Still learning

I visited my home town of Seattle this month for my sister’s wedding.  While there I helped my 81 year old father make a website.  He is having so much fun learning!  He is writing about the wedding and uploading pictures.  How great to see all ages learn new technology in creative ways.

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Autumn leaves

I wish I could slow time for just this month of October.  Today was the first crisp day of fall after an incredibly hot Texas summer.  As I whirl through life’s responsibilies, personal and professional, I want to savor the beauty.  Maybe that is why I choose the profession of librarian.  I want to capture something meaningful and point it out, helping others finding something meaningful to them.

Sorting through the blogs and wikis

Technorati’s homepage has the quote “50 million blogs…some of them have to be good.”  (Matt).  Weeding out the useless from the golden nuggets seems an undaunting challenge.  Tagging may be a useful tool for finding individuals with similar quests, with the same passions, or with new creative viewpoints.  http://librarytails.pbwiki.com/ is a wiki with some great links to help librarians share ideas.  Check out the section on tagging.

Vygotsky said “We learn through collision with others.”

His words hold true as the online community collaborates in numbers so huge I can hardly comprehend them.  The world wide web moves toward a new era with Web 2.0; and folksonomies allow people to share technology tools.  I can search for other educators’ blogs and wikis, learning daily and testing my own “pseudo-concepts.”  Wouldn’t Vygotsky love this?

Podcasting

I am looking forward to experimenting with podcasting in my school library.  Students might use podcasting for oral reports, book talks, or sharing personal stories or poems.  Podcasts will be launched through our reading and writing club. Electronic format is providing opportunities for students to create and share, collaborate and publish.  On the one hand, I am excited about learning these new tools.  On the other hand, we hear every day about online security and keeping our students names and faces off the Internet.  It is a confusing time, but then maybe all times have been confusing.

Blended Librarianship

I notice much of my writing on this blog centers around technology and the impact changing technology is making on the library.  I stumbled upon a blog by a librarian in Singapore introducing me to the subject of a “blended librarian.”  I found information explaining blended librarians on a library wiki.   Librarians everywhere are learning at a rapid pace how to balance our own physical collection with the information available in electronic format.  We are an exploding community of learners.  I feel overwhelmed at how much I don’t know and excited by new concepts that I am learning each day.  I really want to figure out what http://del.icio.us/ is all about! As a librarian, organizing information is the foundation of our profession.  Electronic information has changed everything and words like tagging and technorati (http://technorati.com/) keep popping up faster than I can look up definitions.

Back-to-school Time

Here it comes- my favorite time of year.  The school supplies and the feeling that the first cool, crisp morning will be dawning.  I really do think this year will be different somehow, though.  Taking online classes has changed my perspective and I plan to introduce online collaboration to my colleagues and students.  I am unsure how receptive this audience will be and where this journey will take us.  I just know that my laptop and flashdrive are included in my back-to-school pack.

Technology and Writing

Tomorrow I will be presenting at a writing institute with the titile “Technology-Enhanced Writing Workshop.”  When I became a writing trainer, almost ten years ago, I never dreamed how much technology would impact the writing process.  It seems people are all at different levels in their use of technology, both for productivity and for creative expression and entertainment.  Integrating technology into writing may be exciting, but does not necessarily make writing better.  Good writing will always be about expressing what is personally meaningful and the significant through effective means. 

 

 

Blogs, wikis, and writing

Writing is changing.  There is no need for a pen and ink.  The dilemma of where to place the paper is gone.  Embrace the opportunity to express and take the risk.  A blog can be a personal diary.  A wiki can be a combination of newsletter, bulletin board, and community anthology.  Every advance in technology brings some type of sacrifice, some down-side.  The information age brings a flood of too much information.  The dam has broken and we are swirling in information, but I refuse to be afraid.  Information is nothing to fear.  Get your blog!  Get your wiki!  Just swim!