Why School Libraries?

This new video prepared by Joyce Valenza was recently launched on the TeacherLibrarian Ning. Join the Ning to stay current with what's happening and support school librarians.

Find more videos like this on School Library InfoTech Programs: Tapestry of Effective Practice


TL Cafe: First Monday Webinar: On Web Presence
Time: March 1, 2010 from 8pm to 9pm Eastern (Starts at 5PM Pacific) 7 pm Central
Location: http://www.learncentral.org/vroom/enter/5553
Street: http://tlvirtualcafe.wikispaces.com
Website or Map: http://www.learncentral.org/v…
Buffy Hamilton, Carolyn Foote, Barb Jansen, and Christina Bentheim discuss school library web presence. Joyce and Gwyneth host and facilitate

I will be joining the discussion on the School Library web presence. Our web presence is the key to providing access for students. In the month of February alone we had 170,000 hits onto our website just from outside of school. Not counting the 2000 visitors per day that walk through our doors and use school computers.

New award for library blogging!

If you like our library blog, please read below and nominate us:
http://newtrierlibrary.blogspot.com/


Peter Tobey from Salem Press:
"As you are probably aware, blogs about libraries have spread across the web. There are (literally) hundreds of people writing about books, libraries, librarians and related subjects. If you count the blogs that come from specific institutions, spreading local news, there are thousands of the things. Some are funny. Some are brilliant. Others, aren't.

REWARDING EXCELLENCE
Since I'm a big fan of these intellectual exercises, I thought it would be a good idea to recognize the best efforts in the field. Not only to praise the praise-worthy but also to publicize the good stuff. It seems to me there should be a well-organized directory of library blogs and a "peoples' awards" program of some kind to let folks know what blogs are best-liked and most widely read.

So Salem Press is going to host the First Annual Library Blog Awards. Complete with cash prizes. But we'll go beyond an annual celebration and related hoopla. We will also build a website that monitors library blogs and updates folks on especially interesting thoughts and news. You'll be able to scan the gist of several interesting posts and then drill down to the blogs themselves if you are interested.

TO BEGIN
I'd like to request nominees. That is, the names (and URLs, if possible) of library-centric blogs you know and love. Send as many as you'd like. We'll publish this popularity poll and let you know when it's online. Those who contribute suggestions also will be kept up to date about our progress regarding the "blog highlights" site and the Library Blog Awards, too."

Send me a list of your favorite library blogs @ ptobey@salempress.com

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

Regards,
Peter W Tobey
Director, Sales & Marketing
Salem Press
ptobey@salempress.com

Back at another Rushton Hurley session at ICE

Rushton Hurley: Japanese Language teacher in California. A nonprofit guy...who is sharing content from his organization NextVista which publishes videos made by students.

Video engages students: we enjoyed so many student productions. Zamzar.com will help you get videos on your desktop if Google is blocked at your school. Kids can use this service to convert YouTube files which are currently blocked and use clips in their presentations without having to do it from the teacher computer.

Students often have great questions, e.g. "What is the role of humility in a strong person's life?" Digital video is important for many reasons: there something totally engaging about video. There is a power in unpredictability; teachers are very predictable. Video is unpredictable and therefore interesting. Students want to be intrigued. How do we talk with and learn from our students?
The Power of Video: Surprise me...don't give students too many parameters which will kill creativity.

Students love to celebrate each other's work. Signing out - my battery is low!

Gale Database Presenter: Sara Tarpley

After lunch we attend the "Celebrate 21st Century Learning”: it focused on reinventing legacy products! Coming in May/June revamp of Opposing Viewpoints;
August/September: revamping History Resource Center.
Today the focus is on Global Issues in Context: updated 8 times/day! Did you know that? I sure didn't. Most of the legacy products will have a similar interface in the future: Global News sources; primary sources; interactive statistics; podcasts & videos; readspeaker; Google Maps
Fully Customizing: You can place Academic Journals first instead of something else, e.g. global viewpoints! Sara also spoke about GREENR database and Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia –new interface!with Knowledge Portal Features.

