What a ride!

Wow! What a journey this summer Web 2.0 course has been! A whirlwind tour through the infosphere...kind of like one of those 7 countries in 7 days European tours. It's felt like that some days! My passport's been stamped and I'm back at 'home', wondering if it all really happened and what I've truly learned from my experiences. Much like the aftermath of a action-packed holiday, one needs to see the photos again to remember all of the details of the adventure, recapturing the sights, smells, sounds and feelings. That's where I'm at right now. Looking back at the snapshots of the course.

There were good days, where the learning was fun and success came easily. And of course, there were days when things didn't quite go as planned, and success came after some frustration. But overall, I have learned a lot and enjoyed the trip.

Web 2.0 was like a foreign country for me in that I'd heard about, and maybe even sampled some of the 'culture' already from the safety of my own home, but I certainly had not ventured there for the full immersion experience. That's what this course was like. Air-dropped into the jungles of the Web and having to learn the language and customs in order to survive. I was 'disturbed' from my predictable world as I ventured into the Web 2.0 world, where the only certainty is that I will be confused for a time, and that's okay (Wheatley, 2002). Scary, but it really forced me to explore and discover the place. And I did, at least to a certain extent. I'm far from being fully fluent but I'm getting by. Side trips included photosharing with Flickr and Picasa (and many others), multimedia sharing with Animoto and VoiceThread, video sharing and YouTube, blogs, wikis, social networking with Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking with Delicious and Diigo, podcasting with Audacity and FreePlay Music, blogs, wikis, virtual libraries and RSS feed readers with Google Reader and PageFlakes.

Of course, no trip is complete without the souvenirs or mementoes of the event and I have my own examples of Animoto, VoiceThread (also below), Podcasting, Picasa photo albums, my PageFlakes H1N1 aggregator and my blog as a record of the journey. These things I can share with others (and I already have) to hopefully inspire them to use the tools as well. They are reminders and examples for me to continue learning them and using them. Yes, it was quite the trip.

The best thing about the course was learning how Web 2.0 tools can be incorporated into my teaching. My instructor provided great links to information and examples that inspired my own ideas. My classmates shared their own ideas and plans for using the tools, too. And now that I am not only a blog writer but also a blog/RSS feed follower, I have been learning even more.

My favourite blogs, out of the dozen or so that I am following, have been Blue Skunk, Will Richardson, and School Libraries Worldwide. Blue Skunk provides me with a light look at Web 2.0 tools, sometimes with facts, often with humour, but always making me consider the implications of a tool's use. Will Richardson, is my favourite Web 2.0 tour guide, and his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts has become my personal Lonely (Web 2.0) Planet guidebook. Richardson writes inspiringly about the wonders and the possibilities of Web 2.0, and often has real life people and situations to hold up as great examples for us to follow. I also follow his shared items. School Libraries Worldwide is a bit more scholarly than the other two, but the articles about Library 2.0, tools for libraries and classrooms and reaching our students are informative and insightful, providing me with lifetimes of food for thought!

And it's all helped me to go from being a timid tourist to someone who can lead the way in using these great tools personally and professionally. That's a milestone!


The course may be over, but I feel like my learning and journey into Web 2.0 has really only just begun. Now that I know some of the ins and outs of the place, I can continue to explore, learn and share on my own. And as often as we might say that we'll get back to such-and-such a place one day but never do, I am already booked on continuing Web 2.0 tours with upcoming classes, incorporating new technologies into the research process and a collaborative wiki on number systems around the world. I've seen so many possibilities for using the tools with students and my library, that I have to at least give them all a try! Especially since our students are having such rich internet experiences outside of school.

Web 2.0 has us rethinking the concept of quality education as the nature of 'quality' evolves to adapt to the ever changing social and technological environments. We, as teachers and librarians, must also adapt and change in order to use these tools as efficiently and effectively as possible to facilitate new knowledge and skills (Lackie & Terrio, 2007).

Our students' world and experiences go far beyond our classrooms as they explore the infosphere with Web 2.0 tools. Our libraries need to align with them and be able to provide more user interactive and more Web 2.0 compatible experiences for our patrons (Casey, 2007). Fiehn (2008) agrees that libraries, and their catalogues, need to provide experiences that are comparable to patrons' Web experiences in order to remain viable. Although the catalogue system at our school may not be adaptable to the interfaces of the new technologies, I will certainly supplement it with a blog or a wiki to get information out to our community and to elicit responses and input from it. Maybe a Facebook account will be more 'visible'. I intend to try out weekly podcasts to highlight a new book or two, or a special event as a creative and effective way to promote the library. It would be fantastic if our library catalogue could work as well as Amazon.com in providing users with ratings, professional and customer reviews, content and cover previews, and lists of similar titles (Casey, 2007). By also exploring more of the virtual library worlds, and adopting some of their local customs, I'm sure we can make vast improvements in meeting the digital needs of our students in our own school cultures.

Black (2007) states that "librarians have always been cutting edge and still are on the forefront of implementing and experimenting with Web 2.0 tools. The key is to continue to do so" (p.12). Librarians are expected to be the change agents in schools, as they have been in the past, where technological evolution may have moved at a slightly slower pace (Black, 2007). The Read/Write Web is evolving at blinding speed and we need to keep up as best we can, challenging though that may be. I agree that we must continue to implement and experiment in the Web 2.0 world. That certainly is the key and I don't intend to miss the bus on that one!
The Great Experiment Tour.

Richardson's (2009) Epilogue chronicles the morning activities of Tom, a teacher fully literate and fluent in the language of the Web 2.0 world, who checks his RSS feeds, uploads particularly interesting articles to folders accessible to his students or his colleagues, uploads an assignment for students, downloads an MP3 interview that his students completed and sips his coffee, all in the space of about 45 minutes before his teaching day begins. If I had read this chapter at the beginning of this Web 2.0 course, I would have found it hard to understand and even harder to believe. But now that I've travelled around the infosphere countries these past few weeks, I can easily imagine such a scenario. I can imagine that one day, not too far from now, that could be me. Yes, I have definitely been affected by the whirlwind tour of the Web 2.0 cultures and will probably be looking at that photo album of the trip quite often to keep me in tune with all that I have learned and have yet to learn. Happy trail(fire)s!


VoiceThread



References
Black, E.L. (2007). Web 2.0 and Library 2.0: What Librarians Need to Know. In N. Courtney (Ed.) Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow's user (pp.1-14). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Casey, M. (2007). Looking Toward Library 2.0. In N. Courtney (Ed.) Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow's user (pp.15-23). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Fiehn, B. (2008). Social Networking and Your Library OPAC. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools 15(5), pp.27-29.

Lackie, R.J. & Terrio, R.D. (2007). Mashups and Other New and Improved Collaborative Social Software Tools. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools 14(4), pp.12-16.

Richardson, W. (2009) Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

Wheatley, M. (2002). Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. Retrieved August 17, 2009 from http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache%3AXlTxWTbvMKYJ%3Awww.ode.state.or.us%2Fopportunities%2Fgrants%2Fsaelp%2Fwilling-to-be-disturbed.pdf+Willing+to+be+disturbed&hl=en&gl=us