Minor Musings

Some things to think about while I digest ALA Midwinter and hiring new staff…

Books, Reading, etc.

• While I’d love to teach this exact class, since I’m on the Alex Committee for the next couple of years it might be possible to figure out a way to create something similar with those books.
• More Shakespeare thinking (this time from JSTOR and the Folger)
• This year we’ve been working with the 6th grade English class and creating book recommendation materials.  Here’s an idea. And another one for increasing vacation reading from Katie: bring the books to the kids.
• Don’t you love year end lists for personal and professional collection development?  I do.  Here’s stuff from The Hub, Semicolon

School Life

• We have a Senior Transitions class at MPOW.  Maybe this could be part of it?  And even though we don’t have AP classes, perhaps we could get the Senior Projects to look like the AP Capstone.  I’ve been thinking about Courtney’s VAASL presentation, too.  More to come about that.
  
• The library is part of the school’s Big Master Plan for renovation (reality: 5+ years from now) but it’s never too early to think about getting student input, particularly since we’re considering some small steps towards a better space.  Buffy’s summation is a great place to start.  And then there’s signage/branding via Courtney.

Tech Stuff

• Joyce points out the great AP Archive is now online.  Bookmark it. Then bookmark these Old Maps.
• Do you recommend podcasts?  Here are some to start with.
• Privacy check up time: Google and Facebook.

Etcetera

• Time to remind our seniors (and younger students) how to get involved in the political process.

Minor Musings

The past couple of months have been filled with work stuff and some interesting (read: thought provoking) professional development.  As I digest all of that and distill into posts, here’s a round-up of other things catching my eye.

Books, Reading, etc.

• As we teach/talk about diversity, maybe Shakespeare teachers should talk about his views of different religions?
• Maybe something those themed English classes could do?
• Still waiting for the interrobang, but until then, this history of punctuation will do.
• The most read book (by HS seniors) around the country? Check out this map.
• Beth’s Flash Booktalks are inspirational (for me, at least), plus more RA goodness from Angie M, the NYPL (also here) and Miss Print
• Just because: A.A. Milne reads Winnie-the-Pooh

School Life

• With the election coming ever closer, and the bubbles we live in growing smaller, maybe the WaPo’s Internet Debunker shouldn’t quit (or we need to do a better job teaching students how to do this for themselves with tools like Domain Researcher)
• At MPOW we’re creating new evaluations for our classes; maybe we should pause and consider this.
• With 2016 college acceptance season upon us, this is a must share with seniors.

Tech Stuff

• My drawing ability is not good enough for this but if you can Sketch (like my colleague Mark), it’s a great tool for summation of ideas/sessions or an interesting way to have students “talk” about a book or concept.  And then there’s Classeur…
• Wondering how we can promote this type of archive: British Library’s public domain images or the Met’s downloadable art books
• In 2016 I’ll be talking with our Dean of Students about ways to increase digital literacy in students and faculty.  This infographic may help. We’ll also talk about managing your online presence and share these statistics.
• My history teachers love primary sources (like this archive).  These tools are going to help during Research Season.  And maybe in a year we can work on collaborating on teaching this!
• Google Operators – necessary to know and use to effectively search.
• I love Evernote, but if you’re on the fence between Evernote and OneNote…

Etcetera

• Carol Dweck on how her research is misused
• Is your school talking about equality and diversity? Read this.

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, etc.

• As part of a major push to create a strong YA section in our library, we’re looking at diverse authors/characters and great NF to get us there.  Also loving this list of hybrid books and this list of women in translation.
• There are adult books that reference children’s lit – another To Get for MPOW? or just something for me to read?
• Yes, folks, there are words missing from dictionaries.

School Life

• We’re rethinking what the library is and should be, which in part means a culture change, and thinking about the website UX.  But what if we could completely rethink school? or the CMS?
• Something to share during National Coming Out Week or Anti-Bullying Month.
• Great way to talk about copyright and creative commons (something that should be done by all teachers, not just the librarians!)
• Every school I’ve worked in talks about an Honor Code or Integrity Policy – this poster should be helpful for students trying to figure it out.
• We should make “dare to suck” every school’s motto!

