Anyway, it is progressing very well and we hope to open it soon. From the time the work started, in July, I have been taking photos and posting them on the library site – Library Online. Also, I have been tweeting (probably too much) from The Librain’s account and also my school library account – Library Online – with almost daily updates. I think that because of this activity, I have been asked to do a presentation for the next Your School Library Course!

If you are interested in library design, then this course should be very interesting. There are some great presenters – I wish I could have had this course a year ago! Anyway, if you want to find out more, then check out the flyer below:

I am sure that I will be blogging about this extensively later on, but I just wanted to point out here the really neat way they have used Netvibes to create a website. I have been able to copy elements of this over to my own Netvibes pages so that I keep track of the development of the course.

I am really looking forward to it as they have some great speakers again!

Why not visit the site and sign up for the course when they open registration?

Thank- you so much everyone!

I did finish the course, although I skimmed over the last few presentations and did not post very much to the discussions. This was because my personal life was encroaching too much and I was feeling under pressure.

I will return to the presentations at a later date and think through how I am going to move forward and feed back to the school. As I am new in post, I am not sure of the best way to do this, or, in fact, whether I should just wait for a more appropriate time. My main focus now has to be on developing the new library, getting it up and running in the autumn and then starting the process of encouraging teachers to make use of it and myself. So it may not be until this time next year that I can actually begin to use some of the amazing things that I have learned.

In the meantime, I will continue to try out these things for myself, and maybe draw up a plan of action. I can use tools such as VoiceThread with my Reading Group, perhaps. And, of course, I can enjoy using them in the library website.

Via Twitter, I saw a link to this downloadable book “21st Century Technology Tools : Tutorials“. It looks really useful for helping teachers and others who are not very confident about using a lot of Web2.0 – and in fact I will read some of the chapters myself!

When I have had more time for reflection, I may post some more about the course.

The podcasting presentation was excellent and I feel that I could try this out, when the opportunity presents itself. I have saved the presentation and also all of the links so that I can return to it later on.

I also dropped in on the “chat” session just to see that it works OK before our session at 8.00 pm tonight. If I have the energy, I may add to this post after that.

This afternoon, I tried the session on The Seamless School Library – well, that had me bowled over but totally drained at the same time. This is not a quick Word document or a .pdf, but a whole website to explore. It was too much for an afternoon – trying to fit this between the normal library stuff. I am also getting quite tired as I have been staying up too late reading stuff and then I cannot sleep as so much is whirring around my head!

Anyway, I will again come back to that section at a later date as I cannot cope with it today.

So, I spent some time working on the Library Online website. Having watched the social bookmarking presentation, I was reminded that I could use the “link rolls” script from Delicious to show visitors to the Subject pages the latest links for each subject that I have added to Delicious. I have only made a few of these pages as yet, because I have not reached the point where I am working closely with teachers. I just made these as examples – although the English one is starting to develop because the Sixth Form students are starting to ask me for help – wonderful!

Update: What great fun it was chatting to other school librarians on Meebo last night. Now I can see why teenagers get so addicted to MSN! Then I spent some time setting up Skype and got through to a friend in Australia. I still feel so starry-eyed by the power of technology! Maybe that is why I chose the picture below as my main avatar!

Please don’t make comments about this as I know it is very basic! I will try to do something a bit better when I can find the time and a quiet space!

Anyway, I will carry on following her as I pick up so many ideas from influential librarians like her!

David’s presentation, and the live session, was really amazing. I now know that I love something that has the human voice as well as a visual presentation! Although this kind of media center would not be possible or very appropriate in my present school, it was wonderful to see the things that are possible elsewhere.

Also, I must admit that I find I am still able to be awed by the power of technology! Whereas students have grown up with this, and so very rarely get that wow factor, I say “Wow” all of the time. From someone who used a dip-pen then later a sliderule at school to this…

…truly awesome!

I started the day thinking about participation on the course. A lot of SLN members from the UK have joined and yet I could see only a handful online and posting comments. Also it was apparent that many people were struggling with Sosius before they could actually get to work on the course. So I decided to  write a quick guide to getting started and then I uploaded it to a couple of areas and notified everyone – I hope that it helps.

Also, thinking about all of the wonderful resources mentioned in the posts, I had begun to tag them on Diigo for myself and so I thought that it would be helpful to others if I offered to do this for everyone. Now, I know that it is a huge task and may be a bit impossible to achieve successfully. But I will try to do it as best I can.

So, to the actual course. What did I learn yesterday? I have only just begun my new job and the focus for my first year must be on designing and developing the new library. It is such a small school and so it is easy to talk to staff face to face. However, I have also been given the remit that I will help the school develop ICT in the future. I hope that I have opportunities to show some of these Web2.0 tools to staff – maybe at a training day. So, I will take the chance to learn as much as I can and try to suggest things to teachers where appropriate. I will also use the Library Online website to demonstrate some of them also and maybe develop a wiki for the Reading Group. Then I will have some practical examples to show.

We are in a difficult situation when a lot of the staff do not read their official emails! But I will have to try to find my way around this. So these are my thoughts about the presentation on professional development for staff with Web2.0.

As to the other presentation on mashups! This was a really steep learning curve for me. At least I think that I understand a little more about what they are, but I couldn’t get to grips with Yahoo Pipes. Maybe that was because I was trying to do this in too much of a hurry. It is difficult to make the mental space and time at home on an evening, when my boys are fighting me for the computer!

I will have to come back to this at a later date, when I can find a quiet time to really concentrate!

It has been interesting to read what others are doing, although I don’t feel that I have personally found much that is totally new to me so far. What is different is the ability some people have to use new technologies in their schools, either because they are teacher-librarians or because of the ethos of their particular school. So, I have heard of wikis etc before and have tried some of the tools myself, but not had much opportunity to use them in a teaching context – apart from the wiki I used at NCTC.

My present school is a very academic one and I am not sure as yet when I will be able to start encouraging the use of Web2.0. I did try with one department and gave them a detailed list and offered help – but there was no response.

I am supposed to be getting involved in ICT development in the school, when I have got the new library up and running – so maybe I will get more chance then.

|What I have tried out today is VoiceThread – this laptop has a microphone, so I was able to add some voice comments to someone else’s presentation. I would like to make one myself, so may try this out soon. Not sure what I will do as yet.