Top Ten Revisited

I was somewhat afraid to revisit my top ten list. Written in January, I had only been a teacher librarian for two months. What did I know? Well, not how to count to ten, apparently. Here it is, in abridged form:

1. Your students may be on Facebook and text constantly, but this doesn't mean they know what a wiki is;
2. The most popular tech tools - wikis, blogs - are simple to learn and most OSs have templates built in;
3. Play! the best way to learn new tech is to play with it;
4. Ask your students for help; they're often good at figuring new tech out fast and love to be the teacher;
5. Don't be afraid to admit you don't know; no one has mastered it all;
6. Promise to learn what you admit you don't know and model your process;
7. Don't assume your students know basics; ask before skipping steps;
8. Technology is not always the right answer; examine the content and goal and then decide if tech fits;
9. Expect problems to crop up that are beyond your control; you will lose the internet on some days;
10. Start simply and build;
11. Less lecturing and more time for students to play with what you've shown them.

Okay. We can mash a few together - 5 & 6, 1 & 7, etc. So, that brings us down to 9, so I can add what I've figured out over these past few months in the lion's den.

10. Your students will assume that they know how to search the web and find information. They do not. But, humor them. Let them go out and fall down. When they are frustrated because you have shot down every site they have found and are ready to hide in the comfort of the familiar - World Book, e.g. - THEN teach the class on how to use a decent search engine, how to frame a search, how to locate and use the library's online databases. This will help you avoid lots of eye rolling and also having to teach the same lesson to every student individually after having taught it once to the whole class.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with my list.