Ready, Set....Go!

Welcome to the written documentary of my exploration of web 2.0 tools. My name is Andrea and I am very excited to embark on this journey because I am quickly seeing the potential of this first tool (blogging) in the education setting. I can just imagine students in constant conversation about the books they are reading from the library, sharing their ideas of how the library could be improved, exploring their views on a topic they mutually researched or challenging each other to think further about their recent classroom debate. This social learning tool not only will benefit me in providing a place where I can list and reflect on this experience, but also give me the confidence to use these tools in my teaching position. During the exploration of these tools, I am expecting to have both success and failure and am thrilled that I get to document it here! I plan on using this ‘diary’ of my journey to reflect on my feelings and experiences to better understand what my students may be going through when I integrate this into my school library program. But so far, this is easy! (I can already see myself regretting this comment---knock on wood!). I even know what a widget is and I have one! Check out my “shelfari” and click on “get your own shelf” to add one to your blog.

I think when using blogs in the educational setting, there are two very important criterions to consider when choosing a Blog publishing tool. It is these same two criterions that I used to choose my blog publishing tool for this assignment. The first is, it is easy to do. The second is, I have support to use it.

I had good advice from a former student of this class that had success using Blogger for this particular assignment. However, before committing to Blogger, I did check out Wordpress and Blogspot but in the end, I liked the layout of the Blogger examples I had seen and knew that I had someone to ask if I need help using Blogger. This security makes me feel like I can just give everything a try and have some fun with it without stressing about not being able to complete my assignments. I think our students need this same assurance when using these tools. They need to know they can give it a shot and have support in order to be successful.

I look forward to exploring the potential of this blog tool as an educational medium for learning. As Will Richardson (2009) conveys, technology will truly transform every aspect of education. Being a teaching-librarian, I believe it is a part of my job to be a leader in the field of education implementing practices that support the 21^st century learner. This exploration of web 2.0 tools is the beginning of my learning as well as the beginning of providing this support for my students.

Richarson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.