Journal 14

Source Evaluation:

This weeks reading came from School Library Monthly—a source I hadn’t looked at much in the past.  Articles were pretty easy to find by clicking on the ARTICLES button on the left tool bar, but they were a little bit more dated than I would have liked.  Some were as old as 2005, and few were written in the last year.  This isn’t a huge drawback, but relevance is pretty important in a career so linked with technology as school librarianship.  I did like that the articles were displayed by category/topic, and I chose “Forging a Positive Cyber-Reputation: Who Are You?” by Kathy Fredrick, a library director in Ohio.  Another nice feature of this source, or at least this article, is that there are lists of extra resources related to the article at the bottom of the page.

 

This article jumped out at me because in the last few weeks I have thought about my own online image and those of my students as I have been making the webpage for my final assessment.  I keep hearing one of my classmates—and I’m sorry that I can’t remember who!—say that she emphasizes that her students should make a positive digital footprint, not just avoid making a negative one.

 

Summary:

Fredrick explains several issues relating to digital personas and how they affect students.  She, too, notes that educators have been spending time teaching internet safety, but that we need to go beyond that and give students the tools to communicate effectively online, just as we teach them how to write and speak differently according to different face to face situations. Frederick suggests that educators ask students to reflect on what their web presence looks like and share tools with them that can help them change their online reputation if necessary. 
 
She lays out a detailed and helpful list that includes:

1.       Have students Google themselves and contact sites if they have published something incorrect

      2.       Teachers model responsible behavior by creating sites and sharing work ethically online
      3.       Provide opportunities for students to create their own websites
      4.       Provide safe opportunities for students to publish work
      5.       Make sure that the students have school access to the online work—be sure it’s not blocked by the school’s filters
      6.       Speak with students about their “web cred” whenever there’s a teachable moment

 Frederick closes by stressing that kids are already living on the web, and it would be irresponsible to just tell them to keep everything private. 

 
Content Evaluation:
I want every parent and teacher everywhere to read this article!  It makes me feel like I have been overprotective of my students in the past or that I’ve taken the approach of an ostrich with my head in the sand.  Just this year I had students publish videos for class, but I forbade them from disclosing any personal information—including their full names.  I did this because I felt like it was the safest option—but now I see that those students could have used those videos to build up a positive online presence (or most of them could have, anyway!).  I have even limited myself by making my ISU blogs and classroom websites private only—not searchable via Google.  But there’s nothing on any of those sites that I am ashamed of or that would hurt myself or my students if it were public.

 I particularly liked the point Frederick made that new content will begin to balance out old content, so it’s important to keep posting positive, responsible materials.  Not only am I going to help my students do this, but I’m going to improve my own online image, too!  I’m really afraid to Google myself, though—I haven’t done it yet.  I will, though… how about after school is out?  In addition to the final project for 414, I’m also going to make my classroom website searchable via Google, and I’m going to make a new page for my personal use.

 

This article has spurred me to do a little bit more research on improving one’s digital footprint. Here are a few of the best things I’ve dug up:

·         Improving your Digital Footprint—a slideshare presentation by Matt Lingard, 2009

·         Granville Elementary Computer Lab—webarticle on the importance of a positive digital footprint and how it reflects you as a person

·         Top 10 Strategies to Improve your Online Reputation—a blog post by Duncan Morris, 2007

 The possibilities for helping kids with their literacy skills here is evident: they will build critical thinking skills as they evaluate their current reputations and problem solve to build better ones.  They will also be motivated to build technology literacy/tool literacy skills to help them put their ideas into practice. 

Overall, this article was just the right amount of philosophy backed by ready-to-use, practical ideas that can help all my students, as well as myself!

Journal #13

Journal #13

Diigo.com

In my last technology blog, I looked a delicious.com, and was a bit underwhelmed.  This time I decided to compare Diigo to see if it was any better.

Diigo is a little more complex than delicious.com because it's not just social bookmarking.  This is a helpful infographic the site provides as explanation:

 

https://www.diigo.com/index

It makes me wonder what the next figure will be for 6.0.  Alien? Man in a flying car? No, we'll probably get a new Diigo sooner than flying cars. :)

 

Right off the bat I noticed that Diigo is much nicer looking than Delicious because of graphics like this and others.  I know that looks shouldn't matter and that "it's what's on the inside that counts."  But let's be honest-- kids won't use it if it doesn't look cool.  And part of the purpose of visual media like the web is to be VISUAL.  Diigo wins here.

