Challenge Brainstorm Area:

Instructions:  Assign a table recorder. The editor should click on edit tab above befor any editing can happen. If the editor needs to establish an account, please do that. Record the ideas you hear around the table. Save the page between presenters.

Cathy Nelson's challenge: 

SO WHAT? The big challenge here is HOW to get them on board--

1) Teachers using the tools--harnessing them for educational purposes

2) Getting students to use them ethically & responsibly, and

3) Getting the filter guards to crak the portals! 

How do we get the teachers, parents, students and administrators onboard?

Share:  one librarian shared her experience posting notes on a wiki for meetings as a way to introduce this product..

Try with new teachers--it is easier to sell.

Make sure that the tool is something that is useful to a teacher.

Don't waste teacher's time--make it relevent and succinct. 

Chrisopher Harris' challenge: Cloudy, with a chance of learning: How will school libraries interact with the cloud? As applications and services move online into an always connected space for working and interacting, how do our libraries respond? What applications and platforms can we best use?

There are some privacy issues with grades and books checked out being available to everyone.

MaryFriend Shepherd's challenge: What is the single most useful online tool for helping students collaborate on school projects?  How can this tool be used to help students do things differently AND how can this tool be used to help students do different things?

Wikis:  you don't have multiple documents to worry about.

You can collaborate with students in other classes.

You can work from home or anywhere else at any time.

Teacher can view work at any time.

Can have students working on the same project in different curricular areas.

David Loertscher's challge. Instructions: pick one or several challenges below and put table ideas right under the particular element you are talking about.

Elements of the Virtual Learning Commons to Develop:

• Turning assignments from classroom teacher dictates into conversations that include the teacher, students, specialists in the school, parents 
  • Younger teachers are often your best friends
• Building a reading community through virtual book/movie/other media discussion clubs including wrting and utlizing social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, wikis, blogs, nings.
  • Noodletools has allowed for online sharing, online writing and coaching on the process.
• Encouraging the production of learner-created content whether for assignments or for fun and storing that content in a virtual school yearbook and museum. The center of fun and creativity.
  • House and host work being done by students in a central location online -- great idea!
• The center for school improvement or experimental learningcenter where trials, experiments, action research, professional learning communities are centered.
  • Again, great idea to post what teachers and other staff are doing to improve their learning.
• A center for metacognitive reflection by both individuals and groups
• The use of various types of tools to create a learning commons nested in the cloud. For example: signing up for Google APS as a school; Netbives, Pageflakes, etc.
• Design as a method of capturing attention and collaboration; for example, perhaps there are multiple "main" pages as direct entry points for learners, classroom teachers, teacher librarians, etc. rather than trying to direct traffic all through one central page.
• Invitations to collaborate at every appropriate place
• Creating Knowledge Building Centers (idea from Deb Wallac) that are major collaborative pathfinders for learning units that are repeated in the school over and over. These knowledge centers might have links created by everyone, tools, data sets, sample units and their success over time, projects across the class/school/world, places to collaborate with experts; links to special collections at various libraries/museums/govt. agencies; student created tutorials/projects/interviews/data sets.
  • Global awareness Centers
  • Financial literacy centers
  • Health and wellness/obesity collaborative centers
  • Any other school wide effort to integrate themes into regular curricular efforts.
• Demonstration of what clients can expect from teacherlibrarians, teachertechnologiests and other specialists (idea from Deb Wallace, Harvard business School)
• Lots of collaborative tools for kids and teachers along with tutorials for their use. CollabTools
• The integration of ICT literacy along with information literacy into learning activities designed to boot achievement.

Response:  we do collaborate with teachers, often in specific subject areas.