What kind of difference can fifteen minutes make? Yesterday, I was delighted to chat via Skype with David Jakes, Patrick Higgins, John Maklary, Robin Ellis, and Joel Adkins during a workshop for Teacher/Leaders in our district. The theme of our workshop was connections and how teacher leaders in a school help begin epidemics, springing off the idea of [...]
Entries from November 30th, 2007
Going virtual
November 29th, 2007 · 1 Comment · libraries
My role is about to change. After 17 years of being a librarian with a physical library, our library is undergoing a major renovation and we’ll be closing in about two weeks. At that point, we’ll be rooming in with our ninth grade library, and have to navigate a construction zone to work with the [...]
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Managing information
November 26th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Tools
Lee Wilson has an interesting post on managing information overload that has spurred my thinking of late. The premise is that we no longer really have to “save” and “store” information, magazines, etc., because we can look things up easily when we need them if we have good information search strategies. As I’ve been weeding [...]
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Beginner’s mind
November 23rd, 2007 · 4 Comments · Change, Innovation, Teacher Learner
Garr Reynolds writes thought-provokingly on Presentation Zen about the concept of beginner’s mind and how we learn. Reynolds writes: The meaning of the beginner’s mind does not mean to retreat to the naiveté of a child. It is not about being simplistic or ignorant, it is about approaching life and its challenges with curiosity and [...]
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In thanks
November 21st, 2007 · No Comments · Web 2.0
Since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, I’ve been thinking about how we can be more mindful about what we do. So in honor of Thanksgiving, I’m going to share a few sites that allow us to give something back. Enjoy. And thanks for reading. Plenty Magazine — I just have run across the [...]
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Learning with experts
November 20th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Book recommendations, libraries, Web 2.0
Today the library held our first “virtual” author visit via Skype. One of our sophomore English classes, accompanied by teacher Kristy Robins, interviewed children’s and ya author Cynthia Leitich Smith (author of Tantalize and Rain is Not My Indian Name), by means of the text-based chat feature of Skype. The engagement level of the students really illustrated the power of bringing an expert [...]
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Testing carried too far?
November 17th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Future students, Learning
In Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Sir Ken Robinson astutely makes the case that unless we understand the education system that the future demands of us, then our efforts to create testing systems will not prepare us for that future. He points to the increasingly rapid rate of technological change that is [...]
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It’s awards time!
November 17th, 2007 · No Comments · Web 2.0
Time is almost up for nominating your favorite edublogs for the Edublogs “Eddies” for 2007. There are lots of categories of blogs to choose from, from new blogs, to teacher blogs, to library blogs, as well as a nomination for your favorite blog post of 2007. The deadline is November 21st, so time is [...]
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How long does it have to be?
November 14th, 2007 · 8 Comments · Design, Student projects
Probably one of the most frequently asked classroom and library questions about a project, paper, or even when a student is asked to check out book is–”How long does it have to be?” There are lots of things embedded in that question that bother me. First off, there is the notion kids have that [...]
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Lessons learned?
November 13th, 2007 · 8 Comments · Student projects, Teacher Learner
At our campus we’ve been working on a professional development strand on student voices, and as I wrote about recently, held student panels in order to get feedback from our student body. One thing I learned during the session is that our students, too, are suffering from information overload and we need to be providing [...]
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