Week+Nine

=Week 9: Teaching Teachers=

March 17 – March 24
The full text is on the page, but if you want a pdf, here it is.

Congratulations on making it to module three! Over the past weeks we have been following the read, explore, assignment, discuss path and now it is time for you to go off-road. This week and next week you will be charting your own course. You are going to take what you have learned and show how you are going to present it to others.

Professional development is an area where LMSs can shine. You can make yourself indispensable to your administrators by letting them know you can do technology training. It is beneficial for the administrators to have in-house “talent” doing the teaching rather than having to go search for off-site experts. If you are perceived as said expert teachers are more likely to ask for your help. And that can lead to more collaboration. In addition, you are conveniently located near those teachers so it gives them added confidence to go out and use the technology, knowing that they can probably have you on call. It is a win- win- win situation!

Now that you have mastery (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) of these web applications and you are willing to share the joy - how are you going to present them to your learning community?

That is for you to decide! For the purposes of not making you crazy with one of my vague assignments, I will give you some ideas – but feel free to suggest something of your own if you like. I know that some people love leaping off with creative ideas and others are uncomfortable making the jump. These next two weeks are all about making something you think you can use in your learning community. This week, I would like you to focus on teachers and/or administrators. (You will have more leeway next week.) Gear the training to your own school system. If you don’t have one of your own, imagine your perfect future school and train the imaginary staff there.

Here are a few different types of training you can do:


 * Training teachers to use applications with students
 * Training teachers to use applications for classroom administration
 * Training administrators to use applications for communication
 * Training library staff to use applications for library administration

And you very well may come up with others – feel free to be creative!

Now, as far as how you want to present this – you can be as creative as you like or as straightforward:

(Okay, maybe the last one is a little far out…)
 * Write a script that you would speak to a group of teachers.
 * Set up an online course for staff to use independently*
 * Make a powerpoint or jing showing 2.0 tools
 * Use any of the applications you have learned about for training and post them to your blog
 * Create a podcast/video for professional development
 * Upload photos to flickr that represent the tools you are teaching
 * Write an inspirational song teaching the basics of web 2.0 and choreograph an interpretative dance.

[ @http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6423431.html ] which she set up for her public library staff for 2.0 training and has become very widely used. It was a big influence on how I set up the second module of this course! It based on the idea that people can learn a lot by just being given the time to explore the tools on their own. Sound familiar?
 * I am sure most of you are familiar with Helen Blowers “23 Things”

I don’t want to give you a rubric for this because I want you to have the freedom to do what you like. If this makes you nervous and you want to get some feedback please email me. This is not about creating x number of pages. I have seen the amount of work you do and you are all grown-ups – I am not worried about putting in a specific number of hours. It is about finding the way you are comfortable teaching. The “performance” part of being an LMS is one of my favorite parts, but I know that some people don’t like it. I want you to show how you would like to present the information you have if you were given your druthers.

To get you inspired, here is a short article to read and a list of resources from ALA – you can share your opinions of them on the discussion board.

School Librarian’s Role in Reading Toolkit @http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslissues/toolkits/slroleinreading/web2.0

Boule Michelle. “Go With the Flow. School Library Journal. November 2008. @http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6610498.html

Don’t forget to post something to your blog this week. If you can link some portion of your presentation – great! – if not a simple “this is what I am doing” kind of post is fine.