always learning

Yesterday Tara and I had the pleasure of hosting a one-day workshop at ISB entitled Rethink: Inspiring School Library Spaces, led by Kevin Hennah, an exceptionally engaging library consultant from Melbourne. Not only was the presentation informative and inspiring (more on that later), but the story of how it all came to be is pretty interesting too.

Once again, the power of personal learning networks leads to amazing real life connections. Kevin was presenting at a conference in Cairns with Judy O’Connell last April, who, though she has never been to our Learning Hub, included a picture or two from my Flickr set in her presentation. When Kevin saw the pictures of our space, Judy connected us via e-mail, and Kevin, on one of his regular visits to Bangkok, was standing in our library a few weeks later!

As soon as we met him, Tara and I knew he would be a fantastic speaker (and have tons of crucial advice on adding the finishing touches to our Learning Hub), so, in the span of a few weeks we arranged a one-day workshop here in Bangkok and invited any and all interested regional librarians. Amazingly, despite the fact that we started our planning in early May (at the very hectic end to our school year) and the fact that the workshop took place during the first week of school for most people, we had quite a crowd. Over 30 librarians flew in from all over Asia: Taiwan, China, Brunei, Singapore, and of course, Thailand.

As we anticipated, Kevin did not dissappoint. His previous experience in retail sales and marketing gives him a unique perspective on libraries, and his endless suply of “before and after” images provided practical ideas that librarians can implement immediately. A few of Kevin’s points really jumped out at me:

Libraries have customers, not patrons: If libraries take only one thing from retail, it should be that their job is to attract and entice customers into their space by branding (think logos and bold signage), attractive marketing of books, and a welcoming environment. Kevin challenges librarians to see their library from the customer’s perspective – finding things should be breeze, customers should be able to pinpoint the resources they’re looking for without a map, and the strategic arrangement of resources should encourage “impulse” borrowing.

Think of your library like a monopoly board: When a customer walks in to the space, they should find themselves on “Park Place” or “Boardwalk.” The most popular, most interesting and most inviting resources should be front and center. Kevin recommends walking around your space to determine your “hot,” “warm,” and “cold” zones to ensure that whatever is placed in the hot zone is “paying the rent.”

Make the books the stars! Instead of thinking about creating complicated “displays,” focus on a marketing strategy to “sell” as many books as possible. Keep the covers front and center using a quick and easy strategy for high impact visuals, instead of something contrived that takes ages to construct. Think DVD or CD displays in a mall – the more covers a customer can see, the more likely they’ll be to pick something up. Take advantage of the ends of aisles like a supermarket, where browsing can lead to borrowing.

Kevin had some great quick and easy ideas for high impact marketing strategies that libraries can implement in no time at all:

• Put a recent returns cart or shelf in front of a library with a big sign, capitalizing on easy of display as well as ensuring that high interest books are front and center.
• Welcome your customers, don’t nag them. Why is the first thing we often see when walking into a library a (usually poorly made) notices not to eat, not to talk, and not to use your phone instead of a welcoming sign?
• Use those glass cases to showcase books on hold, rather than books you actually want people to borrow. Tantalize your patrons with something they can’t get their hands on yet, to entice them to come back again.

Final Thoughts

If retail strategies have so much to offer libraries, I’m now left wondering, what do popular and “addictive” websites, like Facebook, have to offer schools trying to shape their online presence?

This past week we have been very fortunate to have two fantastic library experts, Doug Johnson and Ann Krembs, here at ISB to help guide us through our Main Library Review. While they were here specifically to share recommendations for our upcoming renovation of our Main Library (for middle and high school students), they also generously stopped down in the ES Learning Hub to give us some advice on how to improve our space.

It’s amazing what a fresh pair of eyes can see.

Within moments, Doug and Ann, had several easy, but very effective, suggestions for us. Interestingly, one of those suggestions was exactly what Silvia said about our Tech Zone when she was here in Bangkok a few weeks ago, but it didn’t really hit me until this week:

You have to give them something different. The Learning Hub (library) has to offer a physical environment that is different than other spaces teachers and students regularly use.

This hit me like a bolt of lightening. Of course! Why would they use our space, when they can continue to use their own, more private space, that has been customized to their specific classroom needs? Especially considering how well-resourced we are as a school, with laptop carts for every 2 classrooms and extensive classroom libraries.

