Week 7: Wiki wisdom

 Here's what Will Richardson has to say about wikis and student learning:

“The collaborative environment that wikis facilitate,” writes Richardson, “can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is increasingly becoming a group effort”(Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, 2006). The power of the wiki is in its ability to facilitate colllaboration of a type and scale that has never been possible before.

Week 6: More Perspectives on School Library 2.0

One person who keeps pushing for real teaching and learning applications in School Library 2.0 is Chris Harris, blogging author of Infomancy .

Chris's piece in School Library Journal, "Say good-bye to your mother’s school library," articulates several ways to think about how to use Web 2.0 technologies to advace our goals, including:

-->Ramping Up Book Discussions--this is one application that seems to be ocurring to lots of folks, but Gigi Lincoln's "Student Reflections on Night by Elie Wiesel" remains a stellar example.

-->Discard the Flex vs. Fixed Model: A discussion about elementary libraries, Chris makes a compelling argument that web2.0 technologies will, sooner or later, make the notion of fixed vs. flex scheduling moot.

-->Push Library Services Out to the World: I think this has always been the goal of good libraries, and good librarians have taken advantage of new technologies at every turn to do this. From bookmobiles to telephone reference to web portals, IM reference and library blogs, the goal is to help our communities understand that library, like church, is about the spirit, not the building.

Working on a Dissertation Is Not All Fun and Games

Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com I was accused in this blog of not working diligently on my dissertation. I have to say, though, that diversions (music, hiking, silly play) and exercise are an important part of the process.