Blogomania! | School Library Journal

Blogomania! | School Library Journal: Good little article from Schol Library Journal (found via LibraryStuff)--be sure to give it a full read.

"Blogs—digital paper, someone has called them—enable librarians and teachers to initiate online conversations with their students, prompting thoughtful comments about current events, science experiments, field trips, and math problems. Many teachers use blogs to display course notes, showcase student writing, distribute assignments, and provide homework help. Blogs on the Web site of the Magnolia Elementary School in Joppa, MD, highlight fifth-grade writers and kindergarteners' artwork. Fourth graders studying Maryland history have built a compendium of fascinating facts about their state on their blog. The school's math specialist has built a blog “for students and teachers to think, write, and read about (and hopefully eventually discuss) math skills and instruction.”

The ability of blogs to bind people together has caught the attention of many school administrators. Visit the Web site of the Buckman Arts Magnet Elementary School in Portland, OR, and you will discover a bevy of community-building blogs. Among them are notes to parents about classroom activities, meals, and vacations; a letter from the principal; a newsletter for parents by parents; and photo galleries of school events. The library's blog provides an introduction to its services, book recommendations, links to a database on the “Musician of the Week” (Bach has reigned all summer), archived posts reaching back to January 2003, and even a request for donations.

One of the most remarkable school library sites is Patrick Delaney's “Li-Blog-ary” at San Francisco's Galileo Academy of Science and Technology. The Li-Blog-ary is the synapse of a schoolwide community of bloggers. Drop-down menus offer instant access to research sites and specialized search engines and to blogs maintained by student organizations, parents, staff members, and teachers. “Blogging from a school library,” Delaney explains, “implies multiple blogs in a school, centered around the sort of professional and curriculum development that librarians have the potential for.” A library blog that isn't the “keystone of a school blog community,” he insists, “doesn't make much sense.”