More importantly, the additional features are apparent from the beginning, and they're fairly easy to use.  As soon as I signed up, I had the option to take the tour, but I declined thinking I could come back to that easily later.  Big mistake!  Now I can't find it, but there is a help section that covers most of what I need, I think.  So that's my fault for trying to multitask too much.

The features that Diigo has that Delicious doesn't are many because I can choose from different versions of Diigo. The recommended version is called Diigolet, and it includes bookmarking, higlighting, sticky notes, and sharing.  These features are just pretty much what they sound like.  You can also go to a very basic version that just includes bookmarking, but why not have some options?  Like Delicious, Diigo also has an app for iphones, but it also has an app for android, which as far as I can tell Delicious does not.

Like delicious, diigo offers the option to follow people and groups.  By searching “library,” I found several users who, by their other tags, seem to be school librarians, so I decided to follow 2 that seemed most relevant.  I found a group called Teacher-Librarians and joined it, as well.  Then I saw that it is run by none other than Joyce Valenza!  I got to choose how often I could receive email updates from the group.  Choices ranged from as often as daily to never at all.  Right now I’m set for weekly updates—we’ll see how useful they are.

You can actually “cross save” to delicious, essentially saving to both delicious and diigo at the same time.  I didn’t try this, but it seems like a nice feature. 

A downside is that there are ads right above the list of bookmarks that closely resemble my bookmarks, so it's easy to confuse the sponsored links with things I actually saved myself.

The bookmarking function is pretty much the same between the two pages.  I personally like the look of my bookmark list a little bit more on diigo than on delicious in terms of color and formatting, but the difference is negligible.  I do think that diigo is slightly easier to use and since it has the additional tools like highlighting it has an edge over delicious.  It’s not a huge difference, and since delicious is more widely known it has a bit of an advantage if you want others to follow you or if you want to follow others who are not on diigo.  Aside from that, though, I prefer diigo.  In the interest of simplicity, I considred closing my delicious account, but I do follow a couple of people who are not on diigo, so for now I will keep both.

The literacy skills that diigo promotes are similar to that of delicious: research, collaboration, source evaluation.  On top of that, the highlighter would be good for taking notes.  I can see that used in an assignment in which students found pieces of information, highlighting the best/most useful parts of a source, and then submitting it via a screen capture software.

 

Journal #12 Readings

This week I chose to review the article by Karen Springen entitled "Flipping the Classroom:  A revolutionary approach to learning presents some prose and cons" found in this month's School Library Journal.

Summary
As the title suggests, Springen reviews the advantages and challenges of the flipped classroom, citing numerous professionals in the fields of education, technology, and librarianship.  Springen collects points of view from some of the original proponents of the flipped classroom, as well as those who are slightly critical of the approach. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a flipped lesson is when students view content at home, usually in the form of lecture videos, so they can view at their own pace.  Then the class time that might have been used for lecture in a traditional lesson is instead used for in-depth class discussions, individual practice with teacher guidance, or small group projects.  As Springen notes, proponents of the approach laud it for its time-saving aspects as well as the fact that it allows some students to stop and rewind the videos as needed.  Some critics caution that relying on video as a way to deliver content material can hurt the students with limited access.  Springen relates this all to the world of the library by talking to experts who feel that it is the librarian's duty to help aleviate access issues by providing computer time and recorded videos on flashdrives, if need be, and to help teachers and students find the best videos for their information needs.

Source
I was pleased to see that even though I can't view the entire issue online for free, SLJ still allows accesss to the full article for this cover story.  I also appreciate that it is easy to read and Springen included links to all of her research and the websites of her expert sources.  I'll be adding many of these links to my own diigo.

Content
Springen appears to present an unbiased treatment of this issue, and it has given me several things to think about as a current classroom teacher and future librarian.  I only heard of the flipped classroom last semester at a BER technology conference I attended.  I was very excited about the idea and asked my fellow faculty members how/if they flipped any of their own lessons.  As far as I know, only one other teacher does very much "flipping" in this sense.  As I started to brainstorm some ideas for flipped lessons, I started to doubt myself and how good this would be for my students because of access issues.  Even if they all had computer/internet access, there truly are times when some things just don't work, so I worried that I would actually waste time rather than save it because I would have to deliver lecture in class anyway.  I see that I'm not the only one who has concerns about equitable access, and I like Springen's suggestion via David L. Loertscher that librarians can alleviate some of these issues by providing computer access.  As to his suggestion that the librarians can put the videos on flashdrives, however, I felt like that was a bit impractical.  But if it works every once in a while for some students, great!  Loertscher also said:

"'The job of the librarian is to flip for every kid...If one little tutorial doesn’t work, we’ve got 10 others in the wings. There are all kinds of learners, all styles of learners.' To find the best materials, librarians should 'use the same criteria they’ve always used for printed materials—authority, interest, accuracy,' he says. They shouldn’t just fall in love with the latest trend."

