Overwhelmed by new information and ideas

I'm still trying to figure out how to find time to read and process all of the great ideas that are in the social networking world. It's all I can do to keep up with the reading - I'm generally days behind where I would like to be - and it's easy to put off my own blog updates in favor of reading other educators' blogs, watching online videos or learning to use one more interesting item I've run across. Here are some recent finds I've enjoyed, all pertaining to improving our educational effectiveness:

• An article from Larry Magid on technology, cheating and creative thinking: Cheating is cheating...
• A TEDTalks presentation about children learning through exploration: Tinkering School
• A blog by a Stanford University self-described "feral librarian" who offers wonderful insights into education, students and libraries: Feral Librarian
• Jamie McKenzie's online edtech journal, which I used to read faithfully and then somehow forgot: From Now On
• The tremendous amount of material available through YouTube EDU
• The ever-improving teacher resources from the Library of Congress: LOC Teacher's Page
• And when I get tired of reading I go to the amazing Web 2.0 directory and poke about for new fun things to learn: GoToWeb2.0

Of course all of this harks back to my previous post: how can I use my time effectively while exploring the many opportunities on the web? How many of these new ideas are glitzy-but-not-necessarily-effective tools to learn and use? It's easy to be awed by new tools for presentation and interaction, but if they don't improve the educational experience it's hard to justify the time spent learning and teaching them.

Finally, a non-educational but completely entertaining YouTube video about an unfortunate United Airlines experience - I can't wait to see his next one!

The Trouble with Social Networking

One of the biggest problems I see with the whole social networking concept is that right now at least, people tend to have multiple networking sites that then get linked to each other and need continuous attention. This makes life complicated: if I put a link to my blog on my Moodle or Socialtext page, I need to then make sure I regularly update my blog. If I put a Meebo box on my blog, I'd better make sure I'm logged on. But then there's the Socialtext signals page to monitor, and I'd better watch my cell phone in case I've received a text message. And don't even get me started with Twitter! By the time I update my Moodle page, my iGoogle page (gotta have those calendar and news feeds), my Socialtext page, and my Second Life avatar, and read my (old school) email, the day has gone by and all I've done is live in this virtual world. But if I spend the day hiking or doing some actual work (chase down the dust bunnies), my virtual life quickly gets "old." I have networking sites that I rarely visit because I don't have time and they quickly become irrelevant. It's a strange new world...

Sharing What We Know

The fun thing about knowing some of these Web 2.0 skills is sharing them with others and watching their excitement. I'm in a blogging class which gives me a few moments to work on my own long-neglected blog. Not to say that I haven't been using my blogging skills however - I built a blog for this year's Spring Break trip to Japan, which gave me the opportunity to keep the parents informed of our activities when we were so far away. I also found that there are nifty tools for local time and weather, which let the parents see what the time and weather were in Tokyo when we were there. Unfortunately I only had Internet access during the first half of the trip but it was a fun way for us to stay in touch for a few days at least. Take a look at our travel blog here. Ok, I'd better get back to class....

The Wonders of Virtual Life

So I'm sitting at my desk in a Chicago hotel, exchanging emails with some of my students in California, doing a live chat with another one about her citations, scheduling a teacher in the computer lab (using the online schedule) and blogging about the whole thing as it happens. It's the perfect example of what we are trying to do here in Chicago as we create the guidelines to support the new AASL standards, which in turn reflect the wider (and frequently virtual) world our students inhabit. Many university professors are accustomed to working and teaching in this virtual world but for most of us in the K-12 world it's heady stuff indeed. What a fun way to interact with my students! Of course the downside is the extension of the work day (and the library facility, in a sense) well outside of the library's walls and usual hours of operation. How do we make the most of these opportunities to connect with our students and teachers, while protecting our own personal time? Will after-hours online support become an expectation and frustration, or will it be a fun additional way to support the library program? It's all in one's attitude I suppose - for now I'm just enjoying the ride.