Don't Be Part of the Problem, Be Part of the Solution

I cliche* -titled this entry in reference to the churning world of copyright issues. It's clear from the readings and Linda's podcast that there's no end in sight to the ever-changing definition of what constitutes Fair Use. And copyright laws get violated in schools all the time. But it's almost comforting, in a way, to realize that's it's not the constantly mutating landscape of technology that's growing this unwieldy monster, it's (as usual) people.

Yes, some people will always find a way to rip off other people no matter. So that's why I say, yes, it's important to have the basics of copyright law down cold, but not just because our positions in the school library obligates us to do so. I feel it's necessary to inform students and peers about what I know through the filter of ethics and morals. That's how I'm going to combat the inevitable eyeball rolling. The ethics of the matter have existed as long as civilized society.

It's sort of analogous to why we wait at a red light at a deserted intersection in the middle of the night. What would happen if we as a society stopped following the conventions of our society? Even if we felt our actions were not immediately adversely affecting anyone. The whole system that is our society would be in jeopardy eventually. Plus, we wouldn't want to get caught!



*Ready to rename this blog The Cliche in The Library after this class -- What can I say? I just love working with themes!

What I Did Over Summer Vacation

I took an excellent technology course that opened up so many possibilities for my career as a school librarian. I spent my class time hours (and hours) communicating, sometimes commiserating, with a bright bunch of dedicated school library students. Thank you all for your intelligent analysis and contributions. I feel so empowered with the ability to not only evaluate new technologies for schools, but now have in place a collection of resources to bolster future plans and projects. What an amazing feeling to know I have all those resources stashed away on my Del.ic.ios pages…this is starting to sound like a bad speech given by a bland CEO who’s attempting to be earnest, so let’s just end this abruptly.

One more thing before moving on, would we not all agree that this class has caused us to lose our digital accent?

What I Don't Know Could Fill a Barn

First of all, this entry will be like the last, a goulash of thoughts I've had while doing classwork for this week, followed by the big finish of my reactions to the articles we read for the week.

So, about that barn...I say this phrase all the time, and it's always going to be true, no matter what. I have no intention of actually trying to fill it or anything. In this instance, I'm referring to meta-sources, so to speak. I've just realized that not only is it important to have lots of good sources for the school library, it's vital to know --as fast as possible--what's good and why it's good.

Yes, most of this comes from experience and interacting with peers, once you have some. And this program helps. Now I know about kidspiration, for example. Clearly Linda-a professional with loads of experience, thinks this product is the best visual learning tool available. But what about when I'm on my own? I was working on the catalog criteria assignment, checking out the Springfield Township site. Accessed the web links, found a link to Squeak software. Was curious. Sure, finding it here was an endorsement of sorts, but what about a nifty review site--in this case, for open source.

I flopped around on google for awhile, looking for software review sites. I got a result for this.

While I was happy to find this collection of reviewed sites, I couldn't find a reviews for the software.

All this to say: Linda, what's your opinion about reading software reviews--and if you do that sort of thing, where do you go, or what do you read? Do peer journals like SLJ suffice?

Moving on, or rather, seguing to the Data, Data article.
Initial reaction: Federated searching sounds clunky, and dated. Like something we all used in 1996 or thereabouts. So I tried it. I still feel the same way--and besides, many of the top results for my searches were sponsored ads that were not relevant enough to be on the first page.

However, the final 'graph, which described the "one-click access" to a multitude of sources was the most interesting and useful part of the piece. I think it will always be important to show students that there's more information beyond a simple Google search. That alone could make having a meta search engine option on the school's website.

The Tag/Folksonomy piece articulated my misgivings about tags. I just feel so unwilling to trust another individual it seems! I guess because I have a hard time coming up with tags I would find useful for myself--they always seem so obvious that I actually get suspicious of the simplicity--I just can't believe someone out there is doing it properly. I'm fearful of going down yet another rabbit hole in the web, using tags to find information, instead of a search engine.

But I suppose that's the point, there is no *proper* tagging protocol. I checked out West's reference to Cory Doctorow (...how I learned to stop worrying and love the mess) the link didn't help much, but the title alone actually helps. Just stop worrying about, I says to my inner control freak;tags are helping people find information they want and need. Case closed.

