The Daring Librarian

We love connecting with other kiddos in schools in other cities and states. Our sister library is  Central Middle School of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and we had a great time the other day chatting with them about books! Books Beyond Borders with Google Plus Hangout Our friend & one my librarian mentees, Mrs. Tiffany Whitehead , excitedly emailed that she was being filmed for a local news segment and she wanted to show off our long distance cooperative relationship and highlight cool tech with a Google Plus Hangout! FUN! Amazingly, we were in between testing windows & thanks to my fantastic 7th grade ELA teacher Mrs. Krieger for being spontaneous and jumping on board with this cutting edge conversation! It was lots of fun!  Both groups of our kiddos picked out books they loved & wanted to share and did quick book talks. This has been such a banner year for Tiff ! She has been named one of  Library Journal’s 2014 Movers & Shakers , an ISTE’...

This is a story about Sister Libraries, Twitter, Google+ Hangout, and connecting kids! It all started with a Tweet by my dear friend & Tweep  Tiffany Whitehead aka The Mighty Little Librarian and her awesome BFF EL teacher Alaina Laperouse both of Central Middle School in Baton Rouge Louisiana! She had been inspired by a Tweet she had seen about sister classrooms started between @ heisereads and @ brianwyzlic - you know, like sister cities? She said she wanted a sister library & I was like I'm willing!! After a few Tweets back and forth a bit to establish time zones (because I'm an idiot when it comes to time zones!) we finally got our kiddos to meet and chat using Google+ Hangout! I've connected with classrooms before using Google Hangout before & blogged about it - but this was different, this was establishing a steady partnership! Our first chat happened in Kristin Cullison's classroom with her 6th grade research seminar class (and...

Ain't it grand? Freedom of speech, blogs... opinions? The ability to mouth off & share? Buckle up dear readers, this is a wordy one...I'm gonna opine! Whether one person or one thousand reads it - I think very fact that we can publish to the WORLD freely our thoughts & ideas without license or permission... THAT my dear friends is a true definition of Web 2.0h,  the read write web. And I reckon, THIS is what we should be celebrating not hating on the nomination & voting process of Edublog Awards OR #Eddies12 ! I've gotta say being recognized for what ya do feels grand. It would be a load of BS to say otherwise, right? And though being included as a finalist after being nominated by your peers is heady stuff - it's the very fact that WE CAN EFFIN WRITE whatever the hell heck we want to write is the real winner. For a matter of fact the Edublogs is quite democratic & anyone, anywhere in the world can nominate any blog! It's not an American aw...

I've written about the importance web presence and transparency since I started this blog . (and I apologize for my early over use of ellipses & lack of the shift key!) Now, more than ever, education professionals must be visible and transparent in what they do and with their program and practice. It's easy to become overwhelmed with the thought of building a web presence from scratch -- but it's easy to fashion a fabulous functional digital footprint with a few easy pieces ! Listed in priority order, ease of establishment & use, and the ever important commitment and difficulty factor! All my humble opinion, of course! Now, before we start I gotta add that this is by NO MEANS a checklist of 8 social media things you have to do ! No social media guilt from me or my blog dear friend! Consider it a dim sum dinner or perhaps an ala carte menu, grab one new tasty plate or two ! ! Just try one of the 8 to see which you like best- and always I would say, sta...