Doc and the Techno-Vat

Yes, as the title indicates, I somehow managed to fall into a techno-vat. You might ask, what on earth is a techno-vat? Well, visualize this: 1 large vat steaming with its very hot contents. Add one person [me] and there you have it. I've spent this afternoon exploring sites unknown to me before today, and I felt like I had fallen into a large vat chock full of red hot techno goodies - oops, web sites that are well worth exploring. I won't tell you a thing about them f or now as I want you to enjoy the same experience that I had this afternoon.

Doc's Techno-Vat Contents

• Reading 2.0 - using technology to promote books site a la Joyce Valenza [Remember her name - she's a media specialist's virtual guru/mentor of all things techno-kind for school library media centers.]
  http://readingtech.wikispaces.com/
• David Warlick's Son of Citation Machine [Remember David Warlick - similar guru/mentor type like Joyce.]
  http://citationmachine.net/
• Where I fell into the techno-vat: Cathy Nelson's site - head end of today's Techno-Vat Adventure [Cathy is a techno guru/mentor who frequents similar venues as David and Joyce.] I started exploring, and the rest just happened! http://technotuesday.edublogs.org/
• LlibraryThing: Virtual Library Catalog site - this one's dangerously fun. Enter at your own risk
  http://www.librarything.com/
• VoiceThread: There's more to this one than meets the eye. Plan to hang out here for awhile.
  http://voicethread.com/
• EdVoiceThread: Ditto the above but for k-12 kids and teachers that provides a safety net for this venue.
  http://ed.voicethread.com/

Welcome to my blog spot

On a Saturday afternoon in early July, I find myself gearing up for another one of my infamous life's greatest adventures. In a few short weeks I will be working as a school library media-technology specialist. As I begin to imagine what life will be like in this new role, I revisit my experiences with school libraries and media centers.

I have always loved books. In fact, they were and still are my best friends as once engaged with a good book, I can travel anywhere in the universe - for FREE! I grew up in a small borough outside of Philadelphia, PA. Our borough was barely 2 square miles in size, and our library was located in an old store that was about 900 square feet. It was open a few days per week, and whenever I would go, I would check out as many "friends" as I could find to take home and read. Fast forward a few years to when I first started my teaching career. I discovered that the librarians had the best toys - things that plugged and played like 35mm projectors, 16mm projectors, record players, cassette tape recorders, and Systems 80 machines. A few even had a spare tachistoscope collecting dust on a shelf. Uh huh - you guessed it. I gathered up as many of these toys as I could carry and set them up as learning centers in my classroom for my kids. Oh what fun I had! As the technologies advanced, so did my fascination with them. Moving ahead a few more years to the 1980-1994 time frame, and I discovered that librarians were called media specialists. I also learned that they had, in addition to great books, more new "toys" such as VCR's, laserdisc players, and computers!

Now I find myself in the first decade of the twenty-first century pondering what my new media center will look, feel, and sound like. For sure it won't be the quiet library I knew as a child and young adult. I envision it as a place where children come to explore, learn, and become actively engaged in information resources that will be in a variety of formats. They will extract from this plethora of information data sets to create their knowledge in forms that only they will be able to imagine and craft. Things like podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, wikis, virtual libraries, and virtual museums come to mind. Add to this project-based learning activities with children located somewhere else on the planet - Germany, Japan, Alaska, Pennsylvania, or wherever else we can make connections, and you will readily see that my media center, BES Media 2.0, will be center stage for children who will be excited about exploring, learning, communicating, and sharing what they are learning and discovering about the amazing world in which they live.

See you at BES Media 2.0 - where life is taking on a new twist.