Sunday, November 18, 2007

Rob Darrow Demos the Power of SKYPE

Thursday at the California School Library Association (CSLA) conference in Ontario, California, Rob Darrow gave a workshop on "Library 2.0 and How You Can Use It."

He urged about 40 teacher-librarians to focus on 3 things: START one new 2.0 thing; SELECT one new thing to learn today and apply it; and SHARE one new 2.0 application with one person back at school. He showed off a number of 2.0 applications but most impressive was when he used SKYPE, the Internet-based phone service, to bring in three guest presenters from across the country. Last week, Rob had to START learning how to use Skype because his guest presenters recommended it. So, Rob SHARED his new 2.0 application in a real test of courage when he held a 4-way conference call at the workshop. The sound and the room's sound system worked just fine -- what luck is that when technology works when you really need it to! His guest speakers were famous school librarians Joyce Valenza of Pennsylvania, Doug Johnson from Minnesota but calling in from Florida, and Cathy Nelson in South Carolina. How 2.0 cool is that?

What fun it is to experience an application that gets the brain spinning -- imagine school librarians calling authors, illustrators, subject matter experts, or publishers for "guest appearances" for a class, book club, auditorium full of CYRM reader-voters.

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