Please re-do your feeds!

A number of folks I’ve bumped into lately ask me why I stopped blogging.

I haven’t.  I  simply can’t maintain both of my blogs, work, travel, and have a life.  So, while I may continue to post in this blog occasionally, I have an obligation to post on SLJ space.  So please, please link to NeverEnding Search here.

Here’s the direct feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SLJNeverEndingSearch

I hope you will continue to follow me to my other space.

Blogging student research. Five good reasons

Just posted my five top reasons for blogging the research process.  Check it out in my SLJ post.

K12 Online: The conference is coming

The 2nd annual K12 Online virtual conference is just about a month away. Make sure you attend, or attend the conference archive. The event is completely free. Important thinkers and dreamers and practitioners will present. Connect yourself with their visions of how our schools are evolving, how learning is changing.

Because the presentation list might overwhelm, yesterday the site began posting the workshop presenters’ teasers–short, online videos to give attendees a better idea of what their presentation will address. Four teasers are already up:

• Lisa Durff - “Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”
• Chris Harbeck - “Release the Hounds”
• Dean Shareski - “Design Matters”
• Silvia Tolisano - “Travel Through Time and Space”

Let’s plan to demonstrate strong library presence at this one! Your attendance will help you help learners learn and help teachers teach.

Here’s the list of strands and presentations:

Classroom 2.0:

• Silvia Tolisano
  “Travel Through Space and Time”
• Drew Murphy
  “Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom”
• Chris Harbeck
  “Release the Hounds”
• Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Doris Molero, Sasa Sirk, and Rita Zeinstejer
  “Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating”
• Wendy Wolfe
  “If All My Classes Did This”
• Konrad Glogowski
  “Assessment and Evaluation”
• Anne Davis
  “Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools”
• Dean Shareski
  “Design matters”
• Jeff Utecht
  “Sustained Blogging in the Classroom”

New Tools:

• Liz Kolb
  “Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”
• Frank Pirrone
  “Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”
• Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr
  “Flat Agents of Change”
• Anne Davis
  “Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn”
• Jason Hando
  “LMS 2.0 - Engaging Learners Using More Advanced Techniques and the Odd Mash-up inside Moodle”
• Sharon Betts
  “Oodles of Googles”
• Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez
  “Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds - Panel”
• Kurt Paccio and James Gates
  “The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style”
• April Chamberlain
  “Trailfire”

Professional Learning Networks:

• Jen Wagner, Cheryl Oakes, Vicki Davis, Sharon Peters
  “Webcasting for Educators: Expanding the Conversation”
• Brandi Caldwell
  “Creating PLE’s with TLC”
• Kevin Hodgson and Bonnie Kaplan.
  “The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology to Tell Stories”
• Lee Baber, Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and Thomas Locke
  “Building Online Communities for Youth”
• Jeff Utecht
  “Online Professional Development”
• James Folkestad
  “Changing a System: Network Centric Learning Communities”
• Sharon Peters, Vincent Jansen
  “Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments”
• Vinnie Vrotny
  “Expanding Horizons - Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks”
• Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover
  “EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters”

Obstacles to Opportunities:

• Patrick Ledesma
  “The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”
• Ben Wilkoff
  “Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders”
• Karen Richardson
  “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”
• Shawn Nutting
  “Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology”
• Lisa Durff
  “Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”
• John Pearce
  ”Me blog? No way!!!”
• Sylvia Martinez
  “Web 2.0 Share the Adventure”
• Joseph Bires
  “Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0”
• Sylvia Martinez
  “Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development”

Belated BlogDay

I finally posted a very belated BlogDay celebration on my SLJ Blog. (Their software and my Mac just don’t seem to get along.) Anyway, forgive my cheat. The occasion gave me an excuse to promote some of the wonderful bloggers in the school library world instead of the recommended stretching beyond.

I am back in the mountains again, squeezing the very last juice out of a too-short summer and hoping that our association and our school board can come to an agreement in their talks today. I hope not to be sharing pictures from the line in my upcoming posts. The shirt is ugly and I miss our students.

Post script:  We have a tentative agreement!  Good-bye to summer. Back to the lovely old schedule.

SLJ SIGMS Podcasts from NECC

SLJ just posted podcasts of our SIGMS panel at NECC.

You can hear my 21st Century Librarian Manifesto, as well as David Warlick on 21st century literacies, Alice Yucht–who throws a lifeline to those drowning in an information ocean and suggests her new three Rs, and Lisa Perez–who urges us to explore the potential for libraries in Second Life.

Please listen and comment.

New NSBA Report: Net Dangers Overrated, Bring Social Networking to Schools

If you don’t yet have administrative or board blessing for curricular use of social networking, you might want to download the new NSBA (National School Board Association) study funded by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon.

You may have already guessed it: the Internet is not always as dangerous as some people say.  Students use it in their work as learners:

Students report that one of the most common topics of conversation on the social networking scene is education. Almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online and, surprisingly, more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork.

The report argues for the positive influence of social networking tools and urges districts to reexamine policies that limit educational opportunities:

. . . the vast majority of school districts have stringent rules against nearly all forms of social networking during the school day–even though students and parents report few problem behaviors online. Indeed, both district leaders and parents believe that social networking could play a positive role in students’ lives and they recognize opportunities for using it in education–at a time when teachers now routinely assign homework that requires the Internet to complete. In light of the study findings, school districts may want to consider reexamining their policies and practices and explore ways in which they could use social networking for educational purposes.

