pafa.net

I just came across a wonderful multimedia project called Great Book Stories. It offers students and teachers the opportunity to share their favorite books through pictures, text and audio. The wiki links to digital stories created by students and teachers and encourages others to join in.

A number of tools for creating digital stories are mentioned, including VoiceThread. (I was looking for more info on VoiceThread when I came across this project.)

VoiceThread is (more…)

Back by Popular Request - Library 2.0 Tech CampTwo 2-day tech camps were held over the summer. Apparently we had a waiting list for those sessions. So Linda Fox at Capital Region BOCES School Library System has scheduled another session. And I understand there are some more advanced sessions being scheduled for the spring.

“This two day Tech camp is designed to help library media specialists gain a comfort level with some of the Library 2.0 technologies. Sessions will be informal and collaborative. Strategies for integration into the curriculum will be offered and shared. Topics covered may include, blogs and wikis, tagging, de.lic.ious, ning and Flickr.”

When: October 26 and 27, 2007
Where: Rensslaerville Institute
Who: School library media specialists
Trainer: Polly Farrington
Cost: $125 per person ­ all double rooms

For more information, visit the Cap Region BOCES SLS web site.

It’s been a few months since Linda Fox (Capital Region BOCES School Library System) and Dee Portzer (Questar III School Library System) sponsored Library 2.0 tech camps for 30 or so school librarians.

I’m looking back on the blogs that were started during the sessions and am so pleased to see so many of the blogs that were used to record ideas and reflections during tech camp have been turned into really useful communication tools!

Jan Tunison at Scotia Glenville CSD used her blog as a jumping off point for a technology update session for colleagues in her school district. I just love her observation on the “us” in delicious

“In the spirit of collaboration and the us in de.licio.us, teachers working on similar topics can easily share weblinks related to the topic of interest.” Rumor has it that the technology session was very successful!

Way to go Jan. http://jtunison.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/delicious/

At least two blogs have morphed into reading recommendation journals - The Librarian Soul and Library Crazy. I know I’ll be checking these for interesting and compelling titles to read. (apologies - I don’t recall whose blogs these are!)

The Libby Scene blog is being used to record issues, thoughts and ideas discussed as they work on updating the school’s Unified Research Model.

” ..one of the important skills that students should learn, especially in the era of Web 2.0, is that there are many ways to demonstrate learning or findings. Whenever possible, students should be given the opportunity to choose to share information in the form of a product that best demonstrates learning …. and be able to explain why they chose to create the product in a certain way.”

I believe some of the tech campers have started new blogs and wikis for various projects in their school libraries. I hope I’ll hear about what they’ve gone on to do as a result of tech camp.

In the meantime, another session of “tech camp” is scheduled for October. Looking forward to another 2 days of exploring how these tools help students, staff and teachers in a learning environment.

This is your picture in my blog! Yay yay, we’re having fun at the Library2.0 class for CT State Library.

Class practice blog at: http://lib20classes.wordpress.com/

The class wiki is: http://lib20.pbwiki.com/lib20-overview

Thanks for a terrifically fun day!