Not So Distant Future

Kim Cofino twittered a link for her excellent presentations for the TeachIt! conference this morning, which reminded me that I hadn’t ever shared my presentation from the Internet Librarian session I did on Web 2.0 tools that librarians could share with their administrators.

So in the interest of sharing resources, here are my slides:

[slideshare id=144623&doc=il2007-1193251903222853-4&w=425]

Several administrators, including one of our own, as well as Patrick Higgins and Dennis Richards, sent greetings for the participants in VoiceThread to open the session.

Other things I shared which aren’t in the slides–

• The Podcasting principal’s two part podcast series on tools administrators could use effectively (this is so effective since it’s a principal speaking to principals)
• A still classic conversation among administrators about blogging from G-Town talks
• A pageflakes site I set up for our campus and administrators on 21st century learning
• link to CASTLE site for school leadership

Administrators often hold the “key” to resources–financial resources, filtering rules, student guidelines for web 2.0 use, etc.   By showing administrators how these tools can be used to make their campus more efficient, and to create better communication and transparency with the learning community, we can move the discussion forward.

Why do librarians have a role in that?  We want our students to be able to use the tools effectively, to be information literate.  Administrators don’t need to understand every tool’s capability, but for the school to have a supportive climate for thinking outside of the box and bringing innovative practices to the classroom, administrative support is a critical component.

Too often, we discover innovative tools, only to find them blocked or deemed not appropriate after the fact.  If we are “on the same page” with our administrative team about the possibilities and curricular uses of technology, then it smooths the way for using these tools.  

As a curricular leader, the librarian has a strong role in working with administrators both at the campus and district levels to share awareness of how these tools support instruction.   Sharing our successes, meeting with administrators to share new tools with them particularly related to library instruction, setting up sites for the administrator, inviting administrators to attend key conferences, and initiating meetings to better communicate about obstacles are all ways that librarians can work hand in hand with technology departments and administrators.

I also think another responsibility we have is to go to where administrators are: presenting at administrative conferences, writing articles for administrative periodicals, or posting on administrative blogs are all ways we can help further a deeper mutual understanding of our roles on a campus.

Recently, David Warlick had been exploring metaphors for the library, and has posited that librarians are like viruses,  “infecting their schools with the desire to evolve.”   While I think that is an interesting metaphor, I’m not sure I want to be a virus

I had been thinking that the library is like a heart, permeating the body (school)with life giving substance, or that libraries are like the air, because with the internet, the library is everywhere, all the time, wherever you are.

In his inspiring article, “Playing with Legos in the Sandbox and other uses for  a library,” in the November issue of Library Media Connection(unfortunately the article is not online)  librarian Bob Hassett eloquently describes  the who, what when, where, why and how of the 21st century library.

He envisions the library as a sandbox, writing:

“The Library is a space where friends and strangers come together in community, to try things out and play with things and smash things together….”  

He reminds readers of Paul Miller’s talk at Computers in Libraries last year, where he talked about a library system being like a lego–you don’t have to build the model pictured on the box, but can experiment and design your own.

Hassett writes, “This is a…description of how real people really use information. My experience tells me that it’s truer of young people than grown-ups.  In a real sense, they build and create with it.  They play with it.”

So where is the library?  I love that Hassett pulls my favorite metaphor–that the library is everywhere, and that we as librarians have to be where our information users are.

And who is the library, according to Hassett?  He tells the teachers, “You are.”   And when is the library, Hassert asks?   His answer, ”All the time.”

As Hassert writes, we cannot limit what the library does to the four walls of the library–literacy, reading, information gathering–should be and are things all of us do all the time.  So our role as librarians is to reach out to our patrons, students and teachers alike–offer them resources, assistance, inspiration, collaboration, and provide in our physical spaces a place to play, explore, talk, collaborate, experiment, and create.   

So is our job to provide a learning sandbox for the school?  What do you think?

(disappointing to say that this article isn’t full text online yet–check your professional databases in a few weeks!)

Our campus staff development started its second strand last week–centered around the theme of authentic student engagement.  (Our staff development period is built into the school day once each week).

  To begin the series, we on the staff development committee decided to invite panels of students to speak to our staff about how they learn best, their interests, and obstacles to learning.  We met with students ahead of time and gave them a framework of questions to work from, like how  they learn best, what are obstacles to learning, etc.

Over two days, rotating panels of four students spoke to the faculty in small groups, with time for question and answer from teachers.

It was a fascinating and engaging exchange–both for the teachers and the students.   The panels had a consensus on some things–like preferring hands-on learning or participatory lectures or group work, while not on others (some thought they should have iPods in class, others didn’t.)  Students overwhelming preferred to have quiet music playing in class–saying it helped them focus.  As one student commented, silence is uncomfortable, so students start talking–the music helps “fill the void.”

They also had very specific advice about what makes group work better(smaller groups particularly–no more than 4 to a group and almost all of them preferred working in pairs).  

