Why Blog?

This is the first post I wrote for this blog, explaining to myself and those who wonder why I started  abloggin’. It’ll stay up top for now.

To Whom it May Concern (only my curriculum supervisor and principal, I’m sure):

 

 

I’ve decided to blog my obligatory report from the 2006 New Jersey Association of School Librarians annual conference because, well, for me it has been all about Web 2.0, otherwise known as the read/write Web, something I think my students need me to know about. So it’s about time I started blogging. This is my debut!

Because I have immersed myself while here in issues related to what Ross Todd calls “productive pedagogy” and technology that will make learning better for my students, I have not only debuted in the blogosphere here at WordPress, but I now have a del.icio.us social bookmarking account, a Flickr account, and an RSS feed through Bloglines. I can never turn back! Nothing will ever be the same in my life or in my teaching!

Much of this is a mandatory report of the conference, so if you are here looking for great insights into Web 2.0 or how to use the read/write Web in education, you are much better off checking out David Warlick, Will Richardson or Wes Fryer (see how much I learned!).  At this point, this is merely a tool, a way in which I might demonstrate to my district how to use the new Web as a communications & collaboration tool. No brilliant use of the tools or seminal thinking. Just a start, that first leap of faith.

NJASL conference report for Tuesday 10/31/06

Today was the final day of the conference. Report below on today’s activities. 

1. More than Two Books and a Website

Presenters: Leslie Blatt, teacher-librarian, Orange HS, and Geoff Thieke, Thomson-Gale.

                                                

Presentation of use of databases, ebooks, podcasts in library learning. Useful discussion. RDistrict has many reference set ebooks from Thomson-Gale. Interesting uses of podcasting by Thieke. Gale website (?) has podcasts of the White House weekly addresses and other broadcast info. Kids have iPods – this is another example or providing learning resources in the ways our students live and learn. Register for Warlick podcasts for education. Use the vast array of digital audio out there for student learning.

 

 

2. Pick of the Decade: The Best Books for Children Grades K-8

Presenters: Bonnie Kunzel, young adult specialist New Jersey State Library, and Susan Fichtelberg, children’s librarian Woodbridge Public Library.

 

Length: 1 hour

 

Another incredible, amazing and wonderful hour listening to Bonnie and Susan talking about good books. There is nothing to say but that you have to be there. 56 books in one hour! Indipensable help for librarians who need to match kids with good reading. My absolute favorite part of every NJ conference. We’ll miss you Bonnie!

3. Best Book for Young Adults 2006

Presenters: Bonnie Kunzel, young adult specialist New Jersey State Library; Sharon Rawlins, Youth Services Librarian, Library for the Blind and Handicapped; and Kim Paone, supervisor of Adult and Teen Services, Elizabeth Public Library.

 

Same indispensable and thoroughly enjoyable book talk, this time on the best in young adult fiction from 2006. Presenters talked 50 YA titles in one hour. The best reviews, live!

 

 

4. Keynote address: Chris Crutcher, young adult author very popular in RDistrict, talked about his work as a family and child therapist and author for young adults. He discussed how he developed the characters for his book Whale Talk and read from his autobiography Life on the Mild Frontier.

NJASL conference report for Monday 10/30/2006

Monday, October 30, 2006

Was unable to attend leadership session with David Warlick, the founder of the Landmark Project, former educator, leader in the use of technology in teaching and learning – district did not register me. Too bad. Here is an excerpt from the blurb for his keynote:

“It is often said that “the future is not what it used to be.” In this information-driven, technology-rich world, where jobs are created and become obsolete in only a few years, preparing our children for a future that we cannot even imagine has become one of our society’s greatest challenges. There are many barriers that prevent us from retooling our classrooms for 21^st century teaching and learning. But at the core are the “stories” about education that we share. Most adults base their images of schooling on their education experiences from 20, 30, or 40 years ago. It is a story that is etched almost indelibly by years of being taught in isolated, assembly-line classrooms. “Our classrooms – what they look like, how the furniture is arranged, what teachers and students do, what is taught , how it is taught, and why – are all modeled after old and outdated stories that are still being told by our culture. We must change these stories and tell new ones, based on a new world, an unpredictable future, almost unlimited opportunities, a new kind of student, and compelling new learning experiences that have never been possible before.”

Workshops attended:

1. Learning Starts with You: Productive Pedagogy through the School Library

Presenter: Dr. Ross Todd, professor Rutgers University School of Communication, Information and Library Studies; director, Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL)

Length: 1 hour

Dr. Todd presented a synopsis of the research that has been conducted on the impact of school libraries on student learning, including the early studies by Keith Curry Lance and the more recent work at the school level in various states by CISSL, the Rutgers-based research foundation he heads. The research since 2000 has involved 16 states; 8,800 schools and 26 million students. All evidence, whether measuring student “achievement” measured by standardized test scores or the more quantitative work that Todd and Carol Kuhlthau conduct, points to a significant positive impact on student learning when students are engaged with information in a well-provisioned and professionally staffed library.

According to Todd, CISSL research has revealed a significant gap in students’ ability to read for real meaning, a foundational skill in learning from information. Challenged librarians to figure out how we are helping students read for meaning, beyond book displays and book talks. This confirms my experience in the district that kids are not often enough engaged in deep learning and struggling with sometimes problematic and conflicting information. The transformation from learning to read effectively to reading to learn can occur in an effective instructional library. Ross said we must create a “dynamic reading culture” for the entire school. How to read the word and the world.

