Saturday, January 9, 2010

VIP 'O the Day: Bernie Poole!

I have been meaning to honor and describe outstanding leaders in librarianship and technology in my blog, and decided to kick off with someone who is wonderfully generous and altruistic. Kudos to Bernie Poole! For years he has been GIVING AWAY the fruits of his hard labor to educators and other users of his website, EdIndex: http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/
Other people seek remuneration for their work in creating and compiling books, tutorials, etc., but Mr. Poole cheerfully shares his resources online. If you are not familiar with his site, visit today! When you go, spend time exploring all the offerings. I thought of him today because he posted to EDTECH listserv to let folks know that he will soon be posting tutorials for Microsoft Office 2010 to his site. He already has great tutorials for Office 2007, Office XP, and earlier versions. To get to them easily, go to the site linked here. Look in the left hand frame on the page. Click on Online Books. Voila! There are thorough, easy-to-understand tutorials. Also provided at that page are downloadable copies of his book, Education for the Information Age. This book is great for self-guided study or for staff development. Additionally, I have used it students in our beginning technology class for MLS students. Did I mention it is FREE??? As good as the tutorials and book are, they are only a few of the great things to be found at Mr. Poole's website. He has other wonderful resources. Don't miss the dropdown menu on his page that leads to more information and links. Finally, he is also active as a columnist for Education World. I am not sure how long he has been active at this site, and have to admit that I had not found him there before today, at

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/poole/poole.shtml

But I am glad I did! There you will find a nice selection of his writings. Mr. Poole did retire from full-time teaching at Pitt last year, but it appears that he will continue to favor us with his writings, tutorials, and other resources. You will be doing yourself, your colleagues, and your students a big favor if you check in on Bernie Poole right away, tag him as a favorite of yours, and continue following him in the future.

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