Connected librarians: new book by an old friend
Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 05:27AM 
You can certainly suspect that a friend or colleague is smart, but sometimes it takes reading a book she has written to really know just how smart.
My friend and colleague, Nikki D. Robertson, has written an outstanding book for ISTE titled Connected Librarians: Tap Social Media to Enhance Professional Development and Student Learning. In this well-organized, fast read, Nikki shares her personal history of using social media as a professional, provides outstanding rationale for keeping social media sites unblocked in schools, and demonstrates great ways of dealing with social media misuse by kids.
At the heart of the book, however, are very comprehensive and pragmatic examples of how a wide variety of social media tools can be used for learning by both educators and by students. Nikki knows and understands these tools and reveals a range of both tools and uses for them I had never dreamed of. Concrete example lifted from real schools give this book genuine practical use.
I know it is pretty darned early in 2018, but I will go out on a limb here and say that if you only read one professional book this year, make it Connected Librarians.
If I have any criticism of the book it would be the title. This book should be read and used by tech integrationists, classroom teachers, and administrators, not just librarians!
Reader Comments (2)
WOW! There are absolutely no words to convey how I feel reading this review. Just tears streaming down my face. I am so grateful that you encouraged me to be the best I could be each day. Because of your mentoring I have been able to reach into myself, connect with the amazing teacher-librarian community, and bring amazing learning opportunities to kids. Thank you.
You give me far too much credit and I am proud to count you a friend and colleague. Looking forward to more amazing work from you!
Doug