The meaningfulness and length of homework was a big topic of conversation as well, with some students reporting as much as five hours a night of homework.   One student pointed out that past two hours of homework, she really wasn’t learning because she was too tired.    Others commented that they found it really valuable to have teacher websites where they could get help or download materials.   All of them felt that homework was most valuable when it was meaningful and concise, and several mentioned finding online assignments very motivating.

We learned that students at our high school have study groups on Facebook for Spanish and Latin, among other things.  We learned that they find powerpoint meaningless and overused–one student pointed out that ‘You can make a powerpoint without even knowing the topic.’   So they were interested in using a larger variety of media and in having choices in what projects they did.  They liked the idea of choice and “feeling like they are in charge for a second.”

One student suggested that when projects tap into his own passions, they become much more meaningful for him. 

Students also liked teachers who shared their passions, and teachers who engaged them personally in some way.  As one student pointed out, ‘When I know my teacher cares about me, it’s really hard to let them down.’   The power of relationship was a really significant part of the comments students made, and how significant that was to their learning.

We’ve summarized the student responses in a Google Document .  

This week in our staff development workshop, our tech coordinator, Joel Adkins, will be showing teachers websites that students use–particularly Facebook–so that we all have a better understanding of the tools that are important in their lives, and we’ll be discussing what the takeaways from the student panels were.

Joel is sharing part of an excellent powerpoint by Mary Madden (created for librarians, coincidentally ;)) about the Pew Internet Study and teen use of the internet.  

So the question becomes, how can we incorporate what they are telling us (and showing us) into our teaching/libraries/labs/schools?  

In a tremendously insightful post, educational consultant Lee Wilson recommends ten strategies that publishers should consider to harness the power of web 2.0 (and to preserve their businesses I might add).

As these tools become more and more integral to educators, textbook(and reference book) publishers will have to transform themselves into more accessible media.

Some of Lee’s suggestions for ways textbook providers can incorporate web 2.0 thinking :

Network your learners - Often we treat collaboration as cheating - but in a world of Facebook and Twitter we have no choice but to harness it. Encourage people working on the same problem to find each other through virtual study groups, student written FAQs, and peer-tutoring. Imagine a system that could help students working on the same problem all over the world find each other on any given evening.

He even suggests the idea of incorporating “guilds” from the gaming world–groups of students who work with each other through the textbooks’ site to solve problems.  Imagine how much more motivating that would be to students than reading the typical print textbook.

Other innovative suggestions:

Build RSS into your products - Proactively deliver a steady stream of new content to users.

Teachers and librarians are extremely busy.  Wouldn’t it be excellent if textbook or reference publishers offered RSS feeds that updated the textbook constantly and kept you in touch with the latest resources?  

And my favorite idea from the article:

Build a two way street - . . . . Allow students and teachers to send you resources that they create or find as they work with your materials. Reward and recognize them for this - make it a competition and you will harness the power of user generated content.

Just thinking about a textbook service that invited students to add/generate content to place on their textbook site is fascinating.  What about reference books or fictional novels inviting kids to do the same thing?

Lee’s whole series on managing information overload is fascinating, and has some really out of the box thinking–like we shouldn’t “store” sites we might need later because it’s so easy to look everything up when we need it, etc.   Well worth the read.

(I do have to mention –Lee is a now a parent at our campus and is a new member of our technology committee.)

   Bob Witowski at our campus has just received a coveted “Kudos from Drape” award from Darren Draper (who created the Pay Attention video, if you’re not familiar with his work) for Bob’s experiment using cell phones in his Algebra classroom.

 We’re mixed in with some pretty good company getting this award, so big congratulations Bob, and thanks to Darren for the recognition!

We all seek community–it’s human nature. We form communities within our departments at school, or with other like-minded staff, while students form them around clubs, activities, or even Facebook, MySpace, gaming, etc.

When we talk to teachers about the power of virtual communities or networking, I’m not sure it’s one of those things that really resonates with them because they haven’t experienced it in a more virtual way.

This is one area where I think the landscape of our students is really different. A large percentage of them are accustomed to interacting with others they have never met, via instant messaging, Facebook, YouTube, gaming sites, etc. Students that do that “get” the power of networking online, and in fact, to them, it may even become routine to communicate with other people around the world.

Teachers who have used Classroom Ning and gotten an answer, or emailed a school overseas and gotten a response, or posted on a blog, and the blog author emailed them–those teachers have a sense of the thrill that it brings when someone outside your circle of influence responds.

But it poses difficulty when we talk with teachers about the power of the network and they haven’t experienced it–because for one thing, teachers do have their own “in building” networks that they rely on, and also, there’s the logistical issue. What if you want a network? How do you get one? You can’t just sign up for it (except maybe in Ning?). It is something you have to build.

And why do you build it? Because you have a need, or an interest to share, or you want to discuss something, or you really enjoy the thrill of learning something totally new and outside your comfort zone?