Gale realizes that their databases are outmoded for students and they are trying to
make them look more like the web and less like a database.
The philosophy is “you know what to do” because it’s more like the web.
Someone made a suggestion that Gale products make their citations enabled to be exported to Noodle Tools. They will consider this idea. Wouldn't that be awesome.
Very exciting: Erika won the American Express Gift Card.

Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology

Rushton Hurley: Japanese Language teacher in California. A nonprofit guy...what else do you expect from California.

Free resources for classrooms: Technology had better save me time or help the kids learn better. Period.

Don't
Don't have teachers require themselves to be tech experts.
Don't tie everything to standards. [duh]
Don't sit everyone is a lab for training. (Erika just reminded me about Follett Destiny training!!)


Do's
Remind teachers of their expertise.
Give students options but channel it to the cool stuff. You can do a movie or make a poster. Kids will definitely veer toward the cool stuff.
Talk with students NOT at them.
Why are you there as a teacher? So you (as teacher) can learn something!
Show other teachers something fun. Show them your flickr favorites. Show them with
Cool Iris (Firefox plug-in)! Awesome for visually compelling lessons. Prompts discussions.
Do allow regular (and short) sharing time.
Great clip made for No Food, No Drink in the lab/library!

Do look at what's happening in the classrooms. Don't tell me what you'd do if you had X or Y. Tell me what you'd do with the tech you have now.
Do learn what’s freely available. You don’t need CAD, you can use like Google’s SketchUp.
Do: use targeted spending to focus purchases.
See Lightbulbs section of his website to see videos folks have created.
Textbooks are by definition: BORING. –see videos “Global Views” section.
See also: “Seeing Service”. Videos of service-- Great idea to share with Mitch Jones.
Students need to know that they have “something to give”. The stories are out they – the best that we can be.
Xrl.us/NVnews
Fill out a form to get your free stuff: Send your email
rh@nextvista.org
Loved this presentation. Going back to hear more at 2:30pm.

Steve Dembo session: The Power of Glass Schools

Steve Dembo is such a great presenter. Yesterday's session on digital storytelling was great, so I am back for more. He's affiliated with Discovery Education. So he's a former educator now promoting multimedia stuff...another blurring of roles. But he does walk the walk and he's definitely not selling products. He's definitely worth following on Twitter.

View his presentation.
Carl Fish originated a staff development "Did you know"? Now it's been re-mixed with 120 million views. Started with a simple PPT and now it's a multimedia extravaganza with all manner of other educators, re-mixing and making it more fabulous. He took the time to share this out on his blog...so professor Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog shared it and it went mainstream. The thing is...if you share enough...others will find value in your work. Think about your own skill set and how other educators would benefit from WHAT YOU KNOW!

What does this mean for our students and classrooms? We need to scaffold the social media experience for students starting with kindergartners. Let's not wait until high school.
Examples of teachers doing cool things:
Students are fluent with many technologies such as blogger, YouTube, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, SecondLife, SlideShare, Photostory, Moviemaker. Vicki Davis followed her middle school students as they did projects exploring dozens of technologies to learn. She is the author of the Flat Classroom Project based on Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat.
She wants her students to work across the globe in real time and asynchronously.

Jen Dorman: has much more structure to her projects.

Lisa Parisi: Star Discovery Educator
Podcast using cellphones: GCast. Using mobile podcasting. Students storyboarded podcast and then recorded; published online. Focused entirely on content.

Steve mentioned again the use of the new tool ipadio to do mobile podcasting. This would be a great tool for students to "podcast" in school from the cell phones what they have learned in the library as they progress with their Jr. theme research progress. Can do interviews via 3 way conference call. You can also add a one minutes transcription, title, and key words to your podcast. Students then can subscribe to these feeds via itunes. This doesn't need to be a big deal and all scripted.
Individual accounts are free; space is unlimited.

Maria Knee - Kindergarten teacher. Uses blog for class newsletter adding photos/videos for weekly parent notes. Also included Yackpack! It turns your webpage into a 2 way radio. This opens up page to real time conversations with the class. Parents can pop on and ask how's Tim's cough going? Can open it up during key times during the day. Can have classroom to classroom conversations.
Makes your classroom transparent.

