Sport, like all life, is about taking risk.” - Sir Roger Bannister

Social Networking. I must say that I have been dreading this topic. I’m certainly an extrovert and love to meet people but doing so online through the medium of Facebook or MySpace is just too overwhelming and beyond my zone of comfort. I am so relieved that my Web 2.0 course instructor offered the adverse types like me an option so that we can experience social networking in “our own little space”. Dipping our toes into the water, and taking that risk.

Concerns and Advice. Perhaps my aversion comes from the fact that I’ve read a few negative articles in newspapers and magazines about the dangers of social networking. Several young teachers in a nearby district had their personal sites accessed and shared with students – an event which landed them in major hot water. Our District, after several events of cyberbullying, has chosen to block Facebook. In a way, this was a relief to me as students in the library for study blocks would often not study at all but spend the majority of their time accessing and developing their sites or sharing things with fellow students, until the noise level became disruptive. Teacher librarians hate to play the heavies and go around saying “No Facebook” and enforcing the administration’s policies regarding computer use so this took the onus off me and put it on the shoulders of the District. Of course after this summer’s Intellectual Freedom course, I was torn because I understood from my coursework that limiting access was really not the solution. Instead, teacher librarians should be helping students to become more aware of ways to use social networking sites responsibly and safely.

Doug Johnson, in his Blue Skunk blog talks about Social networking and needing to give a talk to administrators about social networking. Good for these principals for being open-minded enough to seek counsel from someone with Doug’s knowledge before making a knee-jerk decision. Doug mentions that students spend a lot of time with technology that they don’t really understand. “They use Facebook because it’s the thing to do, just like they used MySpace because it used to be the thing to do. Do we really need to teach them the correct or useful way to use social networking sites, or do we give them a better understanding of the positives and negatives of this type of service?” I would answer that we should openly 'address the elephant in the room' and talk about the social networking sites when opportunities arise as these are an important part of our students’ identities and they need to understand how to make wise decisions in their use.

Doug Johnson also wrote an article for Education World called Seven Things All Adults Should Know About MySpace. New thoughts I took away from this article:

1. Social networking is enormously popular with young adults. Over 60% of students are social content users – that’s huge – it’s obviously an important part of their lives.

2. Friends are probably just that. That teens seldom turn down friend requests in the interest of inclusiveness, thus the large # of friendships.

3. Blocking sites at school won't keep kids away from MySpace. When students are forced to work around proxy servers, etc. they come to regard school as irrelevant to their lives.

4. Some degree of danger does exist for MySpace users. Need for caution about personal information as predators do use these sites.

5. Young people need to understand that material posted on the Internet is public and might have unintended implications. I loved the comment on a poster from this site: A poster (Good Signs) produced by Minnesota State University, Mankato, asks students "Who might see your online profile?" and goes on to list: Your friends, Random students, Professors, Employers, Your coach, Campus Security, Law enforcement, Sex offenders, Residential Life Staff, University Judicial Board, Parents, and Grandma.

6. Teachers might want to check to see if they have had a MySpace account created for them. Good tip – I did. Fortunately, I don’t have a site. Do you?

7. MySpace and social networking have value. Discusses making and trying on an identity. “They are about all the same things that have existed for hundreds of years, hidden in notebooks and scribbled on bathroom walls and whispered over telephones. The content of MySpace.com bears discussion, not obstruction.”

Facebook. However, I did “check out” Facebook so I had a better understanding of what it looked like and how it operated. My daughter Andrea gave me an hour-long tour through her well-developed site and I can now appreciate why she spends so much time on Facebook and has embraced it as an important component of her social life. She has posted photos in folders from various trips to share, has established a profile which is interesting but doesn’t provide personal information, and she has quite a list of friends who have varying degrees of access on both a wide or individual scale, and, as she says, “Facebook is a way of keeping in touch with people that I might not otherwise have kept in touch with”. Recently my daughter received a position at Whistler and has been hunting for a place to stay. She tried every avenue available: property managers, newspaper and online classified ads, Chamber of Commerce, calling friends, etc. When she changed her Facebook message to a plea for help finding accommodations in Whistler, the responses immediately started rolling in with her Facebook friends rallying around to offer leads and suggestions. Another useful feature of Facebook.

