Valenza

=Valenza=

Joyce Valenza P.H.D is a teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, PA. She is also a technical writer and a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program at UNT's School of Library and Information Science. The article entitled [|My 2.0 day and the response rant about our cover argument] gives us an account of an ordinary day in her life as a librarian at Springfield Township High School. The school library has changed from when we were in high school as well as the last few years. Joyce's day is filled with collaboration; Math teachers wanting "mathy-type" resources on [|Discovery Education Streaming]; Theater II students using Google for [|storyboard templates] to share their performance with a global audience; 8th grade social study students work on Wiki museums of world history and seniors embedding RSS feeds into their research projects. How wonderful if all our schools could be this involved with technology. This article is a little intimidating. Joyce's day is filled with technology, some that I haven't heard of, but it does inspire me to learn these technology tools in order to improve the education of our youth. Make sure you check out [|Things That Keep You Up at Night]. I liked her quotes "Libraries need to change from places just to get stuff to places to make stuff, do stuff, and share stuff" as well as "But for the 1st time in history we are moving from a time of information scarcity to one of information abundance." JD Illustration by Brian Ajhar Check out Joyce's daughter singing about [|database 2.0] JD

Joyce Valenza is given the nickname of Information Goddess, and has online lessons, workshops, and publications that can be used by everyone.st

In her blog, a rant/response to readers of her cover article in SLJ, Valenza states, "And I don't want to apologize. And I want my colleagues to lead, not complain. Should everyone drink the Twitter Kool-Aid? Do our choices have to have the brand names Twitter or Web 2.0? No. But my personal feeling is that everyone should find some way, some very immediate and real-time way, to network." Just remember Joyce, those to whom much is given, much is expected. You have resouces and funds at your fingertips that most school librarians can only dream of. If you are insisting we can get there, don't just tell us how you do it, tell us how we can do it too, with no money, no support from our administration, limited Internet access, and a finite number of hours in the day. Valenza goes on, "Sorry. I won't apologize for believing that this shift is profound and universal and that our response is urgent. I won't apologize for believing that librarians can and should lead." Yes we can lead but there has to be a shift in the framework. There's far too much to do for the librarian to do it on her own. EH

A day in the life of Joyce Valenza is a good example of how much libraries have changed. This librarian truly has to be the master of all school subjects and even more important, possess the knowledge of technical expertise to access relevant material. Unfortunately, not all school libraries have monetary support and resources needed to provide information for life long learners. BG

Wow! Joyce Valenza has a lot going on in her school library. I can only aspire to change our school library a little bit like hers. I do agree that it is time to change if we are going to stay alive. I checked out her school library webpage. It is very creative! On her wiki on that page is a link for elementary reads that contains a link just for guys. I am going to pass this on to our head librarian. Boys can be one of the hardest ones to get to read and the middle school boys might connect to the content on this page. I am also interested in her post on better google searches. It is hard to keep students from using google alone, so maybe we need to work with them instead of against them. DM

The article about a day in her life seems so different from the library at the school where I work. I think her use of technology will have a much better impact on the student who attend that school because they are learning skills they will use in their working life. I think schools who are not using these things may be placing their students at a disadvantage for when they enter the workforce. KG

After reading about a typical day in Valenza's library it makes me wish that my own school library was more open to web 2.0 technologies. I wonder how hard she had to fight to "unblock" the many valuable tools she is using on a daily basis. I agree with Valenza that it is our duty to embrace our new role as information specialists and in so doing fight for student's rights to access all kinds of information. I just wish I knew the magic words to say to convince administration that information sharing via 2.0 isn't all evil. RL

Joyce's library website is fantastic! She has so much going on and so many awesome links for her teachers and students. While I'm extremely impressed with everything she is able to do, I also feel for the librarians who don't have all the resources Joyce does. Still, I believe that Joyce is a great role model for teacher/librarians. I'm sure she has had to fight long and hard to prove the necessity of some of the resources she is able to offer her students. If we can implement elements of what she does in her library, even a little at a time, we will be improving the quality of education our students are receiving. Like some others, I was impressed by the article on a day in her life. Wow. She uses more technology in the morning than I do in a typical day. I did get some ideas for sites to visit, and was excited to see NoodleBib, which is an awesome resource for research and citation. CNR

I like the posting that talked about different ways to you can still show youtube videos in the classroom (even if your school has the site blocked). I have used zamzar in order to convert the file as a wmv and then I have saved it to a flash drive and played it at school. However, you never know how long it is going to take for zamzar to convert your youtube video for you. I recently learned about another program that is a lot easier and quicker then zamzar. It is called video capturing software. It is free software that allows you to record the youtube video on your computer and then you can just save the file to where ever you want and view the video later. It's extremely easy to use! MP

Great resource for accessing book reviews for students of all ages. By using the Neverending Search I was able to find great information on the subject of plagiarism for my paper. A super site! It would seem to be a must to subscribe to the School Library Journal. CW