created at Wonderful Web 2.0. I decided to explore one of her links to WetPaint, a wiki program which looks quite easy to use. I liked the little tutorial created my Lee Lefever ( I recognize his voice now) which illustrates how a wiki can also be used as a social application to bring together people with similar interests as a “a potluck dinner on the web”. Wikis are great ways to create albums, plan events, and celebrate key family moments with relatives near and far.

Joyce Valenza’sTeacherlibrarian wiki is wikis within wikis and a very comprehensive resource. I followed the links to the Teach Library which was an example of how a wiki may be used as a way of collecting and storing resources (such as lesson plans) which could be added to by others. This illustrated how a well-constructed wiki can make a teacher librarian’s life so much easier by use a completed lesson or adapting it to fit needs. It occurred to me that I could even post my Maus wiki here. After I make a few changes, I think I'll do this.

Web Tools4U2Use (which I visited last week during an exploration of virtual schools) also posted an impressive list of wiki sites to explore. As we explore each Web 2.0 tool, I find their corresponding lists of uses especially useful. Reading through the wiki uses, I found a few ideas which I could easily see myself using such as creating a library media website, publishing slideshows, organizing subject-based resources, providing a forum for book reviews, promoting new books, creating pathfinders, creating temporary class collaborative projects or using a wiki as a launch for library slideshows, presentations and links used with information literacy instruction.

In A Wiki Gives a Worthy Book New Life Amy Bowllan wonders why people don’t use wikis to share lessons online. Although I agree with her concept of using a wiki to collect lesson plans, I was not impressed by her example. The wiki she had created to accompany a novel study came across like a worksheet, just in a different format with pictures and some vocabulary links. When I explored the site I couldn’t see any collaboration by students, a big component that helps a wiki achieve its fullest potential.

It’s hard to remember what was on the Trailfire and what wasn’t because I happily meandered off the path a number of times. One little serendipitous jewel I found was
Spice it up a notch with Nutmeg! a book award program from Connecticut. Our District Teacher librarian is trying to talk me into setting up a site like this for our Langley Book of the Year elementary school book promotion program (LBOY). We’ve been considering using a blog format but I rather prefer the idea where students may be added to the wiki (through email confirmation) and can work on the LBOY wiki site as a collaborative project adding opinions, ideas, pictures - anything related to the books. If I created it as a blog, the project would be more teacher-centered and getting the students involved in a wiki would give them greater ownership in the project as well as help them to develop their facility with Web 2.0 tools and learn wiki etiquette. I forwarded our District Teacher librarian a copy of the wiki and we may work to create one together - with me teaching her how!

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog (Flat classroom project) is a very impressive site. Vicki Davis’ good organizational suggestion of putting assignments in same place every time on an organizational wiki – like parking the car in a garage - make sense. In her article How I Use Wikis, Vicki says she places all her classroom work into wikis. I especially liked how she has the students create collaborative notes and I can see that this would be especially useful for students who needed extra support or have forgotten work at school and can access this schoolwork from home. Although I feel fairly confident about creating wikis and now have ideas on their uses, the logistics of getting teachers and students involved was a concern to me. Tom Harrison (Part 1) asked this very question and Vicki nicely answered him. Her practical advice is to start small and simple with one class and then to use your ID to set up for students en masse (visiting Wikispaces tells you how to do this). In Part 2 of this conversation Vicki talks about setting up a wiki with students and letting the students have “wiki wars” with straight text no pictures where they learn to remove and insert for practice. I could just see this happening! Vicki really knows all about her subject because this would allow the students to explore random deleting firsthand and clearly illustrate the need for wiki etiquette where you don’t remove things deliberately.

In Part 3 Tom talks to Vicki about how he feels so far behind the curve and overwhelmed by the technology and pace of change. This is very much the way I have been feeling throughout the course, for even when I master one new Web 2.0 skill, there are so many different aspects to its applications or different versions to explore which offer additional features. Vicki, a true technology mentor, reassures him (and me) that “the teachers who are stretching and evolving, changing and improving are the WINNERS!” “We're blazing the trails that other teachers will follow later on.” I can certainly see myself blazing trails in the library with wikis!

