371.3 ISTE 2010: SIGMS Smackdown

Ok...after a little rough start (some folks have never dealt with a hallway FULL of Librarians on a mission) we are all in and getting ready to hear a laundry list of resources and ideas given at lightning speed!



I am going to attampt to blog this live...so forgive the typos, etc. I will attach any links that are needed to make things clearer....Joyce is here, David Loertscher is here, and...



I have typed this much and my battery is already at 65%..it says 4 hours, ha I won't make 4 minutes at this rate! No power source available (see first sentence!) [update: the battery did last, but I am now sharing a plug with a lovely woman from NZ just in case for further needs this p.m.]


oh well... have the paper/pen back up ready!



while we are waiting for the fun to begin....

everyone is signing up for Wallwisher.com to participate behind the scenes. You create a wall and then can share with another wall...that is how they are going to share ideas today. Not sure I understand the concept at this point...but I'm listening carefully.



Joyce Valenza regarding wikiness (the twitter chatter)...the smartest in the room is the room itself rather the people at the front table.

On being a tribe - shared interest and way to communicate...stronger when we share...we built a geek tribe ...SIGMS, 2nd Life, School Library wiki...etc. we will survive because we are a tribe!
The tribe needs leaders, not just managers... web erases geography issues.


Th e panel presents these:
DIGITAL STORYTELLING
Reading 2.0 - using Technology to promote books - not replace them
Blabberize - web application create talking avatars from photographs
Google Search Stories
Voki - using to tell student story
Zooburst - virtual pop up books
toonDoo
Xtranormal
Prezi - look at Maximum ride example to see how is used to do storytelling



INFO FLUENCY

For phones:
Gale mobile apps - you have to have subscription!
Tag readers - red lazer, shot savvy ---loooks like 3 dimensional bar code (more on this )

And then others online...
Google Apps - all on a Glogster that Joyce created.
Google Timeline features - sample is whole bunch on the oil spill from all newspaers
Mashpedia - wikipedia + other resources in real time...do the oil spill as example...wow!
Pathfinder Swap - join and share
Build your own information space on iPad using Pulse...put your library there!



DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

Get Your License - PBS
Mike Ribble book entitled ...
Digital Citizenship webquest
Brain pop free things on etiquette...district (Ed Tech) has subscription can get more
Digiteen from Flat Classroom Project...several things on NetEtiquette
NetLingo.com - shortcuts for texting....might be useful to look at to see what certainthings mean
Plagarism -proofing assignments by Doug Johnson
The disney video explaining fair use!
Creative Commons!! - it is hard to believe lots of people (librarians) don't know about it
21st Century citizenship - everyone is a copyright holder
and more that didn't get up before the time whistle



NETWORKING BUILDING

Twitter - worth lurking...more in another post about Mario Armstrong

TweetDeck - to manage what you follow...can make columns...more in another post. ha

Wikis - any product; keeping directions for teachers etc...so you don't repeat the same thing over & over

Google Reader and other RSS readers - helps you keep up with what has been updated!

DEN - Discovery Educator Network ..we already have the subsciption. take advantage of what is there

TL Virtual Cafe - transformative conversation

Social bookmarking like Diigo and delicious



Audience participation:
Ok...here is THE Link you need

SMACKDOWN WIKI aka http://tlsmackdown.wikispaces.com/

everything contributed on the left under the various catagories





Others for books:
schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces
bookleads.wikispaces.com



tagxedo! - wordle with a twist I think this is the winner! In fact, I tried to get in and the site was almost crashing! You need to look at it!



David Loestcher CLOSED

The Big Think time...

watch the game reviews...watch for patterns and trends...how will you win next time....

"So powerful voices out there saying all this is just fun and games...doesn't contribute to learning."

His challenge to us...what is learned. We must document the learning.

Use this and post it after every lesson, project, etc.

Because I used ______ I learned ___________.

More details later...

371.3 ISTE 2010: Overview So Far

Have disappointed some folks because I haven't blogged live...have disappointed myself!
The nature of the conference for me this time just hasn't allowed for it.
Then when I got back to the hotel I have been pulled in other official ways. Tonight I promise details, pictures, and video!

I am waiting for a session to start on leadership...will do my best to capture highlights (in rough form).

In the meantime, I am experimenting with doing the day only with the iPad...so far so good and the battery life is great
Caught the tail end of informal session on how to bring administrators to the table...one bold statement...bold for me anyway: "What are you doing to hold your school back? The ideas being too locked down; not allowing risk-takers to try things; not being users,much less consumers themselves...
Can say we have made great strides away from this issue, but we all have lots of work left to do!

