Overview of the Week: Diigo, Wikis, and Guest Speaking

I am so happy this week is over! I want to share about what might be one of my busiest yet satisfying work weeks in a very long time.  I will write reflections as I (and my students) finish up the projects.
Diigo
I taught Diigo for the first time to all of the seniors. I set up Diigo accounts for each of the 120 students using Diigo Educator. I chose to use the educator version so that I could manage their accounts, set up groups, and basically be in charge. Our seniors write a thesis paper which they work on for several months, and it is a great culminating research activity of all they have learned in the library. I like to update them with some new research skills or tools though, and this year I chose to add Diigo. Many of the kids seem to like it. In fact, I believe the boys, and not just the highly motivated boys, were very impressed with Diigo and even started using the word as a verb ("Let's Diigo."). I chose to install the Diigolet on Firefox on many of the library computers and taught the kids how to install it from home. I will post an update in about a month with impressions from the seniors, but right now, I am happy with all the preparation I did (setting up their accounts, installing Diigo, making my account as an example for them), and with the interest of the students even though using it isn't required this year.  Do any of you Diigo? What grades enjoy it? For what projects?

Moodle Wiki
In a big collaboration effort between the four 8th grade English teachers, one of our educational technology specialists, and me, we created  wikis in Moodle to use as a reflection and collaboration component in the big research project. I made a LibGuide to accompany the wiki.
Each class has a wiki similar to the one below.

Each student has a page on the wiki where they are reflecting on the inquiry and research process, adding links to research, and posting comments on other student wikis. I was nervous to start this and teach wikis (and Moodle) for the first time. I am proud to report - so far, so good. Moodle is mostly stable, the kids are getting it, and the collaboration is going well. I am lucky to work with a great educational technologist and a team of teachers who trust us. We have completed 3 of the 7 library related lessons for this project so far, and I will post an update at the end to let you know about how the teachers and students feel about it in the end.

Guest Speaking
I used to work with a friend who became a consultant about issues concerning the Internet and schools. She had scheduled some presenting engagements at another school, and she asked me to cover two of them.  I  spoke about Internet ethics and cyber-bullying to a group of 8th graders at another local independent school. My Dean of Faculty said it would be great professional development, and it was. I was nervous to present, although my friend had great presentations to follow. I wanted to make a good impression, and I wanted my friend to be proud of me and be able to call on me again for help. I think the days went very well and any practice presenting to strangers is good experience.

All in all, I had a week of new experiences, new lessons, new collaborations, and not enough sleep because I also started reading a new book (The Help) which I love! And, the other librarian also was busy introducing two other major research projects, so some days we had about 230 people (that is one third of the student body) learing in the library throughout the day. A great week, and more to come this week. Look for reflection pieces for each component in upcoming weeks.

To the Fans of My Library's Facebook Page

Please, don't become a Fan! I hope you are not offended, but try to understand, it's not that I don't like you...

Late last year I was thrilled when my school library's Facebook page had a record 70 fans. When I went to see who those fans were, I was met with a lot of unfamiliar faces. Yes, there were about 30 current students, some faculty and staff, and even lots of alumni. But there were many people who I am assuming are librarians. If you are one of them, I am sorry to tell you that I "removed" you from my fan base.
Yes, it was nice to be part of the library Facebook community. And yes, I do want lots of fans, but I want fans from my school community. I want my students to browse the fans and see their friends, teachers, and siblings, not a bunch of ladies (mostly) from around the world that they do not know! I think they might be more likely to become a fan if they see their community in the library's virtual space. I want to encourage informative conversations and publicity for our school library programs, books, and research projects. Maybe when I have 200 or so fans, a couple dozen librarians will be fine. But for now, it just doesn't suit the purpose of the page.
Does your school library have a Facebook page? Have you looked through the fans to see who your online community is? Do you want fans from outside your community? I am working on getting more student fans - any ideas on how to spread the word?

Blogging Goals

Happy New Year! 
I spent the past few weeks evaluating a lot of things, both personal (my budget, my garden, my clutter) and professional (my school blog, my lessons/collaboration for January, my presentations, my blog), as many people do this time of year. After thinking about why I blog, new ideas for the blog, and when to blog,  I made some new goals I'd like to share with you.

A Goal to Heaven

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomoski/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

1. Redesign Archipelago. I am currently working on a new look in WordPress. I hope to have it all done by the end of January. I want to make it easier to read on different browsers, and I want to give it a cleaner look. Anyone have any tips in what to look for in a WordPress theme?