In our efforts to make a 21st century learning environment, we had mistakenly recreated a standard, formal classroom space at the very front of the Learning Hub, assuming that teachers would want to use it as an expanded classroom:

Of course, that space was also back-to-back with our “computer lab” space, making it very difficult to have classes in both spaces at the same time.

Now, with the advice of Doug and Ann, we’ve redesigned the space to make it more of a “movie theater” look for story time, as well as open up the shelving to spread the tables throughout the library to allow more privacy in seating:

We’re hoping we’ve captured the “something different” idea with this arrangement. Who has a movie theater in their classroom with comfy chairs and surround sound speakers?

And just for fun we added some chess boards:

And rearranged our fiction reading nook:

Our next step is to tackle the “computer lab” area (called the Tech Zone) and transform it into a multimedia editing suite, with a green-screen and podcasting stations:

What are you doing to offer something different in your learning space? What other changes would you recommend we make in this space?

At the very end of last year our (very generous) Parent Teacher Association donated ten iPods to our Learning Hub to house our audio book collection, video resources (like United Streaming downloads), and student-produced multimedia content (book reviews, commercials, podcasts, Student Council information, etc) and archives of events at school that have been recorded.

Earlier this year we went through the process of barcoding each iPod, setting up a charging station (inside an old server rack so they can be displayed in the Hub), and entering them into our library catalog so they can be checked out by students.

Next, in order to ensure that all of the iPods have the same resources, we have set up one dedicated iTunes library on one desktop machine in our Learning Hub. All of the iPods are synced through the same library whenever we have updates to our collection.

The final step in the process is a written permission slip that both parents and students must sign before checking out the iPods. Thanks to Paula White and Paul Wood, we had an excellent starting point to work from, but it’s still a work in progress and we would love your feedback.

We want to make sure the permission slip is clear, but also easily understandable by our very diverse population, especially considering many of our parents speak English as a second, third or fourth language (or not at all).

Here’s what we have so far (please disregard formatting):

iPod Permission Slip

The ES Learning Hub now has 10 iPods for checkout, graciously donated by our PTA. In order to check out an iPod from the Learning Hub, you must return this permission form, signed by both you and your parents.

Please note: You will only have to sign this form once. Your records in our database will be updated to show that your child may check out an iPod whenever one is available and requested.

By signing this permission slip, you are agreeing that any damage or loss of the iPod (and it’s accessories) is your responsibility.

• If the iPod is lost, you agree to pay the entire replacement fee.
• If the iPod is damaged, you agree to pay the entire repair fee.
• If the iPod is damaged beyond repair, you agree to pay the entire replacement fee.

The replacement fee is US$200.

Please note: The following terms and conditions apply:

• I am responsible for any damage to the equipment while it is in my possession.
• I will maintain physical control of the equipment at all times while it is in my possession at the location stated below, except during transportation to and from the school.
• I will return the equipment in the same condition as it was at checkout.
• I will follow all rules of the ISB Acceptable Use Policy I signed at the beginning of the year.
• I will promptly report to ISB Elementary School all damage to, or failure of, the equipment while it is in my possession.
• I will pay for the costs of all required repairs to the equipment, which arise from damage, misuse, or failure of the equipment while it is in my possession. All repairs will be conducted through ISB.
  
• I will return the equipment to the school by no later than the due date for return stated below.

Student’s Name (print):
Signature of Parent:
Location of Equipment While Checked Out (address):
Phone Number Where Equipment Will Be Located While Checked-Out:

What do you think? Easy enough to understand? Are all bases covered?

Does anyone else check out iPods from their library? Are we missing anything? Any advice?

Last year when I arrived at the International School Bangkok, I stepped into a fabulous new learning space we now call The Learning Hub:

Not only does it look amazing, but the concept of our Hub is to combine digital and traditional literacy into one flexible learning zone where students, teachers and parents alike can explore new ideas collaboratively or independently, as the need arises.

What I think is especially interesting about our space is actually not the physical structure (as beautiful as it is), but the staffing. We have envisioned a new partnership among our technology specialists, library specialists and literacy specialists. We like to call ourselves the ISB21 team:

All of us are working together to support our 21st Century teachers by co-planning and team teaching, focusing on learning outcomes and successful assessment design, brainstorming new ways of solving problems and leading consistent and flexible professional development programs.

