Sunday, February 25, 2007

Blogs and Librarianship

I have been exploring the use of a blog as a means of discussing book club books with students. These kids are busy, they are on the move and they are reading. I want to engage them in discussion without pinning them down to a lunch hour meeting. They have not, however bought into the idea of the blog....what to do? I am going to post nags/reminders on the web page and some brief announcements as reminders. Hopefully it will take off soon.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Be Really Afraid

Stephen Heppell was a keynote speaker at the recent OLA Superconference. He was innovative, entertaining and charming to listen to. He also shared some wonderful examples of teaching and learning with technology without using fancy equipment. The video clips he shared of student projects for BAFTA called Be Very Afraid are fabulous examples of how technology can enrich learning for teachers and students. They are also a testament to teachers who are passionate about their practice.

Here is the link: http://www.heppell.net/bva2/

I wonder how I can encourage more teachers to get connected to learning with IT to use something from these strategies???

Monday, February 05, 2007

Will Richardson and Passion Based Learning

I've just been listening to blogger and technorati Will Richardson in an online conference about re-envisioning education and he makes some good points about how we have to begin changing education. First, we have to embrace change rather than fear it. Second, we have to reach beyond school walls to our students and understand that they are familiar with accessing information 24/7. Third, we have to understand that people will pursue their learning if they are impassioned.

My question is....how do librarians tap into that passion, provide guidance and direction to students who are ready to go down that road????

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Blogging for Gold.....

I am a Teacher Librarian in a High School north of Toronto. I am very interested in learning about how other TL's around Ontario, Canada, N. America and beyond are integrating educational technologies and social software of web 2.0 into their teaching in the library environment.

I am very interested in podcasting and the possibilities for creating interesting and authentic learning for students. Here is a web site that was built by myself and some colleagues:

http://www3.telus.net/public/burtb/podcastunit/index.html

It was an assignment for a course towards my Masters Degree in Educational Technology. I plan to use it with a grade 12 class this semester. Feel free to use the site, feedback is welcome.