Tying Up all the Loose Ends…

And so ends another semester in my quest to becoming a librarian. Only one more semester to go, and by this time in December, I will be a fully certified school librarian. Oh the tools I will have, and the places I can go. It seems not so far off, but it’s hard to imagine this journey really being finished. This summer semester was a bit overwhelming for me, but so informative and I feel like I took the most away from this semester more than any before. Cataloging was a useful course, indeed, and I will surely use the information I learned there in many of my endeavors as a librarian. LIS 460 introduced me into a world of technology that I before I didn’t even consider to be useful in the educational world. I have so many tools now, so much more knowledge to impart in the classroom.

I used to use my webpage that I designed for my multimedia class as a tool that showcased my technology skills. I’m actually too embarrassed to even post that link here, and would much rather show off my innovation project, creating a wiki for a school. I’m sure in a year or so, I’ll be shocked that I thought this was something worth presenting to the world, as technology is so fast to change. Maybe this will look as juvenile to me in a year’s time as my multimedia project does now. Despite that, I hope to remain on the cutting edge of technology, and services like Twitter, and RSS feeds, and podcasts, and everything we studied to help students learn this semester, will help me to stay on the cutting edge of what technologies are available. Hopefully I will continue to consider how to use them in the classroom and to best benefit my students.

I wondered what the fate of this blog would become once this course was over, but I’m thinking I might continue to use it, as a professional blog. I have a blog that I keep for fun, and one that’s more of a weekly (sometimes monthly…) update of my life. This blog would serve me well professionally, and as it’s already begun with my thoughts on technology in the school media center, I can’t think of a better place to continue…

Meta-blogging

This blog will be a metablog – a blog about blogging.

As I was reading Richardson’s chapters on weblogging, I could definitely relate to what he described when someone first responded to something that he had written online. I remember the first time I realized that people I didn’t know or were not connected to people I knew were reading my blog. It wasn’t getting that many more hits per day, or any real attention, but it was out there, and it was easily searchable and findable. I was really proud, even though I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. A friend of friend of mine got a book deal off of his fictitious blog, Anonymous Lawyer. It’s this potential that blog’s have, to reach the right person, that my blog just might come across the screen of the right person, that sparked my interest in keeping up with my blog when I might have let it lapse long ago. What started as an easy way to keep all my friends informed without having to tell the same story over and over has become so much more. I’m always a little surprised when I am talking to someone and they mention something that was in my blog, but it’s a good feeling. It’s out there to read, so I want people to read it.

I think this kind of quasi-fame that can be found through blogging is something that would really appeal to young writers, especially of the late elementary – high school age. As soon as students are capable of higher ordered thinking, they can start creating and generating ideas about things they are interested in and posting them online. I remember in my class this year, I tried to use posting reviews on Amazon.com as an incentive to get my students to finish reading a book and creating a review to put online. They really liked the idea that their post would be online for anyone to read.

I think there are some dangers with having students blog freely online in a school related setting. I wonder how content and appropriateness could be monitored, or even if it should be monitored? Are there student-friendly blog hosting sites that maybe filter out more questionable content so that it could be more appropriate for school. And if a site like this does exist, does it also limit who can access the material that is posted (like friends only subscriptions). I have some reservations when it comes to students posting freely on the internet. Not because I believe they should be censored, but I worry about exposure of too much identity. I find that most children/young adults can find their way easily around the limitations that are set up age wise (i.e. Myspace – putting in an older age). So if they will find a way to do it anyway, do limitations even matter?