Our resource team acts as a flexible unit capable of supporting a wide range of literacy needs – what one person may not know, another will jump in and share. Three support staff working together must be better than one, right?

We are currently in the process of refining our individual job descriptions, but no matter what changes, all three of our roles will always share some overlap, and we will consistently learn from one another:

• Technology and Learning Coordinator
• 21st Century Literacy Specialist
• Teacher Librarian

As a team, we have begun to offer professional development sessions three days a week after school. Each week is focused on a specific theme, but presented in different learning styles on each day. All sessions are walk-in/walk-out supported by all members of the ISB21 team:

Need help with a technical problem?  Want to spiff up a lesson?  Need help finding online resources to support your unit? Want to know what Web 2.0 means and how it can impact your teaching?  Want to collaborate with a global audience?  Looking for some SMART Board tips? Just want to know how to podcast?  Crop a photo? Download a video clip from YouTube?  You have a tech question; we have an answer (we hope).

The ISB21 team will station themselves in the Main Library classroom every Monday for any sort of tech question or help.  We can work individually or present something to a group.

PD tailor made for you.  You can’t beat this kind of personal attention.

Are you interested in talking about technology, the future and how both will impact education?  Wired Wednesdays are about that conversation. Come to these sessions to be immersed in progressive and current thinking about how teaching and learning is being redefined in a rapidly changing world and ISB’s plan to keep up.  These sessions will have a strong audio/video component so whether you want to get deep or just want to be edu-tained, these sessions are for you.

Entertaining and educational. The best way to spend your Wednesday afternoons.

Need hands on experience when learning a new tech tool? Want to be shown the highlights of the coolest new technology and have a chance to test it out yourself? Then this is the session for you! Each week we will share a new technology feature and give you a chance to try it out with our guidance. From blogging to digital video to social networking, this is the place to get your hands on the tech!

It’s time to test out the tech!

It seems as if there are others out there looking to reinvent the concept of a library and computer lab too. What do you think? Is this the future of literacy and learning? Or have we missed the boat? What else can we do to support our teachers as we work towards 21st century learning in all of our classrooms?

Over the past few months, I’ve worked on two major projects with several of our fourth grade classes: Books Go Global! and the 1001 Flat World Tales project. I absolutely loved working with fourth grade and it was especially interesting to do the 1001 Tales project for the second time with such a different age group (last year I worked with seventh grade).

Overall, I am so impressed at the quality of work that our fourth graders have done, and just how much they are capable of doing on their own. Not only did we have these entire classes completing fairly intense, thoughtful projects, but we had smaller groups in each class going above and beyond expectations working on enhancing the entire class’ work – like creating an overarching story linking all 60 individual student stories together!

Our 1001 Tales students shared some great learnings with me at the end of their project:

The class really enjoyed:

• meeting other students and making friends
• typing on the computer instead of handwriting
• being able to put multimedia elements into their story – especially not having to waste paper to print pictures

They learned:

• How to make friends and be polite when working in an online environment
• How to behave appropriately online – from the videos we watched
• More about the writing process – how to write good paragraphs, revise writing, give comments, and improve our work
• How to do lots of cool time-saving things on the computer – right click, apple shortcuts
• How to make a wikispace – linking, adding pictures, editing text

And they reflected:

• Even though some of us didn’t like having other people see our writing before it was finished, we all agreed that our writing was better due to the collaborative process
• Although some of the technical tasks took quite a few steps, we now feel really confident that we can do these things even easier and better next time around

Their class teacher shared some feedback with me as well:

• Students learned so much about the writing process – revising, writing, editing, authorship.
• Students learned so much about working with collaborative technology – communicating online, behavior and attitude online.
• Not enough emphasis on persuasive writing – we should have added the essential questions right on our group page and had a checklist for persuasive writing quality to self-check after their first draft and a link with all the essential qualities of a good persuasive essay linked right to the group page because students were reluctant to use the paper handouts once they started working with the laptops.
• Because this was the first time for them, the computers became more of the focus – it would be better to do something smaller at the beginning of the year, use the tool lightly throughout the year, and then use it big time towards the end.
• There is good connection with this and a blog – a blog would be a good beginning to the year and it can grow into a wiki. Would be great to start with a class wiki at the beginning of the year, have the kids do an about me page, use it all year as a presentation tool (little bits here and there) and then do the final project at the end.
• Would have been nice to use the wiki for a short intro assignment at the beginning for persuasive writing – maybe a quick add or something that uses the language of persuasive writing to help emphasize the connection between writing on the wiki and this focus on persuasive writing.

