In a few weeks, I will be working with a group of librarians, and we’ll be engaging in a little inquiry about personal learning networks.  I would be honored if you would consider making a brief contribution to this community VoiceThread about what your personal learning network does for you!  Who better to help tell this story than you?  A few statements in two minutes or less will be more than enough for you to help make a collective statement for librarians who are new to the concept of personal learning networks.   You may contribute to the VoiceThread by clicking on this link. Thank you for considering this request and for your help!

Previously-scheduled train of thought sidelined by a random idea!

I believe in fair wages for all.  I also believe that folks who are in business for themselves have the right to decide for themselves just what constitutes “fair” and charge for their services accordingly.  My blue-collar roots rankle, however, whenever I get a catalog that pitches leadership seminars for $1200 a pop, not including transportation / accommodation costs.

And it’s not because I begrudge them one iota.  Nope.  Successful people inspire me, because if they can achieve their dreams–often despite major hardships–then I pretty much have no excuse, given the relative privileges and advantages I possess.  However, narrowing the gap between where I am (namely, unable to afford a $1200 seminar) and where I would like to be (able to afford the $1200 seminar but doing something else with that money instead) is what proves tricky.

Ergo, while leafing through Yet Another Pricey Catalog and muttering invective under my breath, I decided that what I’ve now come to call the August Wilson Rule applies just as much to leadershp as it does to anything else in life:  if you can’t afford it, use the library.

I’ve sung Mr. Wilson’s praises before, but here’s a quick summary for those of you who haven’t heard that particular tune:  while attending a Pittsburgh high school, playwright August Wilson was unjustly accused of plagiarism.  As a result, he dropped out of school and decided to educate himself at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.  He came in every day and got himself a world-class education with our collection, and for his efforts he received a diploma.  Currently, he is the only person in the world with an educational credential from CLP.

I’d like to be #2, but let’s not get carried away here.  At least, not just yet.

Okay, let’s get just a little bit carried away, shall we?  Here’s something I’ll try in 2010 to see how it works out:  I will read at least one current book on leadership every month, and review it here at Alchemy.  Then I’ll add it to a page called “The August Wilson Leadership Academy (Patent Pending)” so that you’ll be able to skim the list and see whether or not it would be a good fit for your own lifelong learning endeavors.

And just to make it interesting, I’m not going to necessarily pick the books on library leadership.  Nope.  We’re a little odd here at Alchemy, with our strange notions about trying to incorporate what’s useful from the Outside World into library practice.  Besides, there are plenty of other bloggers reviewing the library literature – it will be much more fun for me to try to critically analyze the larger body of leadership writings and try to separate the wheat from the chaff for my peers.

I know, I know – I have some strange ideas about what constitutes a good time.  My girlfiends and I are working on that one, I assure you.

Let me know what you think – I have a couple of drafts in the hopper, so we will hopefully get back to the other things I wanted to talk about before year’s end.  I also had another smashing idea for 2010 that I want to run by you before I vanish for my long New Year’s vacation (I actually forgot to take my three floating holidays this year – somebody, please, save me from myself!).

Tonight is the library board meeting in which the fate of the branches are decided, so I suppose it would make sense to talk about the big white elephant next, once the dust clears.  Stay tuned.

According to the  Pew Internet and American Life Project Teen Content Creators report, the most common form of writing in school is taking notes in class.   Don’t get me wrong–taking notes is a valuable skill to support learning, but it bothers me that this is the dominant form of writing on a daily basis for teens.  If you look at slide eight in the presentation, other forms of writing are identified, including essays, shorter forms of writing, lab reports, creative writing, multimedia, journal writing, notes/letters to others, computer programs, and music/lyrics.

For the last five months, I have been thinking much more about an emphasis on content creation in my library.  In reflecting on the implications  of this report (I encourage you to look at the full report/presentation), these are my initial question:

• how we can as librarians help support and expand the possibilities for  the traditional forms of writing teens are required to create in school?
• What kinds of experiences can we provide for them through collaborative projects with teachers as well as independently driven, library initiated learning experiences to nurture, legitimize, and publish other forms of writing?
• How can we apply the findings of this report to our instructional design in our library programs and our collaboration efforts with classroom teachers?
• How do these findings inform my efforts to take an inquiry stance on information literacy and to posit transliteracy an essential literacy?

While I feel I have made some forward strides in applying these ideas to my work with my Media 21 project, I know I will be thinking more deeply about these questions and ways to better support and more actively publish multiple and varied forms of content creation from students.

You can view all the reports and research related to teens from the Pew Internet and American Life Project by visiting this portal.  Video and program information from The Power of Youth Voice:  What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media, the forum where this report and other related research were shared on November 18, 2009, can be found by visiting this site.

Image used under CC license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmefish/1251055754/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I have been remiss in not posting more reflections on my Media 21 Capstone project this fall.  None of the reasons for not posting more frequently really matter except to say that carving out a committed time during the day at least once a week (not just when I’m at home) can no longer be a luxury but something that is an essential part of my professional work as a high school librarian.

In reflecting on the joys and frustrations of this project, I have experienced a gamut of emotions:  moments of ebulllience when I’ve seen students have the “aha!” moment, times of kicking myself and feeling as though I have not done enough or fumbled the design of the learning activities, but ultimately, determination to not give up on the students or the fundamental beliefs about learning that underpin what we do.

While I have seen growth in many of the students, I’m troubled that others have seemed to stagnate.  Although this project “officially” ends December 17, Ms. Lester and I will continue our ongoing collaboration to figure out what we can do differently during the second semester to continue the work we have started and to continue to help our students learn through inquiry and collaboration and to help them continue adding to resources to their personal learning network.

Jim Burke reminds us in “Failure Is Not an Option—It’s a Prerequisite” that we cannot expect to hit every note perfectly the first time around.   Instead of viewing failure as a negative precept, we should view it as an opportunity for learning and reflection so that we can try again through a more informed lens of experience:

We grow afraid to fail. To struggle. To fumble. We want to get it right the first time, to experience ourselves as perfect, brilliant, efficient–and thus effective.

Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. One must fail on their way to success. It’s what has led to everything we have done as a country, a civilization. Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better…. Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.” Edison: “We didn’t fail but discovered another way that doesn’t work.

Teachers must be allowed to fumble forward, guided by the light of their own professional intelligence, as every class, every year brings its own new conditions that require a flexibility, a nimbleness, an experimenter’s mind to solve the problems each student, each class, each year, each text or task presents.

With these pearls of wisdom in mind, here are some observations about this semester, and in particular, the last eight weeks, I’d like to share with you as I think it is important to share the positive along with the messy.  Your input and feedback are welcomed as Ms. Lester and I strive to learn through reflection and through the insights of you who are part of my personal learning network.

Celebrations

• Many students stated feeling more confident using NoodleTools and feeling more positively about how to use it effectively.  Many had a teacher who did not gave me very little time to provide instruction or help with the use of this tool and who did not place value on its use as a research tool, so I feel happy that these students have had this chance to have a better learning experience with NoodleTools this year.
• Many students indicated both verbally and in their learning reflections that they were producing work (with the actual research paper product) they never dreamed they were capable of creating.   While students indicated worry and stress about the written component, many also felt that this paper represented their best work to date; several indicated this was the first challenging research task of their school lives.
• Research reflections and self-assessments indicate that students feel more comfortable using databases, particularly GALE Global Issues in Context and SIRS Researcher.  Others learned the power of adjusting keywords and search terms.   Some students also shared that Google Alerts and Google News were powerful tools in their information resources toolkit.
• Students were extremely positive about the multigenre element of the project; many showed great care and creativity in creating these learning artifacts.
• Many students indicated pride in creating their own website with the learning portfolios (the master list is still in progress)
• Most students have seemed incredibly engaged in the process of creating presentation zen style PowerPoints to facilitate a six minute “talk” they are going to give in another week about their learning experiences.  Students worked on their presentations for the entire period Tuesday–Friday in class, and from what I observed through casual observation and in conversations I had in helping individual students, they are really into the concepts of presentation zen design—I am both anxious and excited to see the final products that we will post to class Slideshare groups for each class period!  Students are also showing more awareness of digital citizenship as we are emphasizing the use of Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr and image attribution.  Originally, we had planned to do group presentations of a persuasive nature to school and community members, but at this point and time, Ms. Lester and I agreed that individual presentations within our class are the best step forward as many students have little or no prior experience in giving a presentation; others have had negative experiences and shared tremendous apprehension about speaking in front of others.  We hope to work up to the community based presentation next semester by scaffolding them with smaller “talk” style presentations for the next few months.
• The collaborative relationship I have with Ms. Lester is professionally and personally rewarding.  I love co-teaching with her, and this project represents a depth of collaboration I have never achieved with any other teacher.   The rapport and professional respect we have for each other is inspiring and invigorating—I am grateful she is my partner on this journey of learning and so incredibly fortunate to work with her every day (and I do mean literally that we work/teach/collaborate together daily!).

Concerns

• The disparity at times between students stated feelings about a particular idea or tool on their learning blogs and the opinions indicated in anonymous polls is troubling to me.  We have tried to foster a climate of honesty and constructive criticism in our classroom, but I worry some students are saying what they think we as the teachers want to hear in their blogs and self-assessment reflections.   I’m thinking that a conversation about how much we value their honest opinion is needed again, and we will invite students to share their ideas and thoughts on how we can make everyone feel “safer” in stating their true opinions.
• Very few students used social media as an information source in this project.  I think that I definitely need to do a better and more explicit  job of scaffolding their knowledge of how to effectively search for and evaluate social media resources, such as blogs, people to follow on Twitter, videos, strategic RSS feeds, and podcasts.   However, the fact that students do not have access to iTunes or YouTube are major barriers that are yet to be overcome.
• How to engage those who are resisting or just not engaging:  more on these thoughts in this blog post from November 18.
• Students who did find videos and podcasts either on their own or within the databases indicated they had difficulty in remembering the information without a transcript.  I need to help them develop strategies and tools for comprehending these new media “texts.”
• I need to incorporate more explicit instruction about evaluation of authority (this pathfinder was designed for parapros in our school district, but I will create and use something similar with my students).
• Helping  students better connect the dots of their personal learning networks is another priority—while there has been progress in this area, I know we have room to grow.

Challenges

• Network troubles and problems with the Internet Explorer browser (inherent in the product) created  great frustration for students as we experienced difficulty saving work at times, accessing our work in the clouds, and using some of our web-based tools.  In particular, students became frustrated when it took forever for Explorer to load Google Sites or Google Docs; I know that the browser was the problem because I could load the same resources quickly using Firefox, a browser my students do not have access to on the network.  In addition, the conflict between the latest version of Diigo and Internet Explorer (Explorer would crash like mad) was problematic; we also had difficulty in getting responses from tech support from Diigo for individual student account issues.  Sadly, while some students loved Diigo, many indicated in a poll I administered on December 4 that they thought the tool was valuable but were reluctant to use it at school because of all the problems we encountered in using it in our environment.  I will be sharing these challenges with our network administrators and district technology personnel to see if we can find solutions to these challenges.
• While I am very lucky to be in a district with a fairly liberal filtering policy, I would like my students to have access to YouTube and iTunes.
• In addition, I feel student access to alternate browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, would reduce student technology stress and give them access to extensions for better productivity.  My students recognize and complain that Explorer does not provide a built in spellchecker!
• Restrictions on student network rights sometime cause bookmarklets and extensions within Explorer to not function happily.  We experienced some hiccups with Diigo—some were on their end, but others were definitely caused by IE.  I also wish my students had rights to install extensions and toolbars at will.