Tech Stuff

• MFPOW was 1:1 iPad, and MPOW is considering going 1:1 Chrome.  Time to learn from others!
• Last week GDrive had problems, but we’re a GAFE school so I guess I should learn more about Keep.  And since we also use Schoology, there’s more to learn.  Plus, obviously, decluttering my Evernote usage.
• These 10 social media tips aren’t just good for students.  And while you’re at it, look at A Cookie for Your Big Data (because yes, Facebook is stalking you) Scary stuff.

Etcetera

• So many standards to think about, and now there are International School Library Guidelines to put in the mix.
• I’ve worked in places that claim to be “all digital” – but this is a more nuanced view.
• Maybe add this to your Election 16 resources? (or not…)

Minor Musings

Still digitally decluttering…

Books, Reading, etc.

• One challenge at MPOW is getting the middle school students into the library (time, distance, lack of discrete space are issues).  So we’re thinking about the pop-up library.

School Life

• Speed Friending in the Library?  Sounds like the perfect start-of-school activity!
• Hoping I can emulate Buffy’s work with my students. Or Ethan’s. Particularly since we know colleges are still requiring research (and five page papers). A little design thinking might help. And maybe not this year, but next?
• I’m fond of this sign, but this one would work, too.

Tech Stuff

• This was done with sixth graders, but could easily scale to any middle or upper school class.
• This is of Allentown, but imagine creating a history or English class project (I know I’ve suggested this before… hoping this year a teacher takes me up on it!).  And how cool it would be to integrate the Newseum into your resources? or a Digital Timeline?
• MPOW is a GAFE/Schoology school, and Videonot.es looks like it would be a great tool to use!
• Right now, we’re BYOD (so have computer labs) – Doug has great ideas about 1:1.
• This list of tools is a great starter toolkit!
• It’s the start of a new school year.  Why not declutter your laptop before things get crazy?

Etcetera

• I’m not looking for a new job, and one might argue that this blog serves as a portfolio, but that doesn’t mean that Katie’s portfolio advice will go to waste.  Go and do likewise.
• Looking for a different conference to attend?  Maybe the First Year Experience is for you. Or maybe the LibraryTechnology conference.

And, as always, Will Richardson has some great ideas about trends we should be watching.  Something to ponder as the school year starts.

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, Etc..

• I’ve done something similar with Google Maps, but this?  The Obsessively Detailed Map is truly obsessively detailed.  Ideas for additional “value added content”? TSU has some great Immersive Experience ideas.
• This might just be my new favorite book blog: Oh, the Books! (via)
• The Book Riot Quarterly box might be a good way to get students excited about reading.  BookOpolis looks to be a good way to introduce younger students to online reviewing/reading communities.

School Life

• Something to get students thinking and talking about race: the Race Card Project.  Then think about developing Collective Cultural Competencies.
• We talk a lot about curriculum maps – maybe try a visual version?

Tech Stuff

• How do teens use social media? Additional thoughts…
• Just for fun, Oxford’s illustrated history of social media
• Using GoogleDrive? These tips might help. And check out these 18 Epic Productivity Apps (I already use a few – need to think about the others)
• How to reach students and parents? Perhaps with Remind.
• Thx Infovore for these data visualization tools: Social Explorer, Policy Map, and On The Map
• Even though I use Evernote a lot, I’m thinking of using Transpose to store other digital content.  Anyone using it yet?

Etcetera…

• It’s always interesting to see where you fall politically when you take a relatively blind test – this Pew survey seems reasonably accurate.
• And people wonder why I nap.  Sleep helps your brain.
• As I start my new job, it’s important to work at How to Fail Successfully.
• If you’re traveling to London, check out these apps and places to read.  And take me with you.

Most important: 120 days until Christmas.  Shop now. Avoid the rush.

Minor Musings

It’s summer – a major move (personal and professional) is in process, so why not declutter a bit and share links and ideas I’ve been hoarding all school year?  Regular posts to resume by the end of August, I hope!

Books, Reading, etc.

• NYPL shares some great imaginative literary maps and an infographic of memorable animal friends
• How many of Racism Review’s bibliography are on your shelves now?
• Teaching students about reviewing books?  This behind-the-scenes look at NYTBR might be a good resource.
• This might be billed English Teachers vs. Librarians: is it ok to write in books?

