So Proud of My Students

I have nine graduate students right now that are deeply engrossed in setting up social network accounts. They are an interesting mix of LMS and soon to be LMS. They are discovering so much about web 2.0 and it's application in the library media center setting. We are at the midpoint of our five day summer institute - and they have mastered blogging, social networking, social bookmarking, photosharing, image generating, and more in our short time together. Go LIBRARIANS!!!

What Do You Do?

It's been awhile since I've posted an article (not counting yesterday's live blog at the ASSET Conference). This article is prompted by a remark my husband made to me yesterday when I got home from the conference, after my presentation on Web 2.0: More Than Just Razzle Dazzle.

..."How did it go? I still don't understand what you do."

So, how do I explain what it is that I do? Better question - what should a library media specialist be doing? After my presentation yesterday, I had two requests for permission to come observe what I do in my library media center. One was from the head of a Suffolk Library Association; one from a school district. Both said that their librarians do not do what I do because they claim that there is not time to do it. Honestly, I don't quite know how I juggle teaching 600 kids, teaching a graduate course in educational technology, creating workshops and presentations, mentoring library interns, staying current in ed-tech, being a mom and a wife. One answer could be that I wake up very early in the morning (it's 5:24 am right now) to organize my day. But, in all honesty, it's more than putting in extra hours. I think that if you love what you do, then somehow you find the time to get done what you want to get done. If you can surround yourself with people who are like-minded, that helps. If you can't find like-minded people where you work, join a social network, like classroom 2.0 or teacher-librarian 2.0 or twitter. In fact, join one or more of those anyway! Catch the spirit. Go to conferences to find motivation. Take a professional development course and learn something new. If these things don't appeal to you, it is probably time to start thinking about hanging it up. All of us librarians remember the library motto "lifelong learner". It applies to us as professionals, too.

It's All Good

It's All Good
Originally uploaded by rockwilder

One of the teachers in my school was selling bracelets for her daughter (who has been ill) that says, "It's all good." I have been wearing it in support for her, but also because it reminds me that life is "all good" when things seems like they are about to spiral out of control (or when I am surrounded by negative thinking, which often happens behind the desk in my library -sigh!). I just read Bette's blog about how special Thanksgiving is, but especially, for her family, the day before Thanksgiving. It put me in a reflective mood...so here is my day before story...
Last night I was at La Guardia waiting for the moment when I would see my wonderful, tall, too-thin son , Adam, appear after a long day of traveling from Wisconsin, where he attends the University of Wisconsin. I hadn't seen him since the third week in August (except through one iChat). Finally, I spotted him walking down the ramp, looking like a typical college student - unshaven, messy hair, backpack and laptop. What joy to hug him hard. And I thought, that despite my worrying the past three months about his health and happiness, "It's all good." Later that night, the sound of deep male voices and laughter emanating from my kitchen as Adam's best friends raided my pantry while they caught up with each other about their lives at Columbia, Brown and Wesleyan (yes, he has smart friends) allowed me to go up to my bedroom, get under the covers, and think again, "It's all good."
Yesterday at school was insane. I scheduled all of my fourth and fifth grade research classes to meet with Noel Forte and me to make sure we were at the point we needed to be at in our various projects. There wasn't any time to stop and reflect on how wonderfully these students are doing - how engrossed they were as they went into their wikis, their blogs, their powerpoints, transforming and combining. As one of my classes sat in teams arguing (yes, very heated arguing) as they brainstormed ideas for a new U.S. holiday for our Federal Holidays project, I couldn't have been happier. In Adam Dugger's fourth grade class, we brainstormed questions to ask our Native American Project partner school in SC when we videoconference with them next week. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Collaboration, Synthesis and Constructivist Learning at its best with all four of my classes!
Yesterday was also a banner day for me with paychecks. It coincided that I received my paychecks from both of my jobs as well as from the Teacher Center for the Digital Storytelling Course I taught. Was I happy about the money? Of course, especially when my husband complained during the drive to LGA about the skyrocketing cost of heating oil. But, honestly, what really made me happy was what those checks represent - accomplishment. I am pulling it off - somehow - weaving all of this together, as Tim Gunn from Project Runway would say, I am "making it work." Bette talks about how layered our learning is, how we step into and out of different spaces. My life is like that. During the course of one day, I do step in and out of so many spaces, and I have to say that I love it. Although it is often exhausting, and I definitely do not get enough sleep, and I can't seem to get myself to stay on a diet (at some point I will step into that space and FOCUS), I can't envision my life in any other way. How boring it would be. How lucky I am. How lucky I was yesterday, to start my day with a random hug from a fourth grade (troubled) student and to end it with a powerful one from my son. As I said, it's all good. I am thankful.