Ok...have found it hard to go back and fix my text. Needed space between the two thought!
***************************
session starting
They have put the tweet deck up for everyone who will be following that way

Innovative leadership. 21st C Innovations That Matter
Cheryl leek

Note: I lost the post and ability to type in it so I took some notes that I will add later.

David Warlick next!

006.7 EduBloggerCon 2010: The Fun Begins

I am so glad they don't measure how often you post before they let you in this thing!

I'm here...already reconnected with a couple of people from 2 years ago! It's like a big family reunion full of happy family members. And to do it in beautiful downtown Denver is extra special...although the mountains in the distance keep pulling my attention away!

I drove up yesterday with the top open and the AC off. It was great. I got out last night and wandered around the 16th Street Mall...open air street fair and shops. It was lovely. Then I looked at the weather and all they talked about was how hot it was ! Huh? All a state of mind...yes it was 99 but not the same kind of 99 that those who share my normal physical space encounter!!

Anyway...the take so far is mostly catching up, but the tech word so far...I-PAD...it will be great to hear what all these talented folks have to say about it.

More later...

P.S. when you read the time, it's actually one hour earlier here!

028.9 TeenBookCon 2010: Some Reflections

Enjoyed a nice day this past Saturday volunteering for a good pal at the TeenBookCon 2010. Got to hang out with some fun librarians from the local area, folks from our favorite neighborhood bookshop and some creative and clever authors!

I had a variety of little jobs that allowed me to interact a bit with teens who love and appreciate good stories. It was fun seeing their enthusiasm for the event and their excitement over the anticipation at being in the same room with the likes of Sharon Draper. All the buzz about "how good her books are " and "I don't think I could just say one is my fav" gave my librarian's heart a good jolt of "feelin' good!" One district Librarian colleague and I checked in some of the 400 students who attended and took their lunch orders. Who knew choosing between pizza nad Chic-fi-la would be so hard a task at 10:00 in the morning? Sometimes we had to revert to reference interview techniques to get an answer and get the line moving! (KR, enjoyed working with you as always...and solving several of the world's problems as well! :-))

One of my favorite duties of the day was monitoring the authors' break room and making sure they had plenty of coffee, food, cold water, food, sodas, food, ice, and did I mention, food! And the ever-so-important chocolate, of course! (My pal and I had had a fun adventure a few days earlier wheeling a cart thru Costco's aisles picking out just the right things.) Another Librarian in my circle allowed me to move into her slot in the break-room while she went off to serve pizza to the teens (Thanks CL, I owe you in more ways than one.)

Her generosity allowed me to have that few minutes of up close and personal where, among the delightful conversations I overheard, was the discussion four authors were having, not over the finer points of book writing and publishing, but the latest and greatest in oversize scanners. It made me laugh that they were deep in discussion about technology at a book convention! But I also learned something...the scanner is important in the working with large graphic panels that they create for their novels! (The weirdest little things just fascinate me.) They assured me they were having lots of book talk too! L to R: Terry Moore, the Fillbach Brothers, and Jimmy Gownley.

AND I also got to meet a blogger (& author)that I have been following for all the years I have been messin' with blogging...and if you want the skinny on anything bookwise, you should follow Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog . You can also read her take on the day. Yes, I feel connected online with all the folks I follow, but a f2f encounter is a grand ol' cherry on top of the hot fudge sundae.

Here's the whole wonderful group of authors and info about them!

Photo credits:

Pizza Handlers - from FlickrCC by libraryink

Registration - from FlickrCC by libraryink

4 authors - by VWB

CLS - by VWB
Author group - from flickrCC by libraryink

940.5318 The Diary of Anne Frank: A Classic Retold

On April 11, 2010, Holocaust Remembrance Day, PBS and Masterpiece Theater will present a new version of the classic coming-of-age story The Diary of Anne Frank.

Click on the picture for access to a video preview.

The Great Books Foundation, a partner with WGBH, has created and gathered together all kinds of support materials to use in conjunction with this new production and the Holocaust in general.

One of the most interesting things is a VoiceThread where students, teachers, and others can go in and comment on the production and project. Voice Thread has given free access to this sample, but there is a registration involved to make comments.

Ciick HERE to go to VoiceThread.

Here is another brief preview through YouTube .

In researching this new production, I also came across the only know movie of Anne Frank herself. It is a brief few seconds of her in an upper window watching her neighbor's wedding departure. There is no sound!

And of course , with the recent death of Miep Gies (at age 100), the last survivor of the real-life members of the history-making event, there has been renewed interest in the story and will likely spill over to the new production. Here is a portion of an interview where she talks about the diary and giving it to Anne's father.