To truly enjoy running, you must test yourself. If you win, fine. If you lose, this gives you the incentive to keep trying.

...you have to train a bit harder, and you have to come back again and again. That is the joy. - Ron Clarke

I recently entered a half marathon race (that's 13.1 miles or 21 km) and had the amazing satisfaction of setting a personal best of 1:54 and coming second in my age category (don't ask which one).

I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice adding a photo to my Blog because it's been a while since I've tried this. I'm finding with technology that the more times I revisit something, the easier and easier it becomes to complete the task. It also frees you up to explore the other options and features of the 2.0 tool you are trying to master.

The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank." - Dr. George Sheehan

Frankly, when I embarked on this inquiry project, I wasn’t really sure what the difference was between a virtual school library and a database collection. Wikipedia's entry didn't offer much enlightenment only defining virtual schools as “an institution that teaches courses entirely or primarily through online methods”. Wikipedia did, however, provide a link to a list of virtual schools. Canada has five; with four in Ontario and the Abbotsford Virtual School in nearby Abbotsford, BC. I visited the school's website to learn more about the organization of a virtual school and try to find out what their library was like without success, so I emailed some questions to their vice-principal, Mary Strobe. She reported that they have no centralized virtual school library but do have plans to set one up in the future. Meanwhile coursework and necessary online resources are made available on a course-by-course basis. Strobe writes that they have “just signed a district-wide licensing agreement with EBSCO Host and access to that service will be our first step in providing school-wide access to library and research resources.” So now I know that you can have a virtual school without a virtual school library.

Still searching for virtual school libraries, I came across a research proposal by Jane Scharankov which explained that the webpage presence of school libraries may be defined as virtual school libraries. This brief proposal included a list of evaluation criteria to use in examining school library websites - a beginning reference point for my investigations. In my search for other criterion sheets I found What Should Be on a School Library Web Page By Donna Baumbach, Sally Brewer, and Matt Renfroe. This article was manna from heaven! It included an introduction, an explanation on what essential elements are needed in an effective school library web page such as:

• Online catalogs for not only your school library but also other libraries your students might use
• Reference resources and assistance
• Curriculum connections
• Literacy connections
• General information about your library

This article included a checklist page for general information, links, announcements and miscellaneous items plus references and a list of useful web sites for planning and maintaining School Library web pages. Practical planning tools, design tips, use of blogs, and a link to Kathy Schrock’s useful guide Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: How to Tell the Good Web Sites from the Bad were all included.

Armed with this new knowledge and criterion about virtual school libraries it was time to explore and evaluate a number of BC secondary school libraries. Sadly most fell short of the mark. In Surrey, I discovered that large Queen Elizabeth Secondary’s library web page could only be accessed from inside the school and that Earl Marriott Secondary shows only the library staff's names with databases available only from inside the school. Vancouver’s large John Oliver Secondary sports a long list of resources under sorted under headings like: Biography, Community Resources, Atlases and Maps, News Index, Encyclopedias. Unfortunately none of these are hyper-linked so it isn’t clear how a student is supposed to connect to them. Burnaby’s Alpha Secondary has an extensive list of subject links on its webpage and has catalogue access. It does not offer much in the way of support to students. Several of the topic bars are not constructed and the parent page about literacy contains a spelling error. Oops! I would say that the best (no pun intended) BC school library website I examined was at Dr. Charles Best Secondary. Teacher librarian Judith Comfort has done an amazing job (does she sleep?) of gathering resources to help students such as her Authority tool guide, Citation Machine link and links to teacher assignments (no more “I left it in my locker!”).