While attending Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s session on Virtual Learning Communities at TechForum, that hit home. Over the last year and a half, I realized I have built a learning community, and at TechForum, I got to meet some of them in person for the first time(David Jakes, Wes Fryer, Sheryl Nussbaum Beach and Miguel Guhlin), and that was a thrill. I also met people who have my blog in their learning network(hi Randy Rogers), much to my surprise, or people who were following my blog (hi Wendy Jones!) who I knew once but had lost touch with for awhile, and some whose blogs I read, but didn’t know what they looked like(hi 2TechChicks!)

So, how do you build a learning community?

That seems like a very practical question we have to explore with teachers or with students if we are talking about learning networks.

So, here are some ways to build a learning network if you want one:

1. Read a few blogs. Pick four blogs. Read them, and make a comment fairly often. Part of the idea here is conversation with others.

2. Create your own site that people can visit. A blog, a wiki, a website–so when you post on their blog, they can see who you are, and what your work or interests are.

3. Join a network, like Classroom 2.0 Ning, or Global Education Ning or Teacher Librarian Ning or Librarian 2.0 Ning. It’s a great way to find out projects other people are starting and join them. Those are also great places to post a question or to ask someone to join a project you want to do.

4. Join a network that has to do with your outside interests–visit a knitting blog or a football blog or a travel blog and post comments there.

5. Join a site like Twitter. The thing about twitter is–you can’t just join it and sit there if you want to get the power of it. Join Twitter, search for 4 twittees that are educators, librarians, biology teachers–whatever your area of interest is. Or pick names you recognize from blogs. (There is a search box in the twitter page.) Click on the “find and and invite” button. It may feel strange at first to invite people you don’t know at all to network with you, but it’s a first step. And if you don’t like it, you can always uninvite someone.

6. If you join twitter, you have to post to it once in awhile. You can post links to a good website, briefly describe a library project you are doing, etc.

7. Attend small conferences. Smaller conferences are a good way to meet and network with people that share your interests. After the conference, make it a point to contact one person you met and exchange an idea.

8. Join a site like Facebook–if you are a librarian, look for libraries on Facebook. Great way to see what students use and also meet people.

Notice the common thread here in all of these is that you have to “put something out there” to get something back of value. But that’s how all of our relationships are–they are two way.

Why do any of this in the first place? Because as Wes Fryer pointed out in his keynote address at TechForum, increasingly this is how our students are learning. He shared his recent trip to Shanghai, and the growth of business there, and how for some corporations like HP, over half their workforce is now overseas. His children are growing up in a world where international digital tools are NOT an option; if they’re going to need to collaborate on a daily basis they need the tools.

The recent National School Board Association report, as Randy Rodgers shares, and as Wes shared in his session, points out that a staggering 71% of our students use social networking weekly. (Alan Levine has been following college student use of Facebook , which is higher than 88%, and has an interesting white paper tracing his findings.)

The point is–we don’t have to “become” our students, which I think sometimes people think we are asking them to do. But we do need to understand how they are learning 24/7, and we do need to understand the idea of a network, and the best way to realize that is to discover its power for ourselves.

Other ideas for helping teachers/students build a learning network?  Please share!

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benedikte/1541939938/

As I come away from Internet Librarian and try to pull together a thread running throughout the conference, I would say it is this:

Web 2.0 is here to stay, but we must be cognizant of our users, whether they are “library patrons” or students or teachers. This theme has been running around the blogs recently as well.

Sarah Palmer, a librarian at the American Bar Association, did an excellent presentation on suggestions for how to introduce users to web 2.0 tools. Since she works with attorneys, she pointed out the confusion that business professionals have about web 2.0 tools (I would say this is true of educators as well). They associate the tools with frivolous fun—like social networking becomes “MySpace” instead of a tool to help attorneys or educators find other colleagues and assistance for developing their own knowledge.

She comments that the often “jargony” terminology, RSS being a prime example, is a barrier for new or casual technology users as well, yet it is a tool that can be extremely powerful for those who need to keep up to date in their field.

Couple this with the fact that according to the Pew Internet survey that Lee Rainey shared in his session, as many as 25% of adults are mildly or not at all interested in technology use, and 50% are in the mild user category. So this begs the question, how do we address this as librarians/tech educators/teachers? Because the more serious users are younger, and eventually these numbers will change—so we want to be preparing our students, because 75% of teens are creating some sort of online content already.

One big draw for busy professionals is showing them how it increases their efficiency. But the tool has to be easy enough to use, so you have to start with something that is easy.

Another issue that Mary Ann Bell pointed out in her presentation on blogging is to be sure you show the safety as well as simplicity and value when introducing tools to educators.

In her presentation on digital literacies, Pam Berger talked about one of the biggest obstacles that we face in working with new technology users, what Marc Prensky identifies as “navigational literacy.” Many, not all, of our students have the ability to easily navigate technology, because they understand it’s “geography” so to speak. But for many of our teachers, it is truly like driving in a foreign country—they are on the wrong side of the road and it feels awkward and uncomfortable.

As we struggle with successful ways to bring these tools into our classrooms and libraries, and how to help teachers with them, we have to keep in mind these factors.
As David Warlick points out, we have to work with the students we have(and with our own navigational skills), both the K-12 students, but also the teacher-learners, so we need to address both groups of learners “where they live.”