Susan Myers’ Blog

I just received the new Educational Leadership, and Jason Ohler wrote an amazing article called “Orchestrating the Media Collage“.  To summarize, he says that Web2.0 requires a different literacy that needs to stand side by side with the traditional read and write literacy.  He states, “Being able to actively create rather than just passively consume new media is important for the obvious reason that it teaches literacy and job skills that are highly valued in a digital society.”

I am very excited about the potential for change if I can get the administrators to read this article.  We need not only technology but access to the Web2.0 accounts this article mentions.  I have shared this with my principal and an administrator in the district office.  How else can I spread this message?  How can I take a small chunk of this and start appyling it in the library?

A Spanish teacher at my school shared a resource with me which I am passing along to the DEN.  It is called Make Beliefs Comix. Students put characters and thought or talk balloons into each panel. The possibilities for this are endless.

• Elementary students to make students with beginning, middle, end.
• Foreign language students to create a conversation about a particular topic.
• English to discuss symbols, synonyms, plot, or any other literaty device.
• Special education to discuss conflict resolution, applying for a job, practicing grammar, etc.

How would you use this website?

Professional Learning Network.  A term I never thought about until today when Barbara DeSantis (a DEN STAR educator) offered to send me her weekly e-letter that covers the highlights of her blog.  Contact her, by the way, to find out more.  It is a really cool service.

Anyway, it hit me how much I rely on my virtual PLN.   The library position is unique.  The job is a little of this, a little of that, and only other librarians understand some of the weird questions you ask.  It gets awful lonely in the media center, and, sometimes, noone hears you scream.

I have, of course, been using PLNs for years, but I never put my list together until now…

SCASL Ning (South Carolina Association of School Librarians)
LMNet (Library Media listserv)
email my colleagues in the district
Plurk
maybe Facebook as I find more and more friends
and my newest one – DEN

How do you connect?