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.

A snapshot from the two workshops I taught yesterday–

We spent the morning talking about wikis.  We discussed how the ability to collaboratively write, arrange the page, and edit gives students more of a voice.  Another subject that came up was the idea of how the collaborative writing gives students an opportunity to practice their negotiating skills as they come to agreement on content on a project.

One advantage we saw with wikis is that because they are available 24/7, it eliminates some of the problems with collaborative projects, like students trying to get together in person.  We also talked about the value in the business world of research being a joint effort, instead of an isolated one.    Then we moved into the practical stages of creating wikis and all the participants created their own on either pbwiki or wetpaint.

In the afternoon, I taught a workshop on podcasting.  This is the first time I have taught this to a class this varied–we had K-12 teachers, including foreign language, special education, speech, gifted-talented, and  librarians.   So it gave us all an interesting perspective on ideas for using podcasts in the classroom.  We explored places to find podcasts, using iTunes, listened to a few examples like Tech Chick Tips, and then explored various ways to record them.

The elementary teachers had a lot of ideas for using the digital recorders to integrate student audio into movie maker, a museum project, to create jingles for advertising or remembering vocabulary, and on and on. 

Our special education teachers had some innovative ideas for using podcasting with dyslexic students, and also as a tool to help them with their own software.  The foreign language teachers were looking more for podcasts that used the native languages, rather than podcasts that teach the language, so I’m planning to try to locate some French and Spanish news podcasts for them.  

As a culminating activity, the attendees formed groups and each group created their own podcast on potential uses they saw for podcasting with students.  So here are their ideas in their own words in their very first podcasts! 

podcast_carol_lorrie.mp3   Carol and Lorrie

podcast uses.mp3   Susannah, Ruth, and Donna

RhoniMacFinal.mp3 Rhoni & Mac McClennahan

Anne and Linda’s podcast.mp3    Ann and Linda

librarians.mp3   Kathy, Linda, and Shannon

(One of them won’t upload properly so you can see all of them at the bottom of the wiki site we used for the class, as well as the tools that we used for the day.)

Congratulations to our budding podcasters!

  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….