Technology and School Librarians

When I think about the enormous changes that have occurred just in my lifetime in the fields of technology and information gathering, it is not surprising that the questions of copyright law and plagiarism have become increasingly complex as well. How will these issues evolve and change in the future, and how will school librarians deal with helping students and teachers avoid issues of plagiarism and understand copyright laws as they become (possibly) more complex? New technology tools are being created so rapidly and as the tools we use change, we have to adapt our "rules" for what is acceptable use accordingly. It will be a challenging job for librarians to help their school communities stay in step with the changes. I think that having very clear rules for what is acceptable practice, even if those rules change periodically, is, and will continue to be, very important for school communities. Librarians who inform users about copyright laws and who can proactively help users stay within set boundaries are going to be priceless in this increasingly technology-minded world.

Copyrights and Plagiarism

Stephanie Gold's article about copyright law includes some really useful ways to help schools teach their students and staff how to understand copyright laws and how not to infringe upon them. I liked the ideas which included proactive rules for schools, meaning rather than waiting for someone to break a rule and then punishing them for it, it makes a lot more sense to try and educate the school community on how to get needed information without plagiarizing. I think that school librarians, if they want to play a postive role in helping their school communities become educated about copyright laws, need to take the position that being proactive(and patient!) is the best path to take.
I liked reading about Ivy Run and the way it encourages teachers to find assignments for students which discourage plagiarism and the idea they promote of copyright policy being one that changes quickly and constantly, rather than simply a set of rules which need to be memorized.
School librarians are going to have to show a lot of patience and guidance in the area of copyright and plagiarism. There is so much information available and such easy access to it that helping people become educated about what constitutes plagiarism and how not to do it is and will continue to be a big job for school librarians.

Technology in the Classroom

I’ve been thinking more about using technology tools in the classroom and the advantages of incorporating things into the classroom that really interest students, thereby giving them some kind of “real life” connection to the work they do at school.
Flickr is an example of a really popular technology tool which could serve this purpose. Flickr seems to be one of the most popular technology tools for the young teenage crowd. I read with interest Will Richardson’s explanation of how teachers are using Flickr in their classrooms and the positive reactions they’re receiving. Richardson describes a teacher who has his students go on “photo field trips” in which they search for photos from different parts of the world and write about them. Teachers have also had their students choose a photo from Flickr and write a story about it.

When a teacher gave my 8th grade daughter an assignment using photos she found on the Internet she was really enthusiastic about working on it. Her class was given an assignment to research a topic they were interested in and include photos they found on the internet. Photo storage tools like Flickr are tools which many middle schoolers are already very familiar with and, like with text messaging, it’s one which can help students make that connection between what they are doing outside school, for fun, and the assignments they are given at school.

Dear Bob Kerrrey article

I found the article about six middle schoolers and how they became writers interesting and useful. The article gave us a good look at how these students and their writing teacher define good writing and how they work on their writing during daily writing workshops at their school. Creativity and freedom seem to be the key words in how these young writers approach their writing assignments. The fact that their teacher gives these students lots of freedom to explore topics that interest them seems to me to be a key reason why these young people feel competent as writers and enjoy the process so much. It's too bad that it seems to be relatively rare to find this kind of a writing program in a lot of schools. Too often, teachers ignore the creativity factor and aim for a finished product that simply neat and tidy and free of errors. What a shame!

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds really are an invaluable way of subscribing to and managing content on the web. This is an exciting but somewhat daunting concept. I have subscribed to several podcasts that interest me, and I'm really enjoying listening to them, but I am still a little confused about how these RSS feeds work for gathering other kinds of information on the Web and the best ways of collecting and organizing all this great stuff. I am also finding it kind of hard to keep up on all the information that I've subscribed to! I could spend tons of time just reading the information I'm receiving from the New York Times technology page. When I open Google Reader, I have so much information to look through. I guess that's a good problem to have: too much good information. Organizing it all is an interesting challenge.

After reading Will Richardson's chapter on RSS feeds, I think it will be interesting to experiment with different aggregators and compare the services they offer.

RSS feeds are a very useful resource for teachers and librarians. Being able to subscribe to the information that you want to share with your students, helping them get learn to do the same for projects and reports, is really an amazing step forward. Finally, all this available information on the intermet is getting easier to find and have sent right to your own computer.

Podcasting

The articles and chapter on podcasting(and screencasting) were very helpful. There are obviously loads of advantages to using podcasts in an educational setting. Campbell’s article describing the student who listens to her fellow students’ podcast on their upcoming presentation, who listens to a podcast from one of her classes on her way to breakfast, and who gets “hooked” on her science teacher’s weekly podcast helps convey the exciting educational possibilities, as well as the rapidly-growing popularity, of podcasting. It is clearly very important for librarians to keep up on their knowledge of all the latest technology tools including podcasting and screencasting in order to help students and teachers as they increasingly use these tools in their classes.
The relative ease of producing a podcast means that really anyone can make one (as we are finding out this week!). The possibilities for librarians using podcasts in their own libraries are also fun to think about. An interesting weekly podcast from the school library about the latest technology tools, current library events, available resources, and new books in the library collection could go a long way in conveying that sense of excitement about the library that the student in Campbell’s article feels about her teacher’s science podcast. Librarians could use podcasts to reach students and teachers and remind them of all the resources and help that are available to them through their libraries.