A new kind of resume

Each year I get more and more requests from student teacher librarians to do observations and pre-practicums. This year  I will have my first full practicum student and am really looking forward to the experience.

Just as the requests start to roll in, Joyce Valenza once again delivers timely and useful advice. Apps for student teacher librarians is a great list of tools and skills I can use to frame the discussion with the graduate school students who will be visiting and observing. It is also an excellent checklist for me to self-assess my professional practice. What should I be adding to my repertoire?

This past summer I had the wonderful task of hiring someone for an assistant librarian position. The fascinating thing was recognizing what a game changer that skills and products proved to be when deciding which candidates would be asked in for interviews.

I'm going to add to Joyce's list and offer advice to people graduating and entering the field. Giving evidence of mastery is crucially important. It can be tough if you don't have experience, but with some imagination it can be done. Hiring someone is a huge commitment. Everybody needs to grow into a position, but in choosing between candidates I want someone who I know can hit the ground running on a series of fronts.

Skills and products I would look for:

• Build pathfinders for the library you hope to run
• Launch a Facebook fanpage for the teens you hope to connect with
• Blog about items in your RSS feed and share your ideas on how you might incorporate various tools and ideas
• Embed GoodReads and other widgets into your blog to promote reading
• Add your Twitter roll to give evidence of the educational leaders you follow
• Link to a Google site you created as a forum for the reading group you hope to start
• Create a wiki and turn it into your digital portfolio
• Upload a powerpoint to Slideshare and embed it in your wiki
• Add a YouTube video on 21st century skills that speaks to your philosophy on the skills we need to teach our students and faculty

Showing your vision for what is possible makes you an attractive partner on our team. Bring your ideas, your entrepreneurial spirit and your comfort with the tools and platforms necessary to turn your plans for a school library program of distinction into a reality.

Do some of these things and your resume jumps to the top of the stack.

Day 9 NaNoWriMo
(Not writing a novel. Using this as a prompt to blog daily for a month.)

Magpie

It has happened enough over the past few weeks that I started thinking about it. A number of parents and colleagues have stopped me to ask where I find links and resources that are integrated into our Learning Commons wiki. Like most librarians, I am a magpie. I gather things.

My RSS feed is the primary source of glittering, nourishing, astounding resources. Every day I zip through recent posts from the 97 blogs I follow. Peer librarians, technology gurus, publishing and book review sites, blogs on Google, social media trends and news aggregators from around the world all show up like the most personalized newspaper you can imagine.

By tagging items I build my own digital archive that I can search for specialized content. If I need to get quickly up to speed on the use of back channels in the classroom and the different platforms I can check my feed, where I have been tagging back channels for the last year. How about avatars? Yup.

For the last year or so I have known that I need to pay attention to mobile apps for the library. The best bloggers in the field of school librarianship have been posting resources and recounting their experiences, all for my benefit. By tagging their excellent work (thanks, Joyce Valenza!) I can easily refer to it when I am ready - which is this year.

I am not book marking websites. I am tagging content.

Here is a great example:

On the wire – September 2010 | Educational Origami

This blog post has some amazing web apps that work and are being used successfully with students. Click through for the links. Here are a couple of highlights:

• grabbing images - we always have students pulling images off the web for media projects
• cheat sheets for specialized programming languages (sending this link to our tech arts media teacher)
• Quickstart guide for iMovie09 - this will get posted on the wiki
• Sound Bible - royalty free music, great for those media projects, waiting to be posted to our wiki
• Lovely charts - I have to play with this, but it looks really powerful and a great way to present data in a compelling, visual way

RSS feeds, Diigo, Facebook, Twitter, and a handful of other outlets are all part of the daily doings of this little magpie. And our wiki is my nest. By the way, did you know that magpies gather in groups called "parliaments"? How cool is that? I wonder what you call a gathering of librarians...

A shelf of librarians?

Photo Credit:

Flickr Creative Commons

Perching Magpie

The future of the book 1959

"A look into the future that never was." Paleo-Future is one of the funkiest little blogs I have come across in awhile.  A recent post called The Electronic Home Library 1959 struck a chord.

Today we are in much the same position as they were in the Chicago funny pages in 1959. The future is closer than we think. And we are trying to figure out which way to jump. Books are the perfect example. Kindle? Nook? Sony Reader? iPad? NetBook? Tablet?  Get a load of the Kno. It will blow your socks off.