Library Social Networks. Now for my first personal venture into Social Networking, I signed up for Library 20 Ning. I filled out my profile, pasted in a photo and became Member 3508 of Library 2.0. I gave the Ning a good going over:

Checked out my Page. Wow! Looks good. Nice glasses.

Snooped through the site.

Told to post an introduction so I did. Here’s mine...

“Hello, Everyone, My name is Joanie Proske and I am the Teacher Librarian at a ridiculously large Gr. 8 to 12 High School in Langley, B.C. Well, actually, I am on education leave from my position to work on my Masters in Teacher Librarianship through the University of Alberta. I'm doing my coursework by Distance Education, which has really tested my computer skills, but it's all good! One of my courses is about Web 2.0 Technology and I am stunned by how much I have learned in the last two months and humbled by how much more I need to learn. I'm looking forward to joining this social network and continuing to learn about Web 2.0 from a community of like-minded individuals.”

I checked through the profiles to see who were members. I found a Professor Emeritus from U of New York, a MLS who works independently as a consultant to Health care industry as a researcher, student librarians, and a librarian of a small rural library. I typed in every librarian “whose who” name I knew but no one seemed to be a member. Hmmmm. Wonder why?

Where did the listed members come from? I was astounded to see the locations that really reflected the reach of this social community: South Africa, Belgium, US, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria, Australia, Slovakia, Portugal, Palestine, Costa Rica, New Zealand…

I moved on to check out the blogs by reading the first paragraph and then continuing on if interested…

Checked out groups and found 4 pages of forums and groups such as European librarians, business librarians, Medical and Health Science libraries, Distance/Off-Campus Library Services, New Librarians, Elementary Librarians, Public Librarians, Dewey VS LC, Teen Services, Archivists, School Libraries (looked at this one). There were some crazy ones too: Silly Librarians against Dull Dewey LADD, Creative Librarians, Librarian by Day Bad Karaoke by Night, Vegan Vegetarian Librarians.

I looked at a sample question asked about school library websites. The responses were indeed a treasure trove of ideas on good sites, recommended website providers, things to include, the need to add a visitor counter to the website, etc.

Read a question about noise level and posted a comment back– my first foray into being a contributing member!

Used the search bar to check for different topics no luck – tried Webcomics – VoiceThreads – Wikis – Wikipedia and then began to wonder if this was the best forum. After a week as a member I haven’t seen any real action on this site – no friend invites – no responses to questions – I decided to see if something better existed. If you’re going to be a member of a social network then there has to be some communication back and forth to create the “social” component!

TeacherLibrarianNing. In frustration, I emailed my IT guru Lesley Edwards in North Vancouver asking for her advice on a better social networking site and then waited for her response. Lesley suggested joining the TeacherLibrarianNing set up by Joyce Valenza at which I did and I am now member #2198 (see image above).

It was ridiculously easy to join this social forum, and a lot of fun. I spent a entire morning going through the site reading the different forum comments and even answering a couple: one from a new employee who needed ideas to decorate a book display, another from a teacher librarian wondering how to sort through donated books. I read through other questions that led me to new practical ideas, such as this one about collection development: “Put out a survey to your teachers and ask about how they have used the collection in the past and having them suggest which areas they would like to see more materials. Zoomerang.com has free surveys that you can create. Then email the link to your staff.”

And then there was the response to the question of what would you tell a new teacher librarian about collection development in one sentence. My favourite response was, "It's not YOUR collection; it's your STUDENT'S collection." This site was certainly much more lively than the other ning.

I bravely posted a forum question “Which is your favourite Web 2.0 Add-on which you would recommend Teacher Librarians add to their computer?” to see what responses I might get before our next discussion. A neat feature is that you can set up the site for responses to be emailed to you and then close them down when you no longer wish to follow the thread.

Looked through the 2 pages of groups for TeacherLibrarianNing and decided to join the High School TeacherLibrarian group with 232 members. Posted my intro and read about Twilight fan parties, public/school partnerships and wiki subject headings. I started to get lots of invites and little welcomes and comments and friend invites. Wow! Things are happening! I like the way that invites come to my email so you don’t have to check constantly yourself. I already had five friends by the end of day one! That’s it – I’m giving up on the other social networking site.

