New Learning, Not Necessarily Better

Ben & Me, recorded in Poway with great interest in the process if not this product.

Practice iMovie

Learning to create & post videos. Preparing for school use.

SDCUE Annual Technology Fair 2008 - Keynote

Notes from Saturday's Tech Fair in El Cajon

Bruce Wilcox

• 1:1 Learning = teacher:student; facilitated/necessitated by technology
• Schools pay too much for technology that is not custom designed for educational purposes and has a short life because of how used (think of students handling their materials).
• Schools should be purchasing custom-designed devices, not business standards.
• Technology promotes student-created content and many educational applications.
• Cell phone pre-eminence.
  

My thoughts

• Online connection ties direction to outcome, keeps students more engaged.
• As teacher librarians are perceived as less necessary for direct instruction, so do teachers become "obsolete".
  
• We have to incorporate the environmental impacts of increased technological devices into future design & implementation.
  
• Where is intellectual property and privacy protection?
• What about personal learning styles? I don't see all students effectively learning from workstations and/or cell phones.
• I'm seeing more examples of technology changing learning than just providing another format for existing educational practices.
  

Week #9 - Thing #23 In Conclusion

After an intense, summertime relationship with most of Learning 2.0, my brain had to be shared with the opening of school, distributing textbooks, and melding optimism with practicality. A district email telling us to turn off our tv & audio streaming hit home that PUSD has neither the network infrastructure or awareness that these real world connections are important to public education. The creativity utilizing online resources is added value to the learning process in the same way our more traditional electives are.

I'm fascinated by this need for connection, fabrication, and personal exposure - always in touch, creating &/or extending one's identify, telling all. I can't associate that with authoritativeness, privacy, and harm. As teacher librarians, the web allows us to generate greater access to what we have to offer. But I'm still rooted in the meaning of quality resources, that information is not incidental as it is now being used, and that the thinking involved to choose data is as important as what we do with it.

To finish up on the nuts & bolts of Thing #23, I had seen the clever & entertaining Fair Use video before and still found the clips hard to follow, Creative Commons Search is very useful and I think CSLA should add itself to their Content Directories. I'm not sure how to cite CC items like the flickr picture Books About Books I brought over. For students, the power of CC is in reinforcing the concept of respect for one's own intellectual property and work. Although I still spend a lot of time hunting for things on web pages, Learning 2.0 has given me a better idea of what to look for. Trite to say, this is just the beginning of future exploration on my part.

Week #9 - Thing #22 eBooks

I've traversed centuries of art, literature, The Lathe and Its Uses (from the 1800's), and cookie recipes. Mastered turning a digitized page with a Mac mouse (an upward curve). Some audio glitches within The British Library, and how I wish there were greater enlargement features. Firefox kept having to relaunch. A very long and improved way from my academic library experiences.

At the ALA exhibits in June, I saw some beautiful volumes that were reproductions of rare books, complete with digitized colored engravings. How long until we order our books online like we do our photographs from Costco?

Week #9 - Thing #21 Podcasts

Most disappointing because of the limited search abilities. The various directories list the same titles. I'd rather go to NPR to catch the programs I've missed. To find useful podcasts, you have to hunt. A bunch of titles didn't open in the directories and on the School Library Learning 2.0 page. When subscribing, you're receiving another list of daily postings to scan. My Mac definitely makes using and creating podcasts relatively easy, and I like listening from my computer.

I resist earphones as well as being tethered to a mouse and monitor. They don't meet my experiential needs. Having said that, recording is great for kids and learning. Their oral creations enhance literacy, understanding of content, and verbal expression. As a library instructional tool, adding online sound makes a posting richer, more communicative and hopefully more appealing. Definitely need to invest my efforts in podcasting.

Week #9 - Thing #20 YouTube

Funny, the unexpected, mediocrity, interesting, odd, and thankfully, "advanced search". The most recent post under "Education" was a real estate ad!

I had seen several of the School Library Learning 2.0 suggested titles before. My favorite is Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us, a great visual/message blend. Didn't connect with the pictures, but liked many of the statements in the Danish A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto, especially "I will not be defensive". That's a personal challenge in a CA school library! Some do a better job with credits & Creative Commons than others. The related videos posted on YouTube can get you side-tracked quickly & quirkily (new word).

I chose The Library Rap to post because of its humor and positive attitude toward school libraries. And its length. Better ignore the X-rated posted comments. When I inserted the html, the displayed size was too big for the right column of the blog. May have to work on that.

School Library Instructional Connections (besides student-generated work): With 47 minute periods & teachers looking at their watches (they may tap their feet, too), I'd use short videos (under 2 minutes) in a classroom setting as an intro, to explain something in detail, or create a mood. Postings online could be longer.

Our evolving social media is predicated on visual & oral literacies. Public school curriculum forgets that when we consider electives as add-ons instead of integrating their learning across content areas.