What I Would Do and Will Do Differently:  20/20 Hindsight

• I wish that I had introduced RSS, Google Reader, iGoogle, and social bookmarking during the first month.  We began with an immersion into exploring the uses of social media, but now I think it would have been more beneficial to have focused on teaching students how to use these resources as the foundation of their PLN.  I plan to make the instruction of these tools a priority in January before we jump into our first literature based inquiry unit of 2010.
• We did not  incorporate the use of outside experts through interview and/or Skype into the project this semester as I had hoped to do.  Several factors, such as my busy travel schedule, the fact that it took twice as long as originally planned to completed planned lesson and activities with students, and sensing our students were somewhat overwhelmed with all the new tools and multitasking of learning activities, influenced the absence of these critical learning experiences.    We also did not get to complete a service project related to our unit of study. I am determined that we will fold these kinds of learning experiences into our upcoming inquiry units of study.
• For peer editing, Ms. Lester and I are going to explore the use of writing circles.  Assessment Live and Writing Circles on our to read and discuss list!
• While I think our work reflects the concept of inquiry circles to some extent, I’d like to make adjustments that will be a truer reflection of the inquiry model of learning.  I am hopeful that my interaction with the upcoming Inquiry Circles Book Club will help inform my thinking process on this front!
• Figuring out how to scaffold student writing for more formal pieces of writing without overly structuring their writing and working within some of the school or district mandated requirements is a major challenge.  I would like for students to have a little more latitude and decision making in the organization of their next essay, and I feel it is incredibly important for them to generate their own research questions.  For this first project, Ms. Lester and I debated the pros and cons of student generated research questions vs. teacher generated questions; ultimately, we went with the scaffolded model of teacher generated research questions, but I wonder if this stifled the quality of the research for some students.  I am hopeful that we will be able to shift ownership of research questions through more collaborative decision making in which the students contribute to and ultimately create the research questions we will explore—I think this is where the inquiry circles model will be particularly informative and helpful.

This reflection will continue to be an ongoing work in progress, especially as we enter the second semester.    While I know we have challenges to overcome, I am excited about the possibilities and looking forward to seeing where we and the students go next on our journey of learning.    Students like Nicole and the work she has created this semester reflect the potential of the learning paradigm we have fostered.  In the introduction to her learning portfolio, Nicole says this about her learning experiences in our class this semester; the emphasis on text you see is Nicole’s own.

My research has made a very big difference to me. I can actually say that I have changed for the better. I have never had such a life changing research topic and this definitely has changed my life. I couldn’t believe how much this research project affected me. It definitely forced me to look at myself and made me ask myself what I could do better in my life to help impact other people. I feel that this research that I have done will make a huge difference to others because they too will see what they can do to help others. I hope that by reading my essay, others will decide to devote their time and life to helping those that are in need.

Nicole shares these thoughts in her final research reflection in her learning blog:

Life changing, these two words give a perfect summary of what this project has been for me. Every time I write a new blog entry, I feel so inspired by the information that I have learned. I cannot stress how much this project has truly changed me. I am really sad that this is officially my last blog entry for this research project. I have finally completed all of my multi-genre projects and I am extremely proud of them. I hope that others will find them very interesting too. I especially love the movie that I made. I feel that it captures the essence of Sub-Saharan Africa. I know that through my movie, I represented the people who have HIV/AIDS with dignity and respect. I portrayed for the public a story that needed to have a happy ending once and for all. I hope that everything that I have done will resonate in people’s hearts and hopefully they will to realize that they need to act now for a better tomorrow. I am excited to now start the presentation part of this project. I must say that I am quite scared right now because I have a really big fear of public speaking. I hope that I can learn to not be afraid and instead speak the truth. I trust that Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Lester will get me ready for presenting and I know that by then I will be confident and eager to present my project to the rest of the class.

When I see the work Nicole has created and read how these learning experiences have impacted her in such a profound way and I see the faith she has in us as her teachers, I feel incredibly honored and humbled to work with students.  Her work also makes me even more motivated to somehow help other students experience learning in such an authentic manner that may lead to some kind of epiphany. I think Nicole’s experience represents what can be for students; I hope that through patient, purposeful, and passionate action and reflection, I can somehow play a meaningful role in helping other students experience what Nicole has not just once, but on a regular basis so that learning becomes not just something students do out of force and habit, but something that is an experience.

I want to give a special shout out to the incredible Wendy Drexler, an educator whose work has influenced my instructional tremendously in the last year and an inspiration for the Media 21 Capstone project.  Her encouragement via email helps me know I am not alone, and her willingness to Skype with me in the upcoming week will help me look at these challenges with fresh eyes.  I am most fortunate to have her and so many other wise souls in my personal learning network!  Ms. Lester and I invite you to share any feedback or suggestions you may have for us to help us think through our challenges as we prepare for next semester.

In a previous post I wrote about the difficulties that many learners with dyslexia experience.

All learners have their own constellations of strengths and weaknesses and to focus exclusively upon characteristics that hinder learning under current school systems is not always helpful. For some 4 or 500 years, our schools have concentrated on the skills of the medieval clerk – reading, writing, counting and memorising texts. Now it seems we might be on the verge of a new era, when we will wish to, and be required to, emphasise a very different set of skills – those of a Renaissance person such as da Vinci.

A different kind of brain may cause some problems in early schooling, but it may also, sometimes, raise some individuals rapidly to the top of a new field of knowledge, pushing forward way beyond the many who are conventionally successful students but who find it hard to conceive of anything really new or really important. Perhaps they cannot see through to the novel, unexpected solution because they have learned too well exactly what the teacher wanted them to learn, what was expected on the conventional test. They cannot easily unlearn what they have been taught.

It is incumbent upon all of us with an interest in developing literacy (and that means ALL of us), but especially those of us who work in the primary sector, to ensure that learners are able to access and produce printed text as far as is humanly possible. But we need also to be mindful of the skills and aptitudes of these learners when the barrier of print is removed.

Thus an understanding not just of the ‘Difficulties’ dyslexics encounter but also of the ‘Differences’ they bring to learning situations is crucial. These are often in the areas of:

 The 3^rd ‘D’ centres on the ‘Discrepancies’ that alert us to the very jagged profiles of some students:

Highly successful dyslexics nearly always say that their accomplishments and special ways of seeing come directly from their dyslexia – not in spite of their dyslexia, as is sometimes argued. We should take them at their word and give credence to what they say. Most professionals in the field agree that talents are important, but eventually they have almost always come to focus exclusively on the serious business of reading and fixing problems alone. We need to change this. I think change is rapidly approaching as the Curriculum for Excellence develops.

