Texting Teens

I am excited about the idea of texting my patrons - the teens of Park County. It only makes sense, especially when you know of 3 or 4 teens who admit to sleeping with their cell phones. For teens, these and ipods have become the technology of choice. For some teens, ipods and cell phones have morphed into one instrument we might have once called a PDA. One of my student librarians last semester proudly showed me his little device (was it an iphone?). He demoed that not only could he receive/send phone calls, listen to music, but he could also do a google search, all on a device he held in the palm of his hand. Sure, our teens use e-mail, but they don't embrace it the way they do their cell phones. E-mail is a tool for sending assignments, for setting up MySpace. But the cell phone, that is proprietary teen stuff. When I think of the paper notices the school secretary delivers to students with overdues and the class interruptions their delivery causes and the number of teachers who neglect to give the notice to the student ; I think about how different it would be to text a student a brief and gentle reminder about library books. The cell phone goes everywhere with the student. While the paper notice might get left at school, the text message goes home on the cell phone reminding the student to get the book off the TV and into the backpack. I need to learn how to text from a computer and test this out on a few willing students.

We do use e-mail in our school. While librarians' e-mail is posted on the school website, students rarely use this. E-mail has been invaluable helping us communicate with staff, administration and with librarians in other schools. The monthly library newsletter and listing of new books is e-mailed to all staff, administration and school board. Collaborative efforts with teachers in other schools are facilitated through e-mail. Listservs such as Wired-MT keep us in touch with librarians all over our large state. Other listservs help me with cataloging questions. E-mail allows me to work with a mentor who helps me when I'm unsure of how to handle a cataloging problem.

Instant messaging is not used too much in our school. Even the students do not use it so much as they did a few years back. I think the convenience of cell phone texting has made IM obsolete for most teens. It might be interesting to dangle something out there for reference help and see if our teens use it, however. Personally I use IM a bit to keep up with our daughter. She convinced my husband to join Facebook and they have brought me into the IM world. When daughter has a long quiet night on the resort check-in desk, she will often IM us at home. While its nice to have such daily contact, I do have a hard time sitting and waiting for the next response. I'm not sure I'd be patient enough or have enough time for it at school.

OK, I'm off to read about Skype. Our Fulbright exchange teachers tell me that it is THE communication tool in Europe. People "skype" more often than use the phone for keeping in touch with family and friends living far away. We have a teacher from our town now working in Ukraine. It will be fun to try "skyping" her.

Thoughts on Life-Long Learning

The moment I decided to become a librarian I knew I'd vowed to continue learning all my life. Being a librarian has proved to be just that - an continuous challenge to keep learning. The field changes so quickly! As does the technology we use everyday. As if that weren't enough to keep me challenged, add to the formula my teen-aged patrons - they keep me going/growing every single day.

As if there weren't enough inherent challenges in the job, other challenges present themselves daily. A student and I laughed today as we explored a database within InfoTrac. He was searching for info on his topic, but a sidebar caught his interest. As I looked over his shoulder I watched him get diverted to another interesting topic. He turned to me with a grin, saying, "But that really isn't my topic, I just wanted to see what they meant there." He made me laugh because I recognize that feeling. I'm forever finding myself interested in something else I know little about and am curious. Before I know it, I've wandered far from my original point of inquest.

So, for me, the easiest habits are to accept problems as challenges (aren't the two synonymous?) and to accept responsibility for my learning. The hardest habit is to determine a goal and stay focused on the goal. My nature is one of random impulsiveness, so it is a struggle to stay focused. In a learning environment, I seldom set goals. So this will be a new aspect (goal) for me while on this 2.0 challenge.