Week #8 - Thing #19 LibraryThing

Kismet! Thanks to the latest email edition of American Libraries Direct, I had just looked at A million free covers from LibraryThing and wandered around the site before learning it was the next "thing." Of course, I had to include my cousin's book and discover at least one other relative as member.

I see students creating their personal libraries here. With the emphasis on classroom collections at my schools, LibraryThing is easy to set up for participation and sharing. Online Classroom Libraries! Am sending out an email to my Humanities teachers. Thumbs up!

Practice Document

Week #8 - Thing #18

First time Zoho Writer user. Thanks to Linda, we have already practiced with Google Docs to create our TLC.
These applications are improving by leaps & bounds. Will be tackling Office 2007 soon and this looks easier. Am looking for textwrap but see it is a given. What's with this line spacing?

Week #7 - Thing # 17 Sandbox

This was fun. Some fine instructional videos from onions (how to recharge your iPod on Clipmark), into citation/research compilers/organizers (Zotero), through bookmarking conveniences (Foxmark), and beyond (the amazing WebTools4u2use). The calcurriculum wiki needs better visuals & organization but a very helpful source.

Week #7 - Thing #16 Wikis

Saw more wiki postings than commentary on the school sites. Joyce Valenza's teacherlibrarianwiki, Carol VanHook's handouts in Library Success, A Best Practices Wiki and Library Instruction Wiki were the most relevant for my middle school needs. But didn't find specific middle school lessons I could use. Have to start using the Creative Commons to model ethical use.

Am looking forward to creating wikis in place of pathfinders. I can't envision many middle schoolers adding to my pathfinder/wiki but I do see it as a useful tool for group projects. Destiny now lets students add book reviews, but not talk to each other. I don't see MS students able to effectively use that feature were it available. Considering their developmental level, conversation skills, and poor use of Learning Point messaging, my reservations may be more about school-imposed self-censorship than a free exchange of ideas. Hmmm, more thought needed here.

Week #6 - Thing #15 Web 2.0 & Libraries

Just when I vowed to shorten my posts....

Looked at most of the articles (all from 2005 & 2006) and only The Horizons Report is 2008. My 40 year perspective is unchanged: that the essence of librarianship is the quality of the bibliographic record. And, it has to be coupled with acccess. I think the intentions of all libraries has been integration of resources with society. We have fallen short in the implementation for a bunch of internal & external reasons. I also expect the library to be a neutral information source, not dominated by a perspective, big business or big government. Developing Schultz's "focused expertise" has to be a way to harness ever-compounding data for individual needs. I think her ideas are the best of this group of articles because of her holistic descriptions "on the way to the library experience of the future."

Casey says the heart of library 2.0 is user-centered change. Certainly user-centered instruction is the current public educational focus. What is the nature of this every-present connectivity? Besides catching students' attention, does it facilitate critical thinking skills about the content we think they should be ingesting? I have seen evidence in middle school but it is very limited to date. Litwin's concern is privacy, students' need to see & be seen vs. the sharing of information, and interestingly, how that may change as they become adults. I appreciate the growing ease and benefit of collaborating online and believe teacher librarians are better prepared to adapt & utilize emerging 2.0 tools for instruction than teachers. Am just trying to find out how to prove that within the current public school bureaucracies.

Week #6 - Thing #14 Technorati

Have we really evolved from the Wilson indexes? More lists to scan and our school library topical searches display numerous tech products in articles & ads. The obvious way to go is with Watchlist to fine-tune one's interests. From a middle school classroom perspective and blocking software aside, I'd use blogs as vehicles for students to learn about facts vs fiction, source biases, and effects of social media. Did look at Technorati's management & board of directors to count only 2 women total.

Their advanced search in an important tool for keeping word orders together and for tag searching. I continue to think tagging is great because it matches our brain's fluidity. It's open-ended not limiting. Is censoring involved with what's allowed to be posted? Volume is an issue with the amount of data out there already so I'm not concerned with too many synonymous tags.

Popular blogs did not catch my interest. I prefer my hot topics from the LA Times feed. Technorati generates its own media buzz of what's important, and I wonder how its "pulse of the blogosphere" becomes big brother watching. They measure attention, and I would love to harness that for middle school. I'm going to pass on signing up as a member or to claim my blog.

Week #6 - Thing #13 Del.icio.us

I had to laugh my first time through tonight. Is this a popularity contest? Peer pressure to list & be listed? Only read what somebody else says I should read? Allison Steinberg did an excellent job of demo-ing Del.icio.us at a CSLA conference quite a while ago. It certainly makes it easy for us folks who cover two library sites and work from home.

Was fascinated with the bookmark Link by Link - An Internal Wiki that is Not Classified about the State Dept.'s Diplopedia. Find out how feds share info that affects international diplomacy and let your imagination run away with the pros and cons of that!

