Not So Distant Future

  Earlier this week Joel (our tech coordinator) and I did one of our weekly “Project Technology” workshops for staff on using iTunes and iPods in the classroom.

Through the generosity of our PTO, we’ve bought six nanos to bring iPod technology into the school for staff and students to use.   The workshop went really well, and one of the best things about it was sharing with teachers how iTunes could be used in the classroom to share free podcasts and video podcasts with students, since all of our teachers’ classrooms are equipped with projectors.

We explored a number of helpful podcasts that could be used at the beginning of class, like the Princeton Review vocabulary song of the day podcast, or some that could become the lesson, like some of the CNET video podcasts or French Ecole podcasts.  While they are available elsewhere on the web, iTunes collects many of the education podcasts in one handy location for easy browsing.   In fact, it was one of those workshops where people didn’t want to leave when time was up, which is always an exciting moment.

Ironically, today Cnn.com featured an article, “Schools Say iPods Becoming Tools for Cheating,” (thanks to David Farhie for sharing it) about how some students may be using iPods themselves for cheating.   Not surprising, I suppose, since almost any technology tool can be used in both positive and negative ways.

The part of the article that most interested me, though, was a quote by Tim Dodd, of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, who points out that “trying to fight the technology without a dialogue on values and expectations is a losing battle.”

The issue here is instilling in our students a sense of academic integrity.   I believe it will get more and more difficult to “wall out” the technology as devices get smaller and smaller.   We need to create tests and assignments that are difficult to just “download” the answer to, and we need to talk frequently and honestly with students about their ethics and integrity on many technology related issues.   I’m not pollyanish enough to believe that is a cure, but I do believe it is important to have meaningful classroom relationships with our students, and an environment in our classrooms where cheating isn’t acceptable to students either.  

I also agree with Tim Dodd, that iPods have many invaluable and productive uses for the classroom, as does the content on iTunes.

So here’s to some teachers willing to play with a new tool many of their students are already using!

Update 4/30:   I just saw a fascinating list of “Ten unexpected uses for an iPod” that the blog Assorted Stuff pointed to today.  Really interesting real life uses….

 Jott is a very handy new tool that combines the best of text messages, cell phones and email that I found out about from a post by principal Tim Lauer on Technology and Learning’s blog.

Ever in the car and remember something you need to do?  Can’t find a pencil (plus you are driving?)  Call the Jott phone number and record a message that gets emailed to yourself.  Want to notify a group that you are running late for a meeting?  Call the Jott number and record your message, which can be texted and emailed to the group.

One of our teachers, Constance Hanselka, has already used Jott to send messages to a small group of her students about preparing for a class assignment.  I used it this weekend from the bookstore to send myself a list of books I wanted to order for the library because I didn’t have a pen with me.

Once you create an account, Jott allows you to add your contacts and set up groups that you communicate with frequently.  When you want to send a message, you can do it from Jott.com, or if you are mobile, you can call the Jott number, and send a message from your phone to your group.

The email that arrives transcribes your message, but just in case it’s not a clear message, it also sends a audio player that plays your actual message for the recipient.

The response from tech support is quick(it may not work with every phone service), and the service itself is incredibly easy to set up and use.

I find it easier than trying to type out a long text message to myself(like a list of book titles) and having it stored in my email for later reference is also a very helpful feature.  This is the type of web 2.0 tool I love–it improves my “workflow” and is easy to use.

Tomorrow I’m meeting with the architects to work on our new library design.  I’m starting to feel a little anxious as we move out of the imagination stage and into the design going on paper stage.  This project is one I have been envisioning for so long, yet it’s kind of daunting to actually think about the entire space being gutted and redesigned.

I’ve been trying to guide the design with the principles of web 2.0, of a collaborative, student oriented space,  and also “future proof” our space as much as possible.  Tonight I was reading a fascinating article on the Design Share website by Chris Lehmann of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia about the process he went through as principal in designing a “School 2.0″ space at SLA.

I love the question he poses:

• What happens when a design idea becomes an educational idea?

He concludes that the design of the building can and should serve the pedagogy, but comments:

“What was frightening to me was, even with that idea in hand and a lot of experience with progressive curricular design, I had little idea how to make that idea come to life in the physical spaces of the building.”

I’m thankful for discovering this article tonight because I am also feeling the panic and fear he mentions in it;  I know the decisions we make for the library will be part of our campus and part of how the space “works” for the school for a very long time.

But it’s reassuring to read that creating a building with an end in mind facilitated the decisions they made along the way, and that the space is serving their campus well.  

I really want our library to be a space for teachers and students alike, a learning hub, a web 2.0 type space where all of us are contributors to the space, not just the library staff.

Chris shared some very helpful mission-oriented questions, many of them ones I have already been considering all year as we’ve been moving through planning the library.

“What is the educational mission of your school?

How can the spaces in the building contribute to that mission?

How flexible and adaptable are your spaces?

How do your spaces support student-centered learning?

How will all the members of your community use 21st Century technology tools, and how does your building support their use?

How can you create spaces that will allow all members of your community to collaborate?

How can you create spaces that allow all members of your community to feel ownership?

How can you build spaces that others may interpret differently than you and find new uses for?”

I’m planning to share the various versions of the floorplans with staff on campus and open up the discussion here as well for ideas or feedback, as we move closer to our “brick and mortar” plans.

And I also feel thankful as I do so many times for the way blogging has made schools and our processes so much more transparent so that we can learn from one another, share with one another and support one another.   Thanks to Chris and Design Share for the article.