Langhorst's Web Classroom - 8th Grade American History:
Ask an author. An example of a very locked down classroom doing online projects.

Darren Kuropatwa- blogging classroom notes started simply. Then kids started adding visuals, finding extra sources for daily work then sharing out with the class.
Then daily notes got even more elaborate: converted into graphic novel form. Kids got really creative.
Demonstrate their understanding creatively. They even created a class scribe "Hall of Fame". Scribe Post Hall of Fame for daily AP Calculus notes.

Would it be quite as meaningful behind a firewall?

Jen Wagner She does a wordle of the day and has kids guess the theme.
She has great ways of letting parents have a window into the classroom. It doesn't need to be elaborate. Can be a flip cam loaded up to Teacher Tube/YouTube/Vimeo or OSTube - where you have 100% control of it. It's also 100% free.

Friday Keynote Session at NICE

Robert J. Marzano, PhD, is cofounder and CEO of Marzano Research Laboratory in Englewood, Colorado. [from his website] A leading researcher in education, he is a speaker, trainer, and author of more than 30 books and 150 articles on topics such as instruction, assessment, writing and implementing standards, cognition, effective leadership, and school intervention. His books include Designing & Teaching Learning Goals & Objectives, District Leadership That Works, Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading, On Excellence in Teaching, and The Art and Science of Teaching.

Listening to "Classroom Instruction and the Infusion of Technology" with Robert Marzano - from Marzano Research Laboratory. He's presenting research on how whiteboard technology improves student achievement. Guess what Marzano sells?
Does anyone have a problem with this at the conference? He's got a comprehensive set of products to sell. Although he is a good speaker and probably a competent researcher, I definitely have a problem with this as a keynote to the conference.
You could ask, what's the difference between "selling your books" [David Warlick] and selling classroom technology? He has "free resources" on his site in the form of school data/evidence; classroom tools; resources; PPT presentations, etc.

What do you think about blurring the lines between educational presentations and marketing?

Twitter is at the Heart of Mental Disorders

So that's what's wrong with me! Who knew?

For more on whether Twitter breeds narcissism read this Social Media Today analysis.

David Warlick's Presentation

Warlick began by stating that today's 21st Century teachers must be "master learners". He describes the 'native information experience' which is so different from previous generations because students today "have no ceiling". The sky's the limit. We had no global audience for our work or for our experimentation. With our connectivity today we have turned into a Question-asking Culture!

Warlick's intention is to "expand our notions of information skills and experience to understand and crack the code of our students outside-the-classroom experience and perhaps even hack that code — harness those literacies for learning".

The Native information experience of our students:

* Is fueled by questions
* Provokes conversation
* Is responsive
* Demands personal investment and identity
* Guided by safely-made mistakes
We need to stop making assignments and rubrics that are so specific that the students don't want to ask questions. Questions promote conversation which is how learning happens. We need to craft activities that "talk back to the learner". We need to say to the students..."surprise me!" The ideal learning environment is "learning without boundaries".

Today what's important is not what you have been taught; it's what you can teach yourself!

Here's Warlick's wonderful bibliography of sources for this presentation

and last but not least, the PREZI:

Cracking the Native Information Experience on Prezi

Steve Dembo's Presentation on Storytelling with YouTube

One thing I learned was the definite difference between a "Mashup" and a "remix". The former combines two different pieces of content; the latter is a transformation of a single video with either a changed soundtrack to change the message or other editing which completely transforms the work.

Enjoy Dembo's Prezi:

Storytelling for the YouTube Generation on Prezi

By the way, all the good presenters were using Prezi!

Edmodo

Today at ICE I attended "Using Edmodo in Your Classroom" presented by Erica Roberts
from Jefferson Junior High School in Woodridge, IL

Edmodo provides, " A private social platform for teacher and students to share ideas."

Similar interface to Facebook and is beneficial in 3 ways:
1. Engages students
2. Improves communication w/ students
3. reduce the amount of paper used in the classroom

Web-based and sign up is free!
Teachers can manage classes and students through this web tool. This space is private, so individuals outside of the class cannot see information.