These were really important conversations for me. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the final product, I forget to go back and reflect on the process. Having had previous experience with this specific project, I think I was able to coordinate the actual completion of each task relatively easily, but having fewer struggles with the collaboration now allows me to really focus on making sure the content and the pedagogical focus is at the forefront of student learning.

There are so many pieces to global collaborations that often times, the effort it takes to get all those schedules and structures in place can end up taking most of my time. This is a really important reminder for me to get all the planning done first, then step back and take a look at the curricular needs with fresh eyes, to make sure that once we get going, we’re going in the right direction.

Another interesting learning for me, is that even though these globally collaborative projects are all similar in their goals (connecting students through networked learning), it seems to take at least one completion of each project all the way through to really understand how to properly structure it. Every project is different enough that you have to actually work through the kinks in each one to really make the most out of it. Although I’ve learned so much from previous global collaborations, I still made plenty of mistakes in setting up the Books Go Global! project.

Here are a few things I learned from this time around:

• When setting up an ongoing project, make sure that you structure groups or workshops to complete the project on the same timeline. Not everyone has to be doing the project at the same time, but assuming that you’re looking for interaction, you want to make sure that it’s actually scheduled in, in advance. Otherwise you’ll be left with classes completing the project on their own or out of sync with the other groups.
• Try to sort the groups based on curricular goals so that the creation of common rubrics is easier (common rubrics make it so much easier for students to peer evaluate).
• Whatever tool you’re using (in this case we used a wiki), make sure that you plan for the easiest input of data as well as the easiest output. This time around I focused on making the final product the easiest to look through and review, but it ended up causing lots of frustration when we were all trying to edit the same wiki page at the same time.
• And, duh, along those lines, never make one central page to embed objects in a wiki. Make separate pages for each class or group. That way only the members of that class or group would be likely to edit out another student’s work.
• If you plan to have students from all the various schools working in one space, try to come up with common page naming practices (for example if all of the students in every class will be making multiple wiki pages, have them all use the school initials in their page names). This makes finding and linking pages so much easier.
• Especially for elementary students, find the easiest way to complete a task by testing out multiple ways with several students and then use that as your standard.
• Especially for elementary students, have each student write down their username and password in a safe place for future reference (and I usually keep a copy of all usernames and e-mail addresses on a spreadsheet in my files as well).

Sometimes I just wish I could just follow my own advice What else would you add to this list?

All in all, both of these projects were so much fun, and I truly appreciate the opportunity to be able to learn from these experiences. I can’t wait for the next major project so I can (hopefully) do an even better job! Please take a look at our outstanding VoiceThread book reviews on Books Go Global! and read our fantastic stories for the alien king on the 1001 Flat World Tales project. The students would love to hear your feedback as well!

Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, flatclassroom, collaborations, 1001 Tales, wiki, writing, workshop, persuasive, Books Go Global!, VoiceThread, book reviews,

Reflections on the ECIS Conference

Since I accepted the position of 21st Century Literacy Specialist at ISB just over a year ago, I’ve been thinking about how natural the connection is between the library and technology. Granted, I had never worked in a library before I set foot in our fabulous Learning Hub this past August, but having been a technology facilitator for seven years, I knew how much more I could accomplish when working in collaboration with the librarian. And, now, after attending the excellent ECIS Librarians Conference in Berlin last week, I can see an even stronger connection between these two essential resource teams.

As an outsider roaming incognito amongst the librarians of European international schools, I have to admit I felt a little bit of an impostor, but I am definitely glad I went! Not only did I have a chance to connect with lots of interesting people and get the inside scoop on the shape of international school libraries around the world, but I was also able to get a more in-depth (and research-based) understanding of how librarians and tech facilitators are such a natural fit. It is clear to me that we have much to learn from each other – where one department is strong, the other may be weak, and what a perfect partnership that makes!