Create a 30 second to 2 minute creative video  “professing a deep, abiding love of libraries, librarians and those who depend on them”  and enter to win $10,000 in Thomson Gale’s “I love my library” contest.   Students, teachers, public library patrons and librarians can participate!

Videos will be uploaded to a YouTube group (Librareo)and the five finalists will be up for a vote in June.  More details on how to enter here (click past the opening screen) and here at School Library Journal – the deadline is May 25. 

The winner will get $10,000–half as a prize, and half to go to the library of their choice.

How much do you love your library? 

  Happy Earth Day!   Wangari Maathai, who instituted one of my favorite “green” projects, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, has a new book, Unbowed, about her experiences as a tree planting project turned into a democratic movement in her country.

 I first learned about her efforts from the film, Nobelity Project, which is the inspiration of Austin author Turk Pipkin and his wife, producer Christy Pipkin, who traveled the world (with their school age daughters) interviewing Nobel Prize winners about their recommendations and hopes for the future.  The film is fascinating.

As Desmond Tutu points out in the film,

“The sea is actually made up of drops of water. What you do, where you are, is of significance.”

   The film is available to schools–teachers can either purchase one if they have funds (which also pays for another school without funds to receive one free), or request a free dvd if they do not have funds.

Pipkin is working on a followup to the film, entitled “One Peace at a Time,” inspired by what he learned from the Nobel winners.

What both of these projects remind me of is the question I highlighted in Doug Johnson’s post yesterday.  What one small thing can each of us do to make a difference?

Happy Earth Day!

Doug Johnson at the Blue Skunk blog has re-posted a heartfelt commentary that he wrote after a devastating school shooting in Minnesota two years ago.  In “The Need for Community” he comments:

“In our efforts to improve our schools and reduce school expenditures, extra-curricular activities are often first on the chopping block. Politicians and taxpayers see music, arts and athletics as superfluous. The “basics” are reading, writing, math and other purely classroom pursuits. Guidance counselors, teacher-librarians, coaches and club sponsors are nice extras only tangentially related to the real purpose of school. . . .”

Although those types of cuts don’t happen at every school, his points are still excellent ones.   All the pieces in a school that socially support our students are vitally important.

At lunch Friday, a group of us were talking informally about how we could help prevent students from slipping through the cracks. We talked about students that we need to help find a place for and what programs we  have or could implement to help with that.   I know that somber conversations like this are happening at schools and colleges across the country.

Johnson goes on to personalize this to library/technology programs:

“How many of us as teacher-librarians or technology coordinators make a conscious effort to create “communities” for our own students, especially for those kids who do not seem to have much success with the traditional organizations. . . .You never know what one thing may make a difference.”

He points out that libraries and technology programs often provide a niche for those students who may not find one somewhere else.  And while I do think libraries are pretty good at providing a sense of place for students, there is always room to do much more.

So along with Doug, I join in asking–what one small thing can each of us do?  It might be the one thing that makes a difference.

My first one small thing?–I’ve decided to open up an extra little office we have on Fridays for students in the computer club to come in and play video games.

What’s yours?

I’m presenting a session at TASSP(Texas Association of Secondary School Principals) this June on how web 2.0 tools can be helpful to administrators.  My main focus will be on how blogs and wikis are tools that can be helpful in working with faculty, parents, and other administrators or committees as well. 

So, I’m interested in finding out from  administrators (on my campus or elsewhere) any web 2.0 tools that you have found useful–things like blogs or wikis, or Pageflakes and RSS feed in general,  or other tools (or even gadgets) that I haven’t mentioned here.

I know a few of my readers are actually principals or  administrators who blog, and so I think it would be a great addition to my presentation to have your comments, tips, or suggestions to share.

Thanks in advance.  The presentation will be shared on a site at TASSP after the conference.

A followup on our library displays for National Library week–following a web 2.0 philosophy, we set up a blank table in the library during National Library week and asked students to contribute their favorite books to the table along with writing their recommendation of the books.  Here are a few photos of the display they are creating.

Many of us in public schools are very aware of the events of the last few days in Virginia, and I know there is already talk in the blogosphere and media about how students there used many web 2.0 tools to communicate both during and since the crisis.   My colleague, Joel, had an interesting followup on Monday night about that, which led me to create an account on Facebook to see what students were doing there.

The more I have looked there and at YouTube, I’ve marveled at how students and nonstudents alike have used these tools as well as blogs to communicate their feelings of support for Virginia Tech, as well as to express their dismay and opinions.

But the other important factor I think that we in schools should be aware of, beyond marveling about the tools students are already naturally employing to communicate, is that students across the  nation and world are able to participate in this experience in a much more personal way than they ever could before.

They can witness firsthand comments on Facebook, people searching for their loved ones a couple of days ago, videos that have been posted, blog comments, and can interact easily online with people who were there.

As one example, here is a YouTube video tribute that has had 1400 views.  If you look at the Most Viewed videos today on YouTube, 50% of them are about Virginia Tech.    The most viewed one has over 600,000 views.

I just bring this up as a note of concern for our high school students.  As educators we should be aware that our students may be interacting with these events in a much more personal way than in the past. 

Since some of these sites are blocked in some schools, school campuses may not be that aware of how involved their students are on those sites.   So I do think it’s helpful for us as educators to be conscious of the different levels of interaction available to our students when a crisis like this occurs, talk to students about “crisis overload,” and to take time to look at the content out there that they may be interacting with.

Update to this post:  The WashingtonPost has an excellent article following up on the outpouring on Facebook.

   Today some students on our campus are observing the National Day of Silence in support of our student Gay-Straight Alliance. 

What can we as educators do?   Check here for a list of ideas on ways to support students.