Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

It’s lovely that my daughter sees me this way. Thanks, Em!

I just realized I forgot to post the message I wrote on Wednesday!

I am back from Computers in Libraries and newly charged. I wish I had more time to explore what was coming today in the school library strand and the workshopS our colleagues presented in the other divisions.

For those of you who are able to follow things a little scattered, I’ve posted my presentation.

If the file is too big, try this one.

(As I noted in the presentation, joyce 3.0 will address the scatterbrain bug, but there is, of yet, no release date)

What is clear to me is that our practice has to change. I know I interact with my students in different ways these days. Whether they are five feet from me on a library workstation, in a history classroom, or in their rooms finishing up a project in the middle of the night, I am reaching them online. It is my voice that they hear all over the site. Technology allows me to scale my practice so I can reach well beyond serving one learner or one teacher at a time.

I know that my relevance is connected to my knowledge of how to use the new tools for communication and knowledge building and that I need to share this growing knowledge with other librarians, and especially my own faculty. My learners need relevant engagement. They deserve to be guided in the creation of projects that model visionary, creative, and responsible use of such 2.0 tools as wikis and blogs and podcasting and digital storytelling and web video production and video conferencing and what every else works. Not just because it is fun and exciting, but because it is the way they will communicate, learn, and work in the 21st century and I want to help prepare them for these new landscapes!

So, while I might not necessarily feel a powerful need to host DDR sessions, I do feel a powerful need to dance as fast as I can to get teachers on board. What I learned at CIL is that we are at the cusp of change and we need to help each other learn. For many of our school library colleagues, there is an entirely new vocabulary to learn.

I feel a powerful need to create new types of collections, to make more stuff searchable and to spread those resources in subject/project pathfinders. I want my learners to be able to make sense of the growing number of copyleft image collections, of the growing world of streaming media. I want them to read in all formats, including those digital audio materials that may introduce them to literature they might not reach independently. I want them to have easy access to the open source apps that will address many of their equity issues.

So I come back from CIL with a new game plan. I am going to soup-up my site. My pathfinders definitely need work. They need to morph into PowerPathfinders. They need to include so many new resource types and they need to offer great supports in the form of search terms, access to organizers, and more I cannot even think of right now. (Thank you, Marjorie!)

“Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me?”

The post that didn’t get posted:

I hope to see some of you tonight and tomorrow in DC! I am off to CIL East to kick-off the Thursday morning school library strand. What I love about this conf is that, in addition to being able to share with the geekiest (read that most affectionately) of my school library colleagues, I can also mingle folks from other regions of the library universe.

I am looking forward to Alice’s and Laura’s sharp wit, getting doctoral advice from Marjorie, and scheming the future with Debbie! Could it get better than that? I so wish I had more than a day to spend.

Back in 1996, when I started my Philadelphia Inquirer column, the Web was an infant.  In more than ten years, techlife@school allowed (sometimes forced) me to reach, to learn, and to share with readers–in this region and beyond–the excitement of watching that baby grow. 

It was cool to be a columnist with a laboratory.  When I reviewed applications and websites, I watched my learners, and my children, use them.  When I talked about issues, I asked my students, my children, fellow educators, and fellow parents how they felt. 

Along the way, I met, and interviewed. and had drinks with, and danced with many of the heroes of the ed tech world.  I won’t list their names, but those conversations inspired me, rocked my world, and pushed me as an educator. 

I tried to convey the excitement I regularly feel about the kind of learning that happens when technology is used thoughtfully and creatively and when we as teachers learn to incorporate relevant, emerging tools in our practice.

My section editor called yesterday to explain the Knight-Ridder cutbacks and to gently let me know that techlife@school was one of the columns to go. 

On the down side, I will miss the opportunities the column provided for me to grow and learn. 

On the up side, this blog provides an alternate forum.  My words here do not have the benefit of the touch of my dear, long-time editor, Rhonda, but they can be a little bit looser and they will no longer be strapped to weekly or bi-monthly deadlines.

And with those deadlines out of the way, I should be able to devote time to dissertation writing.