Other interesting finding of CISSL research that confirms my experience – students who are given prescribed assignments where every learner in the class is doing the same thing and answering the same questions are far less engaged in their research work and produced superficial information gathering while students who are given what Todd called “negotiated” tasks engaged deeply with information to construct their own knowledge of a topic.

 

2. Action Research in the Library

Presenter: Carol Gordon, professor Rutgers University Department of Library and Information Science

Length: 1 hour

<<report to follow>>

3. What’s New in Fantasy and Science Fiction for Young Adults?

Presenters: Bonnie Kunzel, YA specialist NJ State Library; Susan Fichtelberg, youth librarian, Woodbridge Public Library.

 Length: 1 hour

Indispensable help to busy librarians who need to match kids and books. Kunzel is a master at booktalking, here about her two favorite genres. We have many avid fantasy readers at RDistrict and it is hard to keep up with the new titels in this area. SciFi is one area in YA publishing where fans are hungry for more – as in mystery, there is just not enough being published. Good stuff here. # titles. 

4. The New Shape of Information

Presenter: David Warlick, former educator, technology consultant, founder The Landmark Project

Length: 1 hour

<<report to follow>>

Report from NJASL

 

 

To Whom it May Concern (only my curriculum supervisor and principal, I’m sure):

 

I’ve decided to blog my report from the 2006 New Jersey Association of School Librarians annual conference because, well, for me it has been all about Web2.0, otherwise known as the read/write Web, something I think my students need me to know about. So it’s about time I started blogging. This is my debut!

Because I have immersed myself while here in issues related to what Ross Todd calls “productive pedagogy” and technology that will make learning better for my students, I have not only debuted in the blogosphere here at WordPress, but I now have a del.icio.us social bookmarking account, a Flickr account, and an RSS feed through Bloglines. I can never turn back! Nothing will ever be the same in my life or in my teaching!

Much of this is a mandatory report of the conference, so if you are here looking for great insights into Web2.0 or how to use the read/write Web in education, you are much better off checking out David Warlick, Will Richardson or Wes Fryer (see how much I learned!). This is a way for me to demonstrate to my district how to use the new Web as a communications & collaboration tool. No brilliant use of the tools or seminal thinking. Just a start, that first leap of faith.

I attended the three-day annual conference of the statewide professional association for teacher-librarians in New Jersey. Following are snapshots of the workshops and events I attended:

Sunday, October 29, 2006: 

• Workshop title: Webfeeds 101: How Bloglines Can Make You Look Brilliant

Presenter: Alice Yucht, retired teacher-librarian, technology consultant

Length: 1 hour 

In this one-hour presentation, Yucht presented information on how to use RSS feeds to manage online resources for students and teaching faculty. This was a useful presentation of an important online tool to manage the sometimes overwhelming amount of data available on the Web that can be useful for students in learning and faculty in teaching and for professional development. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and, simply put,  allows users to subscribe to a Web-based aggregation service that pulls from pre-selected Web resources and deposits them in users’ accounts on a regular basis. It’s like having a personal Web go-fer. Updates are regular posted to an account hosted on a Web-based server. In this way, e-newsletters and information are not clogging email inboxes but hosted on a remote web site to be viewed by users at their convenience. The services also allow tagging with keywords of resources so that aggregated information can be saved and “pushed” electronically to faculty. I am going to take Yucht’s advice and subscribe to an RSS feed on a service called “Bloglines.” It will enable me to more efficiently manage the overwhelming amount of data for students and teachers.

• Workshop title: Read/Write Web Tools for Student Projects

Presenters: Sophie Brookover, Senior Teen Librarian, Camden
County Library; and Shayne Russell, middle school teacher-librarian.

Length: 1 hour 

This workshop was a presentation of a handful of a vast array of online tools that allow students and teachers to publish to the Web and conduct collaborative work on the Web. The three tools selected for presentation were Flickr, a photo-hosting Web service; del.icio.us, an online bookmarking service; and Classroom Blogmeister, a school blogging service. The presenters showed the various ways in which these social networking sites can be put to use in a community of learners, both with youngsters and among professional colleagues. These are but three among a vast array of tools that can be used to foster collaborative learning. Each of these tools allows various levels of security so that pictures of children and their writing are not posted to the open Web. They are excellent examples of the new ways that educators are finding to put the read/write Web to authentic use in learning and teaching. As the presenters noted, these tools represent the positive side of social networks that can be put to productive use with students.  

• Workshop title: T + C = SA (Technology & Collaboration = Student Achievement)

Presenters: Jackie Gould, teacher-librarian,  and Donna Armstrong, technology support teacher,Clearview
Regional
High School, Mullica HillLength: 1 hour 

The presenteers demonstrated uses of technology in learning centered in the school library. Alternatives to traditional research paper were presented with special emphasis on classified students. Interesting uses of templated Web sites. RD libraries are fairly advanced in uses of technology for student presentation.

• Presentation by YA author Lois Duncan

Length: 2 hours 

This acclaimed longtime author of young adult novels talked about her life as a writer for young people. She is a popular writer of suspense novels for young adults, including I Know What You Did Last Summer and Killing Mr. Griffin. It is always fascinating to hear an author talk about her life and work and this was no exception. It makes talking to our students about books more informed and personal. Duncan talked about her early experiences writing for true confessions magazines as a way to support herself and her three young children after her divorce. She then moved into writing actual novels and has become extremely  popular among YAs who love murder mystery and suspense. Tuesday is Chris Crutcher, another favorite of mine.

 

 

report of Monday activities to follow