Save a horse - ride a librarian

This bumpersticker (that I think looks great on the Ford Ranger) is available from the Wyoming Libraries campaign website along with an number of other irreverent items. I knew the Wyoming librarians had a sense of humor from working with them last month, but this above and beyond! (Thanks to Twitterer John Pederson for the heads up about this site.)

 

When do you use?

So can someone explain when one ought to use a wiki and when one ought to use GoogleDoc? They seem to do about the same thing to me.

     

Loertscher's three spaces

In an ISTE SIGMS SecondLife presentation, school library icon, David Loertscher talked last evening about students needing three kinds of "information spaces." As he shared an excerpt (another source) from his upcoming book, In Command: Kids and Teens Build and Manage Their Own Information Spaces. Hi Willow Research & Publishing, 2007.

Loertscher's premise is neatly stated:

Suppose we turn the tables and accept the notion that the student should be in command of their own information spaces on the computing devices they have access to. And that our role as LMTs is to help students build the kind of information space that will benefit their needs rather than say to them, “You need to use the information space as we have designed it for you.” Such a switch in perspective challenges us to have a whole new view of the digital world.

He further suggests we should help students design these types of spaces: 

• Personal Information Space: Here we construct the tools, the information sources, our school or work assignments, our calendars to keep us on track, and the personal safeguards needed to function well.
• Group or Collaborative Information Space: The advent of Web 2.0 technologies allows for collaborative communication, collaborative construction, and collaborative presentation spaces.
• Outer Space: The third world on our desktop is the ability to interact with and pull from the totality of the Internet, whether open or invisible.

This is an interesting way at organizing how we all manage our "information spaces." We've talked about student
portals" in our district and we've given kids access to personal desktops and storage through Profile servers. This seems to be the next logical step.

On a side note, David Loertcher has remained a constant source of inspiration and ideas in the field of school librarianship through out my career. He's an amazing guy...