Blogs-There are people out there with good blogs. The part that difficult for me is finding the great ones that I can use. I’m not into personal blogging, however my blog is strictly professional, trying to learn new social media. I started a few years ago when the Nebraska Library Commission started a Nebraska Learns 2.0 site. I didn’t finish it, but I’m thinking after I finish the CPD23 program I will go back and finish that up, as it is important for me as a librarian to stay on top of new social media that the teachers in my school district could be using in their classrooms. I don’t mind blogging once on in awhile, but I don’t know if I could do it everyday. Perhaps introducing some new projects and co-teaching with the classroom teacher could be one way. Another situation I’m dealing with trying to get a high school book club started, but the only time I can do it is over lunch and those interested have different lunch times. Maybe setting up a blog is the way to go with this project, let them read and comment and allow them to comment on the other posts, hmmmm?
Branding is something I have thought about doing, but not seriously, especially when considering the Internet. I did change my Twitter account from smittynebr (the name I use for virtually everything) to Mr_Smidt to reflect more professionalism. I haven’t followed up yet on the idea of posting to Facebook to let my friends help me choose a persona that fits me. I know I need to develop a brand soon, because as a school librarian I need to make sure students of all ages can see and relate what I’m doing and know that it is a reflection of myself as well.
Twitter for me has picked up considerably since it was reintroduced through this program. I’m looking for new people/groups to follow. One thing I think I will have to do is create a second account to follow celebrities and my sports items. I’m currently following 205, and that is way too many. I did learn more about retweeting and the hashmarks, seen it quite a bit but never knew the importance of it. One project that I plan to start next week for the elementary school I work at is getting a Virtual Meeting with Nebraska’s astronaut, Clayton Anderson. I noticed he was on Twitter, and included his handle in a tweet about possibly setting something up, needless to say I was shocked when he retweeted to me and gave me a contact name and number in Houston. For a school that K-6 and has about 215 kids in it, something like that would be huge. The whole reason I got into Twitter in the first place was our High School Spanish teacher was using it with a few of her classes and I signed up to see what they were doing in the classroom.
RSS was first introduced to me in graduate school. I don’t use it as much as I should. There are a lot of great websites you can subscribe to, but again it takes time to find the ones that fit you. I love reading Unshelved, even started a collection of the comic strips. I feel like overkill can be bad for anyone, and I need to find that happy medium. I don’t like starting or creating something and let it sit without doing anything. That’s what happened with RSS for me. However with the new version of Firefox, I have pinned my feed site so that anytime I open my browser it will be there for me, a nice quirk to have.
I have not used Pushnote yet. I have installed it on my laptop, but I think I need to do some additional research on it. I can see the importance of having it in a school setting, sharing sites with other teachers could be a benefit for all. Once I feel more confident, I may share this one with some of the tech-savvy teachers and see how it goes.
As for reflective practice, I’m always trying to make myself a better teacher, and anytime I present to members of the staff, administration or students I ask for feedback, whether written or a form online. Librarians cannot stay stagnant in what they do. We will fall behind if we choose the easy route. As a teacher, I want what’s best for the students, and it’s my responsibility to keep up with new technology and databases that I can pass on to them, so that when they graduate and go to college, they aren’t bombarded with new concepts while trying to adapt to a new environment. I did start a journal online through Google Docs of the things I do at the high school so I can reflect later and see what I can do better.
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