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=21st Century Media Program: It's Growth Phases, Growth Spurts and Challenges =

A crucial aspect to understanding the 21st century media program and the profession as a whole, is realizing who the 21st century stakeholders are, and here is a video that captures this best:

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The learning space of today's learner is quite varied and ever expanding, so that leaves a wide open 'canvas' on which we can mold, shape and guide young thinkers along the ever winding path of information domains [many of which have not yet been discovered] It is evident that these information domains will include //but also exceed// traditional mediums, as is reflected in this video exerpt.

media type="file" key="conventionalservices.wmv" width="300" height="300" Just a precursory glance at these two videos suggests that the changing landscape of the profession is multifold:

We must grapple with the fact that today's learner is a digital native, and we must learn to speak the language in the digital native's world! What that means for people of my generation (X) is that we must develop an acumen to a great variety of learning tools that were not even invented when we first came out of library training programs.

Extraneous factors such as recent economic climates have us focusing on an increasingly weighty role: that of media center programming specialist, content specialist and community partner / liason [especially given budget shortfalls]. How many of us have partnered up with neighborhood organizations and foundations who offer attractive ways to help us meet library media programming goals? I know I have and will continue to do so.

This presentation on the //growth phases, growth spurts of the library media profession// could shed light on the possible ambivalence felt among library media specialists in terms of joining forces with other information and content specialists.

This presentation seeks to answer the questions:

In terms of library media specialist competencies - what are media specialists' perceptions and what does this imply in terms of the importance of roles / emphasis of one over the other? Are the perceptions yielding any information about where leadership has a dominate role? instructional partnerships? or instructional technology?

How are LMS roles being shaped by the demands of today’s information domains?