New learning

I just learned the 475th new thing of the year. I went to Edit a draft that I had, only to discover that I had a whole collection of drafts from throughout the year. So I finished them off and published them.
What I learned it that they got published for the date that I started them! Go ahead, find them, I dare you!
Good hunting.

How has the year made a difference....

Learning. How do we teach and how do students learn? This is the question at the root of everything teachers do. Students need curiosity and a way to be engaged. They need to see a relationship to what they feel is important. So how do we bring our teaching to the world of 2009, where kids text, tweet, and wear headphones to match their outfits.

I see the future of libraries and schools changing. I can envision a "school" of student sitting in their own homes, using their own computers and not gathering together and not having a teacher in the room. I see a Ben Bova or Isaac Asimov plot come true.

I question the value. People need People (Barbara Streisand did a great job of getting this message across.)
Web 2.0 activities have brought many of the activities the students come knowing how to do but which they use more often for entertainment. To take these and teach them as skills captivates as well as educates.
I am reading "Love of Impermanent Things." I feel that way about some of the tools we were exposed to in the MILI experience. The tool will be impermanent. The concepts will be around. Social media. Connections on line. Data bases.
But the particular ones may disappear.
Lego Logo, HyperStudio, Mac Classics.
It takes a while to get comfortable with something. Master it and it changes, it disappears, it is replaced. It takes a curiosity and a confidence to make the time to master something in these days of impermanence.
Bravo to the participants and presenters of this class.

Reading Savvy 2.0

It is standardized testing day. Staff and students seem a bit frazzled. Other reasons for stress could be the looming end of the year, plus a continued look at important staff development things like formative assessment. And then there is my disappointment for the day: I got turned down on my request for new library books. 

So on the math standardized test day, here is my equation. 

Old books + reluctant teen readers = my less than successful feelings 

There is only so much that technology can do, 1.0 or 2.0. 

I enjoyed remeeting the word "savvy" about 2 weeks ago. Humans need to be "Reading Savvy" as well as "Tech Savvy". Yes, one can lead to the other, but today is a day that I am questioning where time and effort should be spent for the best bang for the learning buck.

Tech-Savvy

There were 2 articles in this weekend's Minneapolis Star-Tribune that caused me to think this weekend. One was about someone who quit Facebook and the other was about travel help for folks who use their cell phones more than I do. What got me thinking was "Tech-savvy" in the headline.
When it comes to technology, I am not a dinosaur, but not exactly cutting edge either. Most of the "Things" that MILI has covered are either new to me or things I knew about but elected not to use, like Facebook. There is so much to learn. And just when you learn something inside and out, it changes. So I read the article "Travel help for the tech-savvy" very carefully. I expected to run into something from this class. Instead it featured Text messages, GPS, Google Maps, Yelp, iWant, UrbanSpoon, OpenTable, Widitude. All cool. All new. More stuff.
Meanwhile, I decided to see if a friend was available for lunch tomorrow. I had to look up my cell phone number. I don't have texting or photo features.
So I wonder about the things in the article--if I had that kind of phone. Like, do you have to purchase those things or do you just download them? How much money a month do teen need to be "Tech-savvy?" How do you download to a phone?
And how much of all the tech stuff do you have to know about, use and understand to be considered "savvy"? Isn't it enough to just know how to spell it?

A breather

It is after 5PM, the Friday before a week of Spring Break. I stayed at work until I accomplished my goal of going through every piece of paper on my desk and actually filing it. I did it--almost. Went to a meeting about managing the up-coming standardized testing and another meeting about the International Art Festival we will have before hosting MPR's Talking Volumes that will feature Sandra Cisneros. Recorded my grades, did a HUGE amount of changing & updating on the website, and answered staff questions. Busy but comfortable. Although the list is finished, I did not make a decision about a M.I.L.I. question and I am still pondering it. It has made me think about all the things I have been exposed to in our classes. Yes, I have been exposed to SO much that is new. Yes, I feel more "in the know" than I did. But what am I sharing? How am I sharing? How can I do a better job. I'll be mulling this over for a long time. I need a breather.

Delicious

At our District Staff Development day I went to a session Jeanne and Diane held about Delicious. Yes. I felt like I should not attend, as I had the MILI experience behind me, but to be honest, I didn’t get Delicious. I was missing the boat.
After attending the session, I really like this site/application/thing. Today is Sunday. I logged on to my trusty laptop and went right to my Delicious icon on my toolbar. Got the saved tag for a bread recipe and finished making that for breakfast. Later in the day, I went back to Delicious to look up a pattern for a hat I am knitting that I found in a blog that I saved in my Tag bundle for “Crafts”. Nice to organize what would usually just be a long line of Bookmarks. Nice to find the list on my handy laptop PLUS any other machine I care to extend it to. I feel rather accomplished.

Notetaking

Note taking. What an interesting thing to think about. How DID I learn to take notes? I remember outlining. It was fascinating. Roman numerals. Capital letters and small letters. The nuns knowing what was absolutely right and absolutely wrong. No grey areas. But we used this to outline information we were handed, not information we found or notes from a lecture.
I like notes. Like them more and more as my memory disappears. What do I do now? Well today I had a meeting to attend, so I grabbed a spiral notebook and put it into the bag with my laptop. Why? Old habit. Fear of no wireless system.
So that is where to put the notes. Now, what to write down. I am a great wool gatherer. I don’t concentrate well. So I often doodle—actually I doodle a lot. My pages of notes in spiral notebooks are works of art, or very complete shopping lists, or a combo. I also like to knit at meetings. That is my favorite way of concentrating and for me it works. But I worry that it is perceived as disrespectful by the presenter.
Notes. Back to content. I like to take notes on an agenda or skeletal sheet. Nice to know I am not missing the backbone of the presentation. I like to add color (even just a combination of pen and pencil) and underlining—visual attention grabbers for ME—things that might make an impact just for me. A lot of time there is something I need to do or have some personal interaction with, so I write it and highlight on my notes.
So I don’t really know how to teach today’s student how to take notes. But it has been interesting to think about….