Comments on the Valenza article later.

Open Book

Had a revelation tonight--too big for Twitter, but it's really not a layered concept like a typical blog entry, either. Sort of jumbo-junior sized. But I wanted to share the musing, as it cleared up, for me, a mindset that seems common amongst this class.

While checking out google reader, I found myself reading Librarian in Black -- a blog I started subscribing to when someone else in LIS 460 mentioned it (Thanks! I love it). Every entry seemed useful and exciting to me. Even though it's written by a public technology librarian.

It reminded me of a thread last week -- on the wiki discussion, I think, about feeling like you are missing something, wondering how one would ever know they were getting the right information, and furthermore, getting all that there is to get.

And I realized it's because of my newcomer status--that I am literally an open book when it comes to this profession. Everything's interesting, every bit of information has the potential to help me on the job. I have no way of knowing what to filter, what to stash for future use, what to ignore. I'm racking up del.icio.us tags at a rapid rate, and so on. At this point, I'm depending on my memory more than any of these tools, to pair up the ideas and the applications/tools. That can't be good!

So, what's the solution? I think I found it in Linda's comments to a previous blog entry. It was about my future library website. I think I will apply her advice/suggestion about creating the website to my library's mission statement. Knowing this can be very generalized, I think I need to make some very specific objectives in the mission statement.

I need to create my own structure, set my own perimeters--this will help me identify information I need on the web. Much better than being such an open book.

Back to Basics and Brass Tacks

I'm pleased that the course is focusing on nuts and bolts technology this week. All the social networking web 2.0 is fantastic, of course. We all agree that knowing about Web 2.0 tools makes the school librarian valuable, not to mention alluring and oh-so-with-it. But we still need to talk to the (often) cranky tech person about prosaic things like servers, wonky lap tops and all manner of equipment failures. Reading through the wikipedia definitions of computer terms reassured me that this class was not going to be just about the newer social technologies.

Something I’ve just realized about most of the social networking tools we are playing with and learning about: Classroom teachers will likely require training (workshop, seminar, break room pitch?) before anything in the way of wikis or del.ici.ous gets implemented. I suppose that’s been said in various ways, but that’s the blunt reality, isn’t it?

My Two-bits on the readings for this week:

The RFID article:

First of all, when I was initially skimming it I thought I read that the Vatican was tagging children in Denmark amusement parks. Okaaaay. My opinion about RFID in libraries: put this one in the Monitor It file. It’s important to understand what it is, and how it can be used in libraries. But this stuff’s expensive, it’s most likely to happen in large public libraries, not school libraries. But I took note of the “not if, but when” comment at the end. I just think the When is not any time soon.

Streaming Video Article:

Hurrah, at last we are we are talking about a technology currently used in school libraries, that teacher’s already know about and use. And everyone seems to like it! Except that kid who didn’t get out of his homework just for being sick. (from the second page: “and a student who missed the lesson could view the video at home while sick!”). Loved the collection of streaming sites. The Academy library has a safari montage streaming service Yay. Sadly, there was “some kind of power surge” according to the outgoing librarian, and now it’s broken. Boo. So, one of the first things I get to do when I begin the job is get that streaming service back up. I think it’s been out of commission for some time. I feel like if premium library services like streaming video appear, and then drop off because they got broken and didn'tt get fixed quickly, then you lose your teacher’s mind share as a good resource.

Finally, couldn’t help but be hopeful for increased use of streaming services—it will cut down on the amount of junk ( in this case VHS cassettes and DVDs ) generally in the world, not to mention on my library shelves.

Invisible Access article:

Had a little song pop into my head as I read this one: Dream, Dream, Dream by The Everly Brothers. My first reaction was: Well, huh, this schooldistrict has money that they are willing to throw at this school in order to immerse it into all these technologies. I don’t have that and neither do most schools in the U.S. Mercifully, that initial reaction was followed by a more pertinent take-away for this article: This school has something more valuable than financial assets. It’s the communal nature of this group – they way the entire school is dedicated to education through technology, that makes these programs successful. Granted, it is a tech school, but still, I think changing the mindset of an entire school, staff and students, is more potent than having a huge budget to buy more tech toys.