Next I found an amazing link to a webquest/slideshow created by Joyce Valenza called Open the Door, Let ‘Em In: Virtual School Libraries. For years I have been thinking about creating a library web presence and once I moved to a secondary school library I realized an even greater need for such an online presence. I have been collecting ideas, website links and firing them into a file waiting for the day when I would be technologically adept enough to created and maintain a website. It has been on my major “to do list” for some time now. I went through Valenza’s slideshow (220 frames long) which deals with all the various elements which could be featured in a virtual school library. I began to see that it was just as well that I hadn’t started on my project because Valenza brought a whole different flavour to the approach of creating a school virtual library site. She emphasized the involvement of the students and encouraged tapping into the 2.0 tools of the Read/Write web. Two of her comments which extended my critical thinking about this issue of virtual library development were:

“Students who collaborate and participate in building spaces, both physical and virtual, are likely to be more comfortable living in them” (Slide 13)
“How do libraries and librarians remain relevant to learners who work independently?" (Slide 23)

I know that this week's task was to explore virtual school libraries to see the potential of using Web 2.0 tools, and I can now really appreciate the relevancy of this after viewing Valenza’s slideshow. I am now quite excited about the prospect of creating a webpage presence for my own secondary school library. I am hoping that in our next course in January there may be an opportunity to design something practical like this to incorporate all our learning and exploring. I can see the importance of involving students in a “if they help you build it, they will come” approach in order to maximize its effectiveness. The library, with its virtual presence, provides many extended opportunities to enhance and promote student learning.
Valenza’s slideshow was am amazing collection of examples – a best of the best – taken from virtual school libraries across Canada and the US (and Charles Best is included several times). Teacher librarians had included an impressive array of tools in a one-stop-shopping style, readily available on their web pages for student use. It was clear to see that the library web page may be used to support curriculum, subject research, recreational reading and staff needs and may also be developed into a teaching tool with the addition of video tutorials and links to manuals and guides. Long after the lights have been turned off and the teacher librarian has left for the day, the students are able to continue using the library resources, through data base access, connections to the OPAC and a myriad of helpful tools available to help them complete their assignments.


Some inspiring ideas taken from Valenza’s collection of school library websites: Our Library’s Del.icio.us, pie graphs of circulation stats, policies on plagiarism, notetaking forms, guides for report and essay writing, Pathfinders for library research assignments, schedules, calendars, Pageflakes or iGoogle mainframes, database links, eBooks, audiobooks, online encyclopedias, reference, video tutorials, music, free open source and web-based apps, citation tools with examples, orientation videos, online research help guides and various ways of “using technology to promote books – not replace them”. Valenza’s site also showcases opportunities for additional student collaboration such as reading blogs, placing holds for resources, polls, suggestions for purchase/wish lists, student book reviews either in written, video or podcast form, celebrating student work (pottery was showcased with photos), displaying Lounge Lizard of the Week (students who frequent the library), showcasing student activities, research projects, clubs, social responsibility and other related library activities. I have bookmarked Valenza’s slideshow and will definitely be revisiting it as well as the Baumbach article when I am ready to begin seriously designing my own website. I hope to one day live up to Valenza’s closing remarks about the service teacher librarians should provide: “Be accused of aggressive helpfulness.”

I decided to return to the Dr. Charles Best School Library website to check it for examples of student input or collaboration. In the section called “Read”, I couldn’t find any student-generated input into this library webpage. There is an invitation to write reviews but no student examples were posted. The blog listings are also simply connections to author maintained blogs and the “Send us a note” link did not work. Exploring ways to make this virtual library site more student-centered would be a suggestion for future development.

In No Librarians Left Behind: Preparing for Next-Generation Libraries Stephen Abram writes of the many virtual opportunities for libraries of the future. Collaborative Digital Reference Services such as live-chat homework help, web-based Q & As, virtual reference desk and book-related tools such as eBook management systems which can be integrated with OPACs or Cliff’s Notes which may be purchased by schools and delivered by email. Steve believes that “the gauntlet has been thrown down for librarianship.” He encourages us to "use the technology, use our professional skills, learn from others, and we will be so stupendously successful that the world will beat a path to our (virtual) door!”

