Content Collaboration

Ok, this will be a short entry because I just finished Assignment #2 and am exhausted. I will share some of my thoughts I posted in the group blog, but also say that I feel content collaboration is a necessary part of a teacher-librarian’s job. In a world where schools are under a lot of pressure, you need to connect what you are teaching with state curricular standards as well as AASL standards. In order for the students to use content collaboration tools the teachers must first be familiar with them so they can teach them. So it might fall to the librarian to offer professional development in these areas to the teacher, like in what I witnessed this past week (reposted from IDE 611/IST 611 group blog):
On Tuesday I attended a staff meeting at my fieldwork site where my supervisor gave a tech presentation on Google Calendar and Google Docs. The principal (who is new this year) is very dedicated to the faculty getting more familiar with Web 2.0 tech tools (my terminology, not his) and advocated the technology the librarian was teaching as a great way of communicating and collaborating with one another. He pushed for those who had greater knowledge in Google Calendar/Docs to help those unfamiliar with, and to use S. (the librarian) and himself as resources. He wants them to familiarize themselves with what was presented in the next several months. Most of the faculty seemed pretty open to what they were being taught. It was pretty inspiring, and made me want to learn more about Google Calendar, as I am unfamiliar with using it.