After attending this conference, I am even more convinced that librarians and technology facilitators are an excellent team, much like the American standard, peanut butter and jelly. I like the idea of PB & J because:

• both peanut butter and jelly are fabulous on their own, but wow, when you put the two together, you get something extra special.
• peanut butter and jelly both have distinct qualities – they are definitely different, and both are definitely valuable outside of the time they spend together (jelly on toast, peanut butter with chocolate, etc).
• a pb&j sandwich is really at is best when enveloped by some exceptionally good bread, in this case, I’m thinking the bread is the curriculum – the foundation of the sandwich.

What really stood out for me at the conference, especially during Ross Todd‘s pre-conference session and Toni Buzzeo’s presentation on collaboration, is that there are two main areas where the PB and the J can really support one another: staying current with technology tools and successful collaboration.

Big Idea Number One: How Technology Facilitators Can Help Librarians

Technology facilitators can work in partnership with libraries to embrace and utilize new and emerging communication and collaboration technologies.

The first session that really got me thinking was the pre-conference presentation by librarian and researcher Ross Todd. Many of the ideas Ross presented to the group have been frequent topics of discussion, both with my colleagues here at ISB and with the amazing librarians in my personal learning network. Hearing some of these familiar ideas presented as something new, and perhaps controversial, in this session was, to be honest, a little surprising. It was, I suppose, a reminder that not everyone is as attuned to the latest developments as some of the people I’m lucky enough to be in contact with every day.

Some of Ross’ key points were:

Libraries need to embrace the power of web 2.0.

Ross was very diplomatic, yet bracingly honest, about the need for libraries to adopt and adapt to the changing nature of information and communication in our web 2.0 world. Again, what was especially surprising to me was the way Ross presented these ideas. His tone, phrasing, and specific language was clearly coming from the perspective that not only would this be, perhaps, one of the first times his audience was hearing about these tools, but that getting them excited about using them in their schools would be something of a challenge.

Librarians need to let go of pre-determined scope and sequence models, and to learn, as an educator, to work diagnostically and “just in time.”

One of my first tasks as a technology facilitator at Munich International School about six years ago was to use Rubicon Atlas to look through our curricular units to find projects that would naturally lend themselves towards the use of technology – based on the desired learning outcomes – and then propose those units to the core subject teachers as integrated units of study. Although it ended up being an extensive amount of work for me, it was so much more practical, productive, and successful than trying to fit any technology standards or outcomes into a random unit. Spending the time getting to know the curriculum, and finding obvious connections to technology not only made the units we actually planned and taught more relevant, it actually made it easier for me to “sell” the idea to the teachers. I love Ross’ vision of “carefully planned, closely supervised, targeted intervention(s) of an instructional team of teacher-librarians and teachers to guide students through curriculum based inquiry units that gradually lead towards deep knowledge and understanding.”

Librarians need to embed themselves within the core curriculum, through the backwards design process.

I thought Ross’s assertion here was especially interesting because I got the impression that this concept probably isn’t taken for granted among librarians, and might even be new to some of them. Libraries have such a clear historical significance and a defined role in our school culture that we all instinctively know what librarians do and why – or at least we think we do. Because of this long-established background, I can imagine that many librarians might not ever feel pushed to ponder and reevaluate the exact nature of their relationship to the core curriculum.

For me, however, the emphasis on embedding through backwards design resonated right away. As a technology facilitator I’m always conscious of the need not to be an “add on,” to naturally embed technology tools within the core curriculum – basically, to “make myself useful.” Maybe it’s because technology as an integrated discipline is new, or because people have such widely varying technology conceptions and comfort levels, but I’ve never expected teachers or administrators to automatically know what I do. In that sense, I am always working towards demonstrating what my role is, through my actions, and making my job relevant to the teacher’s job – which is to teach the curriculum.

One fundamental aspect of that is, as Ross also describes, using “the language of the curriculum, rather than the language of information literacy when working in collaboration with classroom teachers.” I appreciated this reminder to avoid technology or information literacy jargon and focus on our shared vocabulary of approaches and outcomes when working with teachers.

Librarians need to “let go of some shackles of information literacy. Information literacy is not the driving force of what we do – it’s about kids developing deep understanding.”

Instead of trying to develop mini-librarians that practice perfect citation and know the Dewey decimal system inside and out, Ross talked about librarians helping guide students “on a sustained journey to[ward] develop[ing] deep knowledge.” This sounds so similar to what we are developing at ISB – a 21st century literacy curriculum focused around questions, rather than standards.

