I’ve had it rolling in my head for a long time now that I wanted to modify Helene Blowers’ great public library Web 2.0 project, Learning 2.0, for the staff in my elementary school.  She set up a variety of Web 2.0 “things” for staff to explore and comment on.  Participants created a blog to track their thinking and give me the URL for the project’s blogroll.

My colleagues are busy, and I liked the idea of doing something where they could work at their own pace but still have a record of explorations.  I liked her sense of whimsy and letting folks play, and out of play, to make professional meaning.  And I wanted my colleagues to have that same sense of exploration and fun, and then to think about if and how those tools could fit into their classroom.  As I like to say, “Lead with the need.” 

Thanks to Helene’s Creative Commons license, I finally got around to putting it together and launched Exploring Elementary 2.0 with my staff today: a six-week self-paced exploration of Web 2.0 tools, with an eye on how to integrate those tools effectively in elementary school classrooms.  I pared down the initial 23 tasks to 17 so we could finish by our district’s June 1 cutoff for 07-08 PD and changed around a few of the tasks to better fit an elementary teacher’s needs.

And here’s what I think is really cool … let’s say you’re a media specialist out there and you know you want to be doing more PD and you know your staff wants to explore but neither of you have time to be in the same lab at the same time.

You can use this project, too!  The project can easily be adopted in your building with little effort on your part.  If you’re a media specialist, all you have to do is:

1. Arrange for your staff to receive PD credit for participating.  (My principal is giving 10 PD hours’ worth of credit.)
2. Sell the idea to your staff.
3. Collect their blog URLs and send them to me for the blogroll.
4. Track your staff’s progress via their blogs.
5. Turn in your district’s official paperwork when they’re done.

What’s in it for you? You get ready-made PD that’s all set to go.  Perfect if you need to announce one last initiative before the Board announces next year’s budget …

What’s in it for me? I work in a small building where the staff knows one another and quite well, so we get the benefit of a whole bunch of perspectives from which to draw inspiration.

So what do you say? Hope you’ll join me for this journey.  Drop me a line at slmamblog@gmail.com if you’re interested.

PS - Yes, this is similar to the California School Library Association’s project, though their tasks more closely mirror the original Learning 2.o project.

Image: LibraryThing

In introducing Roberta’s guest post about LibraryThing (click on “LibraryThing” in the right sidebar to see previous posts about this wonder-tool), I mentioned that I thought an incoming fifth grade teacher might like this as a way of tracking her reading logs as well.

She loved the idea but asked about how to track things easily.  I discovered that on a member’s profile page, in the bottom right-hand corner, there are a couple of different RSS feeds that one can subscribe to in a Bloglines or Google Reader account.

So think about what this can mean for our students and teachers … no more paper reading logs to get lost or left at home! Teachers tracking student progress via a single login at Bloglines!  And if we can begin this journey for kids while they’re still in elementary school (and, as Roberta points out, still young enough that they remember every book they’ve ever read), we can start them on a lifetime reading journal.

And thinking just a bit further, I am wondering about what our cognitive process is when we tag something.  We can describe its physical attributes (color, size, number of pages), its subject matter, its genre, its location (”cottage,” “basement”), who gave it to you, gender of protagonist, key items that appear, location, and more.

What would kids be demonstrating by tagging their books? Help me put that cognitive process into words … I think it could be a powerful revelation … but don’t know how to say it.  Any cataloguers out there? I bet that’s something they can describe for us.

Image: Librarything.com

My colleague Roberta Sibley just introduced LibraryThing to a group of high schoolers so they could use it to track books.  I asked her if she’d share her experience with us.

The Librarian Who Loves Library Thing
by Roberta Sibley

Last spring I went to a MACUL (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) conference and I went to a session on LibraryThing. When we looked at it at during the conference session, it was touted as a way to catalog your own personal library books.

It looked like a great tool, but why oh why would I want to catalog on weekends? Wasn’t cataloging during the week enough?

I was having a hard time keeping track of all of the books I read. I used to use an index card file, but that’s so 80s! We got rid of the card catalog 20 years ago, what in the world was I doing with a card file? I’d forget to write the cards out anyway, so it became outdated faster than I did. And then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, LIBRARYTHING! Out from the repressed memory of conferences past came the idea of using LibraryThing to keep track of my reading. Ditch that old card file, welcome to Library 2.0.

I started, albeit slowly, to enter the books I was reading. I used the tags to help me remember topics that students or teachers ask for. While I am using Follett Destiny resource lists to keep track of the titles I routinely use for lit circles, and carts for projects, I am using Library Thing as a way to remember basics of the books I read and recommend to students and staff.

TAGS, STARS & REVIEWS
Library Thing allows you to rate your book with a star system, create your own tags, and add reviews and comments to your record.You can make your entry public so others can see it, or private if you want to keep it to yourself. The tags help me remember book topics. I can put the names of characters, or anything that will spark a minor booktalk.

COST
It’s free for the first 200 books, $25. for an unlimited number & lifetime.  Great deal!

COMMUNICATING WITH OTHERS, THAT WEB 2.0 STUFF
You can join groups like Librarians who LibraryThing, Book Talk, Read YA Lit, & Science Fiction fans. You can see how many people have your book in their library, get info into your record from LC and Amazon, Blog about Library Thing, and look for local book groups. You can pick the cover to display on your record, as well as choose the way you view your record.

LIBRARY THING WITH STUDENTS
The other day I nabbed one of my low tech teachers. He’s been reluctant to use the media center, and the other day I helped him with his grad school research, so he owed me.   He teaches a class where students do a lot of reading and have to write reviews of the books.  I asked if he wanted me to try out LibraryThing with his class.  I explained what it did, and he was game. 

The next day I showed the students my personal bookshelf and taught them how to create an account. They started adding their books right away.  I had them make their accounts public, as this will allow the teacher to see what the students read and review.  If he has their usernames, he can use the Search function to find their page and their books.  Some students were so excited that they wanted to add all of the books they ever read. Ah, to be a teenager when you could actually remember everything you’ve ever read! Most of the kids were excited, as it was a new way to keep track of things, and it lives beyond life in high school.

I showed them the difference between a quick add, and a more extensive record that allows for the reviews they will need for class. The teacher is going to have them add a common tag (like MRJONES), so he could discern which books they were reading for class vs. their personal ones.

There will be five sections of this class next fall, and I already have a few more teachers interested.  I just sent an email to the English Department with an offer to teach them how to use it, so hopefully we can get this going.  This year is my “guinea pig” where we will work out problems.  There seemed to be some software slowdowns when the whole class was on, which we were able to correct by using the back button and trying again.

This is definitely worth a try, and a great tool for students.  And it’s not really cataloging, or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Thanks, Roberta! After reading your post, I nabbed a teacher who is moving up to 5th grade next year.  “Any interest in tracking your kids’ reading logs in LibraryThing next year?” I asked …