Web 2.0 in the Elementary Library

[Allison Williams]

I posed this question on Twitter and got no response. Here's hoping this group will come to my aid. I want this year to get off to a dynamic start.
How do you implement web 2.0 resources with kids when school already has great tech team doing just that?
I would love any ideas or links you have for working with K-4 students both in collaboration with classroom teachers and within the library. Our students have both library time and computer time scheduled each week and the tech teacher has lots of neat projects. I don't want to be in competition with her. We like to collaborate but our individual schedules don't allow for much shared time.

[Allison Williams]

You are certainly right. The classroom teachers look to me to initiate innovative projects. I just find it so darn frustrating that so many great projects need multiple sessions in the classroom while I am far away in the library in a separate building. And our K-4 students do not have unscheduled time to come and go as they please. A further complication is that, understandably, parents of young children do not want their kids on the computer at home. So, for example, when I created a blog for the Philosophers Club, a 4th grade enrichment group, I had to allow members to contribute to the blog during club time rather than as a follow-up to group discussions. I know that working with young students is a different kind of animal but I'm betting some one out there has come up with some good techniques.

[Cynthia Alvarado]

Just work with teachers to add a Web 2.0 twist to some assignment they already do in a more traditional way. Make a social studies project into a vlog post or podcast. Help videotape a science experiment. Post the video to a blog page and have students comment. My most successful Web 2.0 venture to date is when I got the teachers interested in having students write book reviews to post on my blog site. I run a contest on the site in the fall asking for suggestions for new purchases for the media center, with reviews and reasons why I might want them. I buy the books recommended in the best couple posts. I've actually gotten some great ideas that way.