P.S. I'd like to mention that this week I challenged myself to create my blog by taking notes directly on the computer and forgoing paper and pen. The entire process felt a bit strange but but soon I was feeling more comfortable with the process. I have also checked all links to ensure they work - something I assumed would happen in past entries but was not always so. There's my oops!

"Good things come slowly - especially in distance running." -Bill Dellinger, Oregon Track Coach

What a week it has been! If I thought creating a blog was scary, the podcast adventure was doubly so! This has been a very slow process, with much time spent exploring and experimenting before I finally felt confident enough to begin. Just ask my family about the time I've invested - they've been independently grazing from the fridge because Mom sure hasn't had time to cook dinner. Thank goodness my girlfriend took pity on me and invited us over for turkey dinner. But it feels like I've turned a real corner and am becoming more comfortable (and fearless) about interacting with and moving between a variety of applications.


I've managed to use Garage Band to create my podcast, and even imported a track from my iTunes and a photo from my iPhoto album. I played about with moving the tracks about and learned all about ducking and using a mixer. I am truly amazed that I did all this by myself following instructions from our Richardson text and online resources. My son had used Garage Band a bit but was absolutely no help at all when I had questions so I am feeling pretty smug that I can now create things he can't using this very intuitive program. Although I downloaded Audacity, I discovered it had overwhelmingly more features than I needed and Garage Band worked just fine for my first simple effort at podcast production.

Richardson's textbook, the course Trailfire, and "Podcasting: In Plain English" again set the stage for defining podcasts and explaining the basics. Richardson's explained what technology was needed and fortunately my MacBook Pro had the necessary features. The Podcasting For Teachers and Students handout by Tony Vincent which one of our group recommended was also a fabulous resource which nicely explained podcasting using Audacity. This week I also focussed on searching for additional practical "how to podcast" support sites and was amazed by the wealth of resources available to assist the real beginner.

I found a great website called Video Jug where questions are answered by experts and watched four videos by Danny Kelly, a professional podcaster for the London Times. He pointed out many of the advantages of podcasting such as listening whenever you want, being able to subscribe to podcasts in any genre you like and being able to retrieve and listen to programs you have missed. He listed tips on creating podcasts, although he didn't explore the "how to" aspect. In response to a question about the future of podcasts, Kelly feels that podcasts are one of the most important new facets of 2.0 and feels that they are "leading a revolution in entertainment" because of the flexibility of the medium. He also mentioned that while the vast majority of podcasts are free, some professional podcasts are available for a nominal fee. I discovered from the iTunes podcast site that the podcasts they list are also available for free - something I plan to take advantage of. I had mistakenly assumed one paid for podcast access so this was surprising to learn. From this site I linked to Stewart Headlam's How to Make a Podcast - Part 1 and 2 which proved the most useful nugget of "how to actually create a podcast" on the web. Headlam walks his audience through the steps of producing the podcast using screencasting to illustrate using either a PC and Mac with Garage Band. I highly recommend this resource but my only wish is for another installment to deal with the post-production and publishing stages. This last part of the process gave me the most difficulty and it took me hours of experimenting and referring to help sites to finally get the podcast saved. After unsuccessfully using OurMedia.org recommended by Richardson, I turned back to Tony Vincent's booklet for help. I finally was able to use Archive.org to upload my MP3 version of the podcast but somehow, in the process I lost my photo and the first few seconds of my podcast. At this point, I was so exhausted, that I could do no more. However, I think that I'd like to try this process once more to really see if I could streamline it and feel more comfortable with the steps. Each time I do a blog post it becomes easier and so it should be with podcasts too. It is important that I master this technology with greater fluency if I am to help students and colleagues learn how to use it.