Carry on! (Now, if only I could look like Heidi Klum).

Web 2.0 Overload?

When is it too much of a good thing? I have lately been feeling like I am on web 2.0 overload. I am blogging, wiki-ing; I use twitter, iChat, gmail chat, skype; I am a part of 4 'nings' now: Classroom 2.0; Teacherlibrarian 2.0; Information Fluency 2.0; NYSCATE 2.0, I have 5 different email addresses, I probably have hundreds of rss feed reads to catch up on and tons of podcasts to listen to. I have 7 billion passwords and user names. I am maintaining about 6 wikis, and overseeing 100 student blogs on blogmeister. Not to mention that I like to get in and read the 30 or so TEAM blogs on a weekly basis. (Oh, and by the way, I also teach 600 elementary students, 30 adult students, occasional teacher courses, have two kids in college and a husband, a dog, and a house to give attention to.)

So how can I possibly keep up with all of these forums of communication????
There is going to come a time when I will have to pick and choose my way through all of these new web 2.0 tools. There are times that I JUST DON'T CARE what other people are doing!! There are times that I have to tell myself to close my laptop - that there is a fine line between wanting to be part of and contribute to this great information network and letting it take over my life!

Do you ever feel that way?

I also think that I have to keep in mind when I read some of the wonderful blogs and interesting 'tweets' of some of my favorite thinkers that for a few of them, this is what they do for a living, and that there are not enough hours in the day for me to blog/twitter/wiki/network at the pace that they do! On the other hand, so many of them have 'day jobs' like I do and yet find the time to think great thoughts and share them with the rest of us. Of course, when I read one of these great insights, my mind starts going, the emails, blogs and wikis get opened, and I'm sucked right back into the thick of it.

I have noticed, however, that one thing for me has gone by the wayside as a result of the availability and immediacy of web 2.0 information - that is, I have basically stopped reading my teacher/library magazines. One, I don't have time and two, by the time it comes to me it's old news or I have read the online version. That worries me a little...

There is More Than One Way to Hatch an Idea

We are beginning to have some great discussions on our TEAM blogs about web 2.0 and its value in our classrooms. Of using technology for the sake of technology...
Sometimes, I have wondered about this myself. For example, why blog if no one is going to read it? (If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it really fall?). Why twitter? Do we care that someone is sitting an airport, sipping Starbucks? Is twitter our version of Facebook?
Then, I remembered a blog entry by one of my fifth grade students on our class blog at blogmeister. I asked students to write a blog about what they hoped to learn in my Library Research/ICT class this year. This is what one student said:

When I finish research class

When I finish reasearch class,I want to learn how to type faster. I also want to share my ideas with everyone. I would like to see comments that are good about my blog. I even want to learn how to use the computer better. I already know how to use a computer,but I want to know more about it. If I read other people's blogs, I could maybe hatch an idea from that idea. That is what I want to learn when I leave research class.

That's it! A 10-year-old captured what this is all about for me - ...I could maybe hatch an idea from that idea. Twitter is bringing more readers to my blog. I am starting to pick up tips and ideas from following some of my favorite thinkers. Through RSS, I learn something new everyday.

This is an amazing time for teaching and an amazing time for lifelong learners. See the Information R/Evolution video below from MWesch. Take part in this. Add to it. Take from it. It's free. Hatch an idea.



