August 5th, 2007

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.

2.0, About blogging, About learning, Cool Websites, School culture, twitter | Comment (0)

Image sites that rock for the classroom

July 9th, 2007

A heads-up.  I just posted a list of my very favorite image tools for the classroom on my School Library Journal blog.   Please take a little visual field trip there!

2.0, Cool Websites, Just for fun, School culture, Search Tools, Teaching Strategies, flickr | Comment (0)

My NECC highlights

June 28th, 2007

Sorry about my absence. Edublogs has been down and I have been posting on my SLJ blog for the last few days. And hooray, that blog now has an RSS feed. And it seems that Edublogs is back and stable. And so I am back to being bi-bloggal.

I am just back from NECC and here is my personal meta-view of the highlights:

My favorite new tool: PrimaryAccess. This documentary “movie making” application incorporates the databases of major archives (Library of Congress, NARA, and many others) and allows you to bring in your own images as well, with lovely, optional Ken Burns effects. One side of the production screen is scripting area, the other side allows you coordinate media with the script. Users can add audio as well as text. The tool is designed to work well with online images, especially online archives. I look forward to using this one especially for making movies utilizing art and primary sources. After registering, visit the main page and follow instructions.

My favorite event: EduBloggerCon rocked! Read my post on SLJ for details. At the “unconference” we did not talk tools. We explored new visions for pedagogy. We talked leadership. We talked about how we are currently using the new applications in the classroom. The prevailing feeling: we are at the cusp of exciting change and we now need strategies to interpret that change and to share effective practice.

Along those lines, Vicki Davis and a number of us are advocating for standards relating to tagging all sorts of learning content. So much of the good stuff–the model lessons, articles, software, documents–are challenging to find because we have no consistent scheme for tagging our content.

What is amazing about the gang in the picture is their passion for improving learning and engaging learners, their creative spin, their ability to dream, their willingness to play. Many of us have been reading each other for years. But you can’t always read passion. It was different connecting in person. The level of chatter left my head spinning. My network expanded geometrically.

Thinking outside the box: A Monday night panel of amazing minds discussed the importance of unlocking creativity, the importance of networking, of inventing and dreaming of new possibilities. Futurist Andrew Zolli led a panel that advocated the value of taking risks, asking hard questions, being willing to fail,and reaching for the impossible. We need to create learning landscapes where teachers and students can try new things, sometimes impossible things, and occasionally fail. Choreographer and MacArthur grant winner Elizabeth Streb, described her wildly creative contemporary dance studio in New York. It is modeled after a garage, a space in which people feel comfortable working and messing stuff up. We need to think, look, play, imagine.

Speaking of creativity and networking: That’s what the new NETS*S are about. The project is the result of a year’s work and the consensus of participants from all 50 states and 22 countries. The new standards expect learners to move beyond how to use technology, to understandings of how to use technology to create and innovate in order to “learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital age. The six “buckets” are: creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making; digital citizenship; and technology operations and concepts. Over the next couple of years, look for revised NETS for teachers and for administrators.

I am so behind the SL curve: Since I took my little sabbatical from Second Life several months back to finish my doctoral program, much has changed. In world, major educational organizations, like ISTE, established islands. My edtech buddies moved in. They have houses and offices. I want an office too! I want to discuss professional issues there and consider how to interact with learners. Thanks to Peggy Sheehy, of Suffern Middle School, for giving me some hair and new clothes and offering to show me around again. (BTW, there’s an interesting video out there that parodies the awkwardness some of us have felt in SL.)

What I need from NECC next year: After EduBloggerCon I felt reaffirmed. I felt that we are doing good stuff at school. I know in my heart our students are more engaged when they use the new tools we introduced over the past couple of years. But at NECC, I need the next workshop. I need more intermediate and advanced workshops. I walked out of way too many introductory sessions.

What resonates: At the conclusion of EduBloggerCon, Chris Lehmann of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia left us with the question he shares with his teachers to encourage innovation: “What is the worst consequence of your best idea?”

2.0, About learning, Conferences, Cool Websites | Comments (3)

Two new communication strategies and jargonitis!

May 22nd, 2007

This week I discovered the new groups function in Ning.  Like the rest of our TeacherLibrarianNing, this little function appears to be growing nicely.  The widget allows the spawning of special interest groups off the main Ning.  Right now we have a high school librarians group and a YA literature group.  Please join us and begin a group of your own!  I am now setting up little departmental Ning groups off our fledgling high school Ning as a strategy for enhancing faculty communication and collaboration.

Also, after some listserv discussion and a chat with Peter, we decided to create an LM_NET Wiki Annex to handle those files folks cannot send over the list.  Please also join us there and share documents, presentations, videos with wonderful LM_NET community.

One observation:

People outside of this little 2.0 world think we talk funny.  When I talk wiki, ning, flickr. avatars, etc. at home, around the neighborhood, or at faculty meetings, people turn off.  Sometimes they walk away laughing.  I want these people to listen, but I  realize how goofy I must sound to the outside world.  Is there a way we might remedy 2.0 jargonitis?

About libraries, Cool Websites, Wikis | Comments (3)

“The best research apps/sites you’ve never heard of”

May 11th, 2007

Jimmy Atkinson of the OEDb: Online Education Database (a group concerned with presenting reviews of online colleges and degree programs) wrote me yesterday to share OEDb’s newly published list of best tools for online research. And he asked, “let me know what you think.”

