Nothing more for me to add here, except that I’ve been librarianing since 2001. Before that I taught social studies for 11 years. You will soon see that I teach in a high performing district, and I just want to say that hasn’t always been he case. I started in the New York City Public Schools Crown Heights Brooklyn in 1990), then when I got to Bridgeport, CT, I thought I’d hit the country club. Now I teach in paradise.

Social media is your friend. Unless you ignore it. Then, it becomes something else entirely.

I teach in a free-range media school. We filter porn. That’s pretty much it. Our students are encouraged to bring their devices and connect to the WIFI network. All they need to do is register their MAC address.

We use the sites in the bubbles for instruction. Eric already gave you a nice run down on how these applications can work for a school or district, so I am going to focus on another angle – How educators and vendors can connect, or not, with social media.

This is a bunch of snapshots I took in our school library last month. As you can see, kids are using a wide array of resources to access content. Among them, are pen, paper and print.

But also a variety of portable digital devices. Are educational publishers ready to deliver content in this environment? I know, I know…social media. I’m getting there.

But before I get there, I have to share one more thing about devices.

So what’s the connection? Mobile learning devices rely on apps for content delivery Apps provide instant, 24/7 and mobile access to social media Social media is not just social anymore According to a 2008 Cone Business Study, 93% of social media users expect businesses to have a social media presence I am guessing that figure might be higher for educators. It is certainly true for librarians.

I Tweeted a plea to several database vendors a few months ago – shortly after acquiring iPads and iTouches. Not only did they Tweet a follow question, but they called to find out more. I was so pleased with their responsiveness, I Tweeted about it.

Got a new product? Got a new app? Check this out! When Buffy and Shannon say “it’s cool,” Librarians want it. This is top of the line advertising without the advertising expenses.

After ASCD in April, Steven Anderson, who blogs at Web 2.0 Connected Classroom on Blogger, talking about Twitter, asked, “What made you get connected? Why stick with it?”

Steven Anderson Web 2.0 Connected Classroom. If you are interested in social media, and you don’t follow him yet, check him out.

This was my answer. I am not going to hang here too long. You can see it on his blog.

As a customer service solution?

In my opinion, this is the single worst development in the service economy since telemarketing – probably worse. Nothing can alienate clients faster than a recording telling them that they are important and navigating through a phone tree.

Here’s another one. Are you looking for product enhancement suggestions?

This is NOT the way to get them! This is kind of presumptuous, actually. It suggest we have a lot of time on our hands. We don’t.

Try this instead.

Very happy customer!

This is our school library website. I am so not kidding about social media at our school.

What just appeared on the right is our library’s instructional portal. It’s on Blogger. It is linked to our 1.0 informational webpage.

As you can see, we have gadgets (Widgets in Google speak) for both Twitter and Facebook on our instructional portal

Here are our Facebook and Twitter feeds. When we post to blogger, our instructional portal, these feeds are automatically updated.

And when we upload tutorials to our YouTube channel, our Twitter and Facebook walls announce the new lesson. And that feeds back into our instructional portal. That’s a lot of synergy for zero dollars!

Where do you come in? If our Facebook page “likes” you, you can tag us in a product update and it will go on our wall! Tired of waiting for educators to promote your latest features or products? You can do it yourself. It’ll go right up there along with our lessons and our library announcements. Most of our “friends” here are parents! When was the last time you were able to reach that powerful and influential stakeholder group? One last thing. When I Facebook searched the twelve companies whose textbooks we carry, we found SIX that had a Facebook presence! There is no other way to say this. That is ridiculous! These are high school textbooks! Ummm, I don’t know if you know this, but high school kids kind of live on Facebook. That’s why WE are there.

So, I facilitate a community of school librarians at edWeb.net, of which Lisa Schmucki here is founder and CEO. It’s called Using Emerging Tech to Improve Your School Library Program. There, I present monthly webinars for school librarians and technology integration zealots.

On Wednesday, we will wrap up our first Emerging Tech season with our twelfth webinar. Our sponsor, Follett Software Company, just renewed our contract for another year.

The community has grown well beyond our expectations.

Professional Learning Networks provide a rich discussion forum for topics of interest to educators. I am going to share one with you today. Can you guess what it is?

Back in October, during a webinar on blended learning,

I talked about eBooks

Chat participants brought up eTextbooks. Here’s what they said.

Fast forward 6 months

During our April eBook webinar, eTexbooks came up again

But this time, since there had been no progress in the market, that I knew of, during the last six months, here is what I said: “I am tired of waiting. Let’s face it. With BUILT-IN release time, I don’t think there is a K-12 subject that couldn’t be taught with Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, and knowledgeable and competent teacher. I’m over it. I don’t want any textbooks anymore – digital or otherwise”

And here is what participants said about textbooks – digital or otherwise.

Remember how I started by saying that social media is your friend unless you ignore it. Then, it becomes something else entirely? This is what I mean. Six months of relative silence about eTextbook product development might have cost the industry a lot of eager clients.

Whatever you have on your product development road map, or flight plan (what I often push for instead),

Use social media to let educators know!