School Life

• Debbie writes about what makes a credible source and and old (but still great) post about data, citations, etc. from AISL
• I’m a huge believer in Makerspace does not Equal High Tech.  Here are some great grab-and-go kits that prove that.

Tech Stuff

• Internet Addition: a health hazard for students? adults?
• IPad apps that can help with dyslexia.

Etcetera

• One of my biggest struggles is with organization (working in a school means my days are unpredictable).  Here are some methods that might work, with tweaking.
• As much as I hate the phrase “digital native”, this might make AASL a worthwhile conference

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, Etc.

• “Why Does S Look Like F?” (how to read old-fashioned books – we might need this for handwriting, esp, cursive, soon!)
• I played with this some, and now I’m wondering how to create a Best Books of the Summer app for school.

School Life

• A great idea for publicizing your NF collection: use HeatMap News and create a display (print and digital)
• Just imagine what your students could do to mimic these bookish millennials and their memes
• Wondering how to leverage these BIG projects as preparation for capstone/senior projects
• Time to rethink the school library
• Love what Buffy did at her school with the AP English Literature class.  Now, how to do that at mine?
• Always good to find (and share) tools for verifying/assessing social media’s validity

Tech Stuff

• Small PD bites: Practical Ed Tech and Google Apps tutorials
• Looking to create lists of apps for parents or students?  Or to load some iPads? Kid’s Discovery is the place to go.

Help Yourself – personalized learning at #alaac15

(another program that will be posted online – check here)

Many schools and libraries are starting to embrace personalized learning, blended learning, the flipped classroom or whatever new buzzword appears.  At the Online School for Girls, they’re talking about “competency-based instruction” that puts learners at the center, meeting their needs and goals (in other words, it’s not teacher or student driven, it’s learner driven).  This approach allows teachers to work smarter.

Projects are remapped to put the student learner at the center, allowing for deeper engagement with the materials :

• what major competencies are desired?
• what is the individual student profile (what type of learner are they? what do they already know?)
• what “pathway options” are there to get the student to understand the material?
• what operational elements need to be designed?

remember: the pathway is less important than the competencies

You can build units in your LMS – Haiku, Schoology, WhippleHill, LibGuides, Moodle, etc. – chunking competencies and building in the pathway options.

Personalized learning is data-driven: always assign what students are learning and circle back if necessary.  In other words, assess assess assess (not necessarily formal assessments!).

In order to do this, you need to think about the school climate and have conversations about pedagogy.  For this to work, creating a climate of personalized learning needs to be a strategic intention, with an evaluation of space and investment in infrastructure for what the student’s needs are. Does the school’s mission have learners at the center?

The next speaker was from SFPL, highlighting their new literacy and learning center, a place where all kinds of learning can take place.  They’ve relabeled their classroom the Learning Studio/Learning Theatre, giving it flexible furnishings that can be positions to best assist what the program is.

Other ideas:

• develop a public instruction plan
• create a collection of resources and programs
• instructional materials and tools are important (use YouTube for a tutorial collection, create handouts as take-aways)

Most learners want hands-on help! Make that happen with drop-in classes, 1:1 tech help (20 min sessions), online course instruction and meet-ups.

Finally, we heard from VATech, which has created a program that stresses empowering students by partnering with faculty – to do this they’ve developed programs and tools.

Good place to start: check with the first year experience librarians at schools popular with students and build down from that

One thing they’ve created is an iPad tour of the library: auto-generated, outcome based tour (there are also auto-graded assessments).  They’re now thinking about beacons, QR codes and apps to provide the same opportunities.

It’s important to train the trainers: creating lesson plans and activities that teachers can use/drop-in to their classes.  Your role is that of coach/consultant, not teacher. Example? their Working with the Library toolkit. The anecdotal evidence is that this works, freeing the librarians to do 1:1 assistance.

VT has also created an Instructional Learning Community with the assumption that all librarians are learners.  It’s open to anyone who wants to talk about teaching and includes a Read/Lead group who read and discuss a book that deals with learning, pedagogy, schools, etc.

