I know, I'm behind. I just wanted to jump in here and say that there
have been some great responses to this thread. AASL has done a number
of surveys of the profession and the majority response indicated that
our future lies with some role in technology.
I was struck by the two responses below as striking examples of both
the inventiveness and the frustration of the individual LMS's method of
dealing with the issues.
"To get around not having my own district page which I could easily
update from home, I got a free school fusion page, and had the tech
person link to it. Now I can add links for assignments and research,
and even create quizzes through Quiz Star."
"This is due to the fact that we have no technology leadership for our
schools; we have no educational tech liaison at the administrative
level. With shrinking budgets, this may be the case for many of us, so
I agree with Joyce; we must be(come) technology leaders."
I keep wondering how members of the profession will be able to reorient
themselves quickly enough to keep in the slipstream of educational
change while at the same time educating the technology department and
the administration about how best to take advantage of something they
see as both frightening and liable.
So many of the LMSs I work with feel that they are alone in their
struggle to take advantage of Web 2.0. No easy solutions on this one.
floyd
On Jan 20, 2007, at 2:07 PM, Doug Achterman wrote:
> In a lunch conversation with Joyce Valenza yesterday, we both expressed
> our distress over the number of people who mentioned that their
> preference for the
> listserv was based on the fact that blogs were blocked in their
> district. Others mentioned that any websites that included a wiki were
> also blocked.
>
> It seems to me that this is a major battle that our profession MUST
> engage in--
> and win. Social software applications such as blogs and wikis, not to
> mention
> interactive multi-media platforms like SecondLife, are fast becoming
> critical
> tools in 21st century teaching and learning. Yes, there are real
> safety issues
> with social software, just as there are safety issues with lab
> equipment,
> automobiles, and even bicycles. But in each case, the advantages of
> their use
> far outweigh the risks. So what do we do? We teach safe and
> responsible use. If we throw up our hands and do not engage in these
> technologies because some
> uninformed techie tells us we can’t, we may as well give up any claims
> to being
> instructional leaders. As information specialists, we need to not only
> embrace
> such technologies; we need to make it clear to the educational
> community that
> banning their use concedes that we are willing to deny teachers and
> students
> their greatest educational opportunities.
>
> I am not implying that those who posted about blogs vs. listservs are
> throwing
> up their hands in response to district filtering. Their posts merely
> prompted
> my thought that we need a concerted effort to fight this battle. How
> about a
> toolkit of resources, presentations, etc. that library media
> specialists can
> download to use in their own districts? Come to think of it, maybe we
> could
> start brainstorming this on a blog. Hey, Joyce, maybe you’d like to
> host this?
>
> --Doug Achterman
> Library Media Specialist
> San Benito High School
> 1220 Monterey St.
> Hollister, CA 95023
> (831)637-5831 ext. 181
> http://www.sbhsd.k12.ca.us/sbhslib/library.htm
> ********************************************
> "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
> --Jorge Luis
> Borges
>
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Floyd Pentlin
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Region III Director, American Association of School Librarians
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