Tagging is liberating for this reluctant cataloger of almost 40 years in numerous classification systems. I'll have to spend more time with Network Badges for the next classroom research project. Added the SJLibraryLearning2 Bookmarks to Google Reader. That list is growing!

A final thought about the Del.icio.us comments. I'd like to see them tell me why I should read it, not just a summary that is accomplished by both the bookmark's descriptive sentence & the tags.

And somebody please comment if the links in these posts are overkill.

Week #5 - Thing #12 Rollyo

Here's an example where I like the visuals but not the usage. Maybe I need more exploration on how to set up Rollyo, but, the advertising alone is reason to move on. I question its thoroughness. Was curious about the subscription databases which turned up some hits, but nothing came back from KidsClick. I was looking for an alternative to Destiny's One Search which doesn't work. Anyway, it adds some needed color and style to the blog.

At the suggestion of a learning team comment, I went back and added my cohorts' blogs to Google Reader. We've set up our emails for posts so will have to see which is more convenient to stay current. A long afternoon figuring out Rollyo and shuffling through Mac tabs.

Week #5 - Thing #11 Exploring Sites

ColorBlender, first place Visual Arts winner.

Here is a blend of blue.

http://colorblender.com/?preloadblend=3877F52752A89AB8F56A7FA80A0A0AF5F5F5

Today I talked to the district's graphic artist about the software she uses. I think I'd prefer creating my own images rather using these packaged applications.

Our local band of 7 TLs can follow up with Stacey to create a district Ning.

Travel IQ is fun!! (don't ask).

Week #5 - Thing #10 Practice Image

This might be fun as a library webpage link. Need to fine tune how to merge text and image on a post. Where's textwrap? Can I cut and past from a word doc?

Imagechef Animations

Week #4 - Thing #9 Feeds

Used my creativity and too much time to just access my Google account. After resetting my password, it rejected my username. Finally clearing my private data, cookies, etc., I'm back in. Google help let me down. Wondered if this is a Mac thing. Arghhhh.

Before that debacle, I looked at the CSLA links for this task. Too much information, so much repetition. Maybe the answer is learning to write code/criteria to scan, summarize and organize what matters to each reader. That develops the higher order skills.

Google Reader feeds are so much easier to load. For my time investment tonight, am not impressed with my personal outcomes.

Week #4 - Thing #8 RSS

Chose Google Reader and 5 feeds, including two of my son's. His work (CTC Vista Project) using communications and technology to serve at risk populations addresses many of the same issues as public education.

Also added RSS links from my blog. Can we lop a couple hours off each workday just for professional development to read, reflect and apply all this good stuff?

Week #3 - Thing #7 Musings on Technology

My working observation is that middle school students don't get as much out of the research process today compared to pre-computer days.

So I reviewed back almost 40 years to my university librarian days and teaching the Wilson indexes. I have to conclude that although the searching then required some critical & higher order thinking skills, not employed by my students today, the selection of article(s) was probably as random as it is now. After all that time searching, you took the first articles you found.

Of course, Wilson had selection criteria but Google continues to improve their hits. For student learning, the answer again is the quality of the lesson plan.

Week #2 - Thing #4 Registered Blog

I could say this was the easiest to accomplish, except that the link was not working for several days. My Things are out of order, how nonlinear is that! And having been away from blogging for several days of house-guests, am back to reloading my short-term memory.

Week #3 - Thing #6 retrievr

Flickr fun, etc. did not hold my interest, except for retrievr. I played with shapes, sizes, colors and had more fun with my drawing than the matched photos. I can appreciate the juxtaposing of these inter-connected web tools but the visual outcomes are not very interesting.

Made a simple trading card with my kitties and downloaded it to this post, but where is the image? Apart from that snafu, the choices & formatting limitations of these super applications are inhibiting rather than creative.

Week #3 - Thing #5 FLICKR

Photography Coordination: Mac/Canon/Picasa/Flickr. Had to do this in steps and catch up with a year's worth of camera storage.

The picture posted is from last year's terrific in-service, before the fires and budget crash, when we came together and moved forward in a positive manner. Oh, look at what has happened. The foundation of our K-12 program has been cut by a third, reduced to 20 hours a week plus their newly added textbook responsibilities. Year six of K-12 reduced services is about to begin with a step backwards.

Week #1 - Thing #2 Lifelong Learning.

Going backwards to catch up. Lifelong learning is inherent to librarianship. It is the outcome for our library users, and that effort is dependent on librarians' continuous learning. School libraries, given the chance, develop skills & strategies for lifelong learners. My continuous activities include advocating to provide these opportunities to students.

This 2.0 tutorial enhances the networking & inter-connectedness of libraries and is an example of how our profession is continually learning, growing and adapting. I want to learn more effective uses of technology, which I tend to view as a distraction to developing discrimination, judgment, complexity, and depth.

Week #2 - Thing #3

Getting started, pouring over directions while absorbing the ways of iMac. In free fall but moving on.