Students can receive new grades and comments through Edmodo. There is a grade book feature that was just launched today which allows teachers to view all students' grades and upload to online grading programs!!!!
Roberts also uses this tool for bell work and posting new assignments, so when students arrive in her computer class, they can immediately "get to work!" :)
A calendar allows teachers and students to see upcoming assignments.
Edmodo also has a "poll" feature, which allows teachers to post questions for students to vote on. Students can only vote once, and they cannot change their answer once they've voted. Anonymous results.

Students can message the class asking questions.
Assignment files can be submitted through the program when completed. (No worry about file conversions...Mac or PC...it doesn't matter.)
This is also a great way for students who have internet access at home to keep in touch with classwork when they are away from school.

Great for groups or clubs as well!

Support is "AMAZING" according to Roberts.
Follow their blog
Follow @edmodo on Twitter

Student Attention in the Digital Age: Scott Weidig

Pace of Change: How can we look at things differently?
70% of population on Facebook are outside the United States.
Session handout:

Student Attention in the Digital Age

"While there are ample examples of “evidence” that technology engages and captivate students, quite often we hear that educators feel that it either loses it’s impact over time, or ‘distracts’ students into missing the objective of the lesson. Which are YOU finding to be true? Ask yourself a few questions: Has our pedagogy changed and adapted to meet the direction the world is forcing upon our children and students? Should it change? If so, what is getting in the way of change? Come ready to challenge these topics."


Wiki of all presentation handouts for all sessions!

Mario Armstrong- - Keynote Presentation at ICE

Hello from the ICE Conference!

Armstrong's goal is to address strategies designed to help us integrative, creative technology solutions in the classroom. He is having us tweet to him. Steve Dembo won the fastest geek tweet - won a book. Armstrong's a video game aficionado.

We need to learn how to learn again. Armstrong says he thinks technology needs to be integrated correctly. The biggest problem in our field is how to teach students problem solving? He illustrates this via the evolution of the Segway.

Get feedback via real-time feedback from Twitpoll. Working with people resistant to change is a big problem. Budgets are not the biggest problem.

We are re-defining the nature of the "classroom". The classroom can be the mall or waiting for the bus. What devices are kids using now? Here's where the opportunity is for kids:math & science careers will grow by more than twice that of any other profession.
Who's doing What?
About 1/3 of the audience is using Skype. Join the Educational Skype Directory.

Unfortunately, this keynote is short on vision and long on a presentation of cool tools for taking education outside the classroom.

Session I: will most likely attend Sara Kajder's "New Literacies, New Questions, New Research"
1) How do we know what is really working in our pedagogy?
2) What does it mean to research with adolescents?

Session II: Lucy Gray & Liz Lehman (Univ of Chicago Lab School and Arlington Hts. District 25) " Using Technology to Foster Exploration and Reflection in Science" - inquiry based Science learning.

Looking forward to: David Warlick's luncheon event: Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century!


After lunch, it's off to the exhibits.
Afternoon sessions: Will definitely attend Steve Dembo's "Storytelling for the YouTube Generation".

Marilyn Johnson is the author of This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

There's been quite a bit of tweeting going on regarding author Marilyn Johnson's new book: This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

Johnson argues that, even in the Google age, librarians are still the best resource for accurate answers. In fact, Johnson says librarians are more important now then ever before. Plus, they're fascinating... they compete in dance competitions and blog about the quirky and downright disgusting behavior of patrons.

Our social studies teacher, Spiro Bolos, gave me a heads up on embedding this interview to our blog:

This is for all you Twitter skeptics: What I learned on Twitter today

Here's a listing of cool things I learned and shared in about 30 minutes on Twitter:(and this is without Mashable's feeds down??for some reason)

FillAnyPDF.com is a website where you upload your PDF form and link to it so other people can fill it out and sign it online. No software is needed. Any PDF form can be used, even if it's not "interactive", so you can get started right away. You can even invite a group to fill out your forms and track the results. Anyone that collects signatures or filled out forms will find FillAnyPDF.com to be a valuable time-saving resource. (Phil Bradley, librarian)

VUVOX - slideshows, photo, video and music sharing. Use the Collage option to quickly produce dynamic interactive panoramas with hot-spots. Use Studio to build a personalized media presentation... and, place it in your Collage. Use Express to build presentations with dynamic content from RSS feeds and online albums.(Phil Bradley, librarian)

WatchKnow Videos: all the best free educational videos made for children, and making them findable and watchable on one website. Millions of great short videos, and other watchable media, explaining every topic taught in schools, in every major language on Earth ( a goal), usefully categorized according to subject, education level, and placed in the order in which topics are typically taught. (Tom Whitby, Professor of Education in Secondary English.)

