Thing #23: Neat Nings

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge that this is MY LAST THING!!! I made it!!!

Nings are neat, and it's going to take some time playing around with them to discover their usefulness. Classroom 2.0 is a great resource for educators because it fosters ideas and collaboration with Web 2.0 tools. I LOVE the TeacherLibrarianNing. I joined, and my membership is "pending approval." This is the kind of resource that I need to "pick the brains" of the wise, experienced librarians who are out there. I look forward to checking this out on a regular basis! I also was excited to find the Elementary Librarian Routines Wiki. Awesome! One thing that I've found liberating (and also frustrating) as a rookie librarian is that there are so many different ways to do this job, and most of those ways are right. When I would ask some of the other librarians how they did something, I would get six different answers, and all of them were great ideas. But which one was the RIGHT way? As a perfectionist and someone who wants to do a good job, this drove me CRAZY. But then I realized that I have to figure out what the right way is for ME and MY STUDENTS. And that will just take time...and patience.

Another invaluable resource was the List of Networks Wiki. Holy cow! I definitely bookmarked that sucker in my Delicious account. I noticed there is a Schools on Facebook site, which is designed specifically for higher education. I would love to have a Ning for the Shaw Library. Now I feel comfortable playing around with one!

Educators should embrace social networking as a tool for learning rather than shy away from it. Like all of these amazing tools that I've learned about, social networks meet students where they are in this technologically-saturated world. With so many social networking sites available, it's obvious that there's a right one for every kind of student at any grade level. Teachers should be educated about these and encouraged to try them out; I think that's a big part of my job as a school librarian. I need to be a lifeguard/fellow swimmer/coach to my teachers as they venture into the waters of Web 2.0. Now I'm ready to take on that role!