Hello classmates, Dr. Martin and Welcome 2012! This is my fourth blog that I have written and I am finally getting decent at it. The first blog was for a foundations class, the second for a Information Literacy class, the third is for my library at the school I work at and now this one is number four! It is so much easier to begin a blog when you are already set my with Gmail!

I have begun the New Year by writing a blog at my school - Voyages of the Viking Librarian- to help get the word out about all the changes happening here in our library. I am including the posts from my new blog at school and copying them here; that way I would not have to invent new things to write about and you all could follow the new ideas I am trying to implement in my school. I am the brand new librarian at a private, Catholic high school in Fort Myers, Florida. Our school has not really done very much in the way of updating the library. I am working to get faculty to change the way they look at libraries: from a quiet place to read and browse for books to centers that teach students to be a community of learners. No longer is our library based on the physical boundaries of the library and the books in its collection. Last fall, we began our expansion of services by putting our card catalog online and adding electronic resources for students and teachers. Britannica Online is available 24/7 for students research needs and Streaming Video On Demand is available for teachers to use for instructional enhancement.

One of the subjects I will be blogging about is using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. I will be introducing Web 2.0 at our monthly faculty meeting with an afternoon workshop to follow.In January 2012 we began our exploration of Web 2.0 tools. I explained how libraries and schools across the country are completing Web 2.0 training programs to help their faculty become familiar with blogging, RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis and online applications. I gave faculty information on“23 Things”, and IPL's 22 Things and SLJ's 15 Things. My plan is to introduce one Web 2.0 tool a month and then give a follow-up workshop in the afternoon to get teachers started with their own blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and RSS feeds.I have purchased a license to use In Plain English videos for training in our school. It was expensive, but I really didn't think I could explain blogs, RSS feeds, Wikis and Social Book marking as well as Lee LeFever. I want the teachers to be able to go back and watch these as many times as they would like. They may also download these videos to their computer or embed the videos in their blog. In my opinion, In Plain English videos are the cadilliac of Web 2.0 training tools; the videos take complex concepts and explain things simply. I suppose that is why the Commoncraft videos are also called “In Plain English“. The first “thing” I will discuss is blogs. These are the posts from after our January faculty meeting when I introduced blogs.