Your Name and Title: Joyce Valenza, Assistant Professor,
School or Organization Name: Rutgers University MLIS
Co-Presenter Name(s):
Craig Seasholes
Shannon Miller
Paul Fleischman
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: USA, various places:
Rydal, PA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): K-12 educators, teacher librarians, science/environmental studies teachers
Short Session Description (one line):
As librarians, we haven’t yet leveraged our true power as global connectors. Lately we’ve been thinking about significant yet-to-be-realized opportunities and how we might realize them.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Never before have we had truly effective tools for synchronous conferencing and media-rich asynchronous group discussion. Never before have we been able to leverage our emerging online communities of practice. Never before has participation been so possible. Never before has our world been so flat. Never before has it be more obvious that the prefix geo might amplify themes in any curriculum.
As librarians, we haven’t yet leveraged our true power as global connectors. Lately we’ve been thinking about significant yet-to-be-realized opportunities and how we might realize them.
Our children deserve teachers and librarians who are global. TLs who can plan meaningful global learning partnerships, connecting learners, classrooms and libraries through inquiry projects and expanding the possibilities of expanding the books we read.
It’s a convergence
This process might happen as a three-level taxonomy:
Introduction: We learn to use the tools for connection and share their affordances with learners, through engaging, though often one-shot, activities, like Mystery Skypes.
Inquiry: Guided by teachers and librarians, students engage in authentic partnerships to address issues and problems, engaged in curricular projects like Flat Classroom.
Independence: Students transfer use of the tools and strategies we’ve modeled, using hashtags to identify global experts, setting up their own investigatory conversations and events. They become citizen journalists, scientists, collaborative writers and creators, engaging in such projects as our Eyes Wide Open initiative.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
Eyes Wide Open: http://www.eyeswideopenupdates.com/
Eyes Wide Open Community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107146106362924889336
GlobalTL Community:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118360039129531674592
Eyes Wide Open: A Proof of Concept for Sustaining the Conversation Around Books
Going Global: A Literacy, a Process, a Call to Action
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