Tool to check out: EDpuzzle (allows students to insert questions they have about the video tutorials they’re watching)

 

Big Data and danah boyd at #alaac15

danah boyd’s research and work has been fascinating to follow – this was less “It’s Complicated” and more “it’s problematic” (if you’re an ALA member, the presentation will probably be posted here). This marks a shift from watching how teens use social media towards the idea of big data (and metadata) as a whole; essentially, she takes issue with the idea that big data collection can somehow solve all of life’s questions – it can’t because tech is not neutral, it takes on the bias of the creators/manipulators.  She then went on to talk about three things:

Privacy

• social media is a relief valve (boyd blames helicopter parents who give their children no down or alone time to just hang with friends – my problem with that is that these parents are my age, and we had plenty of this time and we managed to survive!)
• as a result, public spaces are now networked online (check out Youth Radio)
• privacy no longer means “control of information”  – it means “control of social situation” (agency is important); context is important and learned (another way to think about it is “code shifting“)
  • the skills to interpret context and how to navigate online social dynamics are emerging – adults and teens need to learn them
  • the big challenge is that real life requires constant code shifting, but online is soooooo different (esp. for teens) – check out the social stenography post danah did in 2010

Making Meaning of Data

• some teens have learned to put random brand names into their email posts (esp. gmail) to provoke those brand ads that accompany “free” email
• the lesson? who interprets, collects and provides data matters
  • q: was the Target story real or apocryphal
  • “Reckless associations can do very real harm when they appear in supposedly neutral environments like online stores” (Atlantic Monthly article)
  • look at the work Latanya Sweeney is doing and read Sorting Things Out (Bowker & Star)

Just because it’s a machine doesn’t mean there are no politics involved: there are usually more!

Networked Data

• who has control? our usual models break down online (23andme gives your consent now and in the future for you and your family; LAPD’s “spit and acquit” program)
• we now live in a world of predictions that can be used to discriminate (“legal” is another issue) and raises questions about fairness (equality, equity and economic)

So, where does Librarianship fit into all this?

• ALA’s Core Values take these things into account
• question license agreements, hours of access, technology equity – push for open access, push back against information lock-up
• there’s a new literacy: data literacy – we need to educate our users about this

we tell students that Wikipedia is BAD, but why do we also say that Google is GOOD?

• question everything: push levels of thinking, teach students to do this so they can see bias and better determine who to trust online
• social responsibility: more of us (librarians) need to speak up!
• privacy: we need to talk more and teach more about the cultural consequences of Big Data (the NSA is the tip of the iceberg)

There are three types of data collection (for more about some of this, see my post about Debbie and Kristin’s program at #alaac13:

1. data by choice (eg., Fitbit)
2. data by coercion (the LAPD)
3. data by circumstance (using Facebook)

• why is ALA so afraid to be local? we do a great job of taking national (and international) positions, but local? rarely.

This documentary was not mentioned during ms. boyd’s talk, but I highly recommend watching/showing Terms and Conditions May Apply.  Scary, provocative and perhaps a catalyst for change.

 

Keeping up – a how-to guide

Despite being very busy, I do try to keep up (catching up is an entirely different matter!).  As a public service message for those also looking for ways to stay somewhat current, here’s my routine:

Blogs: I use RSSOwl to read my over 150 RSS feeds.  No I won’t list them here, because I don’t want to get into the “why this blog and not that”discussion, suffice it to say that I read a variety – personal interest, friends, humor and professional.

Tweets: Some twitter feeds I get via RSS, but the rest I really only read from 5-6:30am and possibly from 6-7:30pm.  So people posting frequently throughout the day, whose feeds I can’t capture otherwise, well, I just don’t see those tweet.  And that’s ok.

News: In my email, each morning there’s The Daily Skimm and So What, Who Cares? (despite it’s name JSTOR Daily is a weekly update).  I also get updates from the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, and check the BBC, Globe & Mail and Guardian websites.

Books: In addition to the book-related blogs, there’s the daily (or more than daily) Shelf Awareness email.

Misc. Professional Stuff: The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Academe Today and Wired Education are great daily newsletters.

Just for Fun: MyComicsPage and Delancy Place.

Looks like a lot, right?  But much of it can be skimmed, and for those long-form articles I would love to read later, there’s Readability (I know, I know, there are a lot of Instapaper fans out there but… Instapaper doesn’t appear to work offline, and Readability sends stuff to my Kindle, which does work even without a wifi connection).   It takes 90min to get through it all, if that, and I can start my day (and end it, sometimes) feeling as though I have some awareness of what’s going on out there, professionally and politically (and personally).