I’ve been playing around trying to find the right format to guide our seniors through their semester-long culminating research experience. My old research pathfinder template just didn’t model the experience exactly as I liked. It offered no opportunity for comments or collaboration or easy editing and project management. So I moved it to blog format [...]

Don’t miss Larry Magid’s thoughtful piece today on CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/01/scitech/pcanswer/main1853357.shtml  “House Misfires on Internet Safety.”   The article points out that, rather than serving to strengthen penalties on child molestors, the bill ”punishes the potential victims and educational institutions chartered to serve them, by denying access to interactive sites at school and libraries.”    In addition, Magid regonizes the impossibility of seriously blocking access–”even if [...]

Beth Yoke, Executive Director of the Young Adult Library Services Association, posted this news and call to action yesterday. If you value use of blogging and wikis and social networking tools in the classroom, please contact your senator. Please also take a look at YALSA’s document: Teens and Social Networking in the School and Public Library. From [...]

I discovered over the last several months that library students are assigned to read my blog. Occasionally, when I search for what folks are saying about libraries in general, or this blog specifically, I discover these posts on class or individual student blogs. While I often got email responses to the print columns I wrote, [...]

My edtechtalk buddy Dave Cormier shared his new project with me a couple of days ago, a project I think has cool application for K12. Dave is creating little video tutorials for those everyday instructional needs. His first, on how to use Wikipedia, is just posted. (Dave, will share the URL real soon, I hope.) Strange thing [...]

Just when so many in the educational world are beginning to believe in the value of blogging and wikis in curriculum, Congress is introducing legislation that will require all schools and libraries to filter student access to online social networks or risk losing federal Internet subsidies.  The bill, designed to “protect minors from commercial social networking websites [...]

A few months ago I wrote about how often I am afflicted with guilt over blog-rot.  I now find myself experiencing wiki envy.  It’s not REALLY jealousy.  My frustration has more to do with how slowly I develop new skills. I am so impressed with the way the Library Automation Team–Karen Mitchell and Jane Reeves–at New [...]

A pathfinder is a guide for researchers. Pathfinders have been used in libraries for years–probably since the 70s–to save researchers time, to guide them to the good stuff, and to help them avoid frustrating dead ends. At Springfield we’ve been experimenting with pathfinders as student projects to demonstrate their skills and energy in researching and [...]

Tuesday marked another step in the doctoral process. I qualified. I met with my full committee for the first time to present my exploratory study. No big surprise that everyone agreed I bit off more than I can chew. I got some great ideas from committee members on what to read and what to do [...]

Back in 1996, when I started my Philadelphia Inquirer column, the Web was an infant.  In more than ten years, techlife@school allowed (sometimes forced) me to reach, to learn, and to share with readers–in this region and beyond–the excitement of watching that baby grow.  It was cool to be a columnist with a laboratory.  When I reviewed applications and [...]