Friday, April 19, 2013

Week 13 Reading Reflection


"If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.  As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do." Ghandi 

(or the bumper sticker version: "Be the change you wish to see in the world.")


This week's readings focused on the demands that change brings to the profession of librarianship (or education).  Some people change with the times and some don't.  The best means of serving our patrons is being ahead of the curve, but it only takes one individual to be ahead of each curve- developing multiple experts in one organization.  Each expert can help others become experts- and take turns doing so.

Semadini 2010
The focus on differentiated professional development is what struck me in this article.  I can't tell you how many times I have heard teachers complain that a professional development day was a waste of their time.  If a majority of teachers in a district feel this way then what good is the traditional standard of professional development?  Semadini's description of the Fusion method of professional development seems like an excellent way for teachers to become self-motivated to participate in differentiated instruction.  This is a huge focus for preparing lessons for students- it only makes sense that schools should provide the same opportunity for their teachers.

What really surprised me though was the commitment by the school to allow teacher's the time to do the learning and conduct the workshops during class time.  Now that I think about it, if you added up only the hours of all the teachers in a district having just one day off for professional development and spread that out of time for individualized learning, it would probably all even out in the end.


Blowers & Reed 2007
Change management?  I want to be a change manager- actually I have been one all my life.  Nobody ever told me I could get PAID for that!  It's brilliant that Blowers and Reed discuss the need for librarians to develop core technology competencies.  I see this everyday at school.  Some teachers are on the cutting edge of technology and integrate it daily into their classroom, while other teachers come in the the library because they can't change the margin on their Pages document.  Somewhere along the way (in some districts) administrators dropped the ball on making sure that all teachers had some core competency skills on even basic computing methods.  This is where the Media Specialist can come in and fill the void- as long as that librarian 1) has the skills, 2) is given the time to teach, 3) has willing "students" to teach to, and 4) understands what skills those "students" bring into the lesson.  Maybe integrating a little bit of the Fusion method into teaching core competency skills to teachers would go a long way in providing every student the same opportunity to use and learn from teaching methods using effective technological tools in the classroom.  An MP3 player wouldn't hurt either, or an iPad- whatever;)

And I'm going to keep these tips right here so I can refer to them often.

Thinking about creating a Learning 2.0 program for your staff? These are some best practices:
• Design the program for late bloomers.
• Allow participants to blog anonymously.
• Use 1.0 methods to continually communicate with participants.
• Focus on discovery and offer optional challenges.
• Encourage staff members to work together.
• Remember, it’s not about doing it right. It’s about exposure.
• Practice transparency and radical trust.
• Continually encourage staff to “play.”


Fontichiaro 2008
It is so important to think about how others learn (as WE have obviously learned this semester) and Kristin does a good job of explaining how simply this can be done.  By allowing teachers to understand how different tools can be used for their own personal use AND in the classroom, she is tapping in on the teachers' intrinsic motivation to learn.

My takeaways from this article:  
  • Don't just tell teachers what they need to learn- find out what they need, tell them how it can help them, and how they can use it every day.  
  • Encourage mentor relationships so teachers can help each other when the "expert" is unavailable.
  • Allow "students" to experiment and make mistakes.  They will better understand a tool- if they attempt to navigate through problems on their own.

Week 12 Class Reflection

 "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"*      

                                                                    "Dorothy" in The Wizard of Oz

*First, an apology to the state of Kansas:
So, yes- maybe we shouldn't have tried to be humorous in selecting the title for our webinar (Rule #1 in distance programming: "Don't use regional humor").  We just thought the pop culture reference would outweigh the offense felt by Kansans (though I should have asked my friend from Kansas first).  Anyways, the point was to help rural librarians understand that they are not alone in their efforts to help their student patrons find information and resources necessary to help make college decisions.

On to the class reflection.

The discussion about Twitter opened my eyes to the many opportunities it offers.  I plan to use Twitter only for professional purposes, but I really like the idea of my future "organization" using Twitter to connect to its patrons.  I've seen lots of business do this (first through Facebook) and I have found the pitfalls of using Twitter as a marketing tool are:
  • Bombarding your patrons
  • Deciding what all followers need to know (maybe different @'s for different aspects of the organization for patrons to follow would solve this)
  • Keeping up with it
The benefits of using Twitter are:
  • Direct marketing
  • Simplicity of use
  • Free
  • Easily broadcast to a large number of followers (if you have a large number of followers)
It all depends on how much YOU use it- and then how much your patrons respond to it.  Which is where social media management systems come in.  I am totally going to use HootsSuite to organize my Twitter feed.  I like how visually simple the interface is. My housemate also told me about Vizify.  Different than HootSuite, it's a social media management website that collects and organizes your social media "life" and represents it graphically- literally creating a virtual resume.  You have control of what social media sites it's collecting information from and you also have the power to edit the content of your profile.

