There’s coverage of the SLJ Summit in this month’s School Library Journal:
Building trust means dispelling other educators’ fears over their students’ use of Web 2.0—the second generation of Internet-based services, such as social networking sites and wikis, which emphasize collaboration and sharing among users. The learning potential of these technologies should outweigh any fears of abuse, the attendees seemed to be saying.
Building trust also involves educating stakeholders and the learning community about the learning opportunities that new technologies offer.
Finally, “trust” implies trusting students to use social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster appropriately—while still expecting adult oversight.
And I contributed a brief article as well:
Although I’ve written frequently about Web 2.0 and libraries, I did, indeed, gain new insight in Chicago on the impact of blogs, wikis, and other interactive technologies, particularly regarding youngsters. Education technology pundit David Warlick, seated beside me on the panel, declared that today’s students experience a rich, collaborative world—until they enter school. The same goes for libraries. Can blocking social networking sites do students any good as they navigate the information world? I don’t think so. How then can school librarians and others who serve digital natives begin to engage these technologies?
It was never so clear to me listening to Warlick, Diane Chen, Doug Achterman and Chris Harris how very important it is to break down the barriers as much as possible for students to collaborate and utilize the tools they use outside the school in the classroom.
Trends in social software and customized, participatory technologies are changing user expectations. Libraries—especially in schools—must, in turn, adjust to meet those needs. And the payoff for this investment? Young people who will carry over their school media center experience to public and academic libraries as engaged, interactive learners for life.