home

Greetings, Committee and visitors. Let's use this space to develop our plans and strategies.

“To scan the 2.0 environment for effective participation by AASL, develop guidelines for and create an AASL 2.0 presence, and make recommendations for its continuity.”
 * Our charge:**

AASL All Committee meeting on Saturday, Jan. 12, from 1:30-till about 3 PM, at the Philadelphia Convention Center, 113 A/B? Joyce, Wendy, and Pam (for a short time) will be able to attend.
 * Meeting:**


 * [|Taskforce Ning]**


 * Agenda for midwinter:**
 * Developing priorities for our presence
 * Developing a guiding statement
 * Second Life initiatives
 * Skypecasts, a forum on edtechtalk (like others already do--WOW, Teachers Teaching Teachers, etc.)
 * Ensuring/endorsing 2.0 access to schools
 * Shifting the cultural environment of schools
 * Professional development options
 * Reframing the context of our cultural environment, social networks, conferences (See Chris below)


 * Questions:**
 * Is our work for AASL presence or to help practitioners?
 * How can we best scale out professional development?


 * Things to consider:**

How about AASL setting up monthly skypecasts dealing with different school library issues that anyone can join?
 * From my blog comments:**

Barb Falkinburg commented:

One of the biggest impediments I have is filtering and how to convince the powers that be that the benefits outweigh the concerns. Implementation is going to be a big issue.

Both seem to me to be solid ideas. Do we need some sort of endorsement statement to let those filtered districts know they are limiting opportunities for learners?

Should we look into the possibility of setting up a show on a forum like edtechtalk? (I am pretty sure Jeff and Dave would give us space and time.)


 * From Lisa:**

Perhaps we should organize our objectives first. We are charged with "scanning the 2.0 environment for effective participation by AASL." I see this as two prongs. Our membership is interested in technology integration for students and also for receiving their own professional development and networking. We may want to start with creating some guiding statement about what students require in order to learn and what teacher-librarians require to perform their jobs. Then determine which 2.0 technologies best make that possible. AASL should target those technologies for advocacy and as delivery methods. Much of this work has already been done by others, so we would just need to distill it.

We will likely come up with a menu of technologies that meet different needs for various events, so we can offer a multi-pronged approach to meet our second charge - "develop guidelines for and create an AASL 2.0 presence". First, we create the guidelines and then establish various presences on this menu of technologies. I see an organizational recommendation on filtering as being part of that, as well as tips that teacher-librarians can use right now experience success in filtered networks.

Glad to see that Lisa is covering Second Life because that is just not for me. My 2.0 strengths from the technology perspective are probably in web application use and development (Fish4Info, Zoho, other cool stuff), 2.0ified portals and library catalogs as an extension of the first, hardware/gadgets, and gaming. From a culture perspective, I have been doign a lot of work looking at marketing, change, and gaming.
 * From Chris:**

AASL 2.0 involves two shifts. First, and most important as it is the only way the second one will ever happen, is a cultural shift that recognizes that things have changed. 2.0 is not about us. What we want matters very little in the face of what our customers expect. In school libraries that means changing to meet the new expectations of students, teachers, administrators, and parents. For an organization, however, it also means changing to meet the new needs and expectations of members. This isn't even a change to meet the needs of new members (how is membership in the 25-35 category doing anyway?) but rather members who want their organization to be more like the changed businesses they see. Can AASL be like Starbucks with a friendly greeting and learning to know customers as individuals? Can we be like Southwest and have a member rep in big committee meetings asking if that is the best move for the members or if it just serves the bureaucracy? Can we be like Netflix and deliver a wide variety of services...right to your home? In short the game has changed and the simple fact of membership is no longer enough. Members want value added above and beyond the car rental coupons that we never use.

The second shift does involve technology, but it is pointless to try and talk about wikis or skyecasts in the current cultural environment. If AASL wants to become a leader in 2.0 technologies then we need to learn about things like loss leaders. Stop charging for the conference podcasts, and make them available for all members. Then build a social site around the recordings to try and mimic the hallway conversations that make attending a conference so powerful. Will you make money on this? Yes! Not directly, but it will help members see that there is a point and a purpose to remaining a member if you can't attend the conferences. And note that this isn't a gratuitous use of technology, but rather the use of technology as a tool to accomplish the first point. In a half hour chat, we could probably come up with hundreds of great uses of 2.0 technologies for AASL from creating a truly green conference to building an AASL Delicious clone that becomes the most powerful set of school library collected web resources imaginable. The problem is that without the cultural shift none of them will work.

Sorry to be negative to kick this off, but as much as I am a little gadget boy who loves the latest and greatest technology has to offer, I also realize that much of what we are dealing with here is cultural. Maybe our best bet is to provide a few quality examples of technologies that would only be possible after the shift, or that could help drive the change, and then talk about the elements of change as part of the implementation strategy? For instance, what would it take to create a virtual conference experience that could be offered for free to all AASL members (charge the heck out of non-members!)?


 * From Wendy:**

I agree with Barb that filtering is still a major issue, as is the ongoing tug-of-war I hear so many school media specialists describe with district computer services departments. I just read the piece on school librarian in [|Scholastic Administrator] which talk with Sarah Kelly Jones and our own Christopher about the role of librarians with regard to new technologies. Both have me thinking about the opportunities for provocation. Perhaps we could stage some sort of dialogue -- either in a conventional session or setting or in a distributed format -- between the people on the forefront of either side on filtering, letting the kids use their cell phones and other hardware in school without recrimination, and, last but not least, gaming in the school library, Hive Mind versus the Wisdom of Crowss...I think both sides have some interesting points.