Over the summer School Library Journal floated out the idea that many children’s authors would consider doing a free 20′ Skype author visit.  That sounded just great to a third grade teacher and me.  We scoured the list for the authors with the most appeal to our kids and sent a few Tweets to inquire.  No dice.  (But we’re not giving up!)

But in the meantime, I had also heard from Michelle Bayuk, head of marketing for Albert Whitman, that Whitman was going to launch five Twitter feeds: one for the narrator of the Boxcar Children and one in the voice of each of the four characters. 

AND, as I’ve mentioned before, I learned that the Boxcar Children (which remains a favorite with our second and third graders) is now a graphic novels series!

There was just one hurdle: how could we connect our young learners with the five Twitter feeds without having them log into Twitter (which restricts access to users over 13) and with all the feeds appearing on one page? We just wanted the Boxcar Twitter feeds, not everything else.

Leave it to my intrepid (and, sadly, about to depart) student teacher Raya, who figured out a way to get the Twitter feeds we need and embed them into our new media center wiki.  Voila! We had what we needed.

Now we had a cool opportunity to talk about how there are many ways to tell a story in the 21st century: with “regular” books, with graphic novels, AND with (a safe version of) Twitter. 

Our wheels started turning.  Would Michelle consider Skyping with our kids?

Michelle had an even more interesting idea: let Boxcar ghostwriter and editor Wendy McClure do the interview!

So we planned a three-day set of activities in lieu of the regular book talks we give when kids come to check out:

• Day One: Introduce/re-introduce kids to Chapter 1 of the chapter book, graphic novel, and Twitter feed
• Day Two: Talk about the role of an editor, with a role-play in which I played the author and Raya and the class played the editor.  (See our efforts on Etherpad – a wonderful tool! – here). Talk about what comprises a good interview question.
• Day Three: In classrooms, kids and teachers worked HARD to create great questions.  They then came to the media center for the interview!

Wow! Our kids did a phenomenal job.  Even with a double-class, they were glued to the screen, poised, attentive, and did ask great questions.  Best of all, they listened for the answers because the answers mattered to them.

We didn’t have the typical author visit, but we had something that empowered our kids to do their best and to think more deeply. And next time they get a paper back from their teacher with editing suggestions, I bet they’ll think just a bit more about how all authors have editors, even the famous ones!

Thanks so much to Michelle and Wendy for giving our kids the chance to dig into some authentic work and to feel proud of their results. There is a wonderful feeling that comes over a media center when kids are really engaged with what they are learning about, and we’ve had three great days of that.

You can view:

• our Boxcar Children Skype plans (they didn’t go exactly according to Hoyle, but it worked out OK!)
• our Etherpad page where we modeled the author/editor relationship
• our school library blog post with more details!

Wish you had a brief summary of the better-known Web 2.0 sites, like Flickr, Google Docs, Lulu, or Skype? Check out these EDUCAUSE 2-page summaries, which include potential educational scenarios.  They’re a great way to ramp up your knowledge quickly! 

http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495

Image: Rodin’s The Thinker in Paris, from Flickr

This week, with the blog’s launch, I ‘ve had lots of conversations with folks about the term “Library 2.0,” and lots of opportunities to overlay those conversations with what I’m observing in my own school library.

As a friend posed to me, “So, is Library 2.0 just about Web 2.0 tools being in a library?” And it’s had me thinking about just how broad and powerful Library 2.0 could be if we thought about the themes and values of Web 2.0 that we can incorporate.

As we’ll discuss in this blog throughout the year, as we reflect on the articles in the magazine, Web 2.0 tools tend to have some common themes and concepts:

• Working together (to develop open-source software, to build collective knowledge such as in the Wikipedia, to make conference calls using Skype, to share tags and favorite Webspaces via Delicious or Furl)
• Finding and sharing one’s voice (via blogging, videocasting, YouTube, or podcasting to an authentic audience)
• Responding to the work of others (via blog comments or “talkback” audio recording features or working on one’s own blog)
• Finding a community (via social networking like Facebook, Myspace, or LibraryThing, or via interactive environments like SecondLife)
• Expressing oneself in a variety of modalities (audio podcasts, videos, writing)
• Learning by interacting with content and with peers (all of the above!)

There are probably more that will evolve as our conversation continues, but those are a starting point. Now let’s strip away the technology for a moment and look just at the activities that are bolded above. Are there tools beyond Web 2.0 that we can use to strengthen our school library’s importance in our students’ learning lives? Let’s try the list of important themes and concepts again, this time mapping to non-technology things we find in strong libraries:

• Working together (combining individual research into a group project, being part of a broadcast team, re-enacting a storytime tale through drama, contributing findings to a community “graffiti” bulletin board)
• Finding and sharing one’s voice (via meaningful instructional projects that call on students to wrangle with authentic, real-world issues and share their findings with others — think about student research on global warming, invasive species, etc., a writing center where young writers can explore storymaking and storytelling)
• Responding to the work of others (conferencing with peers)
• Finding a community (book clubs, hanging out in the library at lunchtime)
• Expressing oneself in a variety of modalities (synthesizing research in a variety of ways that go far beyond a PowerPoint with three bullets per page, such as written projects, drama, songwriting, original historical fiction, original stories and puppetry, etc.)
• Learning through interactivity with content and peers (What can I learn from you? What can I learn from this source?)

Here’s an idea …
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First, consider answering this question for yourself: “My ideal school library media center is a place where ___________.” Keep a list in your desk drawer and add to it as inspiration strikes.

Next, using a large piece of bulletin board paper or an online wiki, invite students to finish this sentence: “Our school library media center is a place where _______________.”

I did this in my elementary school library media center this week, and I realized that nobody wrote, “Our library is a place where we learn the Dewey Decimal System,” or, “Our library is a place where I learn what the capital of Venezuela is and how many people live there.”

Instead, here is part of what was recorded in a half-day flurry of activity:

• Our school library media center is a place where we learn about things.
• Our school library media center is a place to love.
• Our school library media center is a place where everybody are [sic] friends.
• I love the library.
• Our school library media center is a place where magic happens.

Now, it’s hard to know whether the kids who wrote this are Web 2.0 kids (like the Video Club kids who design their own video broadcast and film it, or the upper elementary kids are designing school Habits of Mind comic books with Comic Life software or the Podcasting Club kids) or if it’s the group of first grade girls who have fallen in love with our new writing center and now handwrite books about cats that we faithfully add to the OPAC or if it’s one of the girls who give away lunch recess so they can help second graders check out books.

But something special is happening this year … together, we’re building a place where Web. 2.0 values are integrated. We’re building a place where magic happens.

Join the Conversation
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• What does Library 2.0 mean to you?
• What are the technology activities that build on those values?
• What are the non-technology activities that build on those values?