Sometimes, I have article envy.  I read an article in School Library Media Activities Monthly and wish I had written something that good.  That’s how I felt when I read Janice Gilmore-See’s article “Kids 2.0.”  The envy started when I read her opening paragraph, which included:

Does your library media program look the same as it did five or ten years ago? Are you developing programs for the millennial generation or are you reconstructing programs from your generation? What are the factors that limit your ability to quickly change your library program to keep pace with the shifting student population?

And the article gets better from there, as she defines “digital natives,” the term coined by Mark Prensky (and which has recently gotten a bit of debate) to talk about students who have always lived in the age of Google.  Now I’m on the fence on this “digital native” stuff.  Our family got a Bell & Howell Apple II plus when I was in elementary school, so I hardly remember a time when computing wasn’t part of my leisure time, if not my school time.  And I crave many of the same things outlined in the “digital native” list below.  So am I really a “digital immigrant” (what Prensky claims you are if you lived in the P.G. era — Pre-Google)? I’m not so sure.

She asks if we’re familiar with these “digital natives” buzzwords:

• ubiquitous connectedness — wanting to be connected to people and information all the time via a variety of interactions
• device independence — not wanting to be tied down to a specific device, instead wanting to connect to the world via iPod, Palm, game console, TV, cameras, cell phones etc.
•  personalization — experiences that are customized to their personal interests
• wisdom of crowds — the belief that many average folks can achieve more than an individual
• “the long tail” — like personalization, “the long tail” represents a desire for materials and experiences that represent their very specific interests, not just what’s for sale at Target or Borders (Example: the student who asked me for a book that was just about labradoodles didn’t want a book on general dog breeds, a book on labrador retrievers, or a book on poodles.  She wanted a book just about that specific breed.
• “creative class” — those who have careers or amateur pursuits in the creative arts (based on Richard Florida’s book)

She asks us to look at some potential stumbling blocks when our students, firmly entrenched in the interactive, Web 2.0 world, enter our school library media centers.  Do we let students find information in their own way, or do we require that they take our path (and possibly our assigned research topics)? Do we permit the Wikipedia to be used as a source, either in all or particular circumstances? Can those in the “creative class” flourish in our school library media centers?

She also draws a parallel between our behavior as school library media specialists and the Web.  Are we Librarians 1.0, where we decide everything and impart those decisions to our students? Or are we Librarians 2.0, in which, like in Web 2.0, the students have a say and can help design and enact what happens in our facilities?   This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot with my students lately — being explicit in my desire to have the school library be our library, not my library.  If I let kids eat in the library, will they be careful? If I let go of some control and let children design more of their own research topics, will they take the lead? If I create a writing center, will they use it? If small toys are available that represent characters in that day’s storytime, will they use them to retell the story to each other? I am happy to report that the answers are YES, YES, YES, and YES. And as my students see the library as “our” library, not “Ms. Fontichiaro’s place,” circulation rises, drop-ins go up, enthusiasm and motivation blossom, and parents report more and more that the school library media center is a special place in their child’s world.   Which reminds me of the quote I mentioned a few posts ago:

“Our library is a place where magic happens.”

Knowing our students is the first step on that magical journey.

Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear about times where collaboration has occurred between you and your students.  How did it change the relationship between student and school librarian? What was the outcome

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 9:20 am and is filed under Kids/Students 2.0, Millennials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.