Saturday, August 16, 2008

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

This was one of the articles we read in the Library Leadership Academy in Anchorage last month. I forwarded to my principal in hopes to share with the staff. We do a lot of professional reading, and I am trying to insert as much information literacy reading as I can. If, as Carr says in this article, that his thinking attention is changing due to the Internet then what does this say about our students who spend hours online... reading? Is the definition of reading changing?

As a school librarian I am wondering how we bring students who spend hours reading on the web to at least begin to appreciate a good book. It feels like a reference interview maybe with this scenario... student needs to read a mystery book for an assignment; doesn't like to read; the questions begin- What do you do with your spare time? Do you go online? Are you a gamer? How about MySpace? Do you use the Internet for research? Then you read! We still have to know the best books to hook them.

Then too, we need to know when to draw on this expertise when searching for info on the web, and let these guys be the experts.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Ch 9 - New Schools - vision and reality

Web 2.0- New Tools, New Schools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum.

As I read Chapter 9 I thought it would be a good place to start for people new to Web 2.o and unaware of the urgency (at least I feel) that schools and teachers really need to jump in. The phrase that is everywhere in these Web 2.0 discussions is -- if we don't start teaching with the tools we will loose the kids. This is better said by Jeff Utecht as quoted on page 184 -

"If we want to motivate students to create something, something that will last beyond the lesson and the school year, then we must find ways to use these social networking tools in our classroom. If we continue to fight them, I'm afraid it is a battle we will loose."
I love the reference David Warlick's article The Day in the Life of Web 2.0 where he describes a very connected middle school. Connected in the sense of communicating all the way from teacher to superintendent. Here's what he envisions for the librarian!

"The school librarian subscribes to all of the teachers' Monday report blogs and uses a shared spreadsheet to maintain an ongoing curriculum map of what's being taught in the school as a way to support teachers." (p. 180)
A shared spreadsheet curriculum map... sounds good!

There's a new look at professional development too... all online. Take a look at k12onlineconference.org I don't know if I can do all my PD online, but it is a good source and supplement. I wouldn't mind doing online training with a group of teachers at school... we too are social!

Finally, the big debate is gaming and education. I recently read an article where a public library started a game development club. They installed simple game development software and found a total success with tremendous learning going on. I'm thinking about it.... See my previous post
for link to article from Ebsco (available to all Alaskans by our Digital Pipeline statewide databases) and links to game sites.

Ch 7 - Online Safety and Security

Web 2.0- New Tools, New Schools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum.

This chapter covers many aspects of these issues and gives some good resources. There are suggestions for teaching, surveys, and policies. Mat-Su district has policies that are used, so I will take some of the suggestions for redefining acceptable use policies to them. I usually help teachers to write custom permission slips for projects where students will be publishing on the web and have students and parents sign them. I can see now that these web based projects are becoming more popular the district policy needs to address this too, because not all teachers think about permission or choices in web publishing. I see it more as keeping parents informed because I want them to know that I care about student safety, and that I have taken the steps needed to keep students safe yet help them publish their work.

On page 149 is a list of restrictions/questions posted by administrators. This is a good list both for us to consider, and to share with administrators who may not have enough personal knowledge or experience to know what to look out for.

Finally, I never thought to look at MySpace for their safety policies. I learned that they have a page for parents and users on safety tips. This will join my list of references that I share with teachers and students.

Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech � Blog Archive � My own interesting snippets

Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech � Blog Archive � My own interesting snippets: "Dean Shareski"

With all of the time we have spent looking at Flickr tools and ways to present, share, promote, teach, communicate and increase visual literacy... take a look at this 'modeling' of the thinking process around creating a snippet or quote with image.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

chapter 1-- not a one way street

Web 2.0- New Tools, New Schools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum.

Chapter one generally is a great recap of the new world as presented in The World is Flat and other writings about our connected world and how it is changing work and society.

As the authors say, the Internet is no longer a one way street where information just goes out. Today the web is participatory. It is easier than ever for anyone to produce content, collaborate with others, create mulitmedia - and from all over the world.

The big question that is posed is how are schools in America ever going to catch up! Other leading tech countries such as India, Korea, Japan are all using Linux operating system (which is opensource... cheap). Korea leads the world in broadband connections and the US was in 20th place in 2006.

With the rise of Web 2.0 we need new ways to approach teaching and learning. The authors talk about using collaboration, communication and project based learning (18.) I hope just how we do that with teachers across the country remains to be seen. I do think there is a ripple of new teaching practices that are embracing the web 2.0 philosophy and really changing teaching. Hopefully that ripple will grow and infect others with its success.
"We used to talk about reading, writing, and arithmetic as the essential skills for literacy. To be literate today involves acquiring new skills, including those of using technology, understanding science, having global awareness, and most important, having the ability to keep learning, which involves gathering processing, analyzing, synthesizing, and presenting information as well as communicating and collaborating. Free online tools can play a large role in helping students acquire these skills." (20)
I see American schools spending tons of money and not taking advantage of the free stuff... while the rest of the world is rocking on a computer with a browser... hmmm

#23 Week 9 The course

I think this is the best online class ever! I had ready access to others in the class to see their thoughts and send out mine.