We are coming to see that conventional academic remediation is only part of the job – and not the most interesting or important part. We are seeking ways to help dyslexics find and develop their own talents, large or small, so that they cannot be beaten down – hiding their talents along with their disabilities

He told me that his teachers reported that . . . he was mentally slow,
      unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.
      — Hans Albert Einstein, on his father, Albert Einstein.

As the semester draws to a close, I’m doing some preliminary planning with some of my English teachers for next semester.  We are interested in working with another teacher and/or librarian who might be willing to help facilitate some co-learning and collaborative discussions via class blogs and/or Skype during the second semester of January 2010.  We are also open to the use of other forms of social media, such as Nings or Twitter, to facilitate conversations and inquiry around texts.  I am also very comfortable with using CoverItLive for liveblogging!

Here are the classes and common readings my teachers are doing:

• Mr. Bradford, 9th Literature/Composition Honors:  Night, January 2010; Romeo and Juliet, February 2010
• Mr. Bradford, 11th Literature/Composition:  Readings from the Realism period in American Literature, January 2010 and The Red Badge of Courage
• Ms. Orfale, 10th Literature/Composition, Honors:  Dante’s Inferno, January 2010; Hamlet, February 2010

While this project has inspired (and also see this terrific additional account!)our call for collaborative partners, we are open to other ideas.  Please email me at buffy.hamilton at cherokee.k12.ga.us if you are interested in collaborating with us across the miles!

The nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are open! Now in their 6th year, the Edublog Awards celebrate the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology. This year Classroom 2.0 is co-hosting the awards, and Elluminate is supporting the event.

In order to nominate blogs for the 2009 Edublog Awards you link to them. Full details are on the Edublog Awards site.

Nominations: Close Tuesday 8 December!
Voting: Ends Wednesday 16 December!
Award Ceremony: Friday 18 December!

The categories are:

• Best individual blog
• Best individual tweeter
• Best group blog
• Best new blog
• Best class blog
• Best student blog
• Best resource sharing blog
• Most influential blog post
• Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
• Best teacher blog
• Best librarian / library blog
• Best educational tech support blog
• Best elearning / corporate education blog
• Best educational use of audio
• Best educational use of video / visual
• Best educational wiki
• Best educational use of a social networking service
• Best educational use of a virtual world
• Lifetime achievement

“Now, bring me that horizon.”

Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Carribean

The New Media Consortium recently released the Short List of Horizon Topics for 2010 and the Horizon Report 2010 Preview.  These documents, which you can view by visiting the Horizon Report Wiki, are the result of the rounds of discussions and voting by the Advisory Board members.  The final report will be officially released on January 20, 2010.

The report preview organizes topics by “time to adoption” and  includes a description of the topic; the relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression; examples of how the topic is being applied, and suggestions for further reading.  In addition, the preview version of the report includes a section called “Critical Challenges” as well as a section for “Key Trends.”

Consider the six final topics:

• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
  • Mobile Computing
  • Open Content
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
  • Electronic Books
  • Simple Augmented Reality
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
  • Gesture-Based Computing
  • Visual Data Analysis

Where are we as K12 libraries in preparing to utilize these technologies, particularly that of mobile computing and open source applications?  How can we as school librarians help lead the way for the integration of these tools not only into our libraries but also in our school classrooms?   What are K12 vendors doing to help school libraries prepare to adopt and integrate these technologies effectively?

I also find the “Critical Challenges” particularly interesting and encourage you to read the details of each challenge.

• The role of the academy—and the way we prepare students for their future lives—is changing.

• New scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching continue to emerge but appropriate metrics for evaluating them increasingly lag behind or fail to appear.

• Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key 21st century skill, but there is a widening training gap for faculty and teachers.

• Institutions increasingly focus more narrowly on key goals, as a result of shrinking budgets in the present economic climate.

These challenges leave me with many questions:

• Will it be school librarians who lead the resistance and coup d’etat, against the test driven school culture that is diametric to 21st century learning that values inquiry, creative expression, and collaboration?
• Are we teaching our students and teachers about new forms of scholarship?  How do we redefine authority and find new ways to evaluate and assess authority?
• How do we help posit new literacies (media, digital, transliteracy) as mainstream literacies for students and for teachers?
• How do we as school librarians turn budget crises into innovation?
• How do we tap into emerging technologies to create even more effective programs in the face of financially challenged circumstances?

What might happen if we as school librarians formed inquiry circles with public librarians, academic librarians, teachers, technology personnel, administrators, students, parents, and vendors to explore these questions, challenges, and trends?  How could we work together to find inventive and meaningful ways to harness the powers of these technologies?  What might learning look in both K12 and higher education if we engaged in inquiry and problem solving together?

Although these documents represent the “preview” and not the final draft of the report, please read the draft forms and put these ideas on your radar if they aren’t there already.  What is your response to the report preview?  How do you see K12 libraries meeting the challenges outlined in the draft?  How do you see the key trends impacting the 21st century school library and our practices?  I have cross-posted this entry on the AASL blog; please share your responses there as well as here.

Buffy Hamilton, Ed.S.
School Library Media Specialist
Creekview High School, Canton, Georgia

So a classmate of mine just asked if he could interview me for a course. Of course I said yes – who doesn’t feel that oomph in your gut when someone flatters you enough to want to interview you?  So then I got to thinking, why would anyone want to interview me about anything? And you know what? I think I’d interview me! I have years of experience, which means I have years of stories about what not to do!

Seriously, we had a great conversation moving from how to use Twitter and Social Media in training to the state of our industry to recruiters and candidate care to PhD programs. Of course, I had an opinion on all of it!

So let’s talk more about Twitter and Training. He asked how to use Twitter in training, especially in a corporate setting. You know, that’s a hard one. I think that for instances where an organization as a whole is going through a shared experience (for example, in a power company when a storm hits and lines are down),  they can use Twitter to push out links to relevant information to help everyone keep up-to-date and on the same page.

But what about more ordinary corporate learning? The old-fashioned ILT type of learning? Does Twitter have a place there? I’m not sure. I can see it being great to help create and grow Communities of Practice, say for an induction training program. I can also see it used with a geographically disperse group to communicate things such as “look on our wiki, I’ve updated it” or “Who’s responsible for the presentation”. But I haven’t seen or heard of a way that it will replace what we currently have, like PowerPoint. In my humble opinion, it’s an additional tool to use, not the only tool.

