CSLA Conference is coming soon

I just returned from Reno where AASL held their conference. There were many Web 2.0 sessions, including one by team member Rob Darrow. While there were many fantastic speakers and sessions, I am looking forward to our own CSLA conference which promises to be just as fantastic. If you took part in our summer tutorial, you may want to attend "School Library Learning 2.0: California's Summer Fun" on Saturday at 10:45 AM. There will be prizes for the "graduates" and information about upcoming events. Don't miss it.

An invitation to improve the performance of your education team.
Classroom Learning 2.0
School districts and other educational groups are invited to offer a fun, new online professional development course for classroom teachers, administrators, and other educators. This 9-week course introduces educators to web 2.0 tools and curriculum connections. Classroom Learning 2.0 participants learn about and use social networking tools such as blogs, image generators, avatars, RSS feeds, wikis, nings, and much more. This course and its accompanying Management/Users Guide is brought to you by the California School Library Association 2.0 Team at no charge. It supports a number of legislative programs such as school technology plan requirements for ERate and Module III of AB430 administrator training. Continuing Education credits for the course are also available for a modest fee through Fresno Pacific University.
Designed for classroom teachers, administrators and other educators, this on-line course
introduces participants to the many exciting web 2.0 tools available to us to communicate more effectively and creatively in a wide variety of activities. This tutorial introduces educators to many new opportunities for developing dynamic lessons, and shows how to work with colleagues in the school library to create exciting standards-based lessons that will reach students with the tools that they use daily.
Classroom Learning 2.0 is a unique course in that each participant not only learns about the web 2.0 tools, but actively participates in a collegial conversation using the very applications that they are learning about. Web 2.0 is a phrase that was coined in 2004. It refers to the fact that the Internet is now an interactive medium rather than a ‘place’ to go to get information. Because students are flocking to these Web 2.0 sites, it is important that those of us who work in schools should be up-to-date with the latest trends in educational technology and learn how they can be utilized to support student learning.
The course is designed for a variety of presentation options:

• participants can do it on their own,


• you can lead a site group, a district group, or a group of interested teachers.

Your organization can offer incentives, create collegial work groups, and/or provide on-site workshops to support the course. We have found that forming groups allow for participants to ‘cheer’ one another along, problem solve together, and begin conversations that lead to exciting collaborations.
Your library personnel may already be graduates of our first professional development program, School Library Learning 2.0. If so, you already have a partner who can help you develop a 2.0 Partners group. Both online courses are available for free during the 2007-2008 school year. Our management guide explains how you can make this fun, free, do-it-at-home learning opportunity available to all your classroom teachers and administrators. To learn more about these courses and to get a copy of the Management/User’s Guide, please contact Connie Williams or Jackie Siminitus at CSLA2Team@yahoo.com.

Irma speaks

Gizmoz.com allows you to animate an avatar made from a head shot (I used dear old Irma) and record a message using your own voice or a text-to-voice application.

Express Yourself with Gizmoz Video Clips

iGeneration

The iGeneration that we teach is why we must learn to navigate Web2.0.

Mid Summer Update

Members of the CSLA 2.0 Team met f2f for the first time since putting this program together. Here are some of our team members gathered in the AT&T Executive Briefing Center in San Francisco (Front: Connie Williams, CSLA VP of Communications; Jackie Siminutus, Library Advocate from AT&T. Back: Jamie Boston, LMT from Davis Joint Union School District, Rob Darrow, Coordinator of Libraries, Clovis Unified School District.)
Our group learned that at this point in the summer, there are 125 participants in California and another 65 people from outside of California participating. Over the next months, the members of the CSLA 2.0 Team will be presenting the SLL2.0 concept at a variety of workshops. We will have a special awards ceremony at the CSLA conference in November.
There is still time for you to join!

June is here!

• School Library Learning 2.0 runs from June 1-September 1, 2007. The URL is http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/
• I have been through the course as a "test driver" and it is the best "road trip" I have ever taken.
• California School Library Association (CSLA) members who have been through the course will "cheer on" participants that take the course over the summer. It is the cheering and encouraging one another along the way is a key part of the "summer 2.0 fun" experience.
• School Library Learning 2.0 is the first and only learning 2.0 program designed especially for K12 and California Curriculum Connections.
• School Library Learning 2.0 is the first and only learning 2.0 program that includes librarian AVATARS. Why? Because in addition to it being FUN, school teacher-librarians and their colleagues need to model safe Internet behavior to students -- student photos and glamour shots don't belong on blogs for the whole wide world to see!
• School Library Learning 2.0 participants can also get academic credit (2 units) -- a nice incentive for teacher-librarians and other teachers. The link to Fresno Pacific University's Continuing Education registration site is now "live." See http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com and go to the "ABOUT" section for details.
• I have already used so many tools that I discovered on this journey. Put on your traveling duds and jump onboard!

CSLA and School Library 23 Things

A team of technophiles from the California School Library Association have spent the past four months refining the 23 Things activities originated by Helene Blowers of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg in North Carolina, for school librarians. Thanks to Jackie Siminitus and lead by Connie Williams, our new CSLA president-elect, we are going live! We are excited to roll this out primarily for California school library personnel. However, we are welcoming friends and lurkers from anywhere in the world!

Join us for School Library Learning 2.0 - it will be a summer to remember!

You are welcome to participate in many ways:

Join us and learn with us! We “officially” begin on June 1.
Look at what we’ve done and re-do it to make it your own for your school library group or organization. Add to our “curriculum connection” ideas on our wiki
What we’ve learned from others…and are implementing with this management iteration:

We have a set of “virtual cheerleaders” (2.0 leaders) who will each have a group of about 30 participants to follow, post on their blogs, email and cheer on to encourage them to complete all 23 Things.
We have used our CSLA online registration system to have people register so we have a list of names and email addresses.
We are using bloglines to keep track of our groups and will divide the group up according to our main 2.0 blog leader.
For the things we thought were important but didn’t exactly fit with the 23 Things experience, we created the curriculum connections wiki.
We will be using Moodle a bit for participants who are purchasing continuing education credit.
We are offering up to 2 units of continuing education credit for participants through Fresno Pacific University.

For us in California, it will be a summer to remember! We hope you’ll join us, too!!