Community @ TTW

In my paper about educational technology, I mentioned Storify as a great classroom tool. After watching the president’s speech last night, I decided to create a story of my own and pulled in various news items, images, and even tweets. The tool is simple to use. Items from the web can be accessed easily via the [...]

One of the major issues facing education is how technology can be used in the classroom in a way that is effective to teaching, learning, and assessment. The National Education Technology Plan was created by the Department of Education in order to address these issues. Once schools have decided on the best way to approach [...]

Often, we’re afraid to collaborate with one another because we’re afraid. We afraid of not having time to get our own work done. We’re afraid that our ideas won’t be accepted. We’re afraid that the other individual(s) may not be prepared.
Take the risk anyway. You may be amazed at what develops.

Technology is often underused in education where most often the Power Point presentation is considered to be the epitome of high-tech. For some reason, seasoned educators scoff at social media and other digital tools as effective ways of reaching out to our students. At the same time, these educators do not consider technology in ways [...]

Though I had lived in Maryland for a couple of years and visited most of the museums in the Smithsonian complex, I have never actually visited the Library of Congress. Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the relatively nice weather to remedy that situation. While I knew that the Library of Congress has a strong [...]

Social Media Policy for School Districts Though it’s become obvious that more students are spending time online, shockingly few school districts have anything even closely resembling a social media policy.  Even fewer schools take into consideration the behavior of the adult members of their learning communities.  This was emphasized in the…[Read more]

Rather than monitor a brick and mortar organization, I decided to track Save Libraries, which is, according to its website, a “grassroots effort to compile information and advocacy resources for libraries that are facing devastating budget cuts.”  Because Save Libraries, as a concept is different and not really related to Save Libraries, the…[Read more]

I am particularly fascinated by the communities of blogging parents that seem to have sprung up almost overnight.  Though I’m not a parent, I sometimes end up reading the different “mommy” and “daddy” blogs and even subscribing to some.  Eventually, I’ll realize that I’m being kind of crazy and becoming totally invested in a family [...]

It’s no secret that my main interest in librarianship lies with schools.  I started out as a school teacher because I wanted to make a difference in education and three years of harrowing experience hasn’t necessarily changed that.  I just want to change the way that I can make change.  In this class, we’ve discussed [...]

One month, in 2007, the New York Times ran two stories about going online. The first article attempts to placate parent fears about the dangers of going online , but just a few weeks later, the same paper reports that more teens are actually experiencing more cyberbullying . With conflicting messages like this, it’s no surprise that people are [...]

Last week, I talked about how a library needs to be more transparent since today’s users instinctively distrust any attempt at secrecy. This week’s readings about the hyperlinked organization emphasizes just how much transparency is required in order for organizations to survive in the new information age. Initially, I was fooled by the term,…[Read more]

Just last night, I thought to myself that the media and Internet blackout in Egypt was eerie, not because the government is trying to clamp down on any type of unrest or the freedom of speech (though it is doing that, too), but because of the almost complete lack of information coming from that area of [...]

What are libraries? Though he has some nice things to say about libraries, even the Old Spice Guy can’t help but compare libraries to book repositories.  He doesn’t mention that recent economic events have placed  librarians in positions that they never imagined that they would find themselves in even as they learn to deal with the  additional [...]

After leaving teaching, it may seem like an act of lunacy to return to the school setting.  Be that as it may, I want to be a school librarian, preferably in a high school, and help students access the wealth of information intelligently and intuitively so that they may become better citizens of the world. [...]