You know these folks. They’ve made an art out of being a disconnected educator, they’ve done no professional reading since leaving library school and while they’re not exactly sure what a PLN is, they know they don’t want one. While you’re spending your evenings attending webinars or participating in Twitter chats, they’re still mourning the death of Encyclopedia Britannica’s print edition. While you’re spending your weekends and summers attending professional conferences, they’re at home knitting yet another cat sweater. And while you’re collaborating with other educators from around the world to create new and innovative experiences for your students, they’re still using the same lesson plans that they’ve used for years, (because, you know, they’ve always worked just fine).
You get the picture.
What’s really worrisome about this affliction is that being and staying disconnected these days requires work. Shoot. The other night my husband and I went to dinner at a restaurant where the menu encouraged us to “pin” its recipes, the receipt requested that we “follow” them for special deals and the to-go cups were decorated with QR codes. Seriously, social media has infiltrated just about every aspect of modern life, which makes the fact that some of our colleagues seem to be living on professional deserted islands utterly mind boggling.
What’s more, this type of intellectual stagnation is bad. Really bad. And here’s why:
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
You know these folks. They’ve made an art out of being a disconnected educator, they’ve done no professional reading since leaving library school and while they’re not exactly sure what a PLN is, they know they don’t want one. While you’re spending your evenings attending webinars or participating in Twitter chats, they’re still mourning the death of Encyclopedia Britannica’s print edition. While you’re spending your weekends and summers attending professional conferences, they’re at home knitting yet another cat sweater. And while you’re collaborating with other educators from around the world to create new and innovative experiences for your students, they’re still using the same lesson plans that they’ve used for years, (because, you know, they’ve always worked just fine).
You get the picture.