Having said that, I do think that Twitter has profoundly changed the way we communicate. I’m not just talking about the 140 character limit. What I mean is the shift in the patterns of communication. We now put stuff out there and wait for others to comment or act on it. Click here to read my detailed thoughts on it. My point is that with Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) we can communicate with others on our terms and our time…we don’t have to have an immediate conversation – it can last seconds or days and can grow or shrink at will.

So, let’s loop this back to delivering learning if at all possible. What does this communication on our terms mean for delivering training? I think that we must use creativity to develop learning which incorporate the changes wrought by Twitter and other Social Media. For example, no more 5-day sessions with a single instructor and a 200 slide PowerPoint.

The questions to ask ourselves are:

How can we use Social Media, or aspects of it in our training?

Can we have shorter chunks?

What about many people facilitating extremely brief segments?

Can we have open conversations rather than presentations?

Can we deliver it electronically rather than face-to-face?

Do we prefer to see each other instead of a computer screen?

Is there technology or a process or a theory that can help guide our efforts?

These are questions I don’t necessarily have answers for, and which will change depending on your client. However, I think they are well worth exploring. In fact, I’m going to try to incorporate some of these ideas with my next training session. I’ll let you know how it goes!

My Media 21 project is inspired by the work of Wendy Drexler and Dr. Michael Wesch; this tweet from last week’s NEIT Conference reflects an essential question driving my Media 21 project:

As my Media 21 students have shared some new research reflections in the last week, I have felt both overjoyed and frustrated by responses.  How is it that some students have seen the last 15 weeks as the most challenging and rewarding learning experience of their lives that they hope will continue second semester while others have viewed the learning experiences more as a chore and something to simply “get done”?  Why do some students embrace reflection and original thinking while others chafe in the face of learning experiences that do not reflect the knowledge banking nature of today’s test driven educational climate?

In reflecting and returning to a reality that I faced when I adopted a literacy as inquiry stance as a classroom teacher in 2002, I am revisiting my studies of literacy as inquiry with Dr. Bob Fecho at the University of Georgia.  Just as some students resisted a learning environment I created that valued questions, not black and white answers, I see this resistance in some of my Media 21 students who seem to prefer learning activities that value regurgitation of facts rather than questioning or critical, creative thinking.  This question came up during Dr. Wesch’s keynote at NEIT:

In my corner of the world, my answer is “More than you might think.”  While some students are liberated by choice and free thought, others feel threatened by a learning environment that is inquiry driven and participatory in nature.    I can’t help but think that this phenomenon is easier to comprehend when you consider today’s students are among the first generation to grow up in a test driven school culture that is contradictory to inquiry.

What is inquiry? Here are qualities identified by classmate Sharon Murphy in Fall of 2002:

• Dis-ease. There are many questions raised without answers.

• Establishes more than the teacher as validator of knowledge/work.

• Feeling of responsibility to yourself and the class.

• Recognizes classroom as a complicated, non-laboratory place filled with complex, caring human beings.

• Fights culture of school that wants THE right answer.

• Doesn’t hide what is occurring in class and makes class part of determining what is occurring.

• Patience- doesn’t give up too quickly and realizes community/learning/inquiry doesn’t happen overnight.

Does this sound like the learning environment many school librarians crave yet find themselves hungering for it in the current educational landscape?

In revisiting my initial reading of Pedagogy of the Oppressed of 2002, Paulo Freire says the oppressed are often “hosts” of the oppressor (48) because they are so immersed in the culture of oppression.   Does this description fit today’s student who must buy into the testing culture so privileged (whether by choice or force) by public schools?  Does it also apply to many classroom teachers whose careers are judged by test scores and perhaps even our profession as school librarians as we are called upon to tie our programs to student achievement in order to “survive”?  How does the assimilation of the discourse of testing impact how students transactions with information and how they construct knowledge?

The current test driven culture values knowledge banking and correct answers; standardized curriculum and conformity to ways of knowing and learning are the hallmarks of contemporary American education.  In many schools, students and teachers feel pressured to “cover” knowledge precisely and efficiently.  Contrast these values to those Freire asserts:

“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other”(72).

So what does this all mean?  Right now, some key ideas are resonating with me:

• While my M.Ed. and Ed.S. studies focused on literacy as inquiry, I’m now thinking about information literacy and transliteracy through an inquiry lens.
• I’m wondering how do school libraries and librarians act as sponsors of these kinds of literacy in the spirit of Deborah Brandt’s work, Literacy in American Lives?
• I’m thinking about danah boyd’s concept and thoughts on power, information brokers, and information ecosystems as well as how inquiry plays out through these ideas.
• What are the implications of student resistance to inquiry driven learning environments and an inquiry stance on information literacy and fluency?

My big question:  how can inquiry driven learning and an inquiry stance on information literacy positively disrupt students who are entrenched and oppressed by the testing culture?  How can participatory librarianship support inquiry and students who find conversations about learning troublesome rather than empowering?   How do we address their “dis-ease” they feel as they are pushed out of their comfort zone?  How can school librarians and libraries be more effective sponsors of information literacy and transliteracy?

Teachmeet in East Lothian

What is TeachMeet?

Learn something new, be amazed, amused and enthused. This is an informal gathering of those curious about teaching and technology. Anyone can share great ideas they’ve trialled in their classrooms, ask important questions or simply sign up to take part in learning conversations. Would be good to see and hear both Primary and Secondary Teachers.

 As far as we’re aware, there hasn’t ever been a TeachMeet in East Lothian. They’re such a fantastic opportunity for teachers to get together and share ideas, that we decided to just go for it and organise our own. TeachMeets have often focused on the use of ICT in classrooms in the past. While this is clearly important, we’d like to try and broaden the spectrum a little for our TeachMeet. We’d like to encourage presenations on any new ideas teachers have been trying out in our classrooms, whether they involve technology or not. This is why we’ve given our TeachMeet the ‘curriculumforexcellenceedition’ tag line.