Kno Movie from Kno, Inc. on Vimeo.

As librarians we are leaders in information technology. If you haven't started yet, make this the year you write grants and do whatever it takes to start getting these technologies into your schools, into the hands of students and teachers.

Not because we know they are the "right" technologies, but because we need to play, explore and experience the evolutions in order to understand the impact on teaching and learning. Yeah, I know. Technology is too transitory to make a commitment. Don't make a BIG budget commitment, but instead make small scale investments in exploration. This is one of my goals this year. I commit to explore, and  enlist others to join me on the expedition. Together we can lead the way.

Have a great school year, everyone.

Emerging Technologies Every Administrator Should Know in the Next 5 Years

MassCue Session 4
Emerging Technologies Every Administrator Should Know in the Next 5 Years
Joseph Mastrocola, Assistant Superintendent, Peabody PS

ppt download:
www.teacherweb.com/ma/eea/educationenlightenment

Important Links:

• Horizon Report - good data on emerging technologies
• Fool's Gold - Alliance for Childhood - critical about computers and tech for children
  

• Edutopia.org - The Digital Generation

• Digi Teen - digital citizenship

• Flat Classroom Project - connecting to the world, empowering students to connect globally

• Tim Berners Lee on the Semantic Web - vision of Web 3.0 and the changes that are coming.

Educational tech has been most effective in assistive technology. Ed tech has made a difference in developing 21st century skills for students.

Skills important in hiring a high school graduate:
• Work ethic 80%
• Collaboration 75%
• Good communication 70%
• Social responsibility 63%
• Critical thinking 58%

What skills will be important for HS grads in 5 years?
• Critical thinking 78%
• Health and wellness 76%
• I.T. 77%
• Collaboration 74%

• Innovation 74%
• Personal financial responsibility 72%

5 Emerging Technologies

1. Cloud computing – create and store content on web. Free up resources that used to be spent archiving. Web is infrastructure.

Applications: gmail, googlewave (interdisciplinary Google)
Creating & Presenting: Prezi, Vuvox, Slideshare
New Apps: splashup, jaycut

2. Increased mobile devices
Note: need to update policies, procedures and protocols

School district doing this well highlighted:
Edutopia.org
“The Digital Generation” – empowering students to be thinkers.

Digi Teen – study digital citizenship
Flat Classroom Project – empowering students to connect globally

3. Assistive Technology – continues to be one of the brightest stars of technology integration.
www.cast.org
www.landmark.edu/institut/assistive_technology/index.html
www.ataccess.org

Hospital and clinic partnerships coming to 9-12 high schools.
Neuroscience and artificial intelligence – big academic growth area that are tech rich and will help special needs students.

4. Using technology to be entrepreneurial
School is a one-person circus – administrators have to do everything.
• Storefronts for raising big amounts of money to generate income to support work in classrooms.
• Ads – “this mid-term sponsored by Walmart” – this is HAPPENING! Field Day sponsored by companies
• Ebay for educational materials – trade ed supplies for school districts
• Selling on professional development materials – create it for you district and sell it on.

5. Personal web
• Personal coaching for kids – virtual counselor
• Developing and organizing online content
• 8,8,8 initiative – virtual contact outside school
• Virtual backpack (in addition to print material)
• Tools for tagging, aggregating, updating and tracking – aka formative assessment. (He mentioned the ALA and school libraries here – go us!)

Translation to the classroom
• Smart boards
• Internet drive research and web apps
• Web based admin activities
• Wireless networks
• Heavy graphics and convergence

Other technologies to watch
• Semantic-aware applications, tools designed for making meaning
• Smart Objects – link virtual to real world. Link it to student management systems.
• Data mash-ups – new ways of looking at information
• Web 2.0 to 3.0
• Desktop videoconferencing – Skype, Oovoo
• Instant messaging – Meebo
• Microblogging platforms – Twitter, Plurk
• Virtual workplaces
• LMS – Moodle
• Social networking – Nings, Pageflakes
• 3D Virtual Worlds – ActiveWorlds, Second Life, HiFives

Key Trends:
Technology isn’t going away, so teach skills that will help students, empower them, teach innovation, creativity, critical thinking, citizenship.

