Literacy Matters

New Habits form slowly

2008-05-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

I just read an article in the New York Times about creating new mental habits; about pushing and stretching ourselves into new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. That has certainly happened over the course of this year with our participation in this project.
We have been introduced to so many things that at times seemed overwhelming. We can't absorb everything at once, neither do we adopt every new tool that comes along. We need to find what works for us on a daily basis. As a leader in the district, I also need to be aware of what is out there so that I can introduce it to other media specialists so that they have choices to see what works for them.
Everywhere I turn in my professional reading, the Web 2.0 resources we have learned about are popping up. I feel good that I have not only heard of them, but also have had some experience with them. Jean and I participated in a Minitex webinar this week entitled: Teaching Old Services New Tricks: Integrating Web 2.0 trends into everyday services and tools. Again it was good to see how different libraries were using new tools, and gave me more ideas of how I could share this with Minnneapolis media specialists. In the April issue of Minitex Reference Notes, I scanned the article that reviewed some of the sessions at MPLA and felt validated by one of the presenters on Web 2.0 technologies who stated that we need to find the tool that fits us and our needs.
The simple podcasting that we did in April will be a good jump start for next school year as Minneapolis has just installed two new podcasting servers, one for student use and another one for district wide staff development. So podcasting will be an area that I will want to become more skilled in. The new Mac operating system makes it so easy that kids and teachers should take to it readily.
This entire MILI experience has been invigorating and at times overwhelming. I am so excited about the possibilities for next year and getting more Minneapolis media specialists and students involved. Thanks Ann and Karen for your excellent presentations.

Taking Stock

2008-04-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Finally, I feel like I am able to comment about more of the 23 Things that are becoming part of my daily "technology life."
The ITS department is using Google Docs consistently to share meeting minutes as well as spreadsheets that we all need to update frequently. What a time saver!

I have had an iGoogle webpage set up for quite some time. I had set it as my computer homepage but found that it caused some problems so I went back to just making it a link from my district staff page. I am investigating more of its uses like downloading my favorite bookmarks there. I like it better than delicious which I had tried last year and just didn't keep up. I am finding it easier to do RSS feeds to my Google page and thus have everything in one place.
My webpage skills have improved this year as Jean and I are responsible for keeping the Media Website up to date. http://media.mpls.k12.mn.us
This is where we post information that is pertinent to media specialists in the district including media procedures and links to training and staff development. It has been most successful in keeping people informed about Destiny, since this is new to all of us this year. We are also in the process of creating a Virtual Media Center for the district that every media center could link to from their site.
Using Moodle for staff development and professional group dialogues has been a big initiative in Minneapolis this year. In February we set up a Media Moodle as a place for media specialists and tech teachers to post their best lessons. So far the only lessons posted are those that I have done. The issue here is time. We are thinking of strategies to get more people to contribute as well as create time for them to do so. One strategy is to contact specific people to post good lessons we have seen. Another is to create focus groups around specific standards and have people identify lessons, etc that will deliver them. Still another is to spend more time in the schools so that we can identify good instruction and be instrumental is sharing it with the district professional group. Sorry I can't take you to the site. It is password protected.
http://www.doodle.ch/main.html and survey monkey are two productivity tools that I have used recently. After having little success in getting secondary media people to agree on a meeting date, I sent out several dates on Doodle and had 6 to 7 responses in a couple of days. They really liked the idea that they could comment as well as choose dates that would work for them. I think I will be using this a lot.
Survey Monkey is so easy!!! Yes! I am currently creating surveys for media specialists to take themselves and/or share with their staff and students on use of online resources. This will give us much better feedback than the usage reports we can glean from the resource websites.
I am noticing this week how dependent I have become on my laptop that contains a mobile account that syncs with my desktop computer at work. It was damaged at a staff development event on Monday and I may not have it back for a week. OUCH. Coffee shops and public libraries will see a lot of me this weekend.

