School Library 2.0

This week's reading was about School Library 2.0, and it really clarified this idea of Web 2.0 and education. Before this article, I completely understood that I needed to keep up with technology as a teacher/TL, but I didn't really understand exactly how Web 2.0 fit into education. I mean, I wasn't planning on friending any of my students on facebook, ever - none of them need to see those pictures of me getting pushed around in a shopping cart in the middle of the night.

The reason I now understand why Web 2.0 is important to me and my teaching career is thanks to Jo-Anne Naslund and Dean Giustini's article (http://asselindoiron.pbworks.com/f/14>2naslund_giustini.pdf). It did something very important for my fixed and uncreative mind: it put Web 2.0 into categories, and called all these categories School Library 2.0. Then it discussed how each category worked. A quick run-down of the categories within School Library 2.0: blogs (online journals), wikis (online collaboration), social bookmarking, social networking, microblogging and social media-sharing sites. This kind of categorization is exactly what I need.

Of these categories, I'm most interested in wikis. I used to work with this really phenomenal TL, and she used wikis for book reviews and that kind of thing. She reported it as a big success, and I kind of pretended to understand what she was talking about. A classmate in 477 was also talking about a kind of online book club, using these kinds of collaborative websites. That sounds right up my alley.

At the moment, I teach English 10 and 12 online, and we have online discussion boards where students debate certain topics. I wonder - would something like a wiki or a Googledoc be a better or more interesting activity? Or is it just more of the same thing? How could I make a googledoc worth marks in an online course? Web 2.0 and online learning is definitely something that I'd like to explore.

Okay, I know this is getting quite long for one posting. I hope my lengthy posts aren't why nobody's following my blog. Come on people! I'm the only classmate with no followers! It's sad . . .