Because They Wanted to Connect: My Tribe and the Edublog Awards

"And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect." -Seth Godin


Voting is now open for the 2010 Edublog Awards, a yearly opportunity to acknowledge the blogging and tweeting efforts of educators who choose to connect and share online.

The "Best librarian / library blog" category is a roll call of some (but by no means all) of the best and brightest in my field. I am happy to note, however, that teacher/librarians, and their sites, appear under a number of other headings:

• best individual blogs (Never Ending Search, Not So Distant Future)
  
• best individual tweeter (buffyjhamilton, dmcordell, shannonmmiller, wawoodworth)
  
• most influential tweet series (#tlchat)
• best group blog (Libraries and Transliteracy)
• best new blog (Eliterate Librarian, Libraries and Transliteracy)
• best resource sharing blog (Librarian in Black)
• most influential blog post - Joyce Valenza’s Things I think teacher librarians should unlearn (20 & counting)
• best school administrator blog (Doug Johnson)
  
• best educational support blog (Cathy Nelson)
• best educational use of video/visual (Gwyneth Jones)
• best educational wiki (TL Virtual Cafe, Copyright-Friendly, MHMS Tech Wiki, New Tools Workshop, School Library Websites Wiki, The UDL Tech Toolkit, WebTools4u2use, World of Warcraft in School)
• best educational use of a social network (Helene Blowers, 23 Things)
  
• best educational use of a virtual world (ISTE-SIGMS)
• lifetime achievement (cybraryman1, Doug Johnson, Joyce Valenza)

I believe that these nominations reflect a necessary broadening of our profession's vision and a continuing commitment to explore new ways to better serve our students and staff members.

Vote for excellence, not for job titles, but be proud of those nominees who represent TLs in this very public forum.

Good luck to my friends and colleagues: Buffy, Carolyn, Cathy, Doug, Gwyneth, Joyce, Shannon, and all the rest of our Tribe.



"There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas Edison




P.S. I've been nominated for Best Individual Tweeter. If you feel it's warranted, I'd appreciate your vote!





"The Group" by Grzegorz Łobiński
Badge from the 2o1o Edublog Awards site

Embrace Your Tribe

"I Geek the Geek Tribe!" ribbon by The Daring Librarian

As I've mentioned before, Gwyneth Jones, Joyce Valenza, and I have been busy working on items that will identify tech-loving teacher/librarians as members of the Geek Tribe.

Gwyneth has done her usual amazing job blogging about our efforts. Since she and Joyce will be attending ISTE 2010 in Denver this year, I'll be the Tribe rep at ALA DC 2010. If you haven't ordered a badge or stickers from Zazzle, you can download and print a free membership card using the templates found in the Geek Tribe Logos & Stuff Flickr gallery.

I will be carrying a limited number of Geek Tribe cards and ribbons to hand out to sympathetic souls who proclaim, "I Geek the Geek Tribe."

Any profits from the sale of Geek Tribe items benefit the Teacher Librarian Ning. As Gwyneth so tactfully explains,

If you use our graphics on your website, please do us the courtesy of linking back to the Teacher Librarian Ning , TL Virtual Cafe, or this [Gwyneth's] blog. Most all of my graphics are Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike - BUT if i find you using them to sell T-Shirts, coffee mugs or some other SWAG that doesn't benefit our group i will "hunt you down and skin and wear you like last year's Versace!" - Dina Manzo RHONJ

Those who want to get feeds from both ISTE and ALA should bookmark Geek Tribe member Buffy Hamilton's Netvibes page.



"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." -Jane Howard

Library Tech Geek Tribe

Tribe: A unit of sociopolitical organization consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent... A group of people sharing an occupation, interest or habit.


Due to copyright issues (about which librarians are VERY serious), we were unable to continue offering Library Tech Geek Squad buttons for sale.

The good news, is that our talented designer, Gwyneth Jones, has created an even better design: we are now the Library Tech Geek Tribe!

Items currently available on Zazzle include Tribe buttons and stickers, with other products in the works.



As before, any profits from the Geek Tribe line will be used to help support the Teacher Librarian Ning.

Please visit my Zazzle page for ordering information.


*Bonus!
A week before ALA and ISTE we'll be publishing a copyright free conference badge for new Tribe members to print out and proudly display!



"The group" by Grzegorz Łobiński