2. Diversify the perspective and the dialog. I want to attract guest bloggers. Would you like to be one? Some are already in the works with seeds planted and minds pondering. I also want to encourage more collaboration through enticing more people to comment on the blog, and therefore I need to start more interesting conversations.

3. Find a schedule. In order to make the blog fun and not a burden, I need a schedule of minimum posts. So, my goal is to write at least one new post every two weeks.

4. Increase visibility and readership while maintaining balance. This one will be difficult, but is most crucial. I enjoy being part of the blogging librarian community, but I do not want it to take over my life - I am a working mom and I do have other hobbies! I think the word balance will be my mantra. 

This month is going to be very busy with teaching Diigo for the first time, working with the whole 8th grade on a research project with new technology components, two presentations at another school, a presentation to the faculty, and I am sure more adventures will surface. I am apprehensive about how busy I will be and I hope to tackle reflecting on the projects in my next posts.

Turning Off, Again!

Back in July I wrote about turning off 2.0, just temporarily - just for part of the summer, to get some needed rest, time with the family, and check in with myself without the computer. Well, it must be a twice-yearly itch, because as you can tell from my lack of new posts, I am bowing out for a while again. At work I am quite busy. But after my day job, I am consumed with family and now the upcoming holidays. So I just wanted to let any readers (my loyal fellow librarians) know, that I am fine, busy, happy - and I will post again. I'm just taking a break. And although my Google Reader numbers are astounding, I cannot catch up on reading all of it until I finish reading Shanghai Girls. I am still facebooking and twittering but I'm just pulling back a bit. I highly recommend taking time off once in a while to step back and look around at the world. And to dive back in when ready!

Giving Thanks - My PLN

As we approach Thanksgiving, I have to give thanks to my PLN (Personal Learning Network). I should write about the AASL conference, and what I learned and thought about, and I will soon, but today I have my PLN on my mind.
The following diagram illustrates my PLN from the center (the heart), which was also the beginning, out to the also very important periphery, which I check less often but still find very valuable. It represents the layers of my PLN, and although there are some public school librarians and public  librarians I follow avidly (Buffy Hamilton, Joyce Valenza, David Lee King), my coworkers,  local consortium, and other independent school librarians I engage with more frequently about daily issues.

I want to thank the Independent School Library Exchange, ALA's Independent School Section, the Association of Independent School Librarians, and the many librarians and educational technology people I follow, for educating me and engaging in conversation about our profession.

Today I attended a webinar with the educational technologist from my school. David Warlick was presenting at a Linworth webinar about PLNs (he posted his notes about the webinar and handouts), and how to help teachers and co-workers develop them.  Although I feel I have a strong PLN already (thanks!), Mr. Warlick today gave me powerful language to use while talking about the importance of a PLN. He spoke about the PLN as a garden and the need to cultivate it. He acknowledged that fast food (lectures and textbooks) is fine and has its place, but cultivating a garden, an ecosystem with interactions within it, takes time and work to grow better. David Warlick's metaphor spoke to me - I understand my PLN in a new way - I love that! I enjoy gardening, I admire people who find time to garden. I can connect that relationship between gardener and garden to me and the people I follow.
Along with a plan for helping our faculty develop PLNs, the Linworth webinar also gave us a common ground about which to discuss and teach. The educational technologist I work with is relatively new to our school, and I think this webinar has given us place from which to grow together as a team. This professional relationship will need to be cultivated as it is crucial that we, librarian and educational technologist, define our roles and work together well and in a coordinated fashion. Mr. Warlick emphasized the "lifestyle of learning." I experienced it. And I experience it with my Personal Learning Network. Thank You!

AASL 2009

NoodleTools and Blogger: Putting your Works Cited on your Site

One of our History teachers is requiring each student make a blog using Blogger. The students will be informing their classmates about famous thinkers and they will be gathering information from several sources, including books. The students are used to using NoodleTools to take notes and format their works cited.

NoodleBib : Print via kwout

I found that what looks the best is to cut and paste the Works Cited from Word into a gadget. Use the wide gadget option at the bottom of the page and paste the text there. Then no words will be cut off. The URLs will be missing, but URLs are no longer needed in MLA. If the teacher wants the URLs, as our teachers do, students could easily link them in the titles before saving the gadget.
I like how the works cited looks at the bottom of the blog. Also, set as a gadget it will always be there, whether you are looking at the main blog page or just one entry.

I hope this tidbit is helpful to you! I spent time trying out different ways of posting the works cited, and I wanted to share what I think is the best way to do it. Do you have a better way? Or another helpful tip for students using Blogger? Let me know!