Johnson

=Doug Johnson =

As both Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools since 1991 and an adjunct faculty member of Minnesota State University since 1990, Doug Johnson has a long list of accomplishments and accreditation to his name within the fields of Library Media and Educational Technology. Johnson is the author of five books: //The Indispensable Librarian, The Indispensable Teacher’s Guide to Computer Skills, Teaching Right from Wrong in the Digital Age; Machines are the Easy Part; People are the Hard Part; and School Libraries Head for the Edge; Rants, Raves and Reflections.// Along with his published books, Johnson also has written for various different catalogs and journals including: MultiMedia Schools, School Library Journal, The Book Report, Teacher Librarian, Leading and Learning with Technology, Internet Research, Creative Classroom, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer-Press, and the NASSP Bulletin.

Johnson is also an established speaker, and has attended and spoken at conferences for such prestigious groups as the American Library Association, the Ohio Educational Library Media Association, Apple Computer, and the School Library Journal Leadership Summit, just to name a few. On his [|website,] Johnson focuses heavily on his speaking events, and both outlines many of his major speeches as well as provides electronic resources and handouts for them as well. Some of the Speeches Johnson covers on his website include: //Schools and Libraries for the Net Generation, Dangers and Opportunities: Challenges for Libraries in the Digital Age, and Getting the Most from your School Library Media Program//, though many others are listed as well.

Johnson also has a link to his blog, [|The Blue Skunk,] on his webpage in which he shares with readers issues that are important to him along with latest trends, ideas, and practical tips about the School Library Media and Educational Technology fields. After going through Johnson's webpage and blog I realized just how important these fields are to education as a whole. Many of Johnson's articles and speeches have to do with the relationship between school librarians, parents, and other educators, and how those realtionships are of utmost importance to the education process. It was easy to see, in my opinion, that Johnson's speeches would be not only informative, but perhaps uplifting and inspiring as well. I would be interested to attend one some day in the future. -Christie

In a field that is every changing, it's important that Johnson keeps up with them. This is evident on his web page. Johnson seems to be very interested in his career and seems to be doing fine. -Chris Gargasz

Briefly looking through Doug Johnson's website, I found a few speeches that seemed to have a lot of influence on other media specialists. He brought up a point of bringing the digital world to libraries and I believe that in order for libraries and media centers in schools to survive, there has to be an acceptance of technology. -Andy Luciano