Week #9 - Thing #23 In Conclusion

After an intense, summertime relationship with most of Learning 2.0, my brain had to be shared with the opening of school, distributing textbooks, and melding optimism with practicality. A district email telling us to turn off our tv & audio streaming hit home that PUSD has neither the network infrastructure or awareness that these real world connections are important to public education. The creativity utilizing online resources is added value to the learning process in the same way our more traditional electives are.

I'm fascinated by this need for connection, fabrication, and personal exposure - always in touch, creating &/or extending one's identify, telling all. I can't associate that with authoritativeness, privacy, and harm. As teacher librarians, the web allows us to generate greater access to what we have to offer. But I'm still rooted in the meaning of quality resources, that information is not incidental as it is now being used, and that the thinking involved to choose data is as important as what we do with it.

To finish up on the nuts & bolts of Thing #23, I had seen the clever & entertaining Fair Use video before and still found the clips hard to follow, Creative Commons Search is very useful and I think CSLA should add itself to their Content Directories. I'm not sure how to cite CC items like the flickr picture Books About Books I brought over. For students, the power of CC is in reinforcing the concept of respect for one's own intellectual property and work. Although I still spend a lot of time hunting for things on web pages, Learning 2.0 has given me a better idea of what to look for. Trite to say, this is just the beginning of future exploration on my part.

Week #7 - Thing #16 Wikis

Saw more wiki postings than commentary on the school sites. Joyce Valenza's teacherlibrarianwiki, Carol VanHook's handouts in Library Success, A Best Practices Wiki and Library Instruction Wiki were the most relevant for my middle school needs. But didn't find specific middle school lessons I could use. Have to start using the Creative Commons to model ethical use.

Am looking forward to creating wikis in place of pathfinders. I can't envision many middle schoolers adding to my pathfinder/wiki but I do see it as a useful tool for group projects. Destiny now lets students add book reviews, but not talk to each other. I don't see MS students able to effectively use that feature were it available. Considering their developmental level, conversation skills, and poor use of Learning Point messaging, my reservations may be more about school-imposed self-censorship than a free exchange of ideas. Hmmm, more thought needed here.