Nings

I'm glad we were able to utilize this tool with our CFISD Librarian Ning this year. Since I'm not a Facebook user (yet) I enjoyed the social aspect of this tool while focusing on topics related to our profession. Although our group is large, I felt like the ning was meaningful because it highlighted issues specific to our district. The hardest part of being active in the ning is similar to the hardest part of being active in the wiki - remembering to access the site and participate frequently. However, once I made it a habit, I found it easier to be involved and keep up with everyone's postings.

I had heard about the Texas School Librarians' Ning via a posting on the TLC Listserv but had not explored it until I was familiar with our CFISD Ning. I was pleased to see that the format was exactly the same! It was great to put faces with names that I've seen on the listserv for so many years. After spending more time on this Ning during the online course, I enjoyed the fact that although this group is much larger than our district's group, the topics are still relevant to me and it's nice to see what other folks are doing around our state. (Incidentally, this is the same reason I enjoy serving on TLA and ALA committees; it's interesting to see what ideas are being implemented and how problems are solved beyond our own world.) I am considering joining this group to continue the networking.

The Teacher Lingo ning was fascinating! It is literally a treasure chest of information for teachers. The format was very different from the previous two nings I mentioned, but it was very user-friendly. I enjoyed browsing through some of the lesson plans and reading some of the teachers' blog postings. I have this at the top of my list of things to share with my teachers when we return to school in August. I noticed that there are several groups of blogs and message forums for a variety of teaching positions within a school, but librarians are not listed as a specific topic or job position. I searched the blog section for "library" and did get a few hits. I looked through a few of them, but they weren't the types of library blogs I have seen before. Most of them looked like they were part of graduate class assignments, but this really made me think that maybe it's time for us to make our presence in other circles. Imagine the connections we could make! Maybe I'll join this group so that I can browse within this community too.