Ten Tips for 23 Things at SLJ

Helene Blowers presents “Ten Tips for 23 Things” in the new SLJ:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6600689.html

I especially appreciate this one:

9. Enable transparency and practice radical trust.

Transparency and radical trust are two of the cornerstones of the whole 2.0 movement, and these elements are no less important to the learning environment. In creating this effort to fully engage and empower the staff, my library had to assume an unprecedented trust in our employees and practice transparency when it came to communicating with them. Allowing staff members to blog openly and anonymously implies a great deal of faith and is not something with which every organization is immediately comfortable. But once you experience the benefits and see how this approach motivates and empowers staff to learn on their own, it’s hard to imagine proceeding otherwise.

It is also important to recognize that transparency in online participation relates to an individual’s comfort level. Take the matter of an individual’s identity. Participants should be allowed to choose how they identify themselves, whether they blog under their real name or some other moniker.