The Power of TED talks: The Economist comments on David Cameron's #TED talk http://bit.ly/aTsf6Z
(The Economist)

Welcome to the world of zero privacy! How Buzz, Facebook and Twitter Create Social Insecurity
(Mike Elgan,technology culture writer)

Michael Stephens is walking his dog in Mishawaka, IN, near Petro Park. (8:30 am today) --Michael Stephens Professor of Library & Information Science at Dominican Univ.

Watch the YouTube video about POD's: Personally Owned Devices that students bring to school and our need for educators to start using them in the classroom.
This is part 3 of 3: Expectations and Attitudes.
(digital teacher Sonya Woloshen - fearless new teacher, willing to experiment)
shared by "thecleversheep" Ross Lucier, Canadian who works with e-tools).

Love my personal learning network.

Foursquare: Not Ridiculous?

I've been watching the Winter Olympics this week and was curious about the Foursquare/New York Times partnership recently announced. It's a no-brainer to figure out how this is lucrative for businesses: recommendations on local eateries, attractions, shopping and nightlife are featured "posts" so that Foursquare nerds can 'check-in' to at least two recommended venues to 'unlock' the New York Times Olympics badge. A really cool mash-up!

If I were in Vancouver I would definitely be checking the posts (done by about 1500 "friends" of the NY Times")such as:
@ Vancouver Olympic Centre: Check out the aboriginal art that will be installed as part of the Vancouver 2010 Venues Aboriginal Arts Program. OR

@ Dup's Burritos: If you can finish a “Phatty,” the two-pound burrito, they’ll put your picture on the wall. Or, try the Canadian spin on Mexi-fries, hash browns with beef, cheese, salsa and guacamole.

That said, I am still trying to wrap my head around Foursquare. Users check-in with Foursquare to notify others of where they are...coffee shops, bakeries, bars, parks, homes, offices. It's a tool to let others find you and also recommend places to go and things to do nearby. People can also earn points and badges for discovering new things. So, I totally get this from a marketing standpoint.

Foursquare also enables users to automatically share their check-ins, 'mayorships'(frequent customer status) and unlocked badges (like merit badges) with Facebook. Foursquare’s Facebook integration works for BlackBerry, Android devices, Palm Pre,iphone and ipad devices (and via mobile web). Folks are furiously developing web apps to enhance the experience, such as SocialGreat which grabs check-in data from Foursquare, couples it with Twitter and BrightKite geodata, and shows you what places in your neighborhood are hot spots. What if you want to find out about special deals at your favorite places? yipit is a handy application which imports your usual haunts from Foursquare and then keeps tabs on specials at those venues for you. Coming soon! Layar Reality Browser: This one adds a Foursquare layer to the augmented reality browser. Basically, you point your camera at a building, and it tells you who’s there, who’s the "mayor" (most frequent customer), and what advice/tips were left behind.

Maybe I've seen too many episodes of "America's Most Wanted", but I am creeped out by the possibility of stalkers and weirdos, robbers and other assorted nut jobs who may know someone is not home and who also may want to meet them for nefarious purposes. However,I am trying to keep an open mind and found value with Foursquare after reading today's New York Times article-- Past Twitter: This App Makes a City Come Alive I resonate with the sentiment expressed, [Foursquare has] “changed the way I consume things in the offline world.” The local neighborhood recommendations do lend accessibility to unknown parts of a city. I am fascinated by the possibilities for exploration and by the "get off the couch and learn something" aspect. To learn more, follow Mashable's articles on FourSquare.

For now, I will be content to become a stalker on Foursquare, lurking on the sidelines, not yet fully engaged in mobsourcing.