Things Fall Apart

2008-02-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have been a little crazy.
Technology has turned against me. Batteries are dying, laptops are freezing, I am sending my emails with unfinished sentences and probably a dangling modifier here and there.

My mantra must be "technology is my friend." After all it's my job!

Keeping media people informed without overwhelming them is my goal. They don't even have time to read their email, so how can I catch their attention? I am going to explore the wiki world as it looks so simple. Jean and I are also working on a Media Moodle. Can't give a link as there needs to be a log in.

We do use our media web site to communicate and disseminate and we have been working on "spiffing" it up. Maybe we will have to try flickr to put together a some great pictures.

Jean and I are also in the process of creating a Virtual Media Center for the district. Click here to view one of our favorites. Our media people are excited about 23 Things on a Stick. I think I will sign up to get more practice. I love these ideas. It's that whole time thing, AGAIN.

Resolutions Gong Awry

2008-01-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, New Year's my resolutions were to bolgg every week, learn one of my 23 things each week and be a good role model for the other members of this project. So here it is the 3rd week of January and this is my first blog. Is email the technology that is getting me down so I hardly have time for anything else? Is it having so little time to spend on each thing that I have to go back to relearn what I did the last time? Is there a little piece of my DNA that is resistant to technology or at least the speed of change of this technology? Who has the answers to those questions? I know: Ann and Karen!!!! I am looking forward to learning how wikis work and how I could use them with my colleagues. I participated in one at AASL but then was getting so many emails when someone updated the wiki that it was driving me a little mad. How do we control that one?
I am trying to get my mind around all of these questions so that I can help teachers and media specialists who are even more overwhelmed. Dealing with this is more of a struggle than it should be. We need some good strategies to share with digital immigrants as to how they pick and choose what to use and still reap the richness of what technology has to offer.

Diane

Life Could Be A Comic Book

2007-12-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

I have been enjoying looking at everyone's posts. If you haven't checked out Ann's, look at some of the cool things she has there. I am going to try picture trail over the holidays.
Jimmy it was good to see that you discovered your local library. I hope you are sharing that story with your students.
I think I will spend much of my winter break catching up on this "course." One application I want to do more with is Comic Life, a program that comes on all the new Macs.
We have several media specialists who are using it in their tech classes. It's a great way for kids to create their own graphic novels or non-fiction. One of our k-8 teachers is having her students research a person and then put together a comic book highlighting their accomplishments. In another school I saw pages from Comic Life of students doing a science experiment and recording their process and observations.

Happy Holidays. I am very excited about seeing everyone again in January.

Trying Can Be Trying

2007-12-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

Search blog as it deals with lots of Information Literacy issues. Jean and I have also been updating our Minneapolis Media Trying new things can be a "trying" experience, especially when things...like my schedule...change on an hourly basis. Since the last time I blogged I have been working on organizing my hundreds of pictures from Bangladesh. I have also set up an iGoogle web page and set up an RSS feed from School Library Journal. I must recommend the Neverendingwebpage where we try to post all the things that media specialists need to know to do their job. That's quite a feat! We have also been assigned to do a little action research on the efficacy of an audio enhancement system that has been installed in one of our North Side schools. It has been fun visiting classrooms and seeing teachers and kids in action. Through a district initiative many of these schools have been able to reduce class size to 20 students. If only all of our students could be in that kind of environment again.
I will be posting this "class" on the eCompass site so we can track the credits for everyone. Technology is amazing but I often think of what happens to all those records out there in cyberspace when we experience a major power outage. Ouch!

