A trip to the zoo

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A trip to the zoo

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Another Use for Digital Storytelling

My father passed away unexpectedly in January. As a result, I received a photo album full of pictures, many from days before I was born or when I was very young. My mother passed when I was only 21, so there are photos from the early days of those, as well.

I have been scanning these photos, a little at a time, and I was just going to burn them to a disc for each of the kids, my sister's kids, and my brother's. But now I'm thinking I should use photo story and narrate some of them with family history that I do know.

My nana is 83, and I would love to sit down with her and record family history and lay that audio under some of the photos as well. This will preserve her voice, her memories, and the photos for generations to come.

Thoughts...

As the beginning of the next school year approaches, and our site visit slated for October, I am wondering about my library curriculum and how I can best go about improving the offerings for students, particularly at the high school. I know a big key is getting the high school teachers to collaborate, but they are so resistant, I am unsure how to proceed.

Thinking back to when I was teaching, I did tend to fly solo a lot. But I also don't remember anyone reaching out to me. I did make an effort to co-teach with the art teacher in a unit called "Poems on Paintings." And I tried to encourage my students to bring up issues or examples they were discussing in other classes in order to make those cross-curricular connections that are crucial to a well-rounded education and critical thinking. But, finding teachers who really wanted to team teach or work collaboratively was so much work, that it was just easier to keep doing it on my own.

These are all issues I shall continue to ponder as I strive to encourage more collaboration and team work at all grade levels.

Reading: Window and Mirror

I keep coming back to the ideas that we talked about in Curriculum and in Administration about the essential questions that are crucial to our work as teacher librarians. It seems to me that the importance of early literacy is even more crucial now that there are so many ways to read.

If a student wants to follow blogs or post on Facebook or participate in the digital revolution, it seems more urgent than ever that we as educators find ways to ensure that students master learning to read so that they can better read to learn.

I feel inadequately trained in teaching reading because I was a secondary teacher before coming to the library. I realize that elementary teachers are truly amazing in all the things they have to help students master, and the more I read about early literacy, the more it seems to me that this nation needs to get on board with preschool programs and other efforts to help our children become the readers they will need to be.

If illiteracy is hard in the traditional classroom setting, the difficulties that must be overcome in the digital world may become insurmountable for students who may struggle with manipulating a tool that is predicated on a literate user. You can only surf videos and via point-and-click for so long before needing to digest the information. And though we have assistive technology, having the computer read everything to you robs the information of voice, context, and interpretation by the reader.

We cannot allow the digital divide to grow from a trough to a canyon, stranding a significant portion of our student population on one side. The future depends upon our ability to see forward and reflect back.

Blogging in the Classroom

Warschauer, Mark. (Feb 2010). Invited commentary: New tools for teaching writing. Language, Learning, and Technology. 14 (1).

This article discusses the value and differences of using wikis, blogs, and netbooks for teaching writing with both general ed students and ESL students. There are many articles out there that discuss specifics, but Warschauer provides a basic overview of the technology and its use.

I did not realize that the development of blogs and the blogosphere had increased the amount of writing so much, but I guess that's because I'm not an active blogger. (I heard an article on NPR about the evolution of the word "blog" and the guy who first coined it hates the word!)

Beyond that, I am thinking about ways to make teacher-student writing/editing/grading and student-student peer editing more user-friendly. Regardless of which method we choose, whether it's a blog or Google docs, it is imperative to introduce the technology to teachers first, and get them comfortable using it so that they can then use it with students.

So much to do! So little time. :/

What I'm Reading...

I admire Carol Ann and many of the other teacher librarians who spend their summers reading the Iowa Children's Choice Award books or other books on lists of note. I realize that this would be an easy fit for the summer (if I didn't have classes) but I really enjoy reading OTHER stuff in the summer.

Believe me, I have a stack of OUGHT TO READ, and a list of NEED TO READ, but on my night stand is the stack of what I WANT TO READ. This summer, I've read Half-Broke Horses by the author of The Glass Castle, U is for Undertow which was actually very good, Feed which creeped me out, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (I'm actually reading this aloud to my husband as we do our driving--LOVE IT!), and I am currently trying to choke down James Patterson's The Fifth Horseman. It's awful. I don't know why I continue, but I kind of feel like a bad book is like a bad movie...you have to get through the whole thing so you can REALLY trash it later.

I also have a book about professional portfolios that I picked up on the free table at AEA 267. I didn't really want this book, but I felt like it would be wise to grab it. And apparently, it's a good thing, because even though I find the "professional portfolio" to be an exercise in busy work, it's going to be a driving force in the new education reform movement. I recognize how it could be a great reflection tool, but mostly it's used as a checklist item. And there's nothing tied to it--no raise, no incentive, just a slap on the wrist if you don't get it done.

However, we also have to have one to graduate from the UNI program, not just for the Automation class, so I'm starting to think about how I want that to look. I'm still not thrilled about it, finding it just another hoop to jump through; but, I'll do it. Sometimes it's just easier to go along than ask "why?" and "for what?"

Beyond all that, I have given my husband two books by Cory Doctorow. I think that I will have to read them when he's done. Doctorow wrote Little Brother, which I loved, and my husband liked it, too. His writing is well-researched and plausible enough to be a bit frightening.

And I discovered some new books for my kids...Spoon, Yes! Day, the Ladybug Girl series, and Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander series. I can't wait for my copy of Mockingjay to arrive! And I think my husband may offer to go finish typing up the fourth book in the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini.

So much to read; so little time!

Balancing Time and Technology

Paula brought up a great point about how teachers frequently complain about the time factor when technology is in use. I must agree that at our middle school, the bandwidth is so low that no one wants to use the wireless laptop labs. And in the hardwired lab, it seems like the connection is so slow that students become easily frustrated. We are actually taking advantage of the Microsoft Settlement money to use it for hardware purchases that we were planning for anyway, and diverting district resources to upgrading the whole shebang. We'll see if it works.

I just wish that many of my colleagues were less interested in covering everything--in order--in an effort to get through the textbook. I have repeatedly tried to convince my colleagues that the textbook is a tool, not the rule. I guess I have the advantage of having to teach subjects that didn't really have a textbook, so I have always had to develop my curriculum and create my own materials. And as a result, I began using online chat to work with students after hours as they wrote debate cases or as a group if we wanted to try and think on a topic brought up in class and then work through it later that evening at home.

I have coached students using Skype (which I don't care for) and I have used Google Talk and Video chat to make contact as well. But again, we're back to time. Technology is the perpetual double-edged sword. It cuts us a break, making us more productive and allowing us to work smarter, and it cuts back at us, demanding more of our precious time, making the work day extend from our traditional 8 am to 4 pm to a seeming 4 am to 11 pm.

Finding a balance is going to be important.