As for my question about favourite add-ons I’ve already got seven responses:

“On my Mac I have buttons for adding an RSS feed, and bookmarking using delicious and/or diigo, and Awesome Highlighter. Love Firefox!”

“I love Freescreencast.com (http://www.freescreencast.com) and Glogster (http://www.glogster.com). I'm also using Smilebox (http://www.smilebox.com) quite a bit. I'm in love with so many Web 2.0 applications! You might want to take a look at my new wiki http://www.ladigitalimmigrants.wikispaces.com.” can't live without my del.icio.us and Google Reader RSS feeds.

“ I can't live without my del.icio.us and Google Reader RSS feeds.”

Nings. In the TeacherLibrarianNing site, I noticed that Joyce Valenza suggests that others start their own ning. I hadn’t heard of the term nings until I looked into these two library social networking sites so I checked out Wikipedia which defines a ning as “an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks.” In our course Trailfire the NCTE Inbox blog entry “Social networking: the Ning’s the Thing article” asks us to examine our own social networks and to recognize that nings are the online equivalent to these. (Other than my teaching connections, my running group would be my biggest social network or my face-to-face ning.)

Educational Uses. How can a teacher use a Ning social network? The NCTE article listed some great ideas which I think would be great ways to incorporate Nings into the school environment:

* Set up discussion forums based on literature circles, peer writing groups, different class periods, and so forth.
* Create groups based on student interests—book clubs, favorite genres, other content areas.
* Upload alternative book reports created as podcasts, videos, or photos.
* Ask students to write their reading logs or journals online, using their own personal blogs.
* Post information for students and their families in a shared space.

The advantages I can see of using a Ning over something like Facebook or MySpace is that as administrator you have control of removing any inappropriate or off-topic discussions but yet the group can establish their own forums and discussions and exercise creative scope. In one blog entry I read about about nings are being blocked in various school districts and a reader responded by suggesting using a Moodle which gives the teacher full control “over content, posts, and membership.” It is interesting that whatever new form of Web 2.0 technology is introduced in schools, examples of inappropriate usage seem to govern its removal from the toolkit of applications available for students to use. More reason for teachers to become more knowledgeable about Web 2.0 so they can introduce the correct ways to use technology and demonstrate ways it can be used to enhance and enrich the curriculum.

Final Thoughts. As for me, well I'm hooked on TeacherLibrarianNing and am checking it daily to learn more about my profession and to scaffold on the shared knowledge of my peers. I've taken the plunge into Social Networking...well I'm at least in the water up to my knees!

The Proskes

A marathon is like life with its ups and downs, but once you've done it you feel that you can do anything.

Voicethreads. Okay, here we go…I can do this…another amazing app brought to you by Joanne and her weekly Web 2.0 blog topic…first stop Commoncraft! Yikes, this time there’s no Commoncraft video – no Lee to explain things to me In Plain English.

Oh well, no worries, Joanne said just to explore VoiceThreads. Since I have absolutely no idea what Voicethreads is let’s start with the Wikipedia definition and see if we can learn more beyond the fact that it’s a multimedia sharing site. OMG, there’s no entry for VoiceThreads in Wikipedia. Well, that will probably soon be remedied by some enterprising soul, but not me…

Don’t panic. Richardson will probably explain what it is. What! No VoiceThreads in the index. This Web 2.0 tool must be something very new and exciting.

Curses! Joanne, you have me trained to rely on these sources and none of them helped me at all. Never mind, I’ll simply type in VoiceThreads under Google and voila – 16,000 entries later…just kidding…

Actually I used my newfound Reading on the internet” skills (good old Discussion topic #4 came in handy) to skim through some of the URL descriptions searching for key phrases to narrow down my search. As I synthesized my findings it began to become clear that VoiceThreads is a Web 2.0 multimedia application with definite uses in the classroom. Asking myself questions (like any good internet reader should) I wondered how this application could be useful to teachers. I just had to stop and quickly check out a few sites (to check for understanding) and ended up at Colette Cassinelli’s Voicethread 4 Education an amazingly useful wiki at http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/ (Gotta love those wikis!)