 This TeachMeet is currently being put together by a few volunteers (Elise Sutherland, David Gilmour, Kirsty Robertson, Lynne Lewis, Tess Watson & Fearghal Kelly). If you’d like to help out, please let us know.

I have volunteered to do a 2 minute slot about Word Talk. The organisers are keen for others to be involved, You don’t have to ‘present’ anything (although speaking for 2 minutes is not too daunting). Just come along. It’s a terffic way of leanring something practical.

Wanted: ‘dyslexia friendly’ schools for £1,000 award

Calling all Sencos and teachers working with young dyslexic people. The Iansyst Dyslexia-Friendly Best Practice Awards 2009, created to recognise and celebrate “best practice for dyslexia provision in education”, have opened for nominations. The winner gets a laptop and appropriate software worth more than £1,000.

The theme this year is ‘Celebrating the Strengths of Dyslexic Students’ and the awards will mark the second year the assistive technology specialist has organised the event. To enter teachers have to explain in 350-400, how they work to raise the awareness of dyslexia and establish a dyslexia-friendly environment at their schools.

According to last year’s winner, Suzanne Edwards, the inclusion manager at Essex’s Notley Green Primary School, “The thinking behind my school’s strategy for SpLD provision is tiny steps can equal a profound change to the quality of a dyslexic pupil’s learning, so awareness among the entire school community is imperative.

“To date, we have not explored the benefits of assistive technology for our pupils, so it is due to this, combined with my commitment and passion to raising awareness of the condition that led me to enter the Dyslexia-Friendly Best Practice Awards 2008. I am delighted to have won this year’s award and am very excited about using the technology supplied by iansyst Ltd in class with my pupils.”

The winning prize worth more than £1,000 includes a Dell laptop and a bundle of assistive technology software such as Mind Genius mind mapping software, Audio Notetaker (see John Galloway’s review), text-to-speech software ClaroRead, VeritySpell for spell checking. Two runner-ups will receive the latest Toshiba G8 mobile phone and CapturaTalk scan and speak software (reviewed here).
Entries close on Friday, December 4 with prizewinners announced on December 18.

One of my personal development aims this session is to learn more about visual literacies. I am sure that texts in traditional print form will always be used to good effect, but I know that many learners – especially but not exclusively those with literacy difficulties – can also be engaged by texts in digital form and texts that are multimodal.  As my natural method of accessing information is through print I felt a strong need to develop practical skills to support the rhetoric about 21st century learning. I am a passionate bibliophile but am also committed to the broader definition of text outlined in Curriculum for Excellence:

the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated.

I attended a course run by Peter Kingsbury at Pencaitland last week on using the software, I Can Animate.  A group of us produced the above clip. Now, it’s hardly Shaun the Sheep (one of my favourite programmes ever) but it does take aardman productions a year to make a film with 100 technicians apparently. So this, in a couple of hours starting from complete ignorance to this, is not bad. I am, truth to tell, inordinately proud of it although the good ideas and construction were achieved by the others in the team. My contribution was to click on the camera icon multiple times and make the titles and credits. I’ll work up to more creative stuff.

Many thanks to Peter for his gentle introduction. Now I just have to find some pupils to practice with.

iPod Can be Used to Help Reading - While they are mostly used to listen to music, your child’s iPod can also be used to listen to digitally recoded text. Memo microphones can be used to record speech, which can be used, for example, for learning facts for revision, reading a book while listening to the words being spoken on the iPod, learning key points for exams, etc.
More from The World of Dyslexia newsletter.

I have been thinking about the different schools of thought about dyslexia evident in the literature and in practice. The most dominant is a deficit model wherein dyslexia is a disability. In fact severe dyslexia is covered under the Disability Discrimination Act:

The DDA defines a disabled person as someone with a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Dyslexia does not always affect a person’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities. Dyslexic people can often reduce the effect of their disability if they are able to do things their way. However, if they cannot do this for any reason the effects can be disabling. When the Bill was being debated in parliament, the government made it clear that they thought severe dyslexia was covered under this law. [Paragraph A8, Guidance to the Definitions of Disability]

This approach assumes that ‘treatment’ is necessary and likely to be painful and prolonged. A US medical journal gives this gloomy summary:

Dyslexia is an impairment of the ability to read caused by a difference in brain function. Dyslexia, also known as developmental reading disorder, is a learning disability. Because dyslexia is caused by a difference in the structure and function of specific areas of the brain, there is no cure. Early identification is important for initiating treatment before the child with dyslexia becomes frustrated and loses motivation for learning in school.

Another school of thought claims that dyslexia is a gift. Sometimes great proficiencies in some areas can involve surprising and unexpected deficiencies in other areas.  This is not seen as a cruel trick of fate, but rather a basic quality of design: what is optimised (deliberately or inadvertently) for one function may involve fundamental elements that make it unsuited for another function’. (Thomas West) It is a remarkable irony that those who have had the greatest difficulties with bookish technologies seem to be those best suited to the new technologies that emphasise hands-on ways of learning and visual modes of accessing and creating knowledge and understanding.

I shall continue to explore these differing approaches over the next wee while.

As I began a short story project this week with Ms. Frost, 9th grade English teacher, some students gravitated to the print books available for finding their short stories, and others preferred e-copies on the web or through Google Books.

Some, though, turned to their iPods to access and read their texts.  Some students read e-copies through their Safari browser while others downloaded free or inexpensive apps from iTunes to get their stories.

A quick search for Poe and short stories in the iTunes store reveals a wonderful menu of inexpensive or free apps for iPods and iPhones as well as podcasts that can be played on a computer or any number of devices.

Some librarians and educators are in real denial about the reality of eBooks and Reading 2.0 as it exists now and what may be to come.   Others, understandably, are still making sense of this new reading landscape:  what counts as literacy and how that definition is rapidly evolving.  Some feel it is an “either/or” proposition and see the issue in black and white terms rather than realizing that different forms of reading, in whatever containers they may exist, CAN happily co-exist as depicted in the photo above.

The kids know this—what part of this don’t the adults get?  At the end of the day, our focus needs to be about meeting their needs, not ours.