One of my favorite quotes:

Safety policies remain important, as does teaching student about online safety and responsible online expression, but students may learn these lessons while they’re actually using social networking tools.

The study concludes with some very reasonable recommendations for school board members (you may want to share these at meetings):

• Consider using social networking for staff communication and professional development
• Find ways to harness the educational value of social networking
• Ensure equitable access
• Pay attention to the nonconformists (as an influential leadership cadre among their peers and to improve their motivation and achievement)
• Reexamine social networking policies
• Encourage social networking companies to increase educational value

Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska where I got up early to prepare for a full day of workshops tomorrow. I was about to leave for a day of sightseeing, but two Twitter tweets got my attention this morning. (I am continually amazed at how my network on this ephemeral tool feeds my brain!)

First Al Lupton shared Mashable’s compilation of cool ways to search Flickr. The 11 Craziest Ways to Browse Flickr which should have some cool classroom and perhaps, research application. Among the crazy ways: by drawing an image, by entering song lyrics, by color.

And more importantly, Sheryl Nussbaum Beach posted a brilliant essay that helps us define and share the potential for Learning 2.0. Definitely read it and consider how you might use it in discussion with your faculty in September. Also see my SLJ post on Sheryl’s core components.

Now, off to see Anchorage!

Monday update: Update: Just saw another of Sheryl’s not-to-be-missed posts: The Art of Building Virtual Communities.  Read it. Share it.

BLC: big picture reflections and the new Cassandras

I’ve been trying to figure out how to report on, and now how to summarize, BLC (Alan November’s Building Learning Communities). I find it a mightily tough challenge.

Let’s start by saying ideas were flying.

We are on the precipice of dramatic classroom change. An explosion of emerging tools connects us and allows us to create and collaborate. This explosion lands us at brink of new pedagogy. At events like these, when groups of people with vision meet, when their ideas fly, the planning can be potent.

I suppose, most emblematic of the shift is dialog beyond the podium.

In the old days, you’d have a speaker; you’d have an audience.

At BLC, enhancing the speaker were the Skypecasts that broadcast audience comments to those spread around and beyond the conference. All around the room, in fact, all around the world, Twitter tweats kicked ideas around as they popped. Twitter and Twittercamp continually displayed fresh tweats. (If these terms confuse you, read Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Twitter).

Those tweating included the likes of Dean Shareski, Bob Sprankle, Ewan McIntosh, Will Richardson, David Jakes, and later Christian Long and Chris Lehmann. We also heard from emerging educational leaders too numerous to mention.

Why was all this tweating so important? I’ve been thinking about this since Edubloggercon at NECC. The folks in this ever expanding group are finding community–audience for their news and discoveries. This community needed to find itself. It needed lift its voice to others who believe.

Remember Cassandra? For nearly two years I’ve been thinking of myself as a happier type of Cassandra. The prophet was fated not to be believed. When she predicted that classic gift horse would bring tragedy to Troy, folks thought she was insane.

The horse slowly entering our gates today is a real gift, a gift that may forever open our gated cities.

Yet, I suspect at our own schools, when we first announce the appearance of the horse and bandy about words like wikis and blogs and Nings and Flickr and Twitter and podcasts, we too appear a bit insane.

So when all of these Cassandras gather at events like NECC and BLC, prophecies are shared and pieced together. Excitement builds as we share how the new tools can work and will work. No one wants to stop talking and predicting.

(Front row tweats)

Right now I have: 100 ideas I must implement in September, ten new titles I must read next week, and at least twenty new contacts I can call “friends.” I will share details in coming posts.

More on the Britannica Web 2.0 Debate (and my split personality)

My blog personality is suddenly split.  I blog here, of course.  I now blog for School Library Journal too.  I am thinking that this is more a space where I can blog in my sweats.  At SLJ, the blazer stays on.

Anyway . . .

I wanted to alert you.  I’ve been thinking a lot more about that earlier post, the
discussion Michael Gorman began on Britannica blogspace.  Gorman wonders if the human record is safe in the face of the Web 2.0 movement.  I wanted to post my response on both blogs, but I thought that act might confuse my small universe.

So, please take a look at my two-part response here and respond anywhere you want, no matter what you are wearing.

Web 2.0 Debate: Gorman on Britannica

Just a heads-up about an interesting debate about to start. My old friend Tom Panelas, from Britannica, wrote to alert me about a discussion Michael Gorman is initiating on the Britannica blogspace.

Tom quotes, Michael’s post:

“The life of the mind in the age of Web 2.0 suffers from an increase in credulity and an associated flight from expertise. Bloggers are called ‘citizen journalists’; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular . . . millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy . . . and scientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics.”

And he promises:

Strong stuff, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Gorman will have a series of six posts over three weeks as the lead blogger in a forum that will involve some very interesting people.There will be several bloggers on hand to defend the new Internet trends and register opposing views, as well as some who will agree with Gorman and others still whose views won’t fall neatly on one side or the other. We expect pithy, high-quality posts from Nicholas Carr, danah boyd, Clay Shirky, Sven Birkerts, Andrew Keen, Dan Gillmor, Matthew Battle, Robert McHenry, Thomas Mann (L of C, not the novelist) and Gregory McNamee.

It should be a combative but civil and highly intelligent discussion, a debate on the future of culture, education, and intellectual life involving people who, though they may disagree, seldom talk to one another. This time they will.

I am off to do a 2.0 inservice. I’ll get back to reading and thinking and commenting  a bit later.