When I Become a Librarian (Librarian Movie)

Today I had the pleasure of leading a full-day workshop for librarians in Mid-Del Public Schools, located in Midwest City, Oklahoma, just east of Oklahoma City and next to Tinker Air Force Base. Inspired by Marco Torres and his 2001 “Teacher Movie” created with educators at Lesley University, we created the following 2 minute video, “When I Become a Librarian.”

We used iEtherpad.com to collaboratively brainstorm and script this video, shot the clips using an iPhone 3GS, edited it in iMovie ’09, and published it to YouTube using a Macbook Pro laptop computer– All in about two hours. Before shooting the video, we shared our ideas for “librarian one liners” online using Google Moderator and Twitter, and asked for other educators to both vote for their favorite ideas as well as suggest new ones. The line, “I will fiercely shush anyone who dares to speak above a whisper” was suggested online by Jeri, who self-identified her location as Mongolia.

Back in 2007, I created a similarly themed video titled “When I Become an Administrator” with principals-to-be at the University of Central Oklahoma. Kudos and thanks to Lee Ann, Angela, Sandy A, Susan, Regina, Sandy Az, Kristi, Jamie, Mary, Michelle, Peggy, Cassi, Debbie, Rhonda, and Andrea, for their willingness to step in front of a videocamera during an August professional development session! Thanks also to all our other workshop participants who contributed ideas, as well as others online who voted and suggested other “one liners.”

Humor can be a great way to help us examine our attitudes and actions, and see how they measure up to our professed values. Marco Torres and the educators at Lesley University were originally inspired to create THEIR video (now almost 10 years ago) by an advertisement on Monster.com.

To encourage creativity, we’ve got to MAKE stuff – as Mitch Resnick says, we’ve got to become MAKERS. If you’re an educator in the northern hemisphere about to start the 2010-2011 academic year, I encourage you to become a Storychaser this year and invite your students as well. Let’s keep making creative videos and sharing our ideas with each other. Let’s change the world for the better.

The links and resources for our workshop today, “Teaching 21st Century Skills in School Libraries,” are available online. Joyce Valenza, the true “Wizard of Apps,” is our heroine. 🙂

Technorati Tags:
change, education, leadership, librarian, library, reform, school, technology, video, youtube

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On this day..

• iPhonography Examples from Montana #wildtech – 2011
• Support Wings of Valor: The Jimmy Doolitte Air & Space Museum in California – 2011
• Subscribe to Classroom 2.0 LIVE sessions in iTunesU – 2010
• Coordinate plane graphing for Travian – 2008
• Teacher Barbara Morgan is in orbit! – 2007
• reCAPTCHA, OCR, and the work of blog commenters – 2007
• Thoughts on leadership, ethical decision-making, and identity from Tolkien – 2006