This quote really put things in place for me.  As sad as it is, I never really thought of our librarian as someone who could do this for me, but I know that as a future librarian it will be something I suggest to other teachers.  Of course it will take a lot of collaboration and communication, but it is a perfect example of how a librarian can support teachers in creating the best lessons for each kid.

Overall, I thought that Springen's coverage of the topic was very fair.  I was glad that she presented the obstacles as well as the benefits because every teacher should pause to be sure that the lessons are right for them and their students and not just jump on the bandwagon.

 

Journal #11

This week I browsed Delcious.com (formerly del.icio.us)—a social bookmarking site.  

 

Pros:

• It’s great to have access to links anywhere.
• The tags make things somewhat easy to find.
• It’s an easy way to share links with others.

 

Cons:

• It’s not that user-friendly or visually appealing.
• It’s not as powerful as I would expect in this day and age. (limited features)

 

Several years ago I started an account when the site was del.icio.us, but things seem to have changed significantly, and I don’t think that my former account even exists anymore.  So I made a new account, which was different than in the past.

 

Today my summary and evaluation are mixed together:

First, I was asked to connect to my facebook account (or twitter) so that all the links I share will be in the same place.  I understand why some people would like this feature, but since I would like to keep this as a professional account and keep my facebook for personal use, I chose not to do that. Next, I had to chose from a rather short list of links to add as my first link, with the knowledge that I would remove the link later.  They were mostly news stories, but there was a book review, so I chose that (Melanie Warner’sPandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over The American Meal).  At this point, I got the option to include comments and tags with this link, so for practice’s sake I made some tags about book reviews and school lunches.  I’m not sure if this would be different on another computer (maybe our school filter is changing the appearance of the site), but the suggested tags—E, b, c, etc…--were very hard to read, and nothing explained what they meant. I also got the option to make this link private, which I did.
 

Lastly, I was asked to install the bookmarklet, and here again is a time when our school computers might be causing me problems.  I needed to “simply” click on the bookmarklet button and drag it to my bookmark tool bar, which I tried in a variety of ways, none of which worked.  I’ll try it at home, but so much of my browsing for school-related links happens at school that this is an inconvenience.  I can still use delicious; it just won’t be as easy as clicking a button will browsing.

 

I then filled in a little bit of profile verbiage—the profile space is not too elaborate—and got the option to add my facebook friends, which I did not. Returning to the main page, I found a list of suggested links based on my “interests”, which they must be basing solely  on my book review link because they were all about food.  Yes, food is an interest of mine, but I really want to use the site for other purposes.  So I searched “library” and started adding links that others had shared with that tag.  I found a few things, but the search yielded far too many results, and most of them were not anything I needed.  Therefore, I started adding the links that were already in my favorites bar.

 

Once I added about 10 links, I tried to see if delicious would give me some better suggested sites.  Unfortunately, now it doesn’t suggest anything, or at least I can’t find a place for those suggestions.  I checked out the Feed tab, but it just says that I’m not following any profiles yet.  Wouldn’t that be a nice place to have a “Click Here to Find Profiles to Follow” button?  But no, nothing like that is provided, and I can’t even find another spot to find people to follow.  I would say I’m more computer savvy than the average person, even the average teacher, and yet there were still too many features I couldn’t find.  Maybe for my next tech journal I’ll look at Diigo and see if it is more powerful or user-friendly.  To be honest, if I can’t figure it out pretty easily, I’m not going to send my whole class there.

After my perusal, I still wanted to know if I could organize the bookmarks into folders, like I can in an internet browser.  I tried to find that option or an explanation in the help section, but I found nothing.  That’s disappointing because I really like having my links grouped in categories.  I did find an option called Tag Bundles, which allow me to group similar tags together.  This is somewhat helpful, but still not very visually appealing.  Along the same lines, I don’t really like the visual layout of the site—it’s rather monotonous.

