“I remember thinking that the textbook, however it manifest itself, should become a meeting place, where students come and discuss, right there at the content.” — David Warlick I ran across David Warlick’s comment about textbooks in a post today, and it resonated because I’m teaching a workshop tomorrow for our staff on how to [...]
Entries from March 30th, 2008
The “Frude” problem
March 29th, 2008 · 3 Comments · libraries, Research
I failed some teachers the other day. I failed to recognize a potential problem ahead of time and didn’t dedicate my best practices towards resolving it. After the fact, I realized it was a difficulty I see with research assignments fairly often. (Even when I do recognize the difficulty ahead of time, it’s not always something I [...]
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A ubiquitous tool–pros and cons
March 25th, 2008 · 8 Comments · Tools, Web 2.0
Skype seems to be the tool of choice for creating more global connections for educators. It’s excellent for quickly contacting experts in other school districts, for joining in workshops as a guest speaker, for coordinating plans between presenters who live in different cities, and for coordinating global education projects, etc. But some school districts have [...]
Tags:skype
Listening to customers?
March 23rd, 2008 · 1 Comment · libraries
In their book, Innovation, Carlson and Wilmot remind us “customers aren’t virtual.” They remind us of the importance of watching customers use a product, rather than just asking them about them. As they point out, “The sooner you get out and interact with customers, the better. They will give you critical information about the marketplace [...]
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What changes we face
March 21st, 2008 · 4 Comments · Research, Web 2.0
How are libraries changing? Well, since my library is in boxes, it’s a question I think about a lot. Today a teacher across the street emailed me (and then Skyped) a reference question, which I knew was in a book that we had packed. So, like an intrepid journalist, I followed up online, checked many [...]
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Do our systems support our goals?
March 17th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Change, Collaboration, Staff development
In their book Innovation, Curtis Carlson and William Wilmot talk about the difficulty many organizations have with adapting to change. They point out, “A fundamental reason for this failure…to keep up is that they are, by definition, built to fight the last war. . . . They have well-defined organizations and processes designed to achieve those earlier objectives, [...]
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Who do we serve?
March 15th, 2008 · No Comments · Change, Innovation
“You gotta serve somebody….” Bob Dylan Who do we actually serve in our schools and who should we be serving? What changes in our thinking when we apply the notion of customer service to the school environment? In their book Innovation: Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, Curtis Carlson and Wililam Wilmot raise three central questions [...]
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Son of Flubber
March 9th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Change
How do we support innovation in our schools? In 1963, Fred MacMurray, in the film Son of Flubber tells us in a dramatic courtroom speech what we should do. He tells us that we are living in a time of fear….fear of smog, fear of bombs, fear of bugs, fear of falling hair. When asked [...]
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Can third graders change the world?
March 6th, 2008 · No Comments · Web 2.0
“It’s my responsibility to see the change I want. I can’t just sit around and wait for others to change it.” Meghan G. The Many Voices of Darfur Project is asking for your students’ comments during the next two days on their blog to raise awareness of genocide in Darfur. The project, if you’re not familiar [...]
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Meme: Passion Quilt
March 3rd, 2008 · No Comments · Uncategorized
“In our youth our hearts were touched with fire” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) What are you passionate about? That’s the key to the “passion quilt meme.” The idea is to pick a photo from Flickr (or take a photo) that reflects what you feel passionately about regarding your students. At a recent Austin citywide art [...]
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Flickr/whslibrary
Twitter/technolibrary
YouTube/whslibrary
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