Big Idea Number Two: How Librarians Can Help Technology Facilitators

Librarians can support technology facilitators in their efforts to be productive and successful collaborative partners in the delivery of core-curriculum content embedded with 21st century literacy tools.

The following day I attended Toni Buzzeo’s session on collaboration. I was amazed at how much thorough research there is on libraries and collaboration. I am always working in collaboration with another teacher, so working together well as a partnership or team is absolutely my first priority. Given the fact that the position of a school librarian has been around far longer than technology facilitator, it stands to reason that they would have much more experience at successful collaboration. Toni shared so many important, research-based, aspects of building a successful collaborative relationship that I know most technology facilitators (including myself) would benefit from hearing.

Some of Toni’s key points were:

Collaboration is “2 (or more) equal partners who create a project or unit of study based on content standards in one or more content areas, a unit that will be team-designed, team-taught, and team-evaluated.”

This has been more or less my underlying understanding of collaboration the whole time that I’ve been a technology facilitator, but listening to Toni talk about collaboration made me realize that I’ve never really sat down and thought about it in a formalized way, and I’ve never specifically stated my understanding of collaboration with any of my colleagues. Listening to this definition of collaboration made me realize how important it is to be clear about the process and goals of collaboration whenever I’m working with another teacher.

In an effort to help teachers get excited about technology integration in the classroom, I realize that at times I’ve been willing to sacrifice the quality of collaboration in order to get teachers and students working on something engaging and exciting. After hearing this definition, it’s become apparent to me that it’s critical that, as a school, we have an understanding of what collaboration means. If we are going to have 21st century literacy embedded throughout the curriculum, it’s necessary to develop a common understanding of what collaboration really means – not a situation where one or the other member takes on the bulk of responsibility, or where the teacher’s role is limited to sending the kids off to the “computer lab” from time to time, but really working together, as equal partners. Having that common understanding of what it means to collaborate, especially when grounded in solid and thorough library research, will be critical as we move forward with our literacy curriculum.

Steps to instructional partnership: Cooperation –>> Coordination –>> Collaboration –>> Data driven collaboration

I’ve never had this hierarchy explained to me so clearly and succinctly, or in such a research-based way. There is a vast difference between cooperation, coordination and collaboration, although I think many times we view all three as the same. Toni described cooperation as simply helping when a question is asked – like finding a website or a book for a teacher upon request; coordination as planning when a lesson or an activity happens which supports core curriculum; and collaboration as “a prolonged and interdependent relationship,” sharing goals, with carefully defined roles in the process and comprehensive co-planning. It seems easy for a technology facilitator to fall into the trap of simply offering cooperation or coordination services as these seem like a huge help to the classroom teacher. While these levels of interaction can be incredibly helpful to a teacher, they really aren’t collaboration. Interestingly, in the second session I attended with Ross Todd, where he described the outcome of his Ohio research in depth, and the results indicated that collaboration (not cooperation or coordination) had a higher impact on student learning, so that should always be our goal. It’s not enough to stop at the coordination level.

It was also reassuring to understand that these separate levels of working together are very distinct from each other and must be progressed through in sequence in every professional relationship. It was good to be reminded that steps can’t be skipped in this process, and that it’s not realistic to jump immediately into a perfect cooperative relationship with a coworker.

Along the same lines, Toni shared David Loertscher’s Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program. Although the taxonomy refers specifically to school libraries, it is equally applicable to technology programs. In either case, there are clearly similar steps to all tools used in schools. I found this all especially interesting because Loertscher’s taxonomy was heavily research-based. School library media programs have been around for a long time, so there is extensive research and experience about what is effective and how best to organize successful library media programs. Much of this refined body of research and experience can be transferred or adapted to shed light on emerging technology programs. Tech programs are in most cases still going through “growing pains” and finding where they fit within schools, and it was fascinating to realize that these pains may be extremely similar to problems which librarians have been dealing with for decades.

Work with the willing

Toni shared with us her idea of “Organizational Philosophy 101″: In every group of people, there are 3 constituents: the “oh yeahs” (the risk takers), the “yeah, buts” (not reluctant, just cautious – watch and wait and see), the “no way’s” (will never change). She laid out a steady plan for improvement, again based on extensive research: in the first year, work with “oh yeahs”, prove it, test it, work out the kinks. In the second year the “yeah buts” will come along. Finally in the third year, it falls to the administrators to bring the “no ways” on board. Again, something similar to this has been my underlying approach all along, but it was empowering and encouraging to hear concepts I’ve been thinking about, but have no formal proof for, explained in such a concise and sensible way.

