Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

Saturday night I attended the K12 Online FreeFalling Blog Club http://k12online.wikispaces.com/Freefalling+Blog+Club+First+Date

The conversation and the sharing was inspiring. One participant’s question continues to resonate: How do we find out what effective practice looks like in a Web 2.0 world?

I am certain of one thing. I am learning more from my fellow bloggers and from online conferences than I am from any other sources these days.

The small community of blogging educators regularly shares its successes, setbacks, and discoveries through professional blogs. So many of us are getting to know each other in informal professional communities that are both geographically and specialty-agnostic.

This past weekend, I attended K12 Online meeting and visited EdTechTalk. My math teacher buddy Darren shared how he is using Flickr-type mind maps to have his students reflect on mathematical concepts–to “look at the world through mathematical eyes.” http://adifference.blogspot.com/2006/12/flickring-mind-maps-making-learning.html

Darren’s work leads me to wonder through what other curricular lenses we could view our world and its powerful images.  I want to expand our Flickr art gallery.  (Right now we have only one work up, but we are committed to building space for self and peer review.) But can we also annotate and further explore historical or news photos using Flickr notes and comments?
And, just last night, my American Memory fellow buddy, Monica Edinger wrote to share her students’ success and excitement about the Charlotte’s Wikipedia project and her new blog, eduating alice.

The Charlotte project involved Monica’s students in improving the Wikipedia entry on Charlotte’s Web. The children “were outraged at the inaccuracies” in the existing entry. Monica shares the students’ enthusiasm as they worked together to revise the entry and their mixed enthusiam for the collaborative editing that followed.

It’s Monday, and I already have teachers excited about translating these ideas to Springfield learning culture.

I am convinced that is critical that librarians and classroom teachers do their scouting in these new communities and new frontiers.