The Evolved Librarian

Who would've thought last September that I'd be making comix and movies and powerpoints that could have incorporated sound? I've had several classes in my quest towards Librarianship that have involved technology, but none as profound as this class. The Webquest was my first true immersion in the unfamiliar territory of the 2.0 world and I came out on the other side less frightened and more confident.
I had been introduced to wikis, blogs, and many other 2.0 pieces (one of my faves is pim pam pum) but have yet to try them with many of my classes due to network restrictions for elementary schools. This seems to be a huge hurdle to overcome for most of us, whether you are a classroom teacher wanting to try something new, or a librarian wishing to explore new territory with the students.
Have my eyes been opened? Yes. Will I remember all of it? Probably not. But, I will be more open to the investigation on my own and for educational purposes. I wow'ed my friends and family when I changed the leaky faucet by watching the vlogs on MonkeySee. And I amazed myself just by setting up the Weebly site. I couldn't believe that stuff is really out there.
Overall, as time-consuming and brain-taxing as it was, it was all worth it. I also liked the working through the professional philosophy. Incorporating things from the UVM course and the CCV course made it a unique semester, and one that will impact my outlook on education for years to come.
I will probably not continue with my blog, but you never know. Good luck to all.
Melissa

Google Earth, Moon & Mars

This has really changed since my kids first started playing around with it a few years ago. Finding the house in Vermont was kind of difficult as the satellite imagery was not so great. I'd never been to the educator background portion of the site and that really opened my eyes to all sorts of neat investigative tools. It still seems like a really cool site just to noodle around on, but yes, it does have applications for the classroom. I love the plans by teachers, for teachers. Historic maps, creating maps, math, science, physics, geography. The map maker looked realy interesting, but I didn't try it. As a librarian, I would suggest using this to actively engage students in the daily lessons, but also create an anchor activity for kids who just want to explore. Putting Google Moon up on the Smart board would give kids a glimpse into what many of us grew up watching. I remember getting almost uninterested in the moon shots. "Oh , it's splashing down, today? Great. No, I don't need to watch it, again." Now when I watch the movie, Apollo 13, it gives me chills. I wonder if the youth of today is getting the same feeling I once had about the space station and the Shuttle. Maybe taking them back 40 years to the moon walks accessible through Google Moon would give them a greater sense of what pioneers the astronauts of the 1960's and 70's really were, and why today, the space station is being utilized for so many experiments. I wonder where the next 40 years will take us?
Melissa

Educational Philosophy

Just a start, but when people say they want community, they seem to only want those that are available all the time in the community. As a .40FTE and .60FTE Elementary Librarian, I get to see how much I don't get asked or included in the classroom research projects. In one school I am fairly new and the prior librarian did an excellent job of filling out the Non-fiction with all sorts of curricular support books. I definitely have the "I'm not worthy" feeling when I see how much she was able to accrue on things like American History, Medieval Times, and Farming. Being .6, I am on site three days. But the teachers there know where the books are and rarely need my help to attain any more information.They come, borrow books, and return them. At the .4 school, I am rarely asked anything by the faculty.They rarely borrow books for their classrooms and don't come to me prior to assigning research. Very Frustrating! But I'm only there two days a week, it's kinda outta site, outta mind. I also think that the larger the school faculty, the harder it is to maintain that sense of community.
The two emails I saw on the Reflective Teacher that really helped were: keep it simple:" It's not about me. " stated by E. Hveding, on April 18th, 2008 . And," Why do I teach? " posted by JK, on October 14th, 2008. These are the best responses I saw concerning personal educational philosophies and not loaded with language that constantly needs to be updated. Buzz words and popular lingo are very frustrating to get used to when they are constantly changing.

Web 2.0 in the classroom

Most students can at this point put an adult to shame with their knowledge of navigation of the web. What better way to shock them into paying attention, but bringing out the the new technology. Students seem to want more work on the computer, not less. Every time I bring the library class to the computer room, their eyes light up and they want to know what we are doing today.
Of all the new bits of technology that we have investigated during the semester, I found the webquest the most satisfying. It was the very difficult to organize and feel comfortable with, but making me step out of my comfort zone was important. I had a teacher friend be very supportive and wishing I had followed her request to do a slightly different topic, but I'm doing something for my UVM class with her students to keep her happy.
I have used a wiki before, and looking around for eportfolio sites to make your own site really wouldn't be something I'd pass on to students, but to other educators. Librarians have to be able to support staff as well as students. (I truly dread having to teach my first inservice.) I know this class has impacted my sense of confidence to handle lots of different topics and questions that come my way.
Melissa S 11/29/09

To Vlog or Youtube?