*Photo from: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=142963&

Apple John Lennon Educational Tour Bus

Picture above from http://www.lennonbus.org/

Yesterday at the conference I was able to tour the Apple John Lennon Imagine Educational Tour Bus. It was amazing! It is a recording studio on wheels that travels all over the U.S. and Canada, visiting schools, (for free), and allowing students to spend the day in the bus creating their own music videos. Students write the lyrics, create the music, create the video, and the Apple engineers turn that into a MTV-style music video. That is burned to a DVD and given to the students. We got to see the Imagine bus and watched this video. How cool is that!

Pay It Forward

Pictured Left: Me, David Warlick, Neepa Shah

Last year, our school came into a little grant money, given in honor of an outstanding fifth grade teacher, Neepa Shah. My principal asked me to think of an effective way to spend that money. I emailed my friend and co-editor of MidLink Magazine, Joselyn Todd, asking for her for some help. Here is what she said:

“...The most lasting impact that this money could buy would be professional development to help your teachers take it to the next level in terms of their tech skills such that they could guide students in innovative project based work rooted in sound content. Joselyn's idea: hire someone to come in and teach your teachers some Web 2.0 technologies (with very practical “lesson plans”) that they can immediately implement in the classroom with the equipment that the school already has...Give the gift of a nudge in the direction of life-long learning to those educators who are in the “middle” of the tech skill continuum such that they can “pay it forward” to their students. Hundreds of students learning new tech skills by enthused and invigorated teachers would have very long lasting impact at your school.”"

Through MidLink, I had the good fortune to meet David Warlick on a couple of occasions down in Raleigh, NC. I immediately thought of him, sent him an email, and LUCKY for us, he came to NY and spent a day with a group teachers at my school. Besides teaching us how to "say grits" - (for you New Yorkers, it's "greee-its"), he taught us how to podcast and "invigorated us" with conversations about new literacies and possibilities. Not long after that visit, I had many of my students podcasting ... and well, since David's visit, the floodgates have opened in terms of my own professional growth in the area of Web 2.0.

Anyway, two weeks ago I started four classes blogging on Class Blogmeister, after introducing blogging to my fourth and fifth grade classes byway of a paper blogging lesson, co-taught with my friend and hallway neighbor, fourth grade teacher, Adam Dugger. We introduced the idea of writing for an audience, of private information vs. public information, of appropriate language, and of constructive criticism. The lesson called for students to write a passage describing a favorite food; others in the class had a chance to leave constructive comments by writing them on post-its. The lesson worked so well that I decided to make a bulletin board out of it for Back to School Night. I racked my brains for a title for the bulletin board, and then it came to me: "Our 2 Cents Worth" - what a perfect 'pay it forward' moment! The David Warlick ripple effect.
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BTW - I am writing this as the Wisconsin Badgers beat Michigan State in a very exciting game AND The Mets won today (finally!). Yay!

About Me

A couple of my colleagues told me that I don't talk enough about my accomplishments. Well, it's true, I don't, because sometimes I can't believe that I have accomplished what I've accomplished and I don't like to 'toot my own horn' so to speak. I do what I do because I have discovered that I love to create and this is my outlet. The awards and rewards that have come along are secondary and byproducts. So, I don't speak about them too much. But, I have to admit, they are fun to receive! I have been lucky to work in a great environment and to have connected to some unbelievable mentors during the past 7 years, including Bette Schneiderman, Mike Byrne, and Fran Roberts of TEAM, and especially my just retired principal, Nancy Lindenauer.
In any case, if you do want to know more about my background, you can go to my bio link.
Notice my glamour shot on that page....it's about 10 years old!

Wired?

OK, coming up with a name for this blog took me longer than I thought it would! After mulling over several titles, I finally decided on “Wired” - it seems fitting in many ways:

When I was getting my educational technology masters, (back in 2001) our class had to come up with a name for our ‘team’ - we decided to call ourselves the “Wired” team.

I like the connotations of that -- wired–connected, collaborative, plugged-in, hyperactive, sending & receiving.

Maybe I should change it to ‘wireless’ ? Not that I mean the above connotations don’t apply to me, but that information flows so effortlessly.
...Nah, I’ll leave it at wired.
If you click on the image below, I think you will agree that wired is a good description of all the feelings associated with being part of the 21st century ed-tech landscape!

VIsuwords