It's Time to Get Seriously Angry

I've had it.   I could not believe it when I read this article this morning.  Unlike my Facebook page, I really try to keep my political views out of this blog, but what is going on in this country?

So now Illinois is dropping writing from its standardized tests,  apparently following Missouri's example. As we're seeing more and more, what isn't tested, isn't taught.  Fairtest.org claims (and I wish they had some statistics to back this)

In many districts, raising test scores has become the single most important indicator of school improvement. As a result... schools narrow and change the curriculum to match the test. Teachers teach only what is covered on the test. Methods of teaching conform to the multiple-choice format of the tests. Teaching more and more resembles testing.

To say the least, the past year could rank as one of the most depressing times on record to be a teacher and a librarian. While commenting on a library student's blog a few days ago after she linked to one of my posts, I actually caught myself thinking:  "Is she nuts?  Why is she going into librarianship at this point in time?"

We are bombarded on every side as being lazy, ineffectual and money-grubbing, then legislators make decisions crippling out best efforts to improve.

Who in their right mind would think writing,  which lies at the heart of good thinking,  is not important enough to measure?  Even in Horticultural studies, of all things, professors report

Quiz scores increased significantly for the students who completed the reflective writing assignments (average of 16.2 out of 18) compared with students who did not complete the assignments as part of the course (average 10.2 out of 18).

Maybe it's the English teacher in me speaking, but what is more important to who we are as a culture than the ability to write well?  What has shaped our national mindset more than the Declaration of Independence,  Paine's Common Sense, and Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin?

We need to be furious.  More importantly, we need to stop blogging and tweeting and facebooking to hit the streets and make our voices heard.  Blogging and all the rest (including this post!) only preaches to the choir.  I doubt there are many of you out there who seriouly disagree with what I'm saying.

The thing is, what are you doing?  This is the time for action.  It is easy to be frustrated and in despair; it is hard to know exactly what to do.  As educators, we are used to just shutting our doors and getting on with the task at hand.  However, those same doors are now not just shutting us out, they are being slammed in our collective faces as legislators with little or no educational experience tell us how to run things.

So what can you do??  Begin with joining the Save our Schools movement.  If you can't attend the national event, find a local one. Spread the word.  Sign up your friends, your family.  Bombard your state and national legislators with letters, emails and phone calls.

Quite bluntly, it is time to put up or shut up.  If we aren't willing to take the time to turn our words into action, then we probably deserve whatever happens.

Simple Booklets: Good Potential, Not Quite There

I spent the morning playing around with Simple Booklets,  a new (as far as I can tell) 2.0 app.  I love the potential of this app for education.  It allows users to create a variety of multimedia pamphlets, posters and booklets.  Similar to Glogster, but it allows pages.  I think I'll use it for a  quick Destiny tutorial, rather than the video I planned to create.

Here is an example from the playing around I did this morning, just to show some of the features.  Using the now standard drag-and-drop interface,  I was able to embed a website (the blog), as well as a Google form survey (on page 2).  You can also add music, video and widgets, embed code and link with social media.  Cool idea, right? 

There are additional features you can buy with the "Pro" version, which is only $10/year.  Certainly a bargain!



The app is not without problems, however.

1)  I chose a yellow notebook paper background for my booklet.  As you can see, however, it's not showing.

2)  While the app offers both business and education templates,  I couldn't actually edit any of them. It may have been user error, but if so, it was user error that a relatively tech-savvy user couldn't figure out.  Not good.  Moreover, the templates themselves lack in creativity, I must say.  I would discourage students from using them.

3) While the app offers some nifty-looking badges and stickers, the text is not editable.

4)  Either the color of the arrows is stuck at an un-appealing gray, or, again, I could not figure out how to edit the color.

5.  The shadow tool syncs with the bounding box, not the object.  For example, when I added an arrow and wanted to create a shadow effect, the shadow was of the box around the arrow, not the arrow itself.

The only huge issue here is the template problem.  I will certainly use this myself,  and will offer it to students as an option for specific assignments next year.  One hopes future software updates will address some of the issues.

UPDATE: Hmmm. Apparently embedding is also an issue. It shows the first page, but you can't click through to second page. That is a BIG problem. So, really, this app is NOT ready for prime-time.

Content Curation and the Research Story

I am late in jumping on the "curation" bandwagon.  I didn't get it, and thought it was just a trendy, jargon word for what librarians have always done.  Then I ran across a definition (which, unfortunately, I neither bookmarked, nor saved to de.licio.us,  Instapaper,  or Evernote, so cannot find now) that fomented one of those Eureka! moments for me.  Roughly paraphrased:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/umjanedoan/497411169/in/photostream

Collectors do just that: collect.  Curators, however, collect content as the initial stage in telling a story about the material collected (as in the best museums). In other words, curators put what they collect into context.

Wow! That resonated for me because, of course, that is what teachers ask students to do every time they assign a (well-designed!) research project.    And one of our most difficult jobs as information specialists is helping students not just make sense of their findings, but of fitting them into the larger context of the story they're trying to tell.  They may find a great YouTube video on the conflict in the Congo, but what does it add to their presentation on colonialism's aftermath? What nuance does it add to their thesis?  How does it relate to their other sources? Does it detract in any way and, if so, how do they account for it within the context of their overall point or "story"?

These are big, big questions.

Then I ran across this article this morning, describing journalism's own struggle with creating a coherent story from the plethora of info-babble and Twitter feeds.  If journalists--often our students' source--find this difficult, how much harder must it be for a 15-year-old? 

More importantly, how can we guide them in their story-telling without influencing their interpretations, or adding to what is already an over-whelming burden for many of them?