In our district, the book and the time period have always studied and discussed on several levels so we have some long-time resources that also will probably come to the forefront again with this new production. Check our "cool new"catalog for other resources.

The message remains timeless.

352.7 Census: Where's the Interesting Stuff?

I did my duty over the break. I filled out my census form.

Yep...it took me less than 10 minutes for me to fill out the 10 questions...mostly because it is just me these days.

I was asked my name, age, date of birth, race and whether I lived in an owned or rented property and how many people resided with me.

What I miss are all the interesting questions found in previous census records. Being a family historian who has poured over old census records looking for facts about my family members, I was often drawn away from my primary task looking at interesting things I found on the old sheets and interpreting the spellings and handwriting of the day! I loved it...but then I am weird that way.

One of my favorite finds was on a family sheet of mine. For many census years, folks were asked their occupations. That was always very interesting and I would eat up lots of time reading what folks did for a living. Children were often listed as "at home" or "at school." The wives were usually "keeping house" as one would expect. Imagine my delight when I read that my Irish immigrant great-great-grandmother Annie's occupation was "kept tent!" It turns out that in 1880, she and her teamster husband and four daughters (soon to be six girls!) lived in a canvas tent with wood floor near the horse barns at Ft. Concho, Texas. WOW!

I later found out that they were able to move into an abandoned officer's house because Francis, the teamster, was retired from active duty and the fort was losing population as it was beginning the process of being shut down. I have seen a replica of the house...and yes, it was an improvement over the tent, but still was a tight fit for a family of eight!

Another interesting tidbit...Francis' job as a teamster...was to move the soldiers buried in the fort cemetery to the military cemetery in San Antonio...a part of shutting the fort down. No that was not found in the census forms, but there is so much that is.

If you have never looked at an old census form, the 1880 census is available on the internet for free at several locations including ancestry.com

I bet you a dollar you will find some interesting stuff!

I am really sorry that 72 years from now when the 2010 census becomes public record, the information will be so sterile and clinical and even missing the handwriting and ink spots of the day. I can't wait to see the 1940s records (and the gems they may contain) when they become public in 2012!

Here is a video about the 2010 Census and how to fill it out.

Images:

Census form census.gov

1880 form screen shot from personal collection

538 Magnets: Apps Fun!

These are SO cute...magnets that look like I-phone/I-touch apps!
The company is currently out of stock...not surprised based on all the bloggers who are writing about them. They even come packaged like the front of a device!

At the rate I'm going, I would probably get more use out of these magnets instead of the real thing!

Images: from Jailbreak Toys

153 Thinking...on Many Levels

Take two minutes (and a few seconds) and watch this...



Now react...

741.5 Make a Wimp of Yourself!

Go here and "wimp" yourself!
Stay on the site a few extra minutes...it's fun watching yourself!

My wimpy self in action

A trailer of the movie coming out on March 19th is also available here.
Included at the site are some other fun things related to the movie and book.

027.8 Libraries: The 12 Steps to the Future

Some people make things SO easy...

and Doug Johnson, the Blue Skunk guy (and one of my virtual mentor heroes) does it AGAIN with his latest post where he lists 12 differences in the libraries of yesteryear and those of the future! Go there and read them for yourself...all signify the changing, transforming libraries that I am seeing around me.

He DID ask us to "join in" so here's my thoughts...

#9 regarding organizing by a set of rules vs organizing in ways that make sense to users. Makes the cataloger's compartment of my little heart skip a couple of beats...YES, I want to be good to my users, but I also want them to be successful in any library they go into and if we get "too" creative in our arrangements, I fear we will suffer from the grocery store syndrome (why can't grocery stores adopt similar arrangements---I hate hunting for canned mushrooms in some stores!) Please, please, think thorough creative arrangements c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y...especially if you want your users to be independent users who can go from the catalog, take the address (call#) and actually find what they want and need without the librarian being the traffic cop!

#8 I definitely want whole-school ownership of the library. It is fabulous where I see it in action. But I still want the professional librarian there...and in my dreams, I wish for more than one professional librarian, but unfortunately dreams aren't coming true in these economic times so I will be content with one (and extra adult hands please?) Unfortunately, administrators and powers-that-be, because they really don't understand our purpose and our contributions to student success, often think they can eliminate the professional librarian because "everyone" and "anybody" can hand out books and equipment. This one worries me a lot because of how it can be interpreted.

I will take his six descriptors and last statement and put them right here where you can read them quickly and easily

Change IS tough, but if we want to be around to take part in the excitement of the future, we must!