Saturation

February 19 Draft
initiatives like ib
new curriculum
new students
new web 2.0
new technology
all good on website, just need different words, colors, pictures & emphasis...

Revisited in May--
I was looking at the many things that "just" need a 1/2 hour of your "beyond work day": time to exercise, time for reflection, time with your loved ones, time for yourself, time to read, time to do your grooming, time to pick up the house, time to do lesson plans, time to enjoy your hobby, time to call your parents, time to send a quick friendly e-mail.......
And it adds up to needing to be retired! This work gig does get in the way!
The last line of my draft was a knee jerk reaction to a visit to the school by 2 outside marketing consultants. They had booked some of my time to review the school's website, which I do, and they said it was "Perfect". They then whet on to say that it just needed "different words, different colors, different pictures and different emphasis...". I started laughing. If I had more time, I could do different things. As it was, I was fitting the visit with them into the time I should have been doing the announcements on the hanging TV in the main hallway.
And so it is with Web 2.0.
I want to learn more. I want to teach more. I will do that--soon--maybe next year. As it is, this has been a year of digging garbage out and getting established. I deleted over 6000 copy records from my Destiny program--about 1/3 of the school's library books. The books did not exist. Everyone was discouraged from using the media center. It appeared that there was nothing there. Well, this is something concrete and will get folks believing in the viability of the library. Efforts well spent.

Where did my posting go?

It's lunch time. I read an interesting blog that commented on the story about Sanford University offering a 4 part class for PARENTS about Facebook. Thought it would be a good, interesting thing to bring to the attention of the MILI group. 

The blog has a little icon at the bottom, "ShareThis". There are a variety of "social web, post, e-mail" options. I selected "post" and "blogger". When I logged into my blog site, I did not see anything just waiting for me, yelling "here I am"! So I started this blog.

Then I got interrupted. Lunch was over. 

2 hours later. Where did the message go? I get back, go to edit my post and what do I find? Two posts waiting for me to post them. Yup, the blog is in my list of blogs just waiting for me to post it. So I will. Hope you enjoy.

Stanford is Teaching Parents About Facebook.

Stanford is Teaching Parents About Facebook. What’s a Kid To Do?

Posted using ShareThis

How do they do that?

My family moved. After almost 25 years in the same house we have moved to Lakeville. I forgot how much work is involved. Why am I mentioning this in the same breath as Web 2.0? Well, we now have a house to sell. Where am I turning first? Not to a Realtor but t the Internet! We have things to dispose of--a TV, a treadmill. Where am I turning to first? Craig's List. Do I know what I am doing? No way! Do I feel like I am floundering--absolutely. But not everyone feels like I do. A fellow member of my book club has a husband who earns his money via eBay. I ran into ex-neighbors at Menards--I feel like I live there--and their daughter was cleaning out her closet, ready to go to Goodwill with them but sold the items on eBay for $1,000!

Thing 5--Libraries

Thing 5
I somewhat take exception to the sentence of this “Thing”: Public libraries are the doorway to information for you and your students. I LOVE my public library system, but I think most teacher/student relationships start with the school’s library and then move out of that “doorway” to the public library, as needed.
I enjoy being a media specialist in a school. I cannot imagine working in a public library and not getting to know the clientele the way we get to know “our” students.
But I have not had all of my professional career working in schools. I did have the unique experience of working on the development of the national library in Iran in 1975. I was a lowly employee of the Pahlavi National Library in New York and Tehran. It was an amazing privilege to experience all the considerations and details that went into planning a service that would span satellites and donkey delivery of information. Experts from around the world were brought in to consider all the facets of developing a library system for a country that did not have much of an existing system. The library’s plans ended up literally in the gutter when the Shah was overthrown.
For years, I have very much enjoyed the Apple Valley branch of the Dakota County library—even volunteered there one summer years ago. More recently, I took my granddaughter to the weekly story times. I love to request books online and have them waiting for me, using self-serve checkout. I don’t know how I would keep my sanity during my daily commute without the library’s books on tape. I am thankful for books, copy machines, and even tax forms

Copyright

Draft from January 28, 2009
Our first question is "Why talk about copyright?".
What came out immediately is that times have changed.
It used to be cut and dried. We stayed away from using much of anything created by another person.
Now things seem to be in flux. Not by presenters.

Okay, it is May. Copyright is a concept that kids need to know. Kids easily understand. We all break. I started leading students away from Google Images. There has been kicking and screaming and I feel their pain. This is a great issue.

Web 2.0--How visible or hidden?

So I am on the couch, watching the Vikings game with my wonderful wireless laptop in full gear. I am updating the schools website a wee bit but spending HOURS fixing things on the program that has replaced the venerable "card catalog". Destiny is the program's name. I am removing 16 mm projectors that are listed as available. Same for microphones that were purchased in the 1970s. I am removing a number of fiction books that I know are not on the shelf after a recent partial inventory. I am changing the material type from "book" to whatever for a number of things that then have the call number listed as "videotape" or "cassette tape".
Before our Winter Break, I was showing students how they can find information that is in the media center by using the catalog listed on the school's home page. I showed how to tell if the information was leading them to a book or a bit of multi-media or a website. But so much of the data is wrong!
So, while I am not doing an obvious two way communication, I do feel that my activities are a form of communication, albeit behind the scenes. Does a Web 2.0 exchange have to be very visible? Do we have to know who we are speaking to or does the knowledge that we have an audience who will act on our posting serve?
Happy New Year!