Despite its limited capabilities, there are multiple ways I would use this site to increase students’ literacy skills:

1.       I could use delicious to connect all the class or library-related sites that students might need to access throughout the year.

2.       I could ask students to visit my delicious page and use the links I selected for research or ask them to evaluate the links I included.

3.       More powerfully, I would ask them to contribute their own links either to one class page or to individual pages.  They could share resources with other students and help each other evaluate sources.  This could be used as a digital class bulletin board of helpful links.

Journal #10

This week I meandered through some unread posts by Doug Johnson, sampling tastes of articles here and there until I arrived at one that made me stop and really concentrate. http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2013/3/20/one-big-room-redux.html

 Summary: In “One Big Room- Redux” Johnson revisits an older post on censorship in light of a new article (Pornography online is warping children's minds, teachers warn. The Telegraph, March 17, 2013). The Telegraph states that children start searching for sexual images on the net and sexting around age 12, and that it is prevalent. Johnson finds this trend alarming, but “a fool’s errand” for adults who try to shelter children from adult content completely. He argues that rather than keeping this material away from our students and children, we need to teach and reinforce values no more than ever.

Resource:
As always, The Blue Skunk Blog does not disappoint in its rich content, ease of use, and prolific hyperlinks to cited material.

Content:

At first I was slightly surprised at what appeared to be an irresponsible reaction from an educator. Of course we should try to keep adult materials away from kids! I thought. Then Johnson brought me around to his side as he usually does. I found this example particularly poignant: He relates how he asked educators if children should be kept from these titles (and more…):

· "Sex After 35: Why It's Different, Why it Can be Better"

· "Men & Sex: Their 7 Secret Wishes"

· "How Our Sex Life Was Saved"

Of course the educators (and I) said “Yes!” And Johnson said, “Too late.” I recognized this truth as he elaborated: these are just a few of the titles emblazoned on numerous magazines in the average grocery store checkout line. This made me remember how I’ve (as an adult!) been embarrassed to see these things while waiting in line with family, both older and younger than myself. An innocent trip to the store is saturated (and has been since I can remember) with sexualized images and verbage—right at a child’s eye level. Now would I or any librarian bring this in to the school? Of course not. But I see now that it’s no use pretending that our kids haven’t heard all this before. I agree that we must give kids the tools to deal with this information responsibly. My only criticism of the article is that I wish it came with a few concrete tips, or at least a link to some resources on how to do that. It’s a big task for a blog post to accomplish, but some baby steps are better than nothing.

Journal #9

This week I’m exploring Google Docs/ Google Drive, which is a webtool I’ve used many times in the past.  I decided to compare it to Dropbox since I’ve now done a bit of work with both sites.

 

Summary of my experience

To begin, I opened up my Google docs account, which I haven’t used for over a year, and revisited some of the documents to remind myself how to use all of the functions of the site, like how to create, edit, save, and share files.  Then I wanted to see if things had changed since my last use, so I tried to find a “tour” or “FAQ” page.  I didn’t so I went to Google’s main site and searched for this info there.  After some searching, I found Google’s own help page, so I skimmed the features to make sure I am able to use the site to its full potential.

 

What I like

Obviously, it’s pretty convenient to have cloud storage that I can access anywhere.  So I thought about comparing this to Dropbox, which I’ve used much more this semester that I have Google Docs.  I do like the looks of Dropbox better, but a big bonus to Google docs is that (as I found out on the Google help page, here I can add comments to photos and captions to videos, which is something I can’t do on dropbox.  That might not seem like a big deal, but for flipped lessons I find that captions on videos are pretty much essential, and I’ve been looking for an easy way for me and my students to do this without expensive software and without sending the kids into the uncensored world of youtube. (Though I know they go on their own anyway. J )  And not that I need it right now, but I can translate the captions into other languages!

 

Lastly, the file storage limit (5 gigs) is a little better than at Dropbox (I’m up to 2.75 free gigs).  However, that is all I can get without paying for more space. 

 

What I don’t like

What I don’t like is pretty superficial—the way it looks.  As a PC user from way back, I like the look of the folder system that has always been present in some form in My Documents in Windows. Dropbox has mirrored that style as closely as possible (I assume without breaking copyright laws!).  Google is similar, but has a coarser feel in my opinion.  It’s not unworkable, though, and this is just my personal preference. 

