Tools for Real-World Work

Today, thanks to an email sent to me by a teacher-librarian in our board (Jeanne - you totally made my day!!), I've discovered a terrific blog run by Carolyn Foote, a librarian from a high school in Austin, Texas. The blog focuses on how we can use Web 2.0 tools effectively with our kids. A couple days ago, she posted, "What are really fighting for?", and this is what she had to say:

We all talk a lot about tools. About great sites; about Animoto and Twitter and Facebook; about Voicethread and Delicious and blogging.

We struggle in our districts to convince them to lower the filter so we can use some of these tools effectively. We fight for Skype or Facebook or Blogger. We fight to use wikis or Ning or YouTube.

But to paraphrase Dr. Seuss in the Grinch, maybe it’s about a little bit more than we are fighting for.

Because after all…

It’s not about creating a blog, it’s about expressing your own ideas and beliefs clearly.

It’s not about using delicious or Diigo, it’s about developing a system to keep up with your stuff and to share your stuff.

It’s not about Skype, it’s about understanding how to communicate globally in a video setting or via chat/conversation.

And it’s not about making an Animoto slide show, it’s about having a good sense of design or telling a story.

It’s not about learning to use the software, it’s about the skills our students will carry with them that these tools and others like them allow. It’s about our students expressing themselves clearly, beautifully, and skillfully.

And that’s what we should be teaching them. And that’s what we should be fighting for.

I think this is brilliant. What is especially brilliant is that this message is coming from a teacher-librarian - the ultimate partner in 21st century teaching and learning. If there is anyone in a school is sitting more on the cutting edge and keeping up to speed with what's going on in the world, it's our teacher-librarians. Our school libraries are the hub of a school, and active and vibrant place that should be connecting our kids to the outside world.

It's not about jazzing up our lessons so that we can look like we're keeping with the times. It's about giving our kids the opportunity to use real-world tools to solve real-world problems and develop real-world skills. Who can argue with that?