Technology, Libraries, and the School environment

[Lydia Schultz]

I would like to use some aspects of what we have learned and continue to learn as part of my school's electronic community. Last year I wondered about a blog for book reviews, but since that discussion got NO comments, I thought I would delete it and start over.

Which "things" have people used to interact with which of their "groups"? By "things" I mean wikis, blogs, etc. By groups, I mean teachers (peers), parents, and students not to mention the community at large.

Have any of you started such things in a school community? How is it working? Any ideas or suggestions?

[Caitlin]

I started a technology support wiki for the staff at my school (http://omstech.pbwiki.com). So far it has been used mostly by other tech staff in the district, but it is also a nice tool for collecting & sharing information that I send out to staff; rarely do I attach documents to emails anymore, instead I send them to the relevant page on my wiki. I'm hoping that the wiki will start to get more use from teachers, i.e. they use it as a reference and go to it on their own; or, that teachers will eventually use it as a tool for sharing their technology tips & project ideas with other teachers. We also have a few teachers who are going to use a wiki for class discussions - we will see how that goes.

My department also shares links and notes via Diigo (we previously used Delicious, but have recently moved to Diigo for the annotation and group features). It is so useful to be able to send each other links with out having to copy & paste them into emails, especially since we can highlight passages of interest, and make notes as to why we found such sites to be worth sharing. Then, if I like a link that someone sends, I can easily save it to my own bookmarks and/or add my own comments.

[Lydia Schultz]

Thanks for some good ideas.

[sharleen berg]

I visited your wiki and see lots of good ideas (I may use it for a reference also).
This is a difficult tool to create correctly; lots of trial and error. Your idea of linking staff to the relevant wiki page is a good one.
Our wiki is in it's early stages. I imagine it will be reworked as we evolve in the use of Web 2.0. It is currently a place with a few resources for students and staff.

[Caitlin]

Wiki's are definitely a tricky tool. Being sort of a mix between traditional static webpages, blogs, and collaborative documents, it was hard at first for me to decide how best to present content. The best advice I can give is to link everything together - every page should have several options for where a user can go next, be it an external source or another page on your wiki. Don't leave your users hanging if the a page doesn't answer their question. Although, after looking at your wiki, it seems like you all have the linking thing down. Feel free to use/link to any material from my wiki.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to do some shameless self-promotion: if any one plans on using PBwiki for a class project, check out my tutorial about creating multiple student accounts using iMacro - it'll save you from having to manually input student data.

[Andrea H]

We used google docs to collaborate on a grant we were writing for our library over break. I would like to use more more of the "things" such as blogging for book reviews (as you mentioned) on our school web page but am feeling limited by the system our district uses.

[Sue Gabrielson]

Talking about wikis with teachers, and having the tech wiki readily available as a example, (see Caitlin's comment above) has generated interest in our building. An art teacher using the Weisman Art Center Artful Writing resource is planning to have groups in her 7th grade art class post their entire assignment on our art wiki. Then, each student will comment on at least two assignments. Thankfully, this year we have exceptional tech support to facilitate this plan.