The course is very well organized and easy to follow each step of the way. I never had a question!

Most of all, I learned a lot! I've been playing with most of these web 2.o tools for a few years already, and I discovered many updated programs, new resources and lots of great new ideas.

Thanks to all who have put this together and kept up with us through all the 23 +1 things.
Bravo!

ps... I know I still need to do my chapters in the book too.

#22 Week 9 ebooks

It's been a few years since I have looked online for free audio books. The quality wasn't very good and never looked again. I can see that things have changed!

I first looked LibriVox. It took me a while to figure out how to search when I didn't know what title to look for. I ended up finding some African Folk Tales. The quality is good, especially considering that this whole project is done by volunteers! I thought that would be fun to share with teachers if they want an easy free access to content related stories. The whole series of the Wizard of Oz is there too...

Now - the Internet Archive is way cool. There is a collection of old classic cartoons, Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Superman -- yes check it out!


The World ebook Fair also has hundreds of thousands of books. The childrens book collection has over 1800 like In Search of the Castaways, Hound of the Baskervilles and much more

#21 Week 9 Podcasts

I added a podcast subscription from the National Middle School association which is a necessary connection for middle school teachers, so I thought I'd see what these podcasts are like. I listened to part of one on adolescent development and it was ok, but not too exciting... The teacher tube videos are definitely more interesting to watch.

I used the Podcast Alley site to search for the podcast. They have a list of genres to choose from, and it's a good thing because all of the sites listed in top 5 or recently viewed were pretty close to porn....

The Education Podcast Network is a site sponsored by David Warlick and offers some student produced podcasts as well as professional development and teacher work. This site is nicely organized and will use this to find podcasts to demo to teachers and students.

The \ site is nice because it includes handouts with the podcasts on things like differentiation, or reading fluency...

The techSavvy Girlz site sounds interesting but their stuff requires iTunes and i don't want to put that on my computer- so I guess I don't get to hear/see that. Not so techSavvy to have content limited to iTunes-- if you ask me.

#20 Week 9 the tubes

wow- another wow! ok I add making a teacher tube video on my list for this year. On what I have no idea. To make even a 3 minute video I think a digital video camera would be good. Though most of these videos are not 'video' they are stills put together as a video... so the camera should not be the limiting factor!

Some of the teacher tube videos are really just typical dry lectures on video, but I suppose if I were absent and needed to see what happened in class that would work. Sort of like the times when we had to put a video in the back of the room to record our teaching and reflect on that. Not a bad thing to do still!

I went from the web 2.o video to this one: "A Vision of Students Today"
Reflects upper education, but still a lot to consider for k-12. Sort of the same idea as the did you know type, but with a bit of a different presentation.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

#19.1 Week 8 - Digital Pipeline

I created an alert for SLJ because I took it off my subscription list.... we'll see if I actually use it in electronic format.

Took me a few tries to find a pamphlet. Aids/HIV was successful and results also had a pamphlet on steroids.

I had a harder time finding a movie... I even looked in the help menu and the search screen they show with an option for videos isn't in the health database. I did find images and diagrams galore.

I like the thumbnails of the images and links at the left column to help modify your search.

I used the small engine database this summer and got a manual for my lawn mower engine so I could change the pull cord. This job is not as easy as it sounds! I needed a new spring and brought my printed diagrams into the shop so they could find the spring. It all worked in the end.

As far as using with students and teachers I will try again to get the one health teacher in there.. It is good stuff!

Getting teachers to utilize the online databases,specifically journals, can be quite a challenge. Part of the difficulty is that journal articles don't display information like web pages and all involved get frustrated trying to find "facts." So you have to find a reason to use the type of content in a journal article.

One way to expose students to the databases is after a unit of study when students have some understanding of the topic. Students can generate questions as they study the unit then research their questions; or I steer teachers to journals when considering these questions hoping to deepen students understanding an make connections to real life:
--What is currently happening in the field of study? (chemistry, geology, environment...)
--What are experts in this field studying/doing?
--How is this issue/topic impacting society today?

Blog thoughts

You know, one thing this class is accomplishing is getting us to just use the blog... I'm finding that while I've had blogs for years, I have never used it this much. As I go through the posts I'm thinking ok... I'll know where this info is and won't have to hunt... I can go back and read my own posts and think.. gee I wrote that!

We are forming the habit, and for some it will be the push needed to make this a long-lasting practice. If that happens I think we've accomplished a lot more than learning about all the web 2.o tools.

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