What did I find when I looked into vlogs? Well, I discovered there's a world beyond Youtube. I went to vlogblog and found out that there are well organized sites with a variety of helpful vlogs or videos. I liked WonderHowTo, Monkeysee and Videojug. On vlogblog I searched for some information on vlogging, etc. To my surprise, I kept coming up with Youtube videos. I guess Youtube was the first and what people still search. Monkeysee had some well-done videos on pet care, performed by a veterinarian, and the site seemed well organized to find topic material. I also liked the way Videojug was organized. Checked out some of the family information videos just for interest. Monkeysee has a byline of "see how the experts do it" and information included on the page for the video of the expert in the video. One on car care even included a phone number as well as a website. I liked this site and felt that the authenticity was founded. I would like to look into this site more for more ideas. Check out some of these for yourself and see if you find them better than Youtube.
Melissa S 11/22/09

One more try

This is the embed code to my presentation. I'm really having problems getting this to post.

Sir Ken

Teaching to the tests. Sound familiar? Gotta pass those NECAPs, NAEPs ,SAT9's. Or the dreaded checkmark may visit your school. I thought about something I saw recently,(sorry I can't remember which class) about high schoolers taking the SAT or ACT and how they couldn't apply the Pythagorean theorem to the problem and most got the answer wrong. Isn't Bloom about using what we have learned creatively? Applying it to new areas to solve problems? And back to the original thought-is teaching to the tests teaching us to be less creative? I think so. As a librarian, I see students 40 minutes a week. Same for the music and the art teachers . How can we incorporate more creativity into our students' day with less and less time being spent on the arts? What does it take for teachers to differentiate lessons so that options for assessment can meet a student's learning style? How can we gently nudge the student's into another style of assessment that may expand their creativity and learning?
I often wonder about the grants that allow schools to investigate an arts program for a week, month, quarter. How do the grades of the students change during that time? How is their attention in class? What does the opportunity to break out of the mold of regular school routine do for the students? Has anybody tried to pay attention to these things or are the days too busy to even think about assessment during these times? Just a thought.
Melissa 11/15/09

10 slides finally done

Just another place to locate my 280 slides presentation. I guess I'm afraid I'll never find it again.
http://280slides.com/Viewer/?user=29854&name=Red%20Clover%20vs.%20Caldecott&fullscreen

Powerpoints, everybody sing-a-long!

At the beginning of the school year, I had the enjoyment of meeting and watching Will Richardson present to the supervisory union faculty inservice at Killington. He was awesome. Animated, great support in his powerpoint, links. Made me want to get back out there and 2.0 the students with everything I had in me. Thank goodness Will spoke in the morning and had a plane to catch out of there, so he didn't have to sit around for the lackluster presentations later.
Did you ever have to watch a powerpoint presentation where it felt like, "follow the bouncing ball! everybody sing!" One of the teams of presenters which came after Will, literally read word for word the information on the screen. Where Will's presentation was colorful, with varied text, had links with audio, paused for audience interaction, etc., these presenters had overcrowded slides, colors that were not bright or varied, and absolutely said the same thing that was on the screen behind them. No variation from the script. To present, you have to have a little bit of actor in you, I understand. But anyone who's been up in front of a classroom of rowdy kids should have a pretty good grasp on getting and keeping the attention of their audience. I actually started to feel bad for the students these people were teaching. How could they be effective educators when they were putting the whole room to sleep? Maybe I'm being too harsh, I wasn't the one in front of a hundred people. However, as educators, we need to be able to ad-lib a little. I can definitely see where just giving the bare minimum on the powerpoint slides and filling in the gaps with an interactive lecture style would be a far more effective presentation. Making text of varied size and changing background colors to emphasize the transitions in the presentation, can all add to audience appeal and make you a more effective presenter. I can see I'm setting myself up to really have to do a great job on this forthcoming project. Will Richardson's book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms"; anybody looked through it? A bit overwhelming, but a powerful teaching aid. Educating our students to be information literate is really becoming every teacher's job.
Melissa 11/5/09