Students as Curators  

First, I think we need to explain their research to them in exactly these terms, including the museum analogy (or any other analogy you think will be relevant for them).    Students need to understand they are not just bookmarking ad nauseum, but trying to create a larger story.

Second, as students work with their sources, we should encourage (require?) them to jot down their ideas on  the source's relevance to their larger research "story."  Nothing as formal and time-consuming as an annotated bibliography, though I think those are a great way of a) forcing students to think more deeply about their source and b) ensuring they've actually read it, and aren't just including it to pad out their Works Cited  (Surely not!). 

While I would love to ask students to do these regularly, they are a lot of work, and I think there would be quite a bit of understandable push-back.  I'm a firm believer in choosing my battles!  It makes more sense to me to just ask them  to write quick ideas on their note-cards (real or digital).

Since many students don't have a clear idea of their thesis during the initial research stages, this would be an ongoing task, and their process in that (not the actual notes themselves) should be part of my assessment of their research.  Moreover, as they share their research notes with me, I would of course  nudge and guide their progress.  It's far more important to work with them during the process, than evaluate them after-the-fact!

iSchool Initiative: The Future is Now

Wes Fryer gave a heads up on this interesting video from Travis Allen and the iSchool Initiative.  This "kid" definitely has the vision of what schools can become if they would smarten up and stop blocking personal technology.  I'm definitely going to have my students watch this in Fall, then we'll brainstorm ways to make this a reality in our classroom.

Of course, the library enters into this with Gale's AccessMyLibrary  (NOTE TO GALE:  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE  MAKE THAT AVAILABLE FOR YOUR INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL CLIENTS!) and Google Apps.  Follett also needs to get on board with this and create an iPhone app for Destiny.  They already have one for Titlewave.  But that doesn't do the students any good!




UPDATE:  Just found an "add your school" link on Gale's database app.  Here's hoping it works for international schools.  I'll let you know! 

Breaking News....

Common Sense Media just (as in,  the email landed in my inbox 3 minutes ago) added 12 lessons on Digital Citizenship to their core of digital literacy classes.
From the email:

Visit Common Sense Media today to get video-rich lessons for high school students on:

• Dealing with digital harassment and online drama
• Protecting their reputation in a digital world
• Exploring their identity
• Sourcing content responsibly
• And more!

With more coming this fall.  Obviously, I haven't had time to look at them yet, but I will do that in the next day or two and report back.

Reader's Theatre: Antigone on Facebook

This Tumblr page from Read caught my eye, as I've been scrounging to come up for ideas for next year's Literacy Week.  I missed the event, but Read ran a sort of reader's theatre a few months ago, re-enacting Much Ado About Nothing through Facebook posts.  Brilliant!

Since I teach an English class next year (and we're reading Antigone), I think (hope!) it will be wildly motivating for them to sponsor a similar event for the school community during Literacy Week. I want students to do as much of the organizing and groundwork as possible, so they buy in to the whole idea, and we'll promote it to the wider school community--secondary students, faculty, parents.

The Premise:

 After reading/discussing Antigone, as a class, with performance in mind, students will rewrite the story in a contemporary setting and adopt a character. Students will work together to create a series of Facebook posts through their characters that develop the Antigone plot and themes.  This storyline will take place over three days, with a day before and after for pre/post theatre introductions and discussions.

If you haven't read it, Antigone deals with themes extremely relevant to today's world:  individual rights vs. the state;  duty to our beliefs vs. duty to the state; what does it mean to be a good citizen?  a good ruler?   And a lot more.  This should create plenty of ideas for discussion during the course of the week.

Preparation:

1. One group of web-savvy students will create an event website, explaining the concept, giving brief biographies of the characters, etc.

2.  Each student will create a Facebook page for their character, complete with likes, photos and other appropriate character development.

3.  As stated above, the class will create a series of posts for each character that develop the plot and themes of  Antigone. They will need to establish an order and strict schedule for when each one will be posted.  This is the framework.  However, once the pre-planned posts are up, other characters are free to comment on those posts, within the context of the play and their character.

4.  Student will also create publicity for the event: A trailer to host on the school website, posters around the school, morning announcements, etc.  

Here's Where it Gets Fun

With each character bio, the  event website will provide a link to invite the school community to "Like" the characters on FB.  They will then be able to follow the ongoing discussion.  More importantly, they will be able to comment themselves and participate in the "theatre."  Characters, in turn, can respond to the audience comments and each other.

Potential Problems:

I can see where it might be difficult to follow the discussion on a Facebook wall.  If I can figure out Tumblr, I'm going to try to create a Tumblr page that will organize the posts more sequentially.  I'm still trying to work that out.

I'm excited about this; I think the kids will love it, and see ways of using technology to do more than share photos from their latest party.  I hope the school community-at-large will participate too.  While I'm sure we'll encounter obstacles, that's part of the learning experience. I want students to take front and center on all the planning, with me there for consultation.

I'd love to hear your feedback/thoughts!

And, of course, as I start working on this, I will post all student handouts, etc.

Sensemaking: The Next Level of Search

I'll be in the air, en route from UlaanBaatar to JFK (hooray!), but details below for a June 21 webinar that sounds intriguing.  Register here.  If you can't attend, the archive will be posted here in a few days.

Title: Sensemaking: The next level of search skills

Sensemaking is what you do when you collect, organize and restructure information to come to some deeper understanding. In essence, it's the process we follow when we research complex historical topics... or when we're buying a refrigerator. I'll talk about ways that people do sensemaking, some best practices and how you can improve your sensemaking behavior.

Speaker: Daniel M. Russell, Ph.D.     Dan is a research scientist in Google's search quality product group. He has done extensive work over the past 15 years in understanding how people make sense of their complex data spaces. His web site (http://goo.gl/NERVh) has a good selection of readings on sensemaking topics.