A New Cool Tool: Wetoku

Wetoku - a way to connect across the globe shown at the Global Classroom Session by Jacqui Pritchard

Whether oceans apart or living next door, Wetoku brings you together.
MEET - RECORD with a webcam - SHARE

"Wetoku is a new tool to make interviews easy for bloggers, and easy for their viewers. With Wetoku, you can meet someone online with your webcam, record the meeting, and instantly embed it into your website. Wetoku is free to use, and there is nothing to install. Your interview is automatically recorded for instant playback."

Embed it to your blog and share it with the world!

Alfie Kohn Live EdChat

This is an edited version which is still rather long at 52 min. However, interesting points about standardized testing.

Alfie Kohn Live Chat from Shelly Terrell on Vimeo.

Example of library research pathfinder on PREZI

Rather than embed the Prezi here, click here to view it.

This is for a Junior level U.S. History students who will be selecting one of five key eras that reveal the ongoing tension between tradition/old ways/status quo and innovation/reform/new ideas in our nation's history. They will research a time period and present a lesson to the class regarding the ways in which the new and old were in conflict.

Do School Libraries Need Books?

This week, the New York Times' Room for Debate blog asked that very question, with commentary from the following individuals:
* James Tracy, headmaster, Cushing Academy
* Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, English professor, University of Maryland
* Liz Gray, library director, Dana Hall School
* Nicholas Carr, author, “The Big Switch”
* William Powers, author, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry”
What do you think?

#edchat

#edchat is searchable on Twitter and I am bringing it to your attention because it's a worthwhile stream of education-related tweets.

It all started with retired high school English teacher Tom Whitby who became an adjunct education professor at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn, NY and began tweeting to exchange best practices, ideas and resources, with other tweeting educators. With two other colleagues last August, he created the hash tag #edchat for educators to attach to their tweets. Then he came up with the idea of conducting weekly, hour-long discussion which would take place every Tuesday (one at 12 noon for European users and one at 7 pm EST for those in North America and Australia.

I usually don't follow the chat in real time but I do search for #edchat on Twitter to follow the most recent stream of tweets. In December, 2009 Whitby, Shelly Terrell and Steve Anderson won a prestigious EDUBLOG Award for the most influential Educational Twitter series.

Meanwhile, Whitby created The Educator's PLN(edupln.ning.com), a ning network, and tirelessly promoted it through Twitter. He finally nagged enough so that I jumped on and joined to see what the buzz was all about. Many educators agree that they learn more on Twitter than from any other type of workshop or seminar. I highly encourage you to visit the ning and find many helpful forums, discussions, videos, and other educational sites and nings which are linked. Thank you Tom for creating the ning and for tirelessly promoting it.

Profile Information for Tom Whitby

Twitter ID http://www.Twitter.com/@tomwhitby

Linkedin Profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswhitby

Delicious name http://www.delicious.com/tomwhitby

Skype Account Name thomas_whitby

Blog http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/

If you haven't developed a PLN, start here; start now.

A Valentine's Gift for L. Straube

Providing something to play with on your day off! Another word cloud tool which allows for a bit more customization: WordItOut.
It uses a different technology than Wordle, and so can offer several advantages, such as leaving out words, a direct URL and an embed feature. Your word cloud can be private or public. Firefox is the recommended browser.

Read: a comparison of Wordle and WordItOut.

Your School's Most Important Resource?

The most important resource in the building is not the Media Teacher or the Classroom Teacher. It's not the Gym Teacher or the Counselor. It's the learner. If we all put the learners first in our own ways, then everyone is right.

-Pete Caggia:Library Media Specialist; Educational Technology Teacher; National Board Certified Teacher ; Web 2.0 enthusiast

Image Credit: Girl 8 by Roland S. Lakis
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolandslakis/114501272/sizes/l/
Licensed Creative Commons Attribution

Quote by Pete Caggia, @pcaggia, pete.caggia@gmail.com

Slide by Bill Ferriter
http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical

Decided to follow pcaggia on Twitter.

