Jun 29 2009
Thing 13 – Online Conference
There were many interesting sessions from which to choose. I chose the session Leading the Change: Beyond the Stacks: Using Emerging Technology to Strengthen Teacher- Librarian Leadership. This session was presented by two teacher-librarians from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan who say a need to change the way teacher-librarians (media specialists) worked with staff and students. They believed they needed to retool themselves to be more effective. They realized that a students and staff are accessing and using information 24/7. They believed the way to begin to lead the change was to use online tools to increase literacy. They chose to work with the Willow Award books (similar to Georgia’s Peach Awards) and use online tools to highlight books in the form of Meet the Stars patterned after the Academy Awards. They led the teachers through eight blocks which parallel our sessions in this course and led the teacher students through the online tools.
I thought this approach to literacy was a creative way to introduce the online tools to staff members. Everyone has heard of the Academy Awards and they created usable blocks of information to present and work on with the students in the course.
The use of an online conference will certainly be appreciated at the school and district level as there is little or no cost for staff to attend with no registration or transportation costs associated with attending. The comfort and ease at which you can refer back to the sessions makes this another useful tool in professional development. While I only had an opportunity at this time to look at one session I do plan to look at other sessions from previous years.
Everyone enrolled in the Web 2.0 course this summer realizes the importance of retooling ourselves to become better educators. It appears to me that in Canada as well as Georgia, the media specialists are often on the forefront of leading change within a school when it comes to technology. I only hope that after completing this class I will be allowed to change the way we handle technology in my school.
I think this Online Conferencing tool could really give teachers inspiration to start using Web 2.0. Did you see the section call “Leading the Change?” There were some videos of teachers explaining the use of many of the tools we have studied. I think I will present that to my principal and hopefully encourage him to require the faculty to at least view this. Maybe they will be inspired like we are!!
It simply does not do for me to be on these sites. I spend too much time exploring. I am amazed and impressed by the sheer magnitude of work and research that these people are willing to do and share. And it is wonderful to get and introduction to people doing exactly what we are trying to do. Hearing their frustrations, encouragement, and simple human-ness makes learning even more interesting and engaging.