This is a dangerous question to ask of this librarian. I started to fill my arms with the virtual equivalent of a pile of books. And I thought I’d put Jimmy’s question out to you too, dear readers.

While the list suggests “there is no complete substitute for a good old-fashioned trip to the library,” I guess the one thing I want all our non-librarian friends to know is that you don’t have to visit the library to visit the library. I especially want this known by those taking online courses. I want the outside world to know about the databases I purchase in all media formats–journals, video, ebooks, etc. I want the outside world to discover those databases purchased by state organizations and public libraries and their universities.
But back to the OEDb list. It’s an interesting (and very nice) mix of large portals, search tools, and subject gateways. In fact, I don’t think there’s one I don’t have on some pathfinder or a list of search tools somewhere on my site.

But, what would you add? What would you leave out? If we compile a list of additions, perhaps Jimmy will publish a little addenda.

The OEDb list: (See my little starter list of additions below the OEDb list.)

I guess my feeling is that it useful to break this stuff up. For instance, IPL has so many gateways that stand alone–literary criticism, biography,presidents, states, countries, etc. Ditto for the Library of Congress with all its American Memory wonderment!

Nevertheless, Jimmy started me thinking. Here’s my beginning list of free Web additions with a slightly high school accent. I had to stop short before I spent an entire day reproducing my own website. There is so much more.   I’ll leave it to you to fill it all in in the  comments or on your own blogs.


About libraries, Cool Websites, Information fluency, Search Tools | Comment (1)

And the winners are . . .

May 9th, 2007

SEOmoz’s new Web 2.0 Awards were announced today. Last year’s list led me to tools that became a regular part of my life online. There’s lots to explore. Some are already favorites.  Some look like great fodder for pathfinders.  Others present some cool potential for incorporating in learning activities.

Among the categories:

2.0, Cool Websites, Just for fun | Comments (2)

ninging a bit better

April 16th, 2007

I am happy to announce that our TeacherLibrarian Ning space is looking better.  I’ve added a banner, a Frappr map, and a couple of forum discussions.  If you have any interest in a professional version of social networking, please join our impressive little core group of members.  Add your ideas and your photos.

2.0, About libraries, Cool Websites | Comment (0)

Ning and social networking

April 8th, 2007

A couple of weeks ago I discovered Ning. I started playing around as I do in every new tool I find. I created a TeacherLibrarianNetwork. But I couldn’t find any buddies around and didn’t know exactly what to do or who to play with. I posted my first forum question. I was lonely in Ning.

But . . .

Yesterday, Terry Freedman invited me and the other contributers to Coming of Age 2.0 to the Ning social network he set up to plan the project. Now I get it. I can see my new friends’ faces. The forum is alive. Folks are sharing. In fact, through this space I found Chris Smith’s (Shambles) new video resources that I will share in a separate post so folks will really notice it.

Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds. You can make it public or private and for anything - and anyone - you’d like.

This tool has real potential for use in any group work. I think it may work for classes and clubs too. And it plays nice with all the other 2.0 tools.

And, BTW, I haven’t been playing with the TeacherLibrarianWiki for some time. Please remember that our community is welcome to build this tool. (I’d love to see it adopted by graduate classes!) Please email me and I will send you a password.

2.0, About learning, Conferences, Cool Websites, Teaching Strategies | Comments (2)

Tom Chapin on NCLB–Not on the test

March 24th, 2007

I was thinking there’d be a backlash. I was hoping it would come from outside the teaching community.

Thank you BJ and Chris for pointing to this new Tom Chapin/ John Forster song.

http://www.tomchapin.com/

Not On The Test
by John Forster & Tom Chapin
© 2007 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)
Go on to sleep now, third grader of mine.
The test is tomorrow but you’ll do just fine.
It’s reading and math. Forget all the rest.
You don’t need to know what is not on the test.
Each box that you mark on each test that you take,
Remember your teachers. Their jobs are at stake.
Your score is their score, but don’t get all stressed.
They’d never teach anything not on the test.
The School Board is faced with no child left behind
With rules but no funding, they’re caught in a bind.
So music and art and the things you love best
Are not in your school ’cause they’re not on the test.
Sleep, sleep, and as you progress
You’ll learn there’s a lot that is not on the test.
Debate is a skill that is useful to know,
Unless you’re in Congress or talk radio,
Where shouting and spouting and spewing are blessed
‘Cause rational discourse was not on the test.
Thinking’s important. It’s good to know how.
And someday you’ll learn to, but someday’s not now.
Go on to sleep, now. You need your rest.
Don’t think about thinking. It’s not on the test

About learning, Cool Websites | Comment (0)

Flickr–Using the tools in new ways

March 14th, 2007

I was showing a teacher Fastr yesterday. (Fastr is the game that pulls together Flickr images as you rush to guess how folks have tagged those images.) We are starting a new project and we wanted to introduce the importance of good tags, or lots of tags, to improve access.

Then it occurred to me that was thinking inside the box again. I was playing in English! I ran down the hall to visit with the German, French, and Spanish teachers and they went nuts over Fastr as tool to introduce and reinforce target language vocabulary, and to discuss nuance in language.

I think this one will spread!

spanish-copy.jpgbook-copy.jpg

About learning, Cool Websites | Comment (0)
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