Colette defined VoiceThreads in just the simple terms I needed as my first frame of reference:
In case you are unfamiliar with what we are talking about - a VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.

Probably going on and exploring her wiki in depth wasn’t the most logical move but I figured until I have an inkling on how I’m possibly going to use this application why bother fully learning how to use it. I remember reading somewhere that teachers shouldn’t get too excited and caught up in the thrill of designing projects to fit the technology, that we should always remain cognizant of how we can make the new technology work meet our instructional needs…that’s my reasoning, in any case.

Colette’s wonderful site is an example of using a wiki to catalogue and collect information which I bookmarked for future reference. It features a collection of practical examples and ideas for educators. Some possible uses for VoiceThreads included: use for debates, creative or digital storytelling with the tag team wrestling approach with students listening to the story and then adding on their bit and then passing on the story to others in the class, collaborating with others on projects, language labs with students repeating and responding to voice examples, field trip scrapbooks, art gallery sessions, use as a class prewriting strategy (like a web), making and sharing prereading predictions about a novel, writing and sharing poetry, recording oral histories, sharing ways to solve math problems, creating tours of the school, recording interviews on a cell phone and then downloading.

A couple of ideas which did not personally appeal to me was using VoiceThreads as an assessment tool with the teacher’s comments on little Johnny’s project recorded to be shared with parents (no way, Jose, that’s a setup for a nasty phone call) or using it as a way for others to critique classmate’s artwork. I think that it takes a lot of maturity and guidance for students to critique – period – never mind having their comments available to be played over and over and dissected. Go ahead and quote “use in assessment” if you were trying to get funding for VoiceThreads but I would be cautious in its use for this purpose. I also noticed that other suggestions for using VoiceThread’s uses were connected to other Web 2.0 applications such as embedding into Google Earth (lost me on this one!) and Gabcast (something I have never heard of before but could possibly have saved me hours of time producing a podcast I now discover from checking out its website).

With an idea about its uses in mind I headed to the official VoiceThreads site (hit #1) to check out what it offered.

Much, much later…

Wow! I’ve spent some serious time exploring this website and checking the tutorials, reading the FAQs, listening to sample VoiceThreads the help area (always useful to anticipate problems before they occur. Some interesting thoughts that occurred to me during this whole process:

1. I have all the tools I need, ready to go in my MacBook Pro laptop and I could do this today.
2. What an amazing tool to use in the library (or a classroom) and it would appear I can connect it to my Library website – ahhh the possibilities for book reviews, library tours, FAQ sessions, instructional how-to’s…
3. I can use VoiceThreads with my new school laptop to demo information technology I want to teach or replay VoiceThreads I have made or collected from other sources, I can circle URLs and walk students through an internet lesson so easily, once I’ve got the hang of this application.
4. This could be even more fun than a wiki!
5. The information students put on the VoiceThread account is safely stored and can be retrieved from an archive.
6. The moderation feature lets you share student work in a new forum.
7. Man, this is a neat application. There are so many subject areas where it can be used – ESL, Language Arts, French, Math, Socials, Science…
8. Voicethreads can be used for collaborative purposes and even allow connections to classrooms in another area of the world.
9. No more messy collecting of email accounts to get students involved.
10. Wait! Does it cost money to join? It says $1 a student a year, then $10 a month. What is it free? I’m confused.

Okay, I’ve spent all this time exploring the ins and outs of something, which I thought involved an expensive sign-up fee and now it would appear it is free to educators and I could have been taking a more practical approach and learning how to use it. Stupid…stupid…stupid…I've emailed my request to join VoiceThreads but no answer is returned so it must be caught in my school email SPAM filter. I’ve fired off an email to retrieve it on Monday and then will continue to explore VoiceThreads.

On a more personal note, learning VoiceThreads would be a wonderful incentive for me to explore the Webcam on my new laptop. Yesterday we organized getting a laptop with a Webcam feature for my father to from his hospital room. I am very motivated to figure out this new application so that I can communicate with him on a daily basis. I shall post my Voicethread effort once I can get myself officially registered as a user. Stay tuned…

My Watchmen wiki is all done! This time I learned how to establish links between pages, manipulate the placement of images and now feel very comfortable with this Web 2.0 app. It's at www.Watchmen.wikispaces.com

"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."