Monthly Archives: May 2008

(Music) I want to Ning, Ning, Ning…

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The Power of Words in Web 2.0

Has anyone else noticed how happy and carefree some Web 2.0 applications sound? Ning, Twitter, Twhirl, del.icio.us, Jing, Skype…I feel like I’m dancing in Cyberspace rather than surfing it! On the other hand, ‘blog’ sounds a lot like hard work; it reminds me of something difficult, climbing a hill, doing it tough (I have no idea why!) but it’s not a very pleasant sounding word. Neither is wiki (sorry)

I do wonder how the names for some of these applications come about, though, particularly when I mention them to colleagues who are not au fait with Web 2.0. When I told one teacher I’d started a Ning his facial expression suggested twilight zone, crazy, alternative lifestyle, hippy commune, etc (Well, He was a child of the 70s!) Mind you, his look didn’t really change much when I explained the Ning to him!

A Ning for Teacher-Librarians

On a high after a Web 2.0 Conference by the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) I decided to start a Ning for Victorian Teacher-Librarians. The conference made me particularly aware of the number of teachers out of touch with Web 2.0 but also a little afraid of it. Teacher-librarians so often lead the way in schools when it comes to the mastery of new technology. Yet, amongst some of the T-Ls I know and those I met at the conference I have also noticed a certain lack of enthusiasm and understanding for the potential of Web 2.0 in education. I thought the Ning might provide a place for them to share, learn and play together.

Lessons learned from Ning…

T-Ls are great networkers: I twittered my Ning and also announced it on the OZ-TL email list. I gained a new member per day. My next suggestion will be that we each invite a fellow T-L to join the Ning. (Nothing less than total domination will be tolerated!)

Girls like Pink books! Our first discussion centred on the impact of location and gender on collections. Many of the Ning members are from single sex schools and/or isolated schools in the country. Location does not seem to impact on collections as far as I can see. Girls and boys both enjoy reading the Cherub series

Stephenie Meyer has a huge following at the moment!

T-Ls are passionate.

The best way to learn about Web 2.0 is to jump in! I’ve been blogging for a few months now but I had no real idea what a Ning was until I started one. A Ning is a great way to connect like-minded people.

If you’re a Victorian Teacher-Librarian (and even if you’re not) join and/or check out the Victorian T-L Ning:


Visit Victorian Teacher-Librarians

It’s all about passion…Blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 passion quests.

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First, let me start with something completely irrelevant…Collingwood

Many years ago I watched a game of AFL football and saw the president of the losing club cry on national television…Now that’s passion! At the time I was working hard to extract a similar response from my English classes (No, I didn’t want them to cry!) I wanted them to care; I wanted them to get so caught up in a task they didn’t want to stop… I wanted passion! I developed a new found respect for that AFL team, Collingwood, (much to my family’s disgust) because I admire that sort of commitment and passion, no matter what its origin.

Passion in Education
Web 2.0 is also creating a lot of passion and excitement at the moment. I saw this first-hand today when I attended the SLAV conference ‘Re-imagining: Web 2.0 applications and implications’. I spent most of my time listening and nodding my head in agreement through each presentation. I did this a lot as I listened to Will Richardson speak of the challenges and opportunities ahead for educators. Put simply, schools must learn to compete with the virtual, world-wide web as it connects people with similar interests and passions daily. The learning opportunities are endless and students need guidance. Web 2.0 is changing the way society operates and connects; educators have to respond to this.

Jenny Luca, Toorak College, virtually described my own Web 2.0 journey (including the bit about spending Saturday nights on the web!). Jenny also reinforced my ideas about how teachers need to connect with Web 2.0 and educate themselves. Essentially…just do it! Start a blog or wiki, sign up for things, build a network with other passionate educators; there are lots of them out there.

Web 2.0: what’s in it for me? Or…What will I do tomorrow in my workplace to move forward with Web 2.0?
Pass on what I have learned to school leaders. Our leaders need to be able to see the potential here and if they don’t then it is my job to try to show them.

Supply a context for using Web 2.0. Suggest ways that Web 2.0 can be used to enhance learning at our school. Some ideas: Begin a VCE English theme wiki to encourage discussion and learning with other students from other schools studying these themes; do some serious ‘selling’ of my Literature Discovery Tour to show teachers what is possible; Begin a Voicethread project to encourage discussion of the CBCA shortlisted title.

Continue to arrange and present professional development sessions: igoogle; google docs; voicethreads; animito; scrapblogs (and my other discoveries) in a simple, short, non-threatening way.

Encourage individual exploration.

Get the students involved. Students love all this stuff; I have a group I call the ‘library legends’ who are currently creating avatars and alternative identities so they can contribute to a library blog.

Attempt to demystify Web 2.0 for parents and teachers. Send details of my blogs home to parents so they can look at them with their children.

Keep Learning. Continue to sign up for things, subscribe to blogs, comment a lot, start a wiki…etc. I’m not sure if it’s possible to be a Web 2.0 expert but I know it’s important for me to become a Web 2.0 explorer, learner and innovator.

Collingwood v Brisbane Flickr photograph by Judi Donovan