Digital Lives and Virtual Spaces: Exploiting the Sweet Spot to Enhance Adolescent Learning
Presented by Joyce Kasman Valenza, PhD; Teacher-Librarian at Springfield High School, PA
Library and Information Science Colloquium
Friday, February 17, 2012 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Faculty Lounge, Room 323
Abstract:
2012 presents a sweet spot--an opportunity for developers, scholars, librarians, and educators, to leverage what research tells us about digital youth and new media with powerful emerging networks, tools and resources. Although funding realities might point to this time as a perfect storm, this is the time to transform libraries and maximize our investment in resources for all learners. Libraries - physical, virtual, and mobile - can become customized learning environments, making spaces that inspire and celebrate creativity, transliteracy, and meaningful participation in new media culture. Dr. Valenza will update her research on school virtual libraries. She will share her vision for hybrid practice and equity. She will connect current research to potential new leadership roles for librarians as co-participants with youth in a digital age learning journey.
Biographical Sketch:
Joyce Kasman Valenza, (Ph.D., University of North Texas) is currently a teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School. She has been studying and writing about young people, technology and information fluency for more than twenty years. For ten years, Dr. Velenza wrote the techlife@school column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Dr. Valenza authored books on information skills for ALA Editions and Information Today and developed several video series for Schlessinger Media. She developed and taught online courses for Mansfield University. Dr. Valenza was awarded the AASL/Highsmith research grant in 2005. She is a Milken Educator, a Google Certified Teacher, and a Library of Congress American Memory Fellow. She was selected as one of Technology and Learning's 100@30 and was recently honored with the 2011 Edublogs Award for Lifetime Achievement. With an LSTA Grant and the support of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, she rolled out a statewide digital collection curation initiative involving school and public librarians. She is active in ALA, AASL, YALSA, and ISTE and speaks internationally about issues relating to libraries and thoughtful use of educational technology. Her research interests include: virtual libraries as digital/mobile learning spaces, digital collection curation, transliteracy, digital storytelling and creativity, youth information-seeking behavior, online communities of practice, digital youth and new media, and the evolving role of the teacher-librarian.
