Jim Glazer Ed.D., USA, K-12, University, Library Media Leadership, Technology Leadership, Technology Integration, Leading Change, Licensure Issues, Leadership
My goal is to be an advocate for teachers and lead them to change their pedagogy to include 21st century teaching practices that infuse technology as a transparent tool. After 15 years as a special education teacher, I started a “second career” in education as an Elementary Computer Teacher/Media Specialist in 1999 and have be integrating technology and collaborating with teachers on integrated technology projects over the last 20 years.
My research focus was on media specialists’ leadership for information skills, technology integration, and staff development and I continue to focus on and support district media staff in their leadership in technology at the building level.
I believe that as educators in a world of bigger, better, faster, quicker, we need to continue to advocate for the insistence that 21st Century Skills are taught and make sure that while we are creating technologically literate children, we also continue to “teach” them how to love books and good literature across many genres and themes.
Thanks for your introduction and first post, especially the reminder about the importance of 21st century skills. Helps keep our eyes firmly on the ball of student learning, and avoid the distracting noise that sometimes comes with “bigger, better, faster, quicker.” You bring a wealth of experiences and background knowledge to the group; rest assured we’ll be doing our pragmatic best to tap into your wisdom for the benefit of everyone’s learning.
Just the other day someone opined that someday we wouldn’t have books. They thought that books would become rare and protected items. I know that’s a prediction that I saw many years ago that hasn’t happened but I am beginning to wonder if there is any truth to the notion.
@ghostlibrarian
How long did it take after the invention of the printing press for books to cease to be written manually? And how long did it take after the invention of the written word for stories to cease to be passed down orally?
The disruptive technology that puts print media at risk of extinction is very young. The affordable personal computer is less than 30 years old. I don’t see books, magazines, or newspapers going away anytime soon. I do see magazines and newspapers being affected more by this than books though. They have been hit hard by RSS. But books, not so much.
The other comparison that comes to mind is painting and the invention of photography. Before photography paintings were mainly used as a way of recording visual information (family portraits, scenes, events, etc.). With photography paintings are not necessary for this. Paintings had to go through a massive reappropriation thus kicking off the modern art movement and where art went through an identity crisis and emerged in our current postmodern world where art has assumed a different role. I suspect a similar identity crisis is in the midst for books and other print media. What is it that a book can do that electronic media can’t? That will ultimately determine the future of the book and the future of print media.