Getting Their Heads Around "Story"

I'm working with our 11th grade DP students on their extended essays, and we're about to start talking about resource gathering or curation.  I really want to get them thinking about research differently:  not just collecting a bunch of sources, but how it all fits together into a larger story of their own telling.

I've been wondering how I was going to get that concept across to them meaningfully--it took me a while to grasp the ideas behind curation, so how can I expect it of them?--and then I ran across this article.

Basically, it talks about Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart as curators who use their findings to fit the story for their show that day:  just think of Stewart's devastating ability at using video clips to utterly demolish politicians' talking points (which tell one story) and create a counter-narrative.

Bingo!  What a relevant, topical, and pop-cultural way of showing them how good curation works!  It beats me blathering abstractions at them for an hour!

Presentation Zen Handout

ZEN Handout

The Future of School Libraries

School Libraries: What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come,  a free, crowd-sourced e-book edited by Buffy Hamilton.  Available in multiple formats here.

Adding the Zen to PreSENtation

Is that lame?  I'm giving several workshops on Presentation Zen next week for our two PGD days.  I spent 10 hours yesterday putting the slides together (geesh!); tomorrow I'll create the handout, and post that when it's finished.  Slides are below.

I called it Presentation Zen, but I would bet money Garr has that copyrighted, so I'm trying to think of a different title I could use.  Not that he cares what some obscure LMS in Outer Mongolia is doing with his brand, I'm sure!  Should I change the "S" in presentation to a Z?  Am I being completely obsessive?

Enjoy the slides. Sorry I can't make it downloadable. Some of the photos are personal permission, rather than CC, so I can't let it float around.  But feel free to use the text or ideas!

Presentation Zen

Free Screencasting III

By far my most popular--or at least, most searched--post is the one I wrote on free screencasting tools.

While I use Camtasia for my serious screencasts, I still mourn the loss of ScreenToaster, which was a quick and easy tool, and great for students.

It's not new, but Screenr has changed enough that it's time for a re-visit.

Screenr is dead-easy to use.  Just click record, adjust the frame to cover the appropriate area of your screen, then click the red button when you're ready to begin. It also has a Pause feature, which is nice.

You can share the video with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, or download it as an mp4, which means you can then edit it in iMovie or MovieMaker to add titles, screen credits, etc.  Another nice plus.

It does not have the ability to add call outs, which is a shame, or even to make your cursor a bit more noticeable.

Nevertheless, this is a good, simple tool, that would be easy to use with students.  Well worth a try!

I'm In SLJ Next Month!

Just a head's up: I have an article in next month's School Library Journal. In fact, you read it here first! It's a re-write of the posts I did about finding an international teaching position. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to death!

The Research Planner, 2011 Style

I re-designed the Research Planner I use with the kids.  I'm torn on this--the older students tend to ignore it, to be honest.  Which is understandable, I suppose.  I mean, I know I don't sit down and plan out all of those when I am seriously searching.  Do any of you?  So how realistic are we really being in asking them to do this?

On the other hand, I already know all of this, and am able to "do it on the fly," as it were.  Maybe the whole point is to force encourage students to do it enough, that thinking about all of this becomes embedded in their practice.  I'm more insistent/persistent with the middle-schoolers about actually writing down book titles, etc.  With the older students it's more of a reminder:  "Hey, you need to think about this!"  

UPDATE:  It just occurred to me (in one of those "Duh!" kind of moments!), that I uploaded the PDF, which isn't editable, making it hard to change the databases section to reflect your own! If you want to edit the file, use PDF to Word to convert it. Or, if you're a Pages user, just leave your email address in the comments section, and I'll email you the document.

Research Planner