LibraryRemix

• Yeah… All my kids can drive now. My career as Chauffer is over! #
• RT @kellybrannock Duncan: K-12 schools and colleges need to work together http://sbne.ws/r/5aO6 #
• RT @esolcourses Zingaya – make voice calls from websites, without a phone: http://su.pr/2tfhEs #
• RT @TheLiB The new Outlook's cross-integration with Facebook will further blur the lines between personal & professional at work. #
• RT @ErinWalk Authors for Libraries http://bit.ly/at4wze #
• RT @billba http://www.unshelved.com I can relate to this…staff down from 7 to 3 in 3 years time #
• RT @Open_media Cloud Control – Pew survey: Our data is headed to the cloud [11Jun10] http://amplify.com/u/76cp #
• RT @Open_media Gimme Badges – HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business [13Jul10] http://amplify.com/u/7vlr #
• Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business [13Jul10] http://amplify.com/u/7vlr NOW…rethink with schools. #
• RT @Open_media Story Shopping – RFID tags used to attach stories to donated goods at charity .. http://amplify.com/u/7vly #
• RT @Open_media Scale Tipping – The Secret of Change Management [12Jul10] http://amplify.com/u/7tcr #
• RT @Open_media Global Voices – International Blogging Projects [18Jul10] http://amplify.com/u/7uom #
• Can we apply these trends to school lib services? Teen Social Media Trends that Can Be Applied to Small Business http://bit.ly/cjbRzt #

I enjoyed participating in an online interactive interview with author James Bach on Self-Education and Passion held this evening and hosted by FutureofEducation.com.  Bach is the son of author Richard Bach who penned Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the first book I read that encouraged independent and critical thinking.  James dropped out of high school and has gone on to build an impressive career in the software world, self-education.  He supported his own son’s decision to leave formal education at the age of twelve, choosing to facilitate his son’s learning as interests in subjects and topics arise.

Bach’s ideas are radical, to be sure.  Many educators will cringe at the ideas of unschooling heralded by self-made individuals such as Bach.  As a librarian, I don’t find it such a stretch.  I strive to provide students  with an IDEA lab…a place where they can explore and learn what and through those subjects/ideas that draw them.  There are lots of people who agree.  Check out SelfMadeScholar, a blog dedicated to these concepts.

Two puzzles are continuing to rattle around…things I’ll need to think more about.

1.  Many of the individuals who associate themselves with unschooling actually promote it through the institutionalized concept of “home-schooling.”  It seems to me that doing so not only appears a bit converse to their own concept (why use the work schooling at all?) but also pairs these learning revolutionaries with others whose opposition to public schools is founded in very different ideals…fear that public schools are not strict, not structured enough.  Strange marriage.  Read more... (346 words, 1 image, estimated 1:23 minutes reading time)

• Leaving the island always aches #

• Futurist: To fix education, think Web 2.0 http://bit.ly/99Y03H … of course, but then 2.0 is flexible/user responsive, NOT cookie cutter! #
• Post: I'm Looking for Hue http://libraryremix.com/?p=1433 on iDee color based image search #
• How about some more ideas on "How do we assess our own technology fluency?" http://bit.ly/9y3UBr for Kevin? #
• SAT and GRE Vocab Challenge are great vocab building tools for your iPod! Learn more here… http://bit.ly/biRhc7 #
• Download top U.S. Milestone documents from iPrepPress for FREE http://bit.ly/aSl2NR #
• Folkways…access to music/cultural recordings in the Smithsonian collection. http://bit.ly/dA3QtB Load them to your iPod! #
• Civic Media Center http://bit.ly/agH4RQ is an alt library that houses indep., non-corp media. Interesting concept for a new media world! #
• Couple of "thought" sparks for those interested in Civic Media http://bit.ly/bayBYP and http://to.pbs.org/bPePnz #
• RT @courosa UStream + Wave might be a good backchannel option. http://is.gd/ddvtM #
• RT @courosa "Man Who Installed TV With Gun Accidentally Killed Wife" http://is.gd/ddoNW … scares me that I know folks like this! #
• A New Way to Lecture (by Mike Zimmer) http://bit.ly/b14pYY #
• Awesome graphic: Trends and Technology Timeline 2010+ http://bit.ly/dx6t6I #
• RT @kriley19 Seth Godin: The non-optimized life http://bit.ly/drzo8F Full http://bit.ly/bumifC TRUE! I've killed too many hours optimizing! #
• Can't skim ahead as easily on m Kindle when the book get's juicy! #
• Recipe search and more…http://www.yummly.com/ #
• Disruptive Thinking: Not the Standard http://libraryremix.com/?p=1445 #
• RT @taniatorikova: Reading 10 ways to encourage students to take responsibility for their learning http://bit.ly/bfWxA8 Excellent. #
• RT @mcleod The Best Texters Tend To Be The Best Spellers: Breaking Down Texting Myths http://post.ly/loIX #edtech OH YES! #
• RT @edyong209 Warns against Google for med info; study that newspapers="least-accurate info sources" http://bit.ly/ah0OJh #

“You can’t write an essential question about Pokemon,” one English teacher told her 9th grade students. What fun we had learning otherwise. “Wow…how do you think like that,” one student asked after we settled on the provoking question: What social skills does playing Pokemon teach? She had that certain light a kid gets in his eyes when he realizes that he can ask deeper questions…critically consider…those things he’s truly interested in.