Back from Bangladesh

2007-11-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

Talk about time travel and culture shock! I feel like I am dealing with both as I try to re-enter the reality of my work life in this 21st century realm while part of me is still in a 3rd world village.
We hear and talk so much about a global community. What is it? Who is part of it? How do we exist and operate in it? Whose ideas get shared and listened to? Who benefits? Who doesn't? Is there real communication and understanding or just more information and and greater chances for exploitation? These are the questions swirling inside my head as I think about how we use technology on a global scale. How do we use it to help our children do more than compete in a global economy? How do we use it to engage them in discovering the world and its people in a way that creates understanding and empathy and leads to solving real world problems?
Two women's community savings groups were on my itinerary. What they are learning about savings and using their limited resources for their own good and the good of the community is powerful stuff. I also visited a village where arsenic in the water has lead to systemic diseases in members of the community. Luckily, a deep wells project has provided this community with clean water. The arsenic poisoning is abating, their health is improving and their children are going to be healthier from the start. But these villages constitute a minute proportion of the 145 million people in Bangladesh. Already poor water is now more severely contaminated as a result of the cyclone which recently devastated the southern portion of the country.
I keep thinking about the children in the two schools I visited. How would access to technology improve their education? How could it change their lives? How could it impact the development of their country?
Leap: back to Minneapolis, this project and restarting my participation. I set up a Google web page and am working on my rss feeds. I continue to work on learning more about web pages as Jean and I need to get our media web page up to date. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and enjoy the excitement you are all sharing through your blogs.
I will try my hand at posting some pictures when I get them organized.

I'm Feeling Behind Already

2007-11-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

You know how it feels when you are supposed to be in the lead and keep falling farther and farther behind? That's my feeling right now as I try to keep all the projects in the air and get ready to fly back in time to a country where in the interior villages bricks are still made by hand, the re-bars in buildings are bamboo rather than steel, and where there is electricity but no Internet access at this point. I am looking forward to observing a slower pace and connecting with people whose monthly income is less than we pay for a large latte. I am sure I will return changed in many ways. I will miss seeing you in November and I know I will fall behind in my technological skills while I deepen my understanding of another culture. I look forward to sharing some of my experiences when I return. Perhaps I will have the chance to blog during my London lay overs on both legs of my journey. I hope you all enjoy your upcoming holidays and time with family and friends. I will see you all in January.

Hello From Reno

2007-10-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

I have been at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) conference in Reno since last Tuesday and do I have things to share! If anyone thinks librarians (media specialists) are behind the times, they should be here. Every other session was about 21st c. skills or using Web 2.0 in information literacy. So we are living at the edge.
The opening speaker was Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, that is a great read about the skills and habits of mind that our students will need to move out of the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age. He emphasizes that we need to move from LBrain dominance and move to include more R Brain thinking. He talks about the 6 things that will be most important in the conceptual age: design, story, symphony, empathy play and meaning.

I am at the closing sesssion and the keynote is Omar Wasso, the creator of Black Planet.com also the People magazine sexiest Internet executive about 5 years ago. Here are some notes from his presentation. We must help transform as well as inform our students. He is talking a lot about social networking. Not much new here, but interesting from a business perspective.

He just did a "nerd purity" test and thanks to information literacy project I had created some of the tech things he asked about, like a blog, etc. Libraries may need to be more about transforming than service. Libraries should be a reflective space and environment for learning, part of the Experience and Transforming Economy. A place out of the hubbub where you can be energized and transformed by your experience.

Well, enough rambling. You will be hearing more about this conference as I share the things I have learned that will fit right into our literacy project.

No, I have not spent time at the tables at all. In fact casinos kind of creep me out. So I can only share my knowledge and not big winnings.

Think about the history of economics as coffee:

Beans are a commodity.
Tin of coffee is a product.
Cup of coffee is a service.
Dunn Brothers is an experience.
Coffee tasting class is a transformation.

I Thought I Would Be Brain Dead

2007-10-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I would be brain dead after a 3-hour meeting and racing across town to help with some web page training but I was wrong. Great food from the Holy Land revived all of us in the Information Literacy project. Hearing about all the unique and creative research projects that are getting under way in the three participating schools brings back very good memories of my years as a high school media specialist. I really am a researcher at heart so this project could well be the highlight of my work week.