Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Recently I received a request first via Twitter to participate in a professional development session for some librarians in Cincinnati, OH. My task is to answer a few questions, and leave myself open for a Q & A session afterwards, and that it shouldn’t take more than a half hour!

Little did I realize until late last night that I had agreed to do this during the school day.  I had assumed it would be after school.  So let me stop here by saying I have the best principal and network manager around because my principal is fully supportive of my participation, and my network administrator fixed me right up. The last time I had tried to use Skype at school, it was not working due to a firewall issue.

So 2PM tomorrow I will be in a Skype session opening myself up for who knows what kind of questions.  But I was provided a few to get me thinking and ready to chat with them.  I thought I’d blog it here to get ready.  (I may not post though until after 2PM Friday.)

Here is the initial request, edited to provide some anonymity and purposefully leaving out info I feel is not relevant:

Hi Cathy,

I’m Asst Supt at …We have 9000 students, 2 high schools, 2 middle schools, and 8 elementaries.

I am working with our librarians on professional learning for 2010-11. One focus is 21C Skills…So I am thinking about PD for the year. Our first time together is Friday, September 24. Then we’ll be together face to face quarterly and I want to create digital connections in between.

During our f2f time, I’d like to have a Skype conversation with professionals who are tech savvy. I’m thinking of 30 minutes of Q&A. You & I could create the starter Q’s ahead of time.

Would you be interested? Sept 24 or Nov 2, time of day TBD.

Thanks for listening and for considering this!
Gratefully,
M.E.

Here are a few questions I was given to “prime the pump”:

1. What advice would you give those of us just beginning with technology and still nervous about Web 2.0?

2. What are the best ways for us to help our kids, when some of us have limited technology resources?

3. How did you become tech savvy?

4. What are some “must have” sites you’d recommend?

5. About Skype:

• We know of libraries using Skype to provide reference service and to video conference with authors and book clubs. In what other ways have you used skype?
• How do you facilitate skype sessions, separate room, computers with download of skype , thumb drive & go to classrooms, just what?

So I will answer these questions here too, as I feel there may be a general audience who can learn from this.  I would also ask more experienced folks to chime in with their own answers.  Dare I call this a meme?
1.  What advice would you give those of us just beginning with technology and still nervous about Web 2.0?

If you are new to technology or new to the web 2.0 way of thinking, learning, and/or communicating, it is my opinion that lurking is a great way to start.  I would suggest reading bloggers well-known to the educational community. I will save the names and links to these blogs for a later question, but it is a great way to stretch your thinking and learn about cutting edge everything. Some will think there is not enough time to do this, but if an rss reader is used, it is quite manageable.  Don’t worry if the term rss is unfamiliar, as it will be immediately understandable after setting up and using a reader.  Truly using an rss reader and reading blog posts by a few educational leaders (and for librarians I strongly recommend your reader include more than just librarians) you will get exposure to plenty of web 2.0 apps, people, pedagogy, and a whole different way of thinking about technology, teaching and learning.  You will grow to try out other web 2.0 tools just from your reading these blogs through a reader (like Google Reader), and grow from lurking to interacting in no time. Just because we are “singletons” in our schools (there is no one else like us in the building–we have no team or department)  does not mean we cannot share, discuss, and learn from one another.  Being a singleton is a distinct and unfair disadvantage to school librarians everywhere, but using the tools that provide two way interaction in virtual settings helps us develop and cultivate meaningful professional relationships, just like our teachers who build knowledge, share and reflect, and grow from everyday interactions with their team and/or department in the same building.

2. What are the best ways for us to help our kids, when some of us have limited technology resources?

This is a false understanding many have with using technology in front of students.  One doesn’t have to be the expert! Instead be ready and willing to JOIN your students and teachers in learning the technology.  When you are with your students, create a sense of togetherness. Tell them! say “Hey, I don’t know how this will turn out, but we are going to try ___ (whatever app it is) and see what we learn together.” Having this mindset takes the pressure off to be perfect in the presentation of a tool, and gives the audience of kids a sense of ownership and even pride that they are able to help you or other kids along the way.  Failure breeds success, as we all learn from our mistakes, so just be ready to dive in and fail.  Use the failure as a stepping stone or learning tool.  You’ll be amazed at what you and your students learn from any mistakes made. As far as limited resources, remind students that the public library away from school is a readily available source, and think of your introduction to tools as a whetting of the appetite for your learners.  Sometimes students can be the best advocates for families considering adding resources that previously they did not have.  These same students can be the advocates you need to get resources for you teaching context too.  But always find ways to  get the “have nots” into the mix at school too. Early morning or after school hours may help, and also offering lunch time opportunities can address the needs of the “have nots.”