Google Buzz

The new social updating and aggregation feature integrates with your cell phone and your Gmail, providing a service that mashes up Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Yelp. I get Yelp! but I am still quite skeptical about the value of Foursquare(besides commercial benefits for businesses)I definitely can see the value of Buzz Maps: In the nearby stream, you can click “Buzz map” to view nearby buzz on a map. This would be so helpful in exploring a city or looking for a coffee shop with free wifi. Reviewers say that if you're already doing Foursquare, you're unlikely to switch to Buzz because the mobile app is cumbersome.


Forrester Research says: "Buzz doesn’t update user’s Twitter or Facebook feeds, so I expect experimentation but not wholesale switching in the foreseeable future. Buzz could end up supplementing rather than replacing users’ other social networks for now.”

This promises to be Google’s most aggressive push into social media yet! I guess it's finally time for me to get a personal gmail account.

Time to Learn Prezi

This great presentation software is a tool I recently showed to IGSS students and also to Mr. Wright's US History class. Not all students are interested in ramping up their presentations, but some certainly are. Follow the PREZI below to learn the basics of the program:

Academy: Prezi Workflow in 15 minutes on Prezi

Cognitive Case for Multimedia Learning

New Trier High School's social studies teacher and technology facilitator Spiro Bolos recently created a presentation for the school Technology Planning Committee using some examples of curricular design using multimedia.
Read Bolos'Curricular Technology blog, to learn how he incorporates ideas from Richard E. Mayer's The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning,

"It's not the specific media that creates learning, it's the educational design that creates learning" (Mayer) Mayer's book is available at the New Trier Library.

Multimedia Learning

View more presentations from New Trier High School.

Just Tell Me What to Do

This is from Scott McCleod's blog: Dangerously Irrelevant

"Just tell me what to do" [to get a B]

[Educator] Seth Godin wrote today that:

People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: "If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I'm safe."

I think another big reason is that most people spent at least 12 years of their life being deeply socialized in the “just tell me what to do” model.

---------------------
I immediately thought of some of our Jr Theme students. and how we sometimes enable them by feeding into this, perpetuating a sense of helplessness. Your thoughts?

J.D. Salinger

Check out this amusing opinion piece from the Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich about J.D. Salinger and "The Catcher in the Rye".

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-met-schmich-0129-20100128,0,2228117.column

More on the Pew report findings

The Pew report also says" Our survey of teens also tracked some core internet activities by those ages 12-17 and found:

* 62% of online teens get news about current events and politics online.
* 31% of online teens get health, dieting or physical fitness information from the internet. And 17% of online teens report they use the internet to gather information about health topics that are hard to discuss with others such as drug use and sexual health topics."

What other steps can we take to help students find quality information like TeensHealth.org or those listed on New Trier's Health Resources page?

Pew on Social Media and Young Adults

Pew Internet and American Life Project released its report yesterday on Social Media and Young Adults. Telephone survey data confirmed what we are observing and hearing from students. Amongst the key findings:

"Blogging has declined in popularity among both teens and young adults since 2006. Blog commenting has also dropped among teens."

"Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen significantly, yet there are shifts and some drops in the proportion of teens using several social networking site features."

"Teens are not using Twitter in large numbers."

"Cell phone ownership is nearly ubiquitous among teens and young adults."

For more details and the full report, click here.

iPad Keynote in less than 180 Seconds: Incredible, Beautiful, Amazing!

It'll be really great when the price comes down! When other competitors drive down the cost of ebooks they will become ubiquitous,and the real cheering will begin. Right now, ipad is causing the price of ebooks to go up. However, some predict the ipad will kill the Kindle.

digital_nation - life on the virtual frontier

This Tuesday, February 2nd, at 8pm locally watch pbs' Frontline for the premiere broadcast of digital_nation - life on the virtual frontier OR view the program online. The series features "an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st century digital world". Go online to investigate lesson plans, particiate in polls and contribute to the discussion on modules such as 21st century schools OR learning in virtual worlds.

As one expects from pbs and sponsors MacArthur Foundation and others, the quality is high and engaging. Explore the site for interviews with Stanford's Cliff Ness or Wired's Noah Shachtman; upload your own story; or view short clips on literacy, concentration, and games that teach. All of that is just in the "Learning" section! Several more broad topics are featured, including "Living Faster" and "Relationships".