The other extremely useful site I discovered was Web Tools 4U2 Use which contained an impressive one-stop shopping list of links related to podcasting with particular application to school libraries. This linked me to a great iTunes tutorial where I learned about features of iTunes which will enable me to subscribe to podcasts and load them onto my iPod touch - something I've been wanting to explore for some time. I was amazed that this application will even stop the subscription if you haven't listened to it for while and allow you to easily restart it when you wish - so no monstrous lists of podcasts queued up to add to your stress. Another great link I found was Podcast Alley which was a fine example of a listing of podcasts with a search capability for looking by genre and topic. This week I've been so busy with this podcast that I haven't been able to subscribe or download podcasts for my listening pleasure but I will report in a future blog how this goes.

Web Tools 4U2 Use also featured an impressive list of podcast applications for school library use. I can certainly see using podcasts as a feature on my school library website to promote new resources, explain directions or to use as links to explain new resources to students - much like Headlam's video assisted me. For students with written output difficulties or reading difficulties podcasts offer great instructional alternatives. I also agree with Kelly's comments about the future potential of podcasts. The freedom to watch or listen to radio or TV programs when convenient holds appeal in our busy lives but it also has direct educational application. For example, History classes can watch PBS specials on WWII, literature classes can listen to author interviews and teachers can use commuting time to catch up on the latest professional development online journals. Richardson also mentions recording recitals, dissections, creating travel journals and creating pod-tours, all ideas I can easily connect to the medium of podcasts. In the classroom either a computer or one connected with an in-focus camera plus a good set of speakers, would enable all students to watch or listen to podcasts. No more booking video players and ordering AV tapes. Students could easily download podcasts to their cellphones or MP3 players to listen to or review at home. The best part is that podcasts are another medium for communicating with students on their level, using technology with which they are comfortable. And if students can connect with podcasts then the next step is to ensure that they have opportunities to create their own podcasts.

In the Webtools4u2Use site there was a great quote about podcasts which sums up this week's blog quite nicely: "We can learn from listening to podcasts, but many times we can learn more by creating them."

Add at least one new exercise to your workout repertoire.

...Start strength training. Buy a mountain bike. Every new workout gives a stronger foundation to your fitness program. – Amby Burfoot,
Runner’s World magazine



Here we are – one new exercise to add to my repertoire! This week’s social bookmarking topic has been reminiscent of that wonderful children’ picture book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Remember how it goes, the child gives the mouse a cookie and then he asks for a glass of milk, then he has a milk mustache and wants to wash up, then he looks in the mirror and decides to give himself a haircut, and so on, and so on… Exploring the class Trailfire has led me from one aspect of social bookmarking to another and then off on another link to explore another aspect, then back to the Trailfire, then over to Commoncraft and back to Wikipedia, then to the delicious website, to email tech colleagues to question if they use Delicious or Diigo, investigating Twitter to learn more about this app, figuring out how to insert a video into my blog, then back to the Trailfire, making notes in a word document for my blog entry … It was all good, all interesting, all major learning curve but scattered and certainly not lineal and then I realized that something has happened to my brain and my thought processes are beginning to morph and…OMG…I’m turning into my teen-aged son! This computer technology stuff is becoming easier, I can talk about it, problem solve my way through most things, take quantum leaps all over the place from one platform to another and it’s all starting to make sense.

Social Bookmarking, now here’s a topic with instant appeal to my tidy, highly-organized character; after all I’m a teacher librarian. The chaos in the 2.0 Land which is my desktop has gone on long enough and learning a method of “organizing this puppy” and being able to easily retrieve specific information held great appeal. I needed no real convincing like I did with blogs, for I’ve already heard glowing recommendations from colleagues and had the motivation of needing to feel more in control of the “virtual heaps of information” coming my way. The Commoncraft video, Wikipedia article and Richardson’s words in Chapter 6, beautifully set the stage and I jotted down some initial questions which came to mind to guide my inquiries:

• How do spelling errors and capitalization affect tags? (Somewhat, but mistags can be corrected when noted.)
• What are the applications for students? Can the teacher share links? (Many! Yes!)
• Are privacy and safety issues for students with social bookmarking? (No, and you can set different privacy levels)
• If I change from one software to another can I easily transport my URLs and tags or do I start over from scratch? (Yes, easily ported.)
• Will I need to continue to use my computer to bookmark sites? (Social bookmarking software can do it all, personal preference)

Next I went through every Trailfire link, taking notes on all the new things I learned and finding the answers to my guiding questions.

