Web 2.0 and Reluctant Staff

[Tracy Poelzer]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for ideas around getting my technophobic staff to start using technology more with their students. Unfortunately, I am on a staff where the favorite and most frequently used word to describe anything new is "onerous" and few people will do anything on their own time, including even just playing around with new web-based tools to enhance learning in the classroom. It is very frustrating.

I am thinking that in the fall, I would like to start offering 20 minute tech-talks about different tools and websites. If I want anyone to attend, my guess is that I need to make it "all about them", and not necessarily about working with students. What I mean, is I will have to market these sessions to appeal to my staff members' personal senses of fun. I was thinking of starting with having them set up an iGoogle home page with RSS feeds and gadgets. I have also been considering having them use family photos or something personally meaningful to create a Voicethread I am hoping that once they start playing around with things for fun, that they might actually be inspired to use some of the tools with their students.

Does anyone have any suggestions of other tools, sites, etc. that I could use to appeal to my group? Your suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Richard Beaudry]

Tracy,

LISNews has a thread to a PCWorld.com article titled "25 Websites to Watch," which includes sites for creating mashups, social networking, and searching.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,132787-page,2-c,sites/article.html

As the editor of School Libraries in Canada, I published a short article that might assist you in finding appropriate technology: Technology Corner: Web 2.0 Resources
http://www.cla.ca/casl/slic/262internetresources.html

Library 2.0 - An academic's perspective is a blog that might give you some ideas.
http://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/

Richard Beaudry
CASL President
Editor of SLIC

[Tracy Poelzer]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the info. I will do some surfing around through those links later today and over the next while.

I see you are a BC'er as well! I live in Kamloops. Are you at a school right now, or are you kept too busy with all of your CASL committments? How did you get involved with all of the national associations?

[Richard Beaudry]

Hello Tracy,

I am still a teacher librarian in the Vancouver District. I started getting involved with CASL when I was working toward my MLIS degree at UBC. One of my advisors was Dr. Marlene Asselin who was president of the old Canadian School Library Association. Because I had a background in technology I helped out on the website and then the listserv. Once you get involved they always appreciate if you can volunteer for other positions so I found myself running for president elect two years ago. Taking over SLIC was more a question of circumstances than volunteering. Our previous editor moved to Europe to teach and we needed someone to fill in. Until we find a suitable replacement, I am the editor.

We are experiencing cutbacks to teacher librarians in Vancouver next year so I will be 1/3 prep, 1/3 resource teacher and 1/3 teacher librarian. I would prefer 1.0 FTE in the library but under the circumstances I will take what I can get.

Richard

[shsebek]

Hi Tracey,
Just be careful, Many people are afraid to put information on the web. They have heard so much about hackers and information theives that they may shy away if it is too much about them. I can understand because I've had a terrible experience with a blog I opened on My Space. My son is in Iraq and he thought it was a great way to communicate with friends and family in one shot...well all my husband and I get now are a million scarey looking females trying to "be our friend." No thanks, worse sight ever!
Again, the infromation is probably --out there for students and they probably know. Teachers may also be afraid of students accessing in the wrong way. Every-one, in our schools here, is afraid of being suid for everythng by parents etc... Your not the only one having problems, it's happening everywhere.
Thanks for letting me vent, Sherry

[Tracy Poelzer]

Hi Sherry,

Sorry to hear you've had some bad experiences. I've had a lot of success using www.blogger.com . It is nice because you can use varying levels of security. You can leave it wide-open to the public, you can have it open but moderate comments (you have to approve them before they're actually published on the blog), or you can have it accessible only to people you invite via email.

I don't think that the security thing is what my staff is reluctant about. It's more that many of them are afraid of trying new things and that they don't want to put any time into learning new programs or tools. They haven't tested out enough of them (or any, really) to understand the value that they have in classrooms for teaching and learning purposes, and they don't know how easy many of them are to use. It's really hard to convince them otherwise. It's an uphill battle, but I'm determined to persevere! I dream of the day when I can say, "I work with a bunch of geeks". Ha ha!

[Diane Cordell]

Tracy, One of my personal favorites is Google Documents. Maybe you could invite them to collaborate on something - an emergency phone tree, a collection of school jokes, a "cookbook" - and later explain how to adapt the application for teacher/librarian, teacher/administrator, or teacher/student collaboration. Or, you could follow Joyce's lead and create a Ning.
Diane

[Tracy Poelzer]

Great ideas, Diane. Thank you! I haven't played around much with Google Docs, but I have heard really great things about them. Something practical like an emergency phone tree is a good idea!

[Jeri Hurd]

Hi Tracy--

You might them an inservice on Nicenet. (www.nicenet.org) It's a completely free (and ad free) educational website that gives teachers space to create classroom webareas where then can post links for kids to view. There's a discussion board and even a place for kids to upload assignments and email each other. It's also somewhat customizable. I've been using it for years, and it's a great way for technophobic teachers to ease into the 21st century without feeling too fearful.

[Tracy Poelzer]

Thanks, Jeri. I will have a look at this. I think I've heard of it before, but have never taken time to check it out. Now that summer is here, I have a big list of sites to check out. I'll be including this one for sure!

[Brenda Thompson]

Sorry you are in this situation. One thing I have done with faculty is Microsoft Photostory3. It is a free download. Teachers can create photo stories for family members or for curriculum. I offered this as a Mother's Day project to students and teachers and it was a success. Also maybe some "brown bag" lunch mini tech lessons would be doable. Good luck - I am blessed with a technology savy staff! You have my sympathy.

[Tracy Poelzer]

Thanks, Brenda. I took a quick peek at Microsoft Photostory. It looks sort of similar to Voicethread, which I have been playing around with. Have you used it at all? I'm really excited about it. I will check out Photostory a little more over the next while. My only concern is that at school we are using a Linux Server. We cannot use Windows-based programs. All of our programs/software have to be Open Source. I'm not sure if Photostory will work at school for me. I will, however, be playing around with it at home!

[Randy de Jong]

Tracy,
I think most staff feel the time crunch. I think you are on the right track and will have success with short, fun sessions. I am going to be taking ideas from other parts of this thread. I am not afraid of security on the web so much, since there are ways to control access and apply moderation to blogs etc. One site I found very useful and so far is still accessible from school computers in my district is Zoho