 

Lastly, I do wish that the help page was a little bit more accessible or that there was a better “tour” function.

 

Use with students

Students can find google docs extremely helpful as long as they have internet access at both home and school (and most of the time they do) because they can save backups of their own work in case they forget their flash drives or have other accessibility problems.  They can also collaborate with others much easier than if they save multiple versions of the same document.

 

Reflection of literacies

This site helps kids develop many literacies, especially with its multi-media capabilities. Students can combine text, photos, and videos and share them easily with teachers and other students.  It’s relatively secure since users can decide who to share with, rather than making things public as with youtube.  It also promotes collaboration with others, a skill that is in high demand among employers—now more than ever. 

 

Overall, I will probably continue to use Dropbox for my personal files because I like the look and feel of it, but I will suggest that students use Google Drive, especially if they need to work with video.

Journal #8

Journal #8

Bibliofile and Nonfiction Mondays

One of the blogs I follow that posts a little less frequently than the others is Bibliofile, which specializes in reviewing young adult literature. A feature I appreciate is that blogger Jenny Rothschild declares the first day of the workweek “Nonfiction Monday” and dedicates her daily post to a new nonfiction young adult piece. Because of my personal reading preferences (I lean heavily toward fiction), I find it difficult to recommend nonfiction books, especially those that are engaging and not just “reference-y”. This blog helps immensely in that regard. I chose to catch up on the last three Nonfiction Mondays in which Rothschild reviewed The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity Elizabeth Rusch, Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank, and Haunted Histories: Creepy Castles, Dark Dungeons, and Powerful Palaces by JH Everett, illustrated by Marilyn Scott-Waters.

Summary

For each text, Rothschild gives a brief summary of the concept, explains which audience age-range would find this most appropriate, and notes any positives or flaws she found. For example, in regards to The Mighty Mars Rovers, she notes, “It also does a great job of explaining why this type of exploration is important and why we're so obsessed with studying Mars.” Rothschild also gives credit to the people who provided the book (usually publishers, and sometimes her local library). Other than Haunted Histories, the books she’s focusing on reviewing currently made it on this year's YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Source

I continue to find that going to the blogs actual site rather than just looking at it on Google Reader is preferable if I have the time because the formatting is more interesting, and in this case I can also read Rothschild’s followers’ comments and the links she provides in her sidebar. The source itself is well-organized and easy to read. I like that her blog posts are all the titles of the books she reviews, and in the case of Mondays, “Nonfiction” is added to help me decide which posts I want to read. She seems to read a wide variety of texts, and focuses on those that make honors lists, both traits that are helpful to me as an inexperienced proto-librarian.

Content

Unfortunately I haven’t read enough of the texts myself to know how accurate or unbiased her reviews are, but her followers, many of whom are librarians and teachers, seem to agree with most of her picks (but then they are her followers, aren’t they… J). I do like how she notes how students might perceive the books, and for what purposes those books would be best used. For example, she notes that Haunted Histories is funny and informational, but probably too lighthearted for any student to use in a formal research paper. Not only is this source a great help in student reader advisory, I can see it as a tool for purchasing decisions, as well as a resource for me to use to help teachers find content-related nonfiction that is still as engaging as a fiction novel—especially with that 70% nonfiction focus in Common Core! Her review of Invincible Microbe was persuasive enough to make even the fiction-lover in me want to pick up a copy because she explained how the book tells the stories of the disease and the people it affects.

Side note:

When I logged in to my Google Reader account recently, I was horrified—well, maybe not horrified, but at least dismayed—to read the curt announcement that GR will retire this summer! The “Learn More” link informed me that Google Reader can send me a file of my subscription data, which I can then use to subscribe through “another product”. I was surprised to see that the folks at Google would do this without providing another Google product. I’ve only ever used GR, so I guess I’ll have to find another aggregator.

Journal 7

This week I took the opportunity to get to know my Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/home#!/home)  a little better. 

Rationale:

I just started using this free file-sharing site in January at the suggestion of one of my colleagues, and so far I’ve found it helpful and convenient for my personal use.  However, I’ve never used Dropbox with my students, and before I do so, I should become more of an expert on its features than I currently am.

Pros:

It’s easy and free!  It is also a tool that makes things easier, not more complicated.  That’s because I don’t have to worry about emailing attachments or keeping my flashdrive with me all the time.  All I had to do was make an account and then copy the files I want to access anywhere into my Dropbox folder.   Now on my work and home computers there is a Dropbox icon on my startup menu, and I can get to any file I need.   The best part is that now I don’t have to worry about accidentally using the wrong version of a document that I updated at home but not at school.  I’m using the same document everywhere!