Hans and his Data

Hans looks like he had a good economic backing for his computer generated study. Top of the line resources, etc. He was quite impressive with his diagram of social change before economic change. This was then repeated towards the end when he focused on improved health in a country increased child survival before improved wealth (economic status) and showed the example of South Korea vs. Brazil.
This database lesson is a bit confusing. I understand Hans and his data, I guess I don't understand how the linking of data with gapminder improves the world data, or is it the quality of world data? Hans was discussing publicly funded data available via the web and I'm not sure how the use of another database to link the data improves things. Is it about how we use the data to show us the things we question? Well, he gets an A++ for effort and presentation. Lots of things to keep the audience locked in and paying attention. Makes me wish I had a SmartBoard to teach.
Melissa S 10/29/09

A Bloom Blog

I need to know Bloom, I need to embrace Bloom. Little did I know that Bloom was sneaking into my language and life so easily. I had to do a free-write for another class and discuss Knowledge vs. Understanding. I created an example of knowledge being the facts and understanding being the synthesis and analysis of the facts combined with things like past experience. It came down to a classic If..., Then....statement. (Knowledge: The stove is hot. Past experience: I don't like when I get burned. Analysis: If I touch the stove when it is hot, I may get burned and I won't like that. Synthesis: Therefore, don't touch the stove.) My discussion partner gleefully announced what a great job I did getting all those Bloom indicators in there. What? How did that happen? When did I start to incorporate Bloom into my life? Egads! Bloom, look out. I think I'm beginning to understand it.

Melissa 10/22/09

Bernie and examining for inauthenticity

That word: inauthentic. It just has a really negative feeling to it. It doesn't even sound good when you try to say it. Now, how to get around giving your students inauthentic tasks.
As teachers, aren't we supposed to help students learn to communicate? If we are, they must be able to communicate in the written word as well as the spoken word. How will they practice the written word with an authentic task? When I think of inauthentic tasks, I think of the term paper; the trap that Bernie was discussing. Did I create inauthentic tasks? Yes, I probably did. When will an adult have to imagine they are living in 1892? When will an adult read the poem "The Colossus" and dissect it and reflect upon it? I also tried my best to differentiate the projects enough to bring out the different learning strengths. I think my best task was for Team 2009 where they had to design a new monument for "the Mall" in Washington, D.C. dedicated to immigration. I'd love to see this concept come to fruition. How would students choose to present it? In clay model, in papier mache, in a drawing? At the end, I wanted the two teams of students to debate the immigration policies of each time period and how difficult the process towards citizenship may have been. I threw in the question of discrimination at the conclusion as an afterthought. ( Just something I was doing today at one of my schools. ) This is the last piece of thinking I wanted to leave them with and an idea of how to apply what they learned to today's culture. Hopefully this would open the door to the next unit on Constitutional Amendments and the history of discrimination in the US.

WebQuest thoughts

My WebQuest is going to be on the Immigration and Citizenship process; comparing the beginning of the 20th century and the 21st century. I still feel frustrated as I haven't been able to find the exact information of Citizenship requirements for 1900. I will continue searching this week and next week (if that's okay), as I think it is an important comparative for the two time periods.
Ellis Island was not the only point of entry, Angel Island was the Pacific coast equivalent. There seems to be much more negative history with Angel Island and since many of my present resources include New York City as part of the history examination, I would like to stick with the eastern side of the United States. If anyone thinks that this will detract or that the project would be incomplete without including Angel Island, please let me know.
I have been trying to come up with strong questions, and usually the best ones come to me at 3:30 AM, or thereabouts. Better start sleeping with a notepad next to the bed. The development of the lesson and thought provoking questions is something that I am not truly used to doing. This is quite a challenge.

