Personal learning networks : professional development for the isolated school librarian

Most school librarians are solo librarians working with little direct contact with their counterparts in schools or in other types of libraries. This makes it very difficult to keep up with trends and issues. Building a personal learning network will help overcome the isolation.

Most school librarians are solo librarians working away from little direct contact with their counterparts in schools and in other types of libraries. Sometimes this is geography and other times it is the lack of opportunities within their school districts or communities to become acquainted and communicate. It is very difficult to keep up with trends and issues, new methods or activities that should be tried in libraries. For those who did not learn the importance of professional development in their education programs, the author discusses the need for the solo librarian to remain current and to continue to find ways to use in continuing advocacy for their school library programs. Building a personal learning network can help overcome the isolation. Opportunities for becoming active at the state and national level are described as well as how to go beyond the library. Social bookmarking, social networks, and online conferences are discussed. Because many lack funds to attend conferences, readers will be pleased to learn that most of the activities can be done without leaving home.

• Introduction p. ix
• Chapter 1 Personal Learning Networks p. 1
• Personal Learning Networks: A Definition p. 1
• Chapter 2 Professional Development p. 5
• Why Professional Development? p. 5
• Currency p. 7
• Advocacy p. 9
• Chapter 3 Professional Development 1.0 p. 11
• Face-to-Face Learning p. 12
• Library Conferences p. 13
• Beyond the Library p. 14
• Stakeholders p. 14
• Related Organizations p. 16
• Virtual Attendance p. 16
• Online Courses p. 18
• Organizations and Other Agencies p. 19
• Universities p. 21
• Companies p. 22
• Free Online Courses p. 22
• Listservs p. 25
• Lm_Net: The Standard p. 25
• Literature Listservs p. 26
• Organizational Listservs p. 27
• Active Participation in Organizations p. 28
• Chapter 4 Professional Development 2.0 p. 29
• RSS Feeds: The Beginning p. 30
• Aggregators p. 31
• Wikis p. 31
• Wikis: Collaborative Professional Development p. 32
• Active Participation p. 33
• Evaluating Examples p. 33
• Recommended Wikis p. 34
• Blogs and Blogging p. 37
• The Pros and the Cons p. 38
• Developing Your Personal Blog Network p. 38
• Blogs As a Learning Experience p. 39
• Recommended Blogs p. 41
• Education and Ed-Tech Blogs p. 47
• Library Blogs p. 49
• News and Culture Blogs p. 52
• Blogs for Fun p. 55
• Twitter p. 56
• Building a Twitter Network p. 56
• Twitter As a Useful Service p. 58
• Twitter Use As a Sandbox p. 58
• Twitter Recommendations p. 59
• Chapter 5 Social Bookmarking and Social Networking p. 61
• A Definition of Social Bookmarking p. 61
• Pros and Cons of Folksonomies and Bookmarking p. 62
• Social Bookmarking Applications p. 63
• Digg p. 64
• Using Social Bookmarking to Expand Your Personal Learning Network p. 65
• Annotating Web Sites p. 66
• Social Bookmarking As a Patron Service p. 67
• Social Networks p. 67
• Nings p. 68
• WebJunction p. 69
• LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace p. 69
• Book Networks p. 70
• Applications p. 70
• Taking Advantage of Book Networks p. 72
• Second Life p. 74
• Chapter 6 Multimedia: On the Web p. 77
• Podcasts p. 77
• Vidcasts/Vodcasts p. 78
• A Tool for Saving and Sharing p. 79
• Podcast Suggestions p. 79
• Education and Libraries p. 80
• Literature and Books p. 80
• News and Culture p. 81
• Individual Podcasts p. 81
• Chapter 7 Managing the Information Flow p. 83
• Tools p. 83
• Personal Learning Network: Collection Development p. 85
• Glossary p. 87
• Index p. 93