Reinventing Libraries
Oct 21st, 2008 by Cathy Jo Nelson
Real Life / Virtual Life
Well I attended the presentation in Second Life given by David Loertscher tonight. No small feat considering I worked all day, had a 3 hour staff development after school from 4-7PM, and then had to drive home. The presentation began at 8PM. I managed to login (for the first time in 4ever) and complete a required upgrade to Second Life to get in just in time to find a seat and a friend (Anne Lemieux) named DeeDee Plutonium (or something like that.)
Let’s Reinvent Ourselves
The speech and presentation, aptly titled Reinventing School Libraries and Computer Labs: The Time Has Come!, was informative and charged with excitemen, learning, and yes, even frustration. Loertscher did a fantastic job of cmapring libraries of yesterday and today to Microsoft vs. Google. He talked about making our spaces common and our collections elastic and stretchy, and for us to think beyond the print resources we warehouse.
BMW Club-my trap
Lisa Perez (aka SL Elaine Tulip) did a fantastic job facilitating conversations as we were frequently invited to text in our thoughts. It was wnderful to talk with many librarians and technology educators from all around. But I did find myself falling into a trap of belly-aching–belly-aching over filters and their impact on the services we can and cannot offer to our patrons. Joyce Valenza (aka SL Joyce Story) kept trying to chime in with glass half full comments, but I think filtering is a trigger issue that gets me really hot under the collar. I apologize if I used the session to vent too much. I found though that I was not alone. Oh, what is a BMW Club? Ask me privately.
Despite the filter…
One person–SL Edna ____ (I can’t remember her last name) wanted me to share about an upcoming event I have planned at school. I am sponsoring a parent event that students will be conducting, and a few of the sessions will require my district to relax the filter for the evening. My kids are going to be sharing with our parents, teachers, and other student solutions to not having access to expensive software programs like Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works. We are still very much in the brainstorming phases of this, but we plan to show Open Office and Google Applications (docs, spreadsheets, presentation) particularly the ability to collaboratively work on projects. Our district generally blocks google accounts, though we can search google. Kids cannot neccessarily login in and use all the features. So we are excited about the possibilities.
I solemnly promise to…
Anyway back to the preso. I solemnly promise to STAY POSITIVE next time I’m in SL. I think because we school library media specialists are “singletons” in our buildings, networking opportunities like tonight’s session allow us to compare stories and fairness issues. I think I really got bent out of shape about how testing drives curriculum (and where I come from, computer purchases) and then filtering restricts our ability to learn and facilitate learning. Sigh. I look forward to more professional development opportunities in SL. I need to reinvent more than my library–I need to reinvent myself in that virtual world to a significantly more positive glass half full person.
Attribution:
www.flickr.com/photos/94094843@N00/2292559560
Cathy, I guess I wasn’t very clear in my one-liners last night. My glass is NOT half-full. I worry that for this particular equity/intellectual freedom issue we are not taking the leadership roles we should. I meant to call for activism, not to demonstrate *Pollyannaism.*
Joyce –even though i mention you by name, that was not intended as a dig. It is totally self criticism for falling in a trap I built myself. I loved that your comments kept pulling me back to the real issues and not further into my self constructed traps. Glad to see you there last night, and doubley glad at the numbers who showed up. You are no Pollyanna. FAR from it.
I have been trying SL a little bit and attended a book talk in DEN the other night. They were talking about Brain Rules and it was a great discussion. I can see more and more organizations/businesses using this type of venue for meetings now that the economy is going south. I wish I knew of more events to go to but I’m slowly learning. Thanks for sharing about your experience.
Pat–SL has a lot of sessions for educators. The key to know about them is to join their organizations so you can hear about their events in Second Life. All the Special Interest Groups in ISTE send out invitations to their SL activities. I actually heard about the Loertscher preso from 2 sources, School Library Journal and ISTE-SIGMS. I also hear about events from Twitter and DEN. I get emails all the time form the various groups in SL I have joined too, reminding me or inviting me to join. There is even a South Carolina Group in SL. I’m hoping someday there will be a SCASL-SL group. Anyway, thanks for commenting.
Cathy, I feel your pain with the filters. I have been trying to access some of the K-12 Online Conferences this week during my lunch time at school, only to find the video sites blocked. As one of the SCASL “23 Things” I spent hours setting up a Delicious account and tagging all 355 of the bookmarks I imported from IE on my home computer so that I could have access to them at school. When I tried to visit Delicious at school today, you guessed it – the site was blocked. IT’s response to my request to unblock it, at least for teachers? “You can save bookmarks in eChalk.” (Our district’s webpage software program.) So much for 21st Century learning.
Lori just keep asking. Make sure you back it up with solid lesson plans tied to standards that demonstrate the need for the programs blocked, and dont give up. Far too many IT with no educational background are making this decision for our students, and they have not been trained to make pedagogical decisions. Explore the district one so you can make informed comparison when you go back t ask again for it. As for K12 Online–I would ask DAILY. This is terrific PD for your entire district.