I’m sure there are so many more opportunities for us to learn from each other; it was just particularly exciting for me personally to learn so much at this conference about the contexts and perspectives of librarianship, and to move from that to the realization of how well librarians and technology facilitators can fit together.

Tags: 21stcentury, 21st century literacy, collaboration, learning, embed, technology, curriculum, professional development, library, library2.0, education, research, Ross Todd, Toni Buzzeo

We’ve got the super-cool, futuristic library, aptly renamed The Learning Hub, but sadly, we’re still stuck in 1995 with our outdated library catalog, Athena (well, to be honest, December 2001 is the most recent update, but it feels more like my senior year in high school to me).

So, over the past few weeks our library team has been thinking about the features we would like to see in a library catalog (with the secret hope that maybe, just maybe, it might actually exist somewhere). Here’s what we came up with:

• User friendly search – book covers, visual, similar to Amazon
• User keyword tagging – social tagging like del.icio.us that would end up being fully searchable
• Relevancy searching like Google (the “did you mean…” result) and the category listings that appear at the end of an Amazon book page
• Incorporate searchable metadata in book records – more details than normally found in MARC records
• Podcasts & audio books embedded – easily downloadable to iPods – like iTunes (how does this work with copyright and licensing issues?)
• Book reviews, rate books, “if you like this, you’ll like this” – similar to Amazon
• RSS embedded – no need for multiple clicks to follow magazines (right now our EBSCO database takes something crazy like 6 or 7 clicks to get to the password protected RSS feature! How much more useless can you get?
• Embedded website search results for keywords
• Multimedia books (like Tumble Books) embedded – downloadable to video iPods or local machine at home (what are licensing issues with this?) – like iTunes

We have done a preliminary visit to some other international schools in Bangkok (Bangkok Pattana School and NIST) to get a sneak-peak at Destiny, and while it’s vastly better than Athena (and well worth the upgrade in my opinion), it’s still nothing to write home about.

Where’s the library catalog 2.0 I’m dreaming about (or the even better list Doug Johnson shared back in September)? Does it exist? Can we buy it?

Tags: library, catalog, catalog2.0, library2.0, follett, athena, destiny

I have been so excited about my new job at IS Bangkok since I was hired waaaay back in January that it’s hard to believe only three weeks have gone by since school started. For the past eight months I’ve been planning and thinking about what I can do with a brand new library and super cool job responsibilities (my job title is 21st Century Literacy Specialist, my role is to bring new and emerging literacies to all areas of the elementary school) that I almost feel like I’ve been working at ISB for months instead of weeks.

So, I suppose it’s not really surprising to see that I’m functioning on fast forward pretty much all the time. The projects that I’ve started in the last couple of weeks are finding a life of their own and I’m becoming busier and busier at school. Every morning when I arrive I have a line of people (and/or an inbox full of mail) requesting meeting time to start planning and implementing new projects in the classroom. It’s all very exciting, but I realized last week that I was forgetting about one really important group: the parents.

The teachers and administrators at ISB are so ready, excited, enthusiastic and anxious to get these kinds of projects going, that I must admit, I made the same assumption about the parents. Although many of them are totally on board, there is no excuse for forgetting about the ones that are nervous, concerned or unsure about having their child contribute to the overwhelming wealth of information available online.

So, this week I spent some time compiling all sorts of information about the benefits of blogging for our elementary students, mostly articles and websites that describe the future of learning, and how parents can understand and support their children at home while they utilize these tools. I’m going to start posting informative entries on my new Learning Hub blog, Connect 2.0, to keep the entire ISB community up to date on which exciting new things we are doing in class and why they are important for our students. Fortunately we have a great infrastructure in place for sharing news, so my posts on the blog will be fed into our weekly bulletin and linked as “latest news” on our school website.

I’m also planning to run regular “Coffee Morning” sessions for our parents to actually show them some of the new tools that their children are learning about and to give them a chance to test them out in our Technology Zone with the guidance and support of an “experienced user” (that would be me). Similar to the Coffee Morning, the whole Ed Tech team is going to run several technology training sessions as part of our PTA continuing education offerings.