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons site was worthwhile to investigate. I did have some confusion when I clicked into the flickr site. It took me to "everybody's downloads". Is this still within the creative commons of copyright or do I need to search only "the commons" with flickr in order to stay clear of copyright infringement? This was unclear, so I searched in both, but didn't try to save anything. I also looked into Google images, and jamenda music site for some opportunities. The most fun I had was after listening to the podcast and going to Magnatune. My husband is very tech savvy and it was nice to be able to share something with him that he hadn't already stumbled across. Introducing someone else to Magnatune gave me the opportunity to investigate it a bit more myself and the creativeness of the site and the free use of the music in a not-for-profit way is great for teachers and students. I'm sure that many high school teachers will be glad to discover Magnatune for their student's creative podcasts, etc. Sooner or later, it will filter down to the middle and elementary schools, but it does seem that technologically, high school is the testing ground for most new ideas using internet resources.

About the web

I am such a novice at the web stuff. Things like creating the web page really overwhelm me. Yes, I've wiki'd for other classes and even created a cybrary that's used by one of my schools. But there's something about the retention time of this knowledge that is different from memorizing chemistry, physics, and trig formulas. Is it because what we learn today, we have to update and relearn tomorrow? It seems that our knowledge of certain web skills become obsolete quickly and in order to be fully information literate we must be constantly active on the web. I can still recite Pythagoreum theorum and probably pull a few other things out of the cobwebs to help my kids with basic high school classes, but this computer stuff, whoa! I do want to be a goto teacher as I am a librarian, and the world of library is becoming more and more tech oriented.
I'm the only one in my family who doesn't Facebook, and maybe now I will get around to finding some old friends when I create a Facebook page. Wish me luck, because I need all that I can get.

Melissa

Thoughts on Ted

When I speak to my high school sons about what I had to work with when I was in college, they have no clue. Sometimes we'll see an older movie and I'll shout out, "those are key punch cards!" They really can't believe we went through that kind of agony to get a small program to run. They have grown up on the computer and on the web. When my 16-year old was in first grade, his teacher found age-appropriate web sites for research on bears. She formed groups of three and had them create "reports" together. About one sentence or so per kid, with a best effort illustration and then the group presented to the class. My first grader was on the web, doing research. Of all the animals I knew about being an animal science major, he got one I didn't know, the Sun Bear of Asia. Today this child can go anywhere and do almost anything without fear on the web. He is the one who is truly ready for the next 5000 days of the web as he has grown and changed and adapted as it has during its first 5000 days.
I appreciated the comparisons to the human brain as it stands after the first 5000 days, but I'm not sure I agree that it will grow to the proportions that he estimates (in HB) within the next 5000 days. I can already see the personalization happening. When I enter the Amazon website, it knows who I am and has suggestions for books I may want to buy based on my most recent purchases. So who figured out the formula to create that kind of alignment for a customer? I do believe it had to be a human brain and not the AI of the web.
When he spoke of linking, it's all done by choice by the user. Yes, it's out there and possible. But, he made it seem as though there was some greater body than the human who was creating these links. At this point we've had experience creating the hyperlink, and we've all made choices about where to send our viewers. It's not really done by the ONE, but by people. I have great hopes for the upcoming generations of web-users. I think that there will be great opportunities and advances that at this point we can not even imagine.

Melissa

Week One: Jumping in with Both Feet!

What do I want from this class? More Web 2.0 tools to share with students and faculty. Another goal would be to be able support the argument that faculty need an override code on the filter. There's so much out there that can't be accessed when the school filter is strict. I work in two districts and in one I can't even post on the DCF blog for the state reading list for 4th-8th graders. We can't access teacher-tube and all that could be shared with students through that avenue. In the other district, the filter is much looser, and we can access youtube, games, and a variety of things that are filtered by the other school.
Am I anxious or nervous about any of this? You bet! Learning is one thing, but being vocal about the need for access to whomever, school board or district Superintendant-Yikes! I've been taking Library Media courses for the past two years and one of the things librarians are getting heaped on their plate is teaching tech. I've got a couple of things I rely on, but I really want to be as tech savvy as the students. I know my own 14 and 16 year-olds put me to shame. They are fearless when it comes to the Internet.
Okay, Internet Detective was good. I actually went through it twice. Because I've been trying to learn this same thing for several years already, not much was new to me. The copyright and plagiarism references made me go looking for something more entertaining. I found one created by the Paul Robeson Library for Rutgers University, posted on youtube. It comes in three parts, is entertaining, and I think for the most part okay for middle and high school students. Let me know if you think otherwise. But then again, I can't access it in the school where I teach 7th and 8th graders tech safety, netiquette, and research skills.