Back to School: 15 Essential Web Tools for Students

Watching students stagger out of CCHS with armloads of freshly issued textbooks, backpacks loaded with sports gear, musical instruments, and assorted bags, made me think of Sherpas bowed under their loads. They have to manage a lot. Schedules, classes, homework, activities, and all the stuff that goes along with these various commitments. There are free, web-based tools that can help them, and cut down on what they need to lug. Portable, accessible, and they won't get left behind on the bus or in the locker room.

However, it isn't just about making it easier for students. These tools will help build skills they will need in business, and in their lives as citizens of the 21st century. Collaborating, organizing, scheduling, time management, creating, publishing, and communicating with co-workers from around the world are important , and can be introduced through many of these applications.

Stay Organized:

• NoodleTools - A fantastic note taking and citation tool that keeps getting better and better, and available for free through the CCHS Library Learning Commons website. Every student should have an account. This is heavily used during research projects, and is also a great tool for writing assignment.
  
• Evernote is so cool everyone should play with it. You can synch notes between the web, your phone and any computer. It handles multiple media formats and is available via mobile apps (think cell phones).
  
• Notely is an organizational suite of services that allows kids to manage their calendar, assignments, note taking tools, and more. Very friendly and intuitive.
  
• GradeMate is another online student organizer. I had never heard of this one, but it looks pretty good, too.
  
• Backpack was designed for businesses, and also offers really robust organizational capabilities. I consider this one to be over-kill for your typical high school student.
  

Study Better:

• Diigo is something I can't be rational about because I think it is one of the best bookmarking and organizational tools for the web I have ever seen. Reading web content, whether it is a website, a pdf file, or an online book, will never be the same. Highlighter, sticky notes, collaboration, tagging, they have it all.
  
• StudyRails was a new one for me. They describe their service as "an online study tool for effective study habits and homework management". Think of this as a personal tutor who schedules a student's study opportunities and blocks out potential digital distractions. It is not a free site, so I haven't tried it out.
  
• Delicious - "The tastiest bookmarks on the Web", is the leader in social bookmarking. I tried it but it didn't suit my needs or personal style, and yet I know many people for whom it is a way of life. I think students need as much focus as possible, and that is not what Delicious is about. Given its popularity though, they are clearly on to something.
  
• Mindmeister is for visual learners and offers collaborative online mind mapping. I believe many students would get a lot of benefit from using graphic organizers as part of their process. This looks like a good one.
  

Work and Collaborate:

• Google Docs should be a part of every student's academic tool box. Many schools have switched to Google Apps for Education just to roll out Google docs to students and staff. Why? It is a great tool for collaborating on documents, powerpoint presentations, and has a great forms feature. This allows for students to work together without having to sit next to each other. No carpooling! This link has a really good little video explaining Google docs.
  
• EtherPad - I saw this for the first time at a conference I attended over the summer and was very impressed. It is a web-based word processor that allows people to work together on the same document, at the same time. Wow! You can see the other person, wherever they might be, typing on the same screen as you, simultaneously. Businesses are using this for meetings and collaboration, but it is very user friendly.
  
• Sliderocket is really powerpoint on steroids. Web-based and accessible on any computer, on any operating platform, this tool allows you to build really stunning presentations online. Your work is username/password protected, and is stored in the cloud. Check out the little video tutorial. Cool, cool, cool.
  
• Wikispaces (Concord-Carlisle Wikispaces is the district account) is a collaborative platform students and parents will be seeing quite a bit of, as more teachers are launching online discussion forums. Wikis are the best for fast, quickly updated, easy to manage web pages. Wikipedia is the most famous wiki of them all. Did you know that wiki means "fast" or "hurry" in Hawaiian?
  

Citation:

• NoodleTools - Gotta come back to this gem of an application. Again, this is free via the Library webpage.
  
• CiteMe is a Facebook app (!) and works with WorldCat, the world's largest library catalog. I just added it to my Facebook page so I can mess around with it.
  
• EasyBib is very good. A lot of kids use this, but it doesn't have the note card and outline feature that I think makes NoodleTools better for research projects.
  
• Zotero turns people into evangelists. It is browser extension, and has a great track record.
  

The source for this post is Mashable, one of my favorite resources for information on emerging web tools and social media. I learned a lot from this post and played with some new tools. Thanks, Mashable!

ManagingBack to School: 15 Essential Web Tools for Students

Also from Mashable:
Back to School: Top 10 iPhone Apps for Students


Photo credit Flickr Creative Commons:

bright idea...

Uploaded on September 15, 2008
by maebeitsme