I want to make sure that our parents are as informed and excited about technology as our staff! For now, this is all I can think of, but I’m sure there are more ideas out there. What do you do to keep your parent population educated, informed and ahead of the curve?

Image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/41/117097746_853e5479b5.jpg

Now that our first few weeks of school are over and things are beginning to settle into a more manageable pace, I am finally starting to work with our individual classroom teachers to get the technological ball rolling.

One of my major goals this year is to continue with the sort of global collaborations I was doing last year in KL. Of course, just as I was really starting to develop a great middle school personal learning network and an awesome set of same-age-group collaborators, I had to go and switch myself over to elementary. Hence the somewhat sparse blogging as of late. But, I’m starting to find my groove here at the PK-5 age group and some exciting things are starting to take shape.

In the last two weeks or so, I’ve worked with a few of our willing classroom teachers on developing exciting new projects that infuse authentic use of technology at a global level. Here are our current projects:

Grade 5:

Two of our five classes are going to work with Chris Craft on his Life ‘Round Here digital storytelling project. Our students are starting the year with a unit about culture, which is the perfect introduction to this project because it will allow us to adapt the concept for each student’s individual ability and interest. For the official project, we will only need six completed videos that fit Chris’ original paramenters, but since we will have around 50 students participating, we are hoping that we can differentiate both the content and the skill level for each individual student.

We’re thinking that a multimedia presentation about life in Thailand might be a bit tough for some of our kids, because most are expats and only spend a short time in each country. Therefore, the actual “official” submissions for the project might come only from those students that are ready for more of a challenge. Another group of students may make a video about their home culture, still another group may make a video about the school culture of ISB. I love that there’s plenty of room for growth and adjustment with this global collaboration so that we can make sure it suits the needs of our learners.

As an added bonus, both of the classes participating in the Life ‘Round Here project have decided to start blogging. Over the course of the next two weeks, each student in these two classes will start setting up their own blogs through Learnerblogs. We are seeing these blogs as a place for individual learning and reflection, metacognition, a personal journal of growth over the course of the year. We are conscious of keeping away from the “blogging as homework” dilemma in order to allow them to be the leaders in their own learning. Each teacher will have a class blog where students may be asked to comment, and we’re sure to have some writing prompts or guiding questions throughout the year, but we want to make sure that these blogs are a place for personal reflection, more than just a place to post homework.

Another third fifth grade class has just started learning about Native Americans and will be collaborating on a wiki to share what they learn. We’re looking at this as an opportunity to learn about research as well as presentation and collaboration skills. It would be great to find another grade 5 class that’s interested in participating with us!

Grade 2:

One of our grade two classes will be working with Alecia Dry’s teachers on the Global Village project to connect elementary students around the world. The goal is to merge our two classrooms into one global village by conducting joint activities or projects once a month. We are going to focus on intercultural understanding and making connections between or different lifestyles. Because second graders are so young, I’m hoping we can set up a Ning with this group to let them learn and explore in a “walled garden” setting. I would love to see where they can go with all the easy to use embedded features that Ning has to offer!

I’m also hoping to set up blogs with our grade 4s and maybe start a podpals (like pen pals, only with podcasts instead of letters) in grade 3. I would also love to continue the 1001 Flat World Tales project with a grade 3 or 4 class if possible. Anyone interested in joining in? As always, I am open to all sorts of ideas, so if you’re interested in starting something new, let me know!

We hosted a school-wide contest to name our beautiful new facility and the winner is…

The Learning Hub

According to the handy Oxford English dictionary on my Mac, a hub is:

• the central part of a wheel, rotating on or with the axle, and from which the spokes radiate.
• a place or thing that forms the effective center of an activity, region, or network : the kitchen was the hub of family life.

We love this term on so many levels:

The Learning Hub will clearly be the effective center of learning at our school, hosting a wide variety of exciting activities to engage our students, with classes rotating in and out throughout the school day, connecting groups of teachers and students into new and dynamic networks of learners, where new ideas and insights radiate out to each and every area of our elementary school.

The metaphor of a wheel also has links to the cultural traditions of our host country, Thailand. The Buddhist wheel of dharma is one of the most common images in Thai symbology. It’s seen everywhere from temple flags, to logos on school supplies, to the doors of local taxis.

I can’t wait to see what exciting new learning comes from this perfectly named space!

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41017140@N00/1234558648