November Learning: Expanding the Boundaries of Learning

Dr. Joyce Valenza

About Dr. Valenza
Librarian, Springfield Township HS Library, Erdenheim, PA

Joyce Valenza has been the librarian at Springfield Township High School (PA) since 1998. She is the techlife@school columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of Super Searchers Go to School for Information Today, and Power Research Tools and Power Tools Recharged for ALA Editions. She is a Milken Educator and an American Memory Fellow. Her video series, Internet Searching Skills was a YALSA Selected Video for Young Adults in 1999. The video series Library Skills for Children was released in 2003, and her six-volume video series Research Skills for Students was released in Fall 2004. The Springfield Township Virtual Library was the IASL School Library Web Page of the Year Award for 2001. Joyce’s NeverEnding Search Blog was received the Edublog Award for Library/Librarian blog. Joyce is active in ALA, AASL, YALSA, and ISTE and contributes regularly to Classroom Connect, VOYA, Learning and Leading with Technology, and School Library Journal. Joyce speaks regularly about issues relating to libraries and thoughtful use of educational technology. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of North Texas.

Joyce lives (and shares workstations) with her husband and two nearly adult children in Rydal, Pennsylvania. Her hobbies include reading, creating websites, dancing, crafting, shopping, enjoying wine, and sleeping.

Pre-conference Session

A Few New Things:  Learning, Sharing, and Applying 2.0 Tools

…a hands-on workshop for beginning and intermediate 2.0 educators and teacher-librarians.

New information and communication tools appear at an ever-increasing rate. But we have no textbook for applying these impressive new tools. No established pedagogical guides. We have to work at sharing effective practice for this new landscape. How can we apply 2.0 tools, to inspire learning and engage learners, especially as they relate to improving information fluency, promoting effective communication, and inspiring creativity? Joyce will suggest her own list of new things essential for 21st century practice. As a group we will apply those tools to our own educational settings—our classrooms and our libraries. We will introduce a “thing”, brainstorm its potential uses, and in teams or pairs, create and share our usable learning tools.

Among the things we will apply:

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Nings
• Image generators
• A variety of tools for digital storytelling

Main Session Workshops

School Library Websites: Interacting with the 21st Century Learner—What Does Effective Practice Look Like Now?

Our libraries should now have two front doors and one of them should be virtual. The effective virtual library can be a vibrant knowledge management tool for the entire school community and a dynamic, interactive space. A good library website invites young users in and functions as an engaging platform for learning, sharing, and celebrating student work. Joyce will share examples of effective practice and practical ideas for building student-centered web-based library space.

Web 2.0 meets Information Fluency: Designing Projects for 21st Century Learners: An Update

To be most effective in the university and the workplace, today’s learners will need to creatively blend several relatively traditional skills with emerging information and communication tools. They will also need to practice those skills in an information landscape that is genre-shifting, media-rich, participatory, socially connected and brilliantly chaotic. To be most effective, students will need understandings of traditional information structures as well as understandings of the shifts in the way knowledge is built and organized. Joyce will share examples of effective practice, learning-centered projects that foster information fluency and exploit the potential of Web 2.0.