Challenge Brainstorm Area: 

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 our teachers/students/parents/administrators on board in using the tools and using them ethically?

- Thatsnotcool.com is a great site to use with middle and high schoolers, especially deals with inappropriate texting.

- http://PBSkids.org/license   is a  site  where you can "earn your web license" for elementary schools.

- Librarians need to come together to create a united citation format for powerpoints, videos, etc., - the new MLA is not great, either, with the "option" of including URLs.  Sometimes MLA / APA is so outdated - was developed for print resources and is not fitting into the new "digital" medium.  And English teachers all seem to differ on what version they use.

- Let's just teach the noodlebib tools, etc!  The kids on noodlebib like the sharing portion.  

- Easybib, Citation machine are other options.

- In colleges, they're using online bibs! Why not us?

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?  

- iPod touch for every student? I can see the benefits of having them being "familiar" tools and not "locked away" tools.  He's right, we too often "overprotect" our technology.  Same with our whiteboards, etc. - why not just let the students have at the tools and see what happens?  Well, it comes down to the issue of TIME in the classroom.  Who has exploration time?  Sigh. 

- He's right that our libraries need to be the trendsetters, not following the trends.  The "LIBRATORY" concept of space.   

- Highlights of Chris' talk: The FacebookAppsforLibraries group on Facebook is a GREAT idea for "living" in the cloud, not commuting to the cloud. Applications like Zoho Writer and the Zoho Writer API are where we should be.  An open source program called Droople.org powers theonion, senate, chris daughtry, yahoo entertainment, IBM.  Fish4info is a catalog and website in one...with the power to track student's reading from the book room, graphing their reading and achievement, etc.   Annmarie Gordon's elementary library catalog. 

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?

- Mary's idea that student collaboration is changed by using wikis makes us wonder...is it really?  Do groups REALLY work together?  Do they still end up doing just "their" part?  Some of us don't like group work, no matter HOW it's assigned.  Why should I, who wants to get my work done 2 weeks early, depend on Tommy, who gets it done the night before?  That makes me resentful.

- Should educators survey businessmen, students, scientists - how do they really collaborate?  Are they consulting each other?  Just chatting?  Or are they brainstorming together?  Just assigning parts?  

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

- Many kids only use school-based resources when teachers insist! So it's good to get them involved in creating a website so they feel more ownership.

- Wendy Stephens does a big project with seniors and a new website was put up, and the links were lost, and the kids responded! They were worried.  They do use the site.

- Computers in Libraries conference was attended - some librarians have twitter accounts re: latest books, delicious link lists, etc., and it has totally changed the view of the library by patrons.

- At the elementary level (3-5), our kids would love to be involved in any creation of the website.  

- We can see at the high school level, the attitude might be more cynical.

- Blogs may be safer than wikis (accidental content deletion and commenting), but a NING might be the best option.  However, kids over 13 are the ones with the option to contribute to a ning.

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
• 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.
• 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.
• The center for school improvement or experimental learningcenter where trials, experiments, action research, professional learning communities are centered.
• 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.