In this age of automation, I find it interesting that the advantages of social bookmarking all point to the use of a human-generated classification framework that uses tags. These tags reflect connections and relationships between items that no robot website spider could ever analyze. The tags help to rank a resource, indicating its usefulness and provide links to other valuable sites through the collaborative aspect of this practice. 7 Things You Should Know about Social Bookmarking, states that the informal organizational structure of these sites actually encourages connections between like-minded individuals and can lead to serendipitous discoveries when we examine how others have tagged their websites. I find it intriguing that this folksonomy of keywords is not static but is constantly changing to “result in a ranking system that functions as a collaborative filter.” Since I haven’t had much experience with tagging (do Dewey subject headings count?) this freedom to choose your own categories is hard to fathom. I wondered about using singular or plural forms of nouns or spelling errors but apparently this flexible system functions regardless. I’m sure I’ll figure out all the quirky bits with practice. In the meantime, I went back and added tags to my blog posts.

Social bookmarking is an amazing 2.0 tool given the ability to save, sort, organize, protect research, allow easy access, share, collaborate, deliver information through feeds and even report if URLs no longer work. In the Trailfire articles I read, the disadvantages of social bookmarking seem minimal given their capacity to simplify information storage. The chief concern is deciding on which software to use given the many options available and then becoming familiar with it. I visited both the Delicious and Diigo sites and found it really tough to decide which to use, given that they were both recommended by colleagues. Our District IT Teacher admitted that she’s using Delicious and probably should be using Diigo but just doesn’t have the time to sit down and relearn a new software. I loved the simple “beginner friendly” look of Delicious and Richardson prefers it but after watching the Diigo introductory video which explained its additional options (and where I learned to pronounce the darn name) and reading Steve Hargadon’s Cool Tools recommendations , I was torn! I’ve decided to set up accounts with each, play about and then choose the one I find most useful and stick with it.

In any case the applications of social bookmarking for teaching are numerous and very practical. This is one 2.0 tool which doesn’t have teachers thinking, “How can I find ways of integrating this technology into the curriculum?” Instead social bookmarking becomes an integral component of the lesson, especially for those topics that are research-based. From a teacher librarian perspective, I love the opportunities it affords to teach search strategies, evaluation of websites, author validity, currency, authority, objectivity and model the act of collaboration. These are important information skills we need to teach our students and working as a community to identify useful sites, bookmarking and tagging these and sharing the wealth of resources helps to level the information literate playing field. I read about setting up class resources on the school library page, structuring tagging to make retrieval easier for specific class studies and want to learn more about how this works. I am interested in contacting others for professional networking and how bookmarking can benefit my areas of interest and study. For years I’ve been photocopying covers of books, recording my comments and annotations and filing these pages in a binder. Now I can explore Shelfari in more detail or consider using LibraryThing to keep track of what I read and gather suggestions from others with similar reading tastes. I can’t wait to embark on these projects and learn how they work so I can promote them with my high school staff and students.

As Richardson points out in Taming the Beast, “developing self-organizational skills in this world of overwhelming information is key to enhancing your professional and personal learning practice. And the good news is, with tags and folksonomies, we’re all in this together.” It will be very empowering for me to be able to use these social bookmarking tools to create sense and order from the many wonderful online resources, or as Hargadon calls them “found treasure on the web”. Once I get my own house in order I will be more confident sharing the advantages of social bookmarking with others.

My Own Commitment to Mastering 2.0 Tools

Enjoy watching A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto, a video affirming a librarian's commitment to implementing Web 2.0 tools and technology.

Paula Radcliffe: I Am A Runner

Finally I figure out how to embed a video!