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Friday, June 27, 2008

Thing #22 Nings

I enjoyed reading the information about Nings. I feel like I am learning a new language. I went to the Teacher Librarian Ning and clicked on Elementary School Librarians. There was a discussion on Flexible Scheduling in libraries, and since this is something that we are struggling with, I enjoyed reading those questions and comments. Many seem to be trying to do what we are doing--a mixture of fixed and flexible. Our teachers really fight the flexible scheduling and we have not had a lot of success with it.

There were a few librarians that gave some helpful hints about how it was working for them, but they also had an assistant and a computer teacher to collaborate and teach along with them, and they had the support of the administration. As a matter of fact, I was surprised at the number of librarians that still had aides and assistants. I wasn't surprised at the comments that many people think that if the librarian isn't directly teaching a class at the moment, that she/he must not be doing anything else. I guess it is like most jobs, you really have no idea how many things are involved until you actually start the work.

This Ning is probably a good way to share ideas and comments. I enjoy doing that in person more than on a social network or a blog. That is why I am not ready to join these "social networks" for the time being. I see the benefit to sharing the knowledge and ideas over the computer, but I also see it as much more isolating and very time consuming to read all of this on a computer instead of having a conversation or a meeting of librarians.

1 comment:

Grendel said...

I do understand that some people just don't like communicating through social networking, but I am proud of you for checking it out and considering what you like/don't like about it. I am presently on a committee that has set up a blog just so we don't have to wade through bunches of emails. All of our discussions are in one place, and, of course, we aren't! We live in several different Texas communities so face-to-face meetings are not possible.I like the way you are keeping an open mind about all of this. :)