Another thing that makes it easy to used (but I just discovered it in making this blog post) is that there is a tour that new users can take that illuminates the different features.

 “Invite your friends, family and teammates to any folder in your Dropbox, and it'll be as if you saved that folder straight to their computers.”

Cons-

There is limited space on the free account. (But turn that in to a “pro” because  you can earn free space by sharing with friends or following on Facebook or Twitter.) Everyone starts with 500MG, but just by taking the tour and sharing with coworkers, I am up to 2.75GB.

I wish that the online tour was a little more detailed.  There weren’t many things in it that I couldn’t figure out without the tool.  What I still want to know would be the specifics on how to share folders with my students so that they can have full access to some files but read-only access to others, or if

that’s even possible.

Every once in a while, my school’s network doesn’t work very well.  If the file I need is only on Dropbox and not on a hard drive or flash drive, I will be out of luck.  So backing up with some portable storage every so often is probably still a smart idea.

Today’s exploration:

In my attempt to move beyond the basics, I took the short web tour (see “Cons” above), and then rummaged around on the “Sharing” page.  That page was pretty helpful as it explained with screen shots how to share your folders with other Dropbox users.  It also had some hyperlinks to advanced issues should those problems ever arise. 

The only thing I still don’t know is if students can have “read-only” access or not.  Since it’s not mentioned anywhere, I’ll assume that they don’t.  Just to double check, I also looked through the “Privacy” page, to see if there were separate privacy settings for individual files, like there are on Google docs and our network’s shared drive, but that wasn’t an option I saw.

I would use this tool with students (probably high school level) if I were coteaching a with a classroom teacher and the students had to complete any type of group work.  This tool would allow students to share copies of papers with each other and edit them, while eliminating some of the troubles that usually come with group projects like students losing the group’s flash drive.  I could also share instructional documents with the students.

This tool would help students gain digital literacy as it is an easily accessible online tool.  It would help encourage higher-order thinking skills and decision making that comes with truly collaborative group work.  Rather than the burden of typing or coordinating being on one or two students, they could all easily work together.

Journal #6 Professional Reading

After skimming some blog posts on book reviews and primary grade-level topics, I found an entry that caught my eye has a high school teacher.  This one comes from the School Library Journal blog feed. 

Summary
This post entitled "STEM Video Game Challenge Encourages Librarians to Mentor Students" by Lauren Barack was on the SLJ blog called The Digital Shift and was informative and encouraging. Barack reports that for the third year E-Line Media and the Sesame Workshop sponsored the National STEM Video Game Challenge, which awards prizes to middle and high school students who create video games that promote "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)".  This is the first year, though, that librarians were specifically called upon to mentor students via the Challenge's new partnership with the
 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).  The organizers of the challenge see librarians as mentors in learning, and libraries as centers for investigation and discovery, matching perfectly with the aims of the competition.  The article notes previous years' winners, reasons why librarians are valued as mentors, and the potential prizes for winners.

Resource
What better professional reading for a future librarian could there be, besides the School Library Journal blog?  There are many other blogs and resources out there, but SLJ is pretty comprehensive and credible, and I had built up several week's worth of unread entries (which is over 100!).  The list of unread posts on my Google Reader feed was pretty easy to skim to select a few that seemed interesting and applicable.  Most of them were about book reviews by genre, which was a helpful way of organizing entries.  One thing I did not care for was, as I've noticed before, the format of the entries themselves is lacking when viewed through Google Reader, rather than the blog itself.  With this particular post, there were not as many hyperlinks, which surprised me.  But that's an easy fix since I can visit The Digital Shift by clicking on the title of the article once I have it open from the RSS feed.  Another benefit of going straight to the source is that I got a list of suggestions of related articles to read.  One that I really enjoyed was about alternatives to using google, which I posted for everyone in the general discussion forum.  This added content is just one reason why I prefer to read the SLJ blogs rather than subscribe to the magazine, not to mention that it's free!

