Week 3: Online Meetings (Webinars)

I found this weeks assignment for 23 Things Kansas interesting. I've had the opportunity to participate in 3 or 4 live webinars and I've watched a couple of archived ones before this came along. This week I checked out the Kansas Creativity Group archived webinar from the Kansas State Library and found this to be an interesting group. I gathered that the group has ended but would love to find another group like this one that promotes creativity in such ways. I think the 23 Things Kansas is an excellent example of creativity, and I know we will all gather creative ideas from each other.

I love the idea of online meetings. So many times I've wanted to talk with someone face to face about a particular problem or topic because I think it is much easier to learn things that way, but costs and time restraints keep me from doing this. I've used online chats with techs for some of the programs we use at school and it is so helpful to be able to share thoughts and impressions so quickly and get responses even more quickly than thru email. I want to use Skype as a means of communicating with others but it is blocked in our district and so I haven't been able to make use of it so far. I have used Google video and chat a few times in just the last 2 weeks with my husband when he has been out of town for an extended time. It's easy to use but you have to be sure that you both have Google mail up and running to know that someone is calling.

Week Two: Online Communities

Because I'm not a big fan of Facebook, I decided I would like to join the TeacherLibrarianNing and I've asked to join. I found some very useful information on the ning already. I joined this group because I feel I will connect with fellow teacher librarians around the world/country and this will only add to my knowledge.

Through this ning I became familiar with Shelfari and I signed up for a Shelfari account and have put a widget to my Shelfari page on my blog. I hope some of you will take a look at it and decide you might want to become a part of Shelfari also. I've only begun adding my books to my bookshelf, and I would love to have suggestions for new books to read for my own pleasure.

I would love to use a ning like this for my school library, but at this time all social networking sites are blocked in our district.

The TeacherLibrarianNing link is http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

Week one: Blogging

This is going to be an exciting activity - 23 Things Kansas. Great way to learn new things and so I hope everyone will be patient as we all learn together.

I am a K-6 librarian at Nickerson Elementary School. We are a small school with approximately 365 students enrolled this year. I've been a school librarian for the last 16 years, although I've been an educator for 38 years. I began as a high school senior English teacher in Oklahoma and when I moved to KS I taught jr. high English for 9 years before taking on the job that has always been my dream job - school librarian.