Recommendation 6 | The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy via kwout

Think that social media and social networking are passing fads?  Do you believe digital and media literacy aren’t essential literacies because they are not heavily assessed on a high stakes test?  Does your learning community  view information literacy as a secondary literacy?   Take a look at the report from the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. In the introduction, the commission underscores the importance of information literacy, which includes new literacies,  in today’s society:

The information revolution is benefitting those in the middle class and up and, in a different way, many young residents of urban and suburban communities. They have never had greater access to more relevant information. But many Americans are in danger of remaining or becoming second-class citizens in the digital age, whether because of low income, language barriers, lack of access to technology, limited skills and training, community norms, or lack of personal motivation. The poor, the elderly, rural and small town residents, and some young people are most at risk. Those who belong to more than one of these groups are especially vulnerable.

The  commission provides fifteen recommendations for improving access and use of information by Americans and how these efforts can increase individuals’ ability to fully participate in a democratic society.  The warnings in this report remind me of Deborah Brandt’s ethnographic study, Literacy in American Lives , in which she explores how cultural institutions and individuals function as “sponsors of literacy” and how access to certain kinds of literacy either increase or limit one’s participation in a democratic society.

In June 2005, I wrote the following response after reading Literacy in American Lives as part of an independent research project I conducted under the direction of Dr. Mark Faust at the University of Georgia:

This critical and sociolinguistic stance on literacy is reflected in the work of Deborah Brandt.  In Literacy in American Lives, an ethnography of the literacy histories of eighty Americans, Deborah Brandt critically examines literacy learning, literacy development, and literacy opportunities through the critical lens of sponsors of literacy:  “…any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstracts, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way…sponsors are delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means by which these forces present themselves to—and through–individual learners.  They also represent the causes into which people’s literacy usually gets required” (19).  Brandt views literacy a “valuable—and volatile property” (2) that can potentially help individuals gain “…power or pleasure, [accrue] information, civil rights, education, spirituality, status, [and] money”(7).  These literacy sponsors are analogous to Bakhtin’s concept of  “thousands of living dialogic threads” because an examination of a person’s literacy sponsors, “… exposes the deeply textured history that lies within the literacy practices of institutions and within any individuals’ literacy experiences.  Accumulated layers of sponsoring influences—in families, workplaces, schools, memory—-carry forms of literacy that have been shaped out of ideological and economic struggles of the past” (56).  All literacy sponsors, past, present, and future, shape a person’s literacy learning, literacy development, and literacy opportunities.  Through her analysis of the literacy sponsors and literacy experiences of the subjects of her research study, Brandt concludes that economic and political interests, not the democratic ideals and principles set forth by America’s founding father, heavily influence American literacy experiences and learning inside and outside of the public school system.  Whereas literacy was once rooted in religious and democratic ideals, the aim shifted to “…nation building, social conformity, and civil responsibility” (28).  Furthermore, Brandt warns that, “The more that private interests take over the educational development of our young citizens, the less of a democracy we will have.  The more that the school organizes literacy teaching and learning to serve the needs of the economic system, the more it betrays its democratic possibilities” (205).  Interestingly, public school libraries were absent from mention in the research study as a literacy sponsor.

Another idea that stood out for me was the relative absence of the library as a relevant literacy sponsor in the lives of the participants interviewed by Brandt.  While the American Library Association prides itself on literacy advocacy and as a “…cornerstone of democracy in our communities” (Kranich), very few of the participants identified public libraries as a major literacy sponsor in their lives; no participants mentioned the public school library as a literacy sponsor.  The gap between classes, which Brandt asserts is maintained and exacerbated by the status of literacy in our culture (169), was reflected in library use by participants.  While public libraries did “…signal cultural value” (151)  and a means of self-education (152) to some of the participants, public libraries were primarily accessed by those in urban areas who had easy, safe, and free access to the library (151).  The lack of access to libraries in rural areas reflects the historical trend of literacy being least accessible and spreading the slowest to, “…. remote rural areas and newer, poorer industrial areas—a geographic and political legacy that, even today, in the United States, helped to exacerbate inequalities by race, regions, and occupation”(Brandt, p. 88).  I could not help but wonder if this finding would hold true if the study were to be replicated?  In this age of massive library budget cuts and closings, one wonders the impact on the role of the public library as a literacy sponsor and to what degree these closings and budget cuts may impact access to literacy and the mission of libraries to provide equal access to learning (Kranich).

In conclusion, this reading has left with me with more questions than answers.  The idea of literacy as a commodity that perpetuates existing inequalities in American society is deeply troubling to me, particularly when I consider Brandt’s theories in light of my own life and my life as both a librarian and English educator.

Nearly five years later, I still feel troubled by the idea that those who don’t possess literacy (in this case, digital and media literacy) will be “left behind” and limited in their ability to fully participate in our society.

While Brandt’s work focused on traditional print literacy, I am now wondering what results such an ethnographic study would yield about information literacy.  Who or what is shaping how people acquire and use information literacy?  Media literacy?  Digital literacy?

More than ever, libraries (public, academic, school) must carry  the banner of these new literacies and be that influential and positive sponsor of literacy in the lives of American citizens, particularly for those who may not be part of mainstream culture and who will rely heavily on the services, educational opportunities, and access to information that libraries can provide.  Will we withhold access to these literacies through filtering policies and research assignments that do not cultivate higher level thinking skills and application of these literacies?  Will we deny access to these literacies through budget cuts, library closings, and the elimination of certified school librarians in K-12 schools? Will we privilege print literacy over transliteracy? Like Brandt, the Knight Commission posits digital and media literacy as essential to democratic ideals; if we continue to filter information and reduce quality services, we will only perpetuate the inequities that exist in those who have information literacy and access and those who do not.

Recommendation Six speaks directly to educators and school librarians and calls for the integration of “digital and media literacy as critical elements of education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials.”

It may be tempting for teachers and administrators who are themselves uncomfortable with new media to view digital and media competencies as “addons” to basic learning in “reading, writing and, arithmetic.” These competencies are, however, new forms of foundational learning.