Content
I found this article very encouraging because it recognized the vital role that school librarians play-- and the people recognizing that vital role, were not just librarians themselves!  The initiative to include librarians in the STEM video game competition seems to have come from the challenge's original sponsors who saught out the help of the IMLS.  These sponsors have some clout in innovative education already, so the fact that they highlighted how important library services are should provide some good PR for librarians, which we need in today's world of budget cuts and the "I'll-just-google-it" attitude.  The article also made it easy for people to get involved, providing a link to the Mentor Resource Kit, which parents, students, teachers, and any adult wanting to be a teacher can find helpful.  The kit provides important dates and multimedia tools to help explain how the process works.  There are even workshops to attend.  Unfortunately, the only "real life" workshops I saw were no where near Illinois.  But I don't think that excludes midwesterners from participating as the online tools should be enough to get kids going.  I would love to see libraries in Illinois taking advantage of this competion. 

I guess it's easy for me to say that librarians should try this since I'm not a librarian myself yet.  If I imagine myself in that situation, I would feel like this could be a scary, daunting task.  My background is in English, afterall, not science!  What if I mess up?  But I think this is one of those times where I have to remember that it's better to try and fail than not to try. Not only would it be great inquiry-based learning with a high engagement factor ("Common Core" anyone?), but what a fabulous way for librarians to further build relationships with students and mark the library as an essential component to all kinds of learning!

Journal #5

This week I decided to explore the Common Craft In Plain English online videos.  I have seen several in different classes, and shown some to students as one model for making their own short films.  However, I'd never gone to the actual Common Craft site before.  I learned plenty.

For those of you who haven't heard of In Plain English videos, they are short films that explain a variety of topics in simple terms.  They use cut-outs that visually represent the ideas, and sometimes they add a spark of humor. 

When I began to investigate the site, I realize that the videos run the gambit of topics, but most are centered around tech: Technology, Social Media, Net Safety, Money, and Society.  So a person can learn the basics of blogs, computer viruses, or even zombies.  Yes--zombies.  Like I said, these people have a sense of humor.

The first thing I learned was that it's not free. Bummer.  There are 3 levels of yearly membership, ranging from $49- $159.  That's a lot for most teachers and schools.  You can still view the films straight from the site without joining, as long as you don't mind ignoring the "For Evaluation Only" plastered across the screen.

These videos would be great for educating faculty and students on so many technology-related topics.  I could see using them at faculty meetings, sending them out via email in response to teacher questions, or adding some to the library website so that students could view some at home.

Because so many of the films are technology-related, I can see using many of them to help the kids develop literacies—especially tool and digital literacies.  For example, I would use some of the films to start discussions on internet safety, privacy, and secure passwords.  There are others that might be helpful in their class assignments, such as how to use wikis and blogs, and how to make websites.

So then I asked myself, how did I view these films before?  Did my teachers really pay for accounts?  Maybe they did.  I'm not accusing anyone of anything here.  But here's what I tried:  I did a Yahoo search for "In Plain English"  and chose the page of video results that appeared.  I'm sure that not all of the videos are here, and they're not organized as neatly as they are on the original site, but HYPOTHETICALLY, if one were to find a film on the Common Craft site, then one could look for it on Yahoo, or similar search engine.  I assume these videos in the search results are posted by people who did pay for the yearly membership and were kind enough to "share."  Again, not that I'm saying I would do anything like that.

Journal #4

This week I read an article titled "The Obsolescence Battle" By Brian Kennedy for the August 2011 issue of School Library Journal. 

Citation:  Kenney, Brian. "The Obsolescence Battle." School Library Journal 57.8 (2011): 7. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.

Summary

Kennedy ponders the many facets of library "obsolescence" from Google to Kindles. He admits that the internet is very useful, but asserts that most Americans understand that libraries can offer more than the net can.  Many library conferences, including ISTE focused on this topic in 2011, and the suggestion was that libraries should be leaders in technology. Kennedy offers three suggestions as to how libraries can accomplish this. 1) Use social media to make sure that your patrons know exactly what the library offers. He cites several popular library blogs as examples.  2) Increase the technology in your library, even in small steps.  Free web tools can help. 3) Purchase e-readers.  Even if you can't buy enough for every patron, at least get a pilot program started.