I need to work on generating my professional learning network- maybe I will have a "virtual spring cleaning day" after graduation to get my virtual life in order.  I need to update all of my professional profiles and decide who I want to be mentored or informed by.  I think I might even create multiple PLN's considering job type, whether I know them or not, and the frequency in which I work with them.

It's all a lot to keep track of.

I've really enjoyed and been impressed with the webinars I have participated in this week.  For not having experience with Blackboard (and how complicated it is), I think we all did amazingly well.  I tuned in on webinars about providing services to homebound patrons, ideas for getting teenage boys interested in books, and understanding Creative Commons licensing.  They were very informative and I have ideas from all of them that I can use in my career.  Thanks for sharing everyone!






Friday, April 12, 2013

Week 12 Tweeting Reflection

Too many Twitter twabs

I've been on Twitter for about two years- only because all the other kids were doing it.  I tweeted a couple of times... then didn't for a very long time.  I only started up again when I went to the MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) conference last month and realized what a powerful tool it was for sharing information.  I had only really thought of it as a conversation tool- somewhere on the spectrum below Facebook, but above smoke signals.  WIth all the retweets, hashtags, followers, following, links and @'s- it seemed to me at first that everyone was just sending thoughts into the void.  Now I have decided that it's a powerful way to disseminate new thoughts and ideas that show up somewhere else on the interwebs.

As a result of following my bloggers I realized that you really need to trust and understand your sources of information.  It's not about just retweeting something- as a responsible tweeter (if there is such a thing) you need to understand that what you say can be retweeted again and again.  So make it count and think before you tweet.

My main use of Twitter in the future will be for professional purposes.  It's a quick way to gather a lot of good information from sources that you trust (assuming you are following trustworthy sources) about topics that you are interested in. Though I can't expect to keep up with everything my group that I'm following is tweeting about, I can find a lot of new ideas conveniently and in a very short time.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Week (What are we on now?) 11 No-Class Reflection

I take back everything I ever said about crappy webinars

Ummm- this ain't gonna be so easy!  My webinar group met last night and I am so glad we worked out the kinks (I hope).  Starting out our meeting we weren't sure how much or what we should accomplish.  Though by the end of our meeting, we had created our webinar title and description, fleshed out our presentation slides, and did a dry run of our webinar.

Let me tell you friends- if you haven't figured out how to use Blackboard yet- do so.  Immediately.  We must have spent a good hour or more just trying to get ourselves in the same "room", getting our PowerPoint slides uploaded, and executing a dry run (just clicking through the slides) to figure out the glitches- of which there were many.

Here are some things we learned:
  1. To upload your PowerPoint slides you must QUIT PowerPoint (and possibly save them as a .ppt file- not a .pptx file)
  2. It might be wise to only use one computer.  If you do use more than one- even if you make give everyone moderating control- only the computer that created the room has ultimate power.
  3. Avoid feedback- mute your microphones on all computers but the one you are talking to (if you and your group members are in the same room with each other).
  4. Create a draft email in your favorite email service (better than using Blackboard's email interface) with all of your participants as recipients- so you can just copy and paste the invite to the "room", send it, and be on your way.
  5. Have a paper "script" to follow along with- technology drains your powers of concentration quickly.
Anything else Elizabeth?

P.S. I see from the syllabus that Kristin is going to give us some extra time in class before our webinar starts- whew!

Good luck everyone!  I'm looking forward to it:)

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Week 10 Class Reflection

Can you hear me now?

I'm excited to work with my team members to make our group's webinar.  It will be interesting to see how everything falls into place in the planning and the recording of it. By interesting, I hope "catastrophe" is not a word any of us associate with our webinars.  Again, Kristin is giving us lots of practical experience with each project we complete for this class. I just updated my e-portfolio and everything I have included on it are projects from the classes I have taken with her- SI 638, 624, 641, and now 643.  During class Kristin gave us many tips on how to make a successful webinar- I especially liked her suggestion of typing "Can you hear me know?" in the chat box;) 

Our group has chosen to focus our webinar on underserved populations, specifically high schoolers in rural areas.  Our goal is to provide information to both public and school librarians to help them assist student patrons with making college-bound decisions.  There will be a lot of advance preparation for this task- probably a lot like preparing a 3-hour lesson plan, right Amber?