The consequences of neglecting this challenge can be dire. Students who are deeply immersed in the world of online communication outside of school may find classrooms that marginalize new technologies both tedious and irrelevant. For students who lack online access at home, schooling that fails to provide digital and media skills threatens to leave them at a profound social, economic,and cultural disadvantage.

Are our schools providing our students the advantage through well-rounded information literacy instruction and learning activities that value digital and media literacy? Or do we privilege traditional literacies at the expense of this cultural capital our students need? As leaders in our school communities, a role we should be embracing, let us blaze the trail to create a culture of inquiry that encourages students to use these literacies as a lens for understanding more deeply how multiple kinds of texts function within our society. This report reinforces the need to position the standards for learning already established by AASL and ISTE as mainstream standards that are integral, not optional, for all students.  As school librarians, let us act upon the proclamtion from President Obama to cultivate information literacy as a central literacy;  let us not waste this opportunity to be positive and significant sponsors of literacy, of transliteracy, in the lives of our students.

Many thanks to Bobbi Newman and danah boyd (a member of the commission) for their blog posts drawing my attention to this important report.  I also encourage you to take a look at Bobbi’s most excellent SlideShare presentation on libraries and transliteracy:

References

Bakhtin, M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In The Dialogic Imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (pp. 259-422). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Brandt, D. (2001). Literacy in American Lives. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. (2009, October). Informing communities: Sustaining democracy in the digital age. Retrieved from The Aspen Institute website: https://secure.nmmstream.net/‌anon.newmediamill/‌aspen/‌kcfinalenglishbookweb.pdf

Kranich, N. (n.d.). Libraries: The cornerstone of democracy. Retrieved June 24, 2005, from American Library Association Web site: http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/governanceb/pastpresidents/nancykranich/cornerstonedemocracy.htm

I first went to the Scottish Learning Festival in 2003 when it was SETT and have thoroughly enjoyed every visit. I even presented a seminar once. Nowadays I only get to attend on one of the days and it’s a hard choice sometimes which key note speeches I go for.

One major pleasure is to be reminded of, or introduced to, current research and thinking about learning and teaching. I have done a great deal of reading about pedagogy over the decades and have tried to put much of my learning into practice. But this can be a solitary occupation and to be in the buzzing atmosphere of the festival helps remind me why I entered teaching all those years ago.

Those of us involved in helping teachers to think about how they support young people with additional needs at times require specific and/or further learning opportunities. Our role – in enlightened schools and authorities at least – is to be change agents. Without regular infusions of collaborative learning and access to a wider community with like interests, we can become stale in our ideas and practice. The quote from Henry Ford sums it up: Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. 

At SLF there is such a plethora of activities, seminars and resources that the thirst for more knowledge and information is quenched – at least for a while. It would be a very sad day if we were refused permission to attend this free event.  Long may it continue.    

The seminars I went to reminded me of the importance of joy in learning, of play.

At one seminar, A Media Literacy Network for Scotland, Ollie Bray reminded us of the importance of internet safety with his usual charm and enthusiasm.

We were introduced to a wide range of archive material from Scottish Screen:

Films are so brilliant at telling stories it’s easy to miss how rich and complex film language is.

The site provides a wealth of material to help you and your students understand the beauty of film – and help to develop genuine 21st century literacy.

Many budding filmmakers find that time spent analysing film texts has a huge impact on the quality of their creative work.

The BFI produce a number of great teacher’s packs with accompanying dvds of short films – perfect for gaining an understanding of film language. For three to seven year olds you’re best with “Starting Stories” and for seven to eleven years “Story Shorts”.

These are resources I am planning to investigate and use if I can persuade a class teaching colleague to let me. I am interested in the notion of intertextuality (the shaping of texts’ meanings by other texts ) and with Scottish Screen’s resources you can download and play with films and images to create your own. And it is axiomatic that in order for us to truly understand anything we must make it our own. And the more fun the process is, the more likely we are to learn it fully.

We also found out more about digital content available to enable young people to explore non-print texts. There is to be a new resource from the BBC, Canvas, which says it is all about getting the shows you like via the net rather than through the air.

Project Canvas will bring together content from some of the UK’s biggest channels, including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. Viewers will be able to watch on-demand content through their television via a special set top box, expected to cost between £100-£200.

 LTS also has a project entitled Canvas which looks hugely exciting: In essence CANVAS (Children’s Art at the National Virtual Arena of Scotland) is a virtual art space where Scottish pupils can exhibit their still or moving image art. Access to CANVAS will be through Glow (full Shibboleth Authentication) and with this comes the opportunity to exhibit pupils’ work, in a safer and securer environment, to the huge audience of pupils and teachers throughout Scotland. Not only will pupils be able to exhibit their work but they also will be able to appear in-world, represented by a virtual character called an avatar, so that they can talk via a chat facility to gallery visitors who come to visit and view the art works on show in CANVAS. 

 I then listened to a presentation about the use of Second Life in education which reinforced the notion that children learn as they play and, most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.

I’ve used up too much time and space here so shall think more about this in a further post.

When I receive a direct bookmark in my Delicious Inbox from someone in my Delicious network I feel honored because I know my fan was thinking about me. My fan knows which are the topics I am more interested in and has decided that the bookmark will be really useful to me. My fan wants to alert me and make sure I read the bookmark!! We are communicating with each other.

I would like to give thanks to Laura Malita and Gabriela Grosseck who are my 2 Delicious fans who have sent to me (send) most bookmarks I have received, so far, directly in my Delicious Inbox

I would also like also to give thanks to to my friend Luz Pearson. When she asked me, Why do you like so much Delicious bookmarks sent to you? she inspired me to write this post.

Related Posts: Related Posts: Using Del.icio.us in Education « Online Sapiens

I have only just discovered this lovely wee gadget. 

 This intuitive and robust digital voice recorder enables pupils to capture good quality voice/sound/music recordings on the move, enabling them to become roving reporters. The device includes a built-in microphone and speaker, with intuitive controls for recording, playing back, and skipping files. Recordings can be captured directly to either MP3 (ideal for podcasts) or WAV formats, and can then be downloaded to a PC via the integral USB port.

It’s the integral USB port  that makes this so user friendly. What a boon for learners who can ‘write 2 sentences but speak 2 pages’.