 

Resource

I found this article using the Milner library database, which was very easy to use. Since I had no particular topic in mind, I did a broad search for "school library" and chose the SLJ from the list of sources that came up because I know it to be a rich source of library-related information, and it is usually pretty easy and entertaining to read.  (I believe it's also on our recommended reading list!)  By viewing the article via Milner's subscription to Ebsco, I can also choose to listen to the article, and I can easily follow the hyperlinks to the sources that Kennedy discusses:

                www.libraryjournal.com/csp/cms/sites/LJ/CoiTimunity/ALA/index.csp; (ALA Conference Page)

            http://readilicious.wikispaces.com (ISTE presentation by Mary Carole Strother about technology and booktalks)

 

I do wish that there were a few more hyperlinks to tools, such as the Unquiet Library Blog, but maybe that's just my own laziness.  I could always google it. :P
 

This particular article jumped out at me because library obsolescence is a topic I discussed with my librarian during my recent Faces of the School Librarian interview.  She doesn't believe that libraries will ever be obsolete, but for different reasons than those that Kennedy cites. 

 

Content
I was inspired by Kennedy's positive view of the topic, one that can sometimes bring a cloud of gloom and doom.  Overall, his suggestion to embrace technology seems right in line with everything that we've been learning in the school librarianship program.  I would have liked a little bit more detail on the three suggestions he offered, but they are enough to get some ideas rolling.  I guess he's aiming to inspire innovation, not just imitation of other libraries.
 

Also, I wondered where he got his information to support his claim that "most Americans now realize that libraries offer a whole lot more than what you can get through a search engine."  Is there a survey, or research, or is this his own anecdotal observation? If I were to use my anecdotal evidence, I would say that most people look at me like a lost cause when I say I want to be a librarian. My own friends laugh and say, "Can't a computer do that?"  A link or two of evidence would come in handy to help dispell my own pessimism.  Overall, though the article was insightful and a recommended read!

Readings: Smorgasboard of information

This week I continued reading my Google reader blog posts, though not all of them… and one of those posts that I did read made me feel a little better about not reading every single entry.  I chose to read through the 8 unread posts from the Blue Skunk Blog because I know that Doug Johnson always has timely and humorous posts about technology and school librarianship.

Summary: This week, teacher-librarian extraordinaire Doug Johnson wrote in his Blue Skunk Blog, asking readers “Is a digital smorgasbord good for you?” In short, the answer was “no.” Johnson cites an NPR interview with Sherry Turkle who discussed some of the pros and cons of omnipresent information and technology, and suggests that it is too soon to know whether or not this digital revolution has improved or hurt our teens. However, Johnson continues his own analysis of the topic and compares today’s information-laden society to the nostalgic all-you-can-eat buffets of his childhood. In both cases, the food/information is cheap and plentiful, sure, but not all of it is truly high quality fare that we should stuff our faces with as often as we sometimes do.

Resource: I’ve read many of Johnson’s posts in the past, some are more helpful than others. For example, it seems like the technology policy at his school is much more lenient and teachers are much more aware of technologies than is the case at my school. I know that if I shared with some of my colleagues his list of 7 things that students can always do with technology in his classroom, it would not be met with a warm reception because it implies that the teacher is not teaching the whole hour. Other posts of his are hyper-intellectual and advocate for radical changes in pedagogy—again they are interesting, but seem to lack some practical applications. I felt like this blog post was a happy medium—it gave my brain a little stretch, something new to think about, but it wasn’t so new and “out there” that I couldn’t relate to it.

Content: The topic for the smorgasbord post truly resonated with me as a teacher, future librarian, and information consumer. I appreciated that he was focusing on quality over quantity. One thing that stood out was that he asked, if every text cost a nickel or every email cost a dime, wouldn’t we be much more discerning about what we sent. Absolutely! That made me realize that I’m not just a victim of information overload, I’m also a perpetrator! He also noted that while in Nairobi he had to pay $13 an hour to use internet, so he was much more selective in what he read online. In his classic self-deprecating style, Johnson ended with a question—if we had to pay to read this post, would we? This one, yes. I’d pay a little bit for his expert opinion. I would not pay for a lot of what I sift through on the net, though. So isn’t my time worth something? Even if I don’t outright pay for the content (directly), shouldn’t I still consider what information is worth the hours in my day? Probably.

I will use this blog, and particularly this post as I try to find the BEST information for my students, teachers, and myself.  I might also use the two analogies (the smorgasbord and paying for each minute of internet)  with other teachers and students in my appeals to them to do more than just "google" it.  Clearly there's a lot of information on google, but let's look at a few high quality resources that can more precisely meet our information needs.

I did listen to the link to the NPR interview with Sherry Turkle, and I found that there are many other broadcasts that relate to relevant librarianship/education issues-- so I would like to explore that rabbit trail in the future.