I had this discussion with my own teen daughter today. She is feeling less than thrilled about her own ACT scores at the moment. Being ranked 9th in a class of around 400 she’s simply convinced herself that her standardized scores should fall in a more impressive range. “I get so mad at a world that tests me and says that there is only one right answer,” she cried. “I think differently. I’m not a robot.”

Since her first foray into standardized tests in the 4th grade, my daughter has performed proficiently, though generally not as advanced as her sister or those peers with whom she shares high honors in the classroom. It is ironic, then, that she absolutely LOVED her AP Stats class last year…the very back bone of the data-driven world that demands standardized testing. She explained, “When Mrs. D asked us to identify research flaws…Mom, I could list 10 factors the researchers hadn’t taken into account. I love doing that…rethinking about each question DIFFERENTLY.”

As an educator, this would be the defining moment…the aha…when I knew my student could not only formulate an essential question, but that they had begun to think in this way as a matter of course.  Read more... (371 words, estimated 1:29 minutes reading time)

• RT @kjarrett Read & comment on: How do we assess our own technology fluency? http://ow.ly/248Br Concerns shared by many! #
• RT@peri37 ⊂(◉‿◉)つ The Very Long History of Emoticons http://bit.ly/bUkbZt /via @Kellycdi @Andrew_Hardison, et al. #
• Awesome live train map of the London Tube. http://traintimes.org.uk:81/map/tube/ #
• RT @ddrrnt Masters of their Networks – The News Media and Social Networks [28Jun10] http://bit.ly/90NrBD #
• RT @ozarkherbs Singularity University – Inspirational New Video [28Jun10] http://amplify.com/u/79jt #
• 9 Universal Principles of Viral Media Sites http://mashable.com/2010/06/21/principles-viral-media-site/ #
• HOW TO: Get Up-to-Date on WordPress 3.0 http://mashable.com/2010/06/23/wordpress-3-0-how-to/ #
• 100 Years Of Propaganda: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly http://tinyurl.com/2v6udku #
• For business and marketing teachers…inspirations for the stuents http://logopond.com/ #
• How Teens Use Cellphones [INFOGRAPHIC] http://tinyurl.com/2a5hk6g #
• E-LEARNING 2010 Assessing the Agenda for Change http://tinyurl.com/27seude #
• STEMing the Tide: Can legislation fix America’s science and technology gender gap? http://tinyurl.com/2vzqkgr #
• Teen daughters home from the Eclipse midnight showing…surprisingly, I wasn't invited! #
• Living summer upside down…think I'll take a nap now. #

Embedding this digital book to showcase the Issuu digital publishing tool.  There is no doubt that Mike Zimmer did a great job in putting this together.  This is an absolute MUST have tool!  

I often create graphic collages for use in marketing my library.  Because my school’s colors are orange and black, I often search for images that in those colors.  I love iDee’s multicolor search engine.  You can enter any combination of colors and zero in on a great selection.

Curricular uses?

• Have literature/writing students analyze and digitally illustrate a poem or text passage (use movie or presentation software such as Animoto).  Color can reinforce mood and audience interpretation.
• Students in Family and Consumer Ed Classes locate images that are ideally suited to the color schemes they have used in designing a space.  Or have them locate images to be displayed during a fashion show of garments they have made.
• Explore how different cultures perceive color, reinforcing this with image searches.

Aviary (http://aviary.com) offers a free suite of online media editing tools that rivals the pricey software suites many of us are using in our schools.  As educators, we know that student achievement comes with both practice and practical applicaiton, and yet, most students do NOT have access to these same tools at home, and likely never will.  If students are to incorporate the tools we teach at school into their daily lives,  it’s time to start teaching with tools that are more accessible.  The Aviary suite includes:

• a layer-based image editor (Phoenix) – png, gif, jpg, tif,
• a vector illustrator (Raven) – svg, eps
• a swatch editor (Toucan) for creating color schemes using color wheel tools or an image uploaded for inspiration
• a image mark-up tool (Falcon) in tandem with a image capture browser plug-in called Talon is great for labeling and highlighting.
• audio remix editor (Myna) (download as mp3, wav or embed)
• a music creator (Roc) with 50 instruments that allows you to create loops
• an visual effects editor (Peacock) that Aviary calls a “lab,” this tool provides powerful and sometimes complex tools for experienced artists or a playground for people who want to tinker.

The creators of Aviary software have committed themselves to making powerful tools available to artists in all genre, in an effort to grow both interest and contributions to the creative commons. Images published by the community of members are largely available for REMIX.  These tools promote visual literacy in action and offer a generation of learners the opportunity to participate as media authors as well as audience.

How could I not want one of these?  I’ve spent a lifetime collecting (both artifacts and facts) while I embrace the future as it rushes forward.  This is a REMIX…and while it’s practical value is pretty limited, it’s a beautiful inspiration!