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)

Current events are a standard part of many curriculums, particularly in those field where technology and research are rapidly changing common knowledge.  In my own school, I routinely work with World Culture teachers to identify relevant current events, and to identify the validity of the sources that they use.  Too often, though, students scramble into the library at the last minute to clip or google a news story to “hand in” as evidence that they are keeping up with current events.  So, I’m in search of new approaches to reaching students through current events. I think NBC’s iCue has something to offer.  As they note: ”iCue is a fun, innovative learning environment built around video from the NBC News Archives.”  The experience is social (engaging online community members in discussion) and interactive (using videos, games, and other online activities) helping students (and other lifelong learners) immerse themselves and interact with world news as it happens.

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.

From a blog associated with the new book, GroundSwell, the post Social Technographics: Conversationalists get onto the ladder shows how twitter and facebook status updaters are figuring into the the world of social media. Reminds me alot of Gladwell’s Tipping Point.

"Conversationalists" are now on the ladder of social media

The author’s note that these “conversationalists” are an intriguing lot with a definate stake in market trends. I can’t help but come back to my own professional observations of how market and classroom align in today’s marketplace of information and media. Consider the following suggestions offered in the blog:

“Convince your boss this stuff is for real, and that if you haven’t jumped on it, you’re late.”

There is a hum (or drum) in education now pushing administrators to recognize social media not just as a tool that could be harvested, but as a new way of communicating that MUST be engaged if we are to remain relevant in society.

“Profile your customer base, and see what they’re ready for, before planning a project to reach out to them.”

Know your students. They don’t learn the same way we did, even 15 years ago. The dilemma in education? Student’s today are technologically MORE ready than we are! At the same time, they’re social aptitude has slipped they navigate through the online social network “willy-nilly.” Shouldn’t we be there with them…to teach, to model?

“Segment your audience; build different strategies for different segments. (Social is so prevalent now that a single approach for your company is probably too broad.)”

Differentiate your approach to reach different learners. We’ve embraced that in the classroom, but too often we settle for seeing “technology” AS an approach, rather than as a space in need of these differentiated approaches. All said, it comes down to…SCAFFOLDING!

I have to say that while the concept of Google’s “real-time” search results in seductive at first (and a bit awe-inspiring to watch)…it’s real value in the classroom probably lies in its potential for illustrating the rapidly cycling, ephemeral quality of information on the web.  The updates cycle so quickly when “latest” is chosen, it’s difficult to remain oriented.  Considering that orientation with information has proven, already, to be a challenge for learners, I can’t imagine how this is going to make things better.  Some things are just too “gee-whiz.”

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)

On September 30, 2009, John Temple, former editor, president, and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, posted a transcript of his keynote presentation at the UC Berkeley Media Technology Summit, delivered that same day.  Under Temple’s direction, the paper won a total of four Pulitzer Prizes.  And yet, seven months earlier, that same paper printed it’s final edition, after almost 150 years of publication.

I see valuable lessons in what Temple has to say to news professionals that apply in the secondary school setting–not just in our journalism classes and school publications, but also in the classroom and school paradigm in general.  Below are some key points to consider:

Newspapers, like schools operate under  long-established and respected models of delivery. Each is served by professionals rigorously trained to operate within these models. And those models and the paradigms they support are difficult to shift, largely because they have deeply engrained conventions and cultural functions. Temple notes:

“…we thought we were in the newspaper business….and put the vast majority of our efforts into the print war. We didn’t understand what was happening to the playing field. Media companies used to think they were in control. That they could “own” a market. What we didn’t take into account is that in this new era, consumers were going to be in control.”

Failure to adopt technology was not “the problem” that plagued Temple’s newspaper, anymore than it is a failure in most American schools today. And yet, too often technology is seen simply as a way to make existing tasks easier or more efficient. Use and development stop short. We adapt the adopted technology to fit the existing model of delivery, rather than adapting the model of delivery to adopt the new ways of thinking made possible by the technology.    Temple writes:  Read more... (1329 words, estimated 5:19 minutes reading time)

There isn’t generally much “new” about a new search engine, at least when it comes to their appeal among young adults. Google, with it’s images and broad/deep search extras reigns.

But wait… Duck Duck Go turns out to be more than just another search engine. Aside from it’s slick interface and fast results, the engine is embracing Web 2.0 by sporting a handy little right-hand dashboard that lets you search popular social media sites with a simple click. Take time to play with this one.

No competition for Google…but since I’m looking for content to on Facebook, Twitter, and a slew of other app sites, it’s worth the time to stow this in my toolbox.

More “food” for thought….