Image is Everything

First of all, I appear to be trending toward bankrupt clichés for my blog post titles. So be it. Expect further post titles to inquire about missing beef and mental calculations performed beyond the bounds of a shape consisting of four even sides.

Whatever. My post title was inspired by the Valenza blog entry about school library web sites. Valenza asks how the sites are changing, but with so many Live Web/Web 2.0 applications emerging, I'm asking myself this: Just what is the purpose of a school library website these days, anyway?

Here's what I think: It's best used as a marketing tool for the school. I think nowadays, more than anything, a school library website should be beautiful. Really. Here's a link to my ideal elementary school website. It was made by a colleague (and Simmons alum!) from Marlboro Elementary School. My friend used Wordpress to make the Marlboro site. It's not on the district's server. I plan to model my Academy Library site on what the Marlboro librarian did.

Compare that site to this. I spent only about ten minutes with Google getting the URL for that random elementary school. Sure, there's current information and links and such, but the design--blech. And it's so typical of any elementary school website, with it's clunky graphics, moving images and presentation of information that isn't so much useful as it is symbolic, or representative, of the school. Valenza describes it as a "lack of purpose." So well put, really.

And I think many school library sites have never had much of a purpose, and therefore, years later, not one member of a school community -- students, staff, or parents -- have any expectations for, or make any demands on, the School's library site. How many users are really going to consult the school website to find out if there will be tater tots or tossed salad on the menu the next day? Honestly, what kind of expectations do you expect visitors to have when you offer useless information like cafeteria menu links?

So, I aim to change expectations of what kind of information a website visitor will find, and most importantly, how that information is presented. Most folks from this area of Vermont would expect Marlboro Elementary to have the website that it does. It's a tony community with highly educated citizens. Very mud and caviar. But I doubt anyone would expect Academy School to have such an elegant website. That's just not the school's reputation. Another grammar school in town has an OK site. But then again, this school is smaller than Academy and has more of what I call the Viewers Like You crowd.

But guess what? Academy’s going to get an elegant website from me. I really believe the school's image will change when I update the website. And of course, it won't just look pretty. I will have resources and links galore for students doing homework. But ultimately, it's most important to create a website that will increasingly be many people’s first impression of the school, and we all know, you only get one chance to make a first impression!

Cliché’s Rock!!

Better Living Thru Technology

I consider this just a place-holder post of sorts. Since I am re purposing a blog from last Springs Young Adult Literature class, I felt I needed to get a little LIS 460 starter post rolling.

In other words, don't consider this wheedling entry to be anything relevant to the class beyond my initial impressions of all the software installations and account set ups. Even though many of these applications were new to me, they were at least very familiar. Haven't used Twitter, but Linda gave us a peek last semester, same goes for Skype. Should have started using Google Reader looooong ago. Looking forward to not only getting exposure to the completely new, but also gaining mastery of the already familiar. I really feel like the second life event towards the end of class will test my tech prowess -- kind of a grand finale of sorts.

Finally, I truly hope to create a tech innovation proposal that I will actually use in my new job. Maybe it's too simplisitic for this class, but a first-year goal for me will be to get classroom teachers to collaborate on a wiki. I am not sure if I should create one wiki for each grade, or just one Academy School wiki. Right now the district uses a webCT-type tool called First Class. It's just a bunch of list-serves relabeled as Conferences. Haven't used it yet, so I don't want to judge, but I already know that teachers would not be able to archive classroom units and related materials on First Class.

I was reading an article a few weeks ago about how Wikispaces was giving away free acounts in order to promote teachers using wikis. I dashed on over there and managed to squeak in. (can't figure out if 100,000 is a little or a lot to give away). Anyway, I plan to set up the type of wiki I think will encourage the staff at Academy School to give wikis a try. At the very least, it's a way for me to organize materials and information.

However, I do not want to overwhelm the staff and get some kind of reputation as a person who just throws confusing new technologies at them. They'll just see me coming and run the other way. Or worse, run to the Principal's office and complain about me.

I'm wondering if I should choose between a wiki and social bookmarks? I love the idea of setting up delicious pages for each class. As I'm noodling about on the web, I tag articles and sites I think would be useful for the teacher's curriculum. But again, I'm wondering if using both would be redundant. But then again, maybe being redundant is a the norm for this institution. After all, it is called Academy School.