LibraryRemix

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)

“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)

The graphic, from the James Irvine Foundation’s Convergence Report says it all!

Michael Stephen’s Tame the Web features a reprint of the article: The hyperlinked school library: engage, explore, celebrate, originally published by the Australian School Library Association. Arguing that the financial crisis compels us to move towards the needed changes (when we need those changes anyway) may be an effective lever for those reluctant media specialists who still resist moving into a 21st century already a decade old.  Let’s hope so.  Stephen’s appeal is well-informed and nicely put.  For those of us who have embraced the change, the article provides some nice reinforcement to share with colleagues who question the changes we’ve implemented.  If you’d like to share,  you can download a PDF of the article here.  The article was based on a presentation at ASLA which you can view here.

…with classroom support materials at MacMillian Dictionary Online (here).

In a time where the dialogue centers around the ACQUISITION of languages (as a means towards globalization), it’s mind-bending (and inspiring) when we turn the conversation towards language BUILDING.  It may be politically incorrect to applaud the use of English as a global language today, but it’s hard to deny the flexibility of form we enjoy, as English speakers.  I’d never argue that we quit the quest to learn and use other languages–there’s much cultural respect in the practice, and certainly beauty in learning to express ourselves in new ways–but I say HURRAH! for celebrating the dynamic nature of language itself…and of English, in particular.

Absolutely powerful message!  While administrators may be relying on the loss of revenue as the impetus for change, this is the REAL reason we should be restructuring the places and the ways in which we teach students.  I hope other teachers feel excited/empowered by the possibilities rather than frightened.  There is a role for us…and we’ll are reborn into it

Sharing “Newspapers 2.0 … where we should be going in high school journalism,” blog entry addressing the future of journalism from the point-of-view of a 16 year old high school journalist …  http://kenleilenae.com/?p=18 (via @kenleilenae / Twitter).

Literary summaries and analyses.  In developing a library collection, teacher can’t agree.

For some, there is a double standard with regards to literary guides such as Blooms Literary Themes or the Understanding Literature series published by Lucent. One school where I taught shelved every volume (every edition) of MasterPlots “for teacher use only” because…a plot summary and analytical overview is a “refresher” for teachers and “cheating” for students!?  Cliffnotes, SparkNotes…the cheap way out of reading required materials.

Others teachers welcome the guides and the fresh, updated takes they offer.  They generally believe that any student willing to read the guide is probably immersed in the literary experience.  It’s for these teachers that I share the 60 Second Recap, a great site, whose mission is to “make the great works of literature accessible, relevant, and, frankly, irresistible to today’s teens…to help teens engage with the best books out there … not just to help them get better grades, but to help them build better lives.”  This is how the site introduces it’s mission:

“Eat your lima beans,” Mom used to say.

And now that you’re out on your own, honestly, are lima beans a staple of your culinary repertoire?

There, in a lima bean, lies the problem confronting the great works of literature. We’re all forced to read them in school so we can get good grades so we can go to a good college so we can get a good job so we can forget all about that literature they used to force us to read so we could get good grades.  Read more... (515 words, estimated 2:04 minutes reading time)

It’s a mystery to me why the print vs. online wars rage.  In a recent USA Today article, School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’?, Cushing Academy’s bold move from mostly print to all electronic resources was revealed, rationalized, and ultimately railed against.

Reading the story, I found much about Cushing’s move that appealed to me.  The coffee house library…not a new idea. Others have done this successfully.  And the success of these ventures is more complex than the appeal of a “frothy beverage.”  Walk into any Starbucks or Barnes and Nobel and witness the people engaged with media (computer and print) while they engage with one another, calmly and thoughtfully. Libraries are idea forums.  Coffee houses, in our culture, are symbolic of the type of learning dialogue that should take place in a library.  Marrying the two makes a lot of sense.

I couldn’t help thinking, too, that the arguements offered by some over the loss of print volumes was as old as the practice of collection weeding.  A society whose advancement is bounded by its knowledge (quite literally) reveres its books.  Librarians willing to weed the old, out-dated volumes from the stacks have always battled scores of “book-lovers” who, as I was once  told, “love the smell of old books.”

I am, myself, am an avid collector of the past.  I collect realia, ephemera, and books whose patina invite me to touch where hands once touched long ago.  I sometimes share those collections, showcasing them in the library at school.  I also maintain a community archives in our school library…yearbooks, significant ephemera, representative defunct media devices, all available for historical inquiry.  BUT …I don’t store these precious artifacts in my stacks.  A library’s stacks must, by nature of their purpose, reflect accurate and current information. Even the classic literature deserves a fresh cover, an intact binding that will draw attention to the fact that the ideas within still hold relevance to the learners who come into the library today.  Read more... (423 words, estimated 1:42 minutes reading time)

I shuffled through the mail left by my daughter on the kitchen table. The cover of  the newly arrived November edition of ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology reached out to me….Cool Tools for School.  Ahhh…worth looking at.  Below that?  Is Your Website Accessible?, Students Without Borders, and (!!!!) Do Schools Still Need Brick-and-Mortar Libraries?  (READ IT HERE)

Kudos, to Doug…obviously.  Yes, I am a school library media specialist and I appreciate the support he offers to our programs, particularly in light of Mastrion’s out-of-touch stereotyping that leaves me “alone, in [my] information monarchy” surrounded by words, words, words…and nothing more.

But it isn’t enough to disagree with Mastrion’s point-of-view…mostly because I am a librarian, which makes my own intentions instantly suspect.  “Perhaps” I am simply an apologist who values traditional literacy over the more “progressive” approach.

So…let’s start with Mastrion’s assertion that Google (a tool I consider myself proficient in using) offers a simpler and more efficient means of finding information for students today.  I tested that theory in a quest to find out exactly “who” Johnson and Mastrion are, and how their thinking is impacting learning,  specifically with regards to technology.

Now, I’ve read Johnson before.  He’s a well-known writer in the fields of information and technology education.  Still, would the novice researcher find his work as easily online as off?  The answer is YES.  I Google his name, and irregardless of it’s commonality, Doug Johnson’s site hits the top of the list.  Johnson has made his ideas and research available across platforms (print and online).

Next, I Google Mastrion’s name (in quotes, to keep the first and surname relative to one another, of course) and get 751 hits.  Below are the results:

Hit # 1 – He graduated in 1985 from Courtland High School in Fredricksburg, VA.  I can’t tell more, since this is a subscription site to which I do not belong.  Read more... (1410 words, estimated 5:38 minutes reading time)