3. How did you become tech savvy?

I don’t really think of myself as tech savvy.  Sometimes my technical vocabulary is significantly different from those I do consider teach savvy.  I have just developed the attitude that what I don’t know I will confess to, but it doesn’t mean I won’t try. I also let my interests drive my learning of techy stuff.  For example, when my school bought three digital video cameras several years ago, no one knew how to retrieve their video except to hook up cables to a VCR and dub recordings to VHS tapes (oh please say you know what a VCRs or VHS tapes are or I will feel really old!) So I decided to learn the ins and outs of not only downloading video to a computer (and then later an external harddrive after crashing a computer with video)  but also video editing and burning a movie to a DVD.  With all the people I knew doing National Boards back then, I became a very popular new friend to many in my district. I did not learn it because I was tech savvy, but because I was interested.  Most of the hardware and software I am savvy in are ones that I was genuinely curious about and took some time to learn.  And speaking of my level of knowledge in all things technical,  I like to say I have a broad understanding of many, but only a fingers depth of true knoweledge in most.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  Students are much like this to; they learn material when they really have a vested interest in knowing it. It is why so many kids have a great foundation of understanding in the illegal sharing of music and videos. Now I am not saying what they are doing is wrong, just misguided. And it is my job to teach about ethical use. But the nature of kids today is to share, remix and mashup their files, many fo which they outright own, and many of which are downright illegally begotten stuff,  so they LEARN it. Wish schools could figure out how to make our curriculum standards as interesting.

4. What are some “must have” sites you’d recommend?

I will break this down into groups:

Bloggers to Read from the K20 arena:

• Bit by Bit
• Dangerously Irrelevant
• Ideas and Thoughts
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity
• Teach42
• Successful Teaching
• Teacher Bytes
• The Edublogger
• The Power of Educational Technology
• Thumann Resources
• Weblogg-ed

Librarians to read!

• Blue Skunk Blog
• Journeys
• NeverEndingSearch
• Not So Distant Future
• The Daring Librarian
• The Unquiet Librarian
• Books, Bytes, & Grocery Store Feet
• Informania
• Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits

Heck, I should say just read whoever is in my blogroll on the sidebar of my blog.  Get an account for use as a reader (and I highly recommend Google Reader, though there are plenty of RSS readers available). Oh and add me to your reader as well.

Must have sites:

• TLCafe (which is a wiki but BONUS it has an RSS feed and can be added to your reader.) The TL Cafe will allow you to network with other teacher librarians, both novice and veteran, techy and bookish, to learn from each other and push your library program towards total 21st Century immersion. You can lurk or participate in live webinars that offer the very best and most cutting edge professional development available to our “singleton” status as librarians. You can also view the archived sessions. It’s a great place to learn who is to be followed too!

• Google Everything Google. Go to Google.com and sign up for an account. This is where you can begin using an iGoogle home page, a fantastic RSS reader, the Google docs suite, and more. I must confess that I use something from Google everyday.  What can I say, I guess Im brainwashed by Google.  But honestly I get much use out of the offerings.  My top apps are Gmail, Google docs, Google Spreadsheets, and Google presentations.  My school library’s calendar is even a spread sheet located here.
• YouTube I would suggest getting to know YouTube, and perhaps even creating an account to store videos there. Nothing gives you better experience there than having your own little area of it all to yourself. There is much to be learned in YouTube, and especially in terms of this post, you can find many tool tutorials to help you get started when you need a few visual cues, like for example using a Google Reader. Perhaps your use will grow into posting online screencasts of your own as you try to teach your own students or teachers. It is a great resource.
• Twitter -  is a great place to cultivate friendships and network with other teacher librarians.  Following the hashtag #tlchat can be quite the educational experience and great professional development all by itself, no twitter account necessary! (Click the hashtag above to see what I mean!)
  

There are many must have sites, but I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, and I think this list is a great start.

5. About Skype:

I have primarily used my Skype as a professional networking tool.  I have used it for bringing in virtual guest speakers on Career Day before–and had a fantastic group of educators including a teacher who was from New Zealand who got up at 3AM to talk with my students about the career as a teacher–my purpose being to show that the career was not only wide and diverse, but also universal.  I have Skype downloaded on my school laptop, and pretty much use a webcam with a built in mic (since my school laptop is not equipped.)  It is always good to practice one time, but remember, I don’t think anyone has to be an expert at it.  When I use it in classrooms, I just take my laptop. I cannot always be guaranteed the classroom’s computer has it.

In Conclusion:

I am not sure I have fully answered these questions, but I fear that if I give too much more I will overwhelm my audience. Of course there may be a few there in the intended audience Friday who can teach me a trick or two!

For my readership, perhaps you can offer some answers to the specific questions.  Your insights will be most appreciated by me and this audience I am sure.  So please feel free to take these questions and answer here in the comments or as a post in your own blog with a link back here!!

Image Attribution

Image: ‘What is Skype?’
www.flickr.com/photos/27481259@N00/125252891

Tags: 21st Century Learning, Professional Development, School Librarians, Skype, TLCafe, TLChat, Twitter