"Taking A Seat At The Table"

Old School by alamosbasement

I recently read the article in the New Yorker about Sheryl Sandberg by Ken Auletta. One of the points that Sandberg makes is that women should "take a seat at the table" and be part of the conversation instead of just sitting in the background waiting for things to happen.

With the recent interrogation of school librarians by LAUSD, the cutting of school librarians jobs across the country, and the lack of awareness of that librarians do and are knowledgeable about, as well as my participation at Lab School @ Punahou, I have been thinking about that phrase.

There are only a few librarians participating in this conference. My self,  Dave Wee and sometimes Deb Peterson. The rest of the participants are subject specific teachers, a lot of whom are part of their technology integration teams. But, where are the librarians? They are discussion digital and media ethics, integrating technology into the curriculum, gamification, the filter bubble, and so many more topics, that we in the library profession have been talking about for years and have been implementing.

Whenever I go to these educator professional development programs, I always feel like the loner. I know, I am very lucky to be working at the school where I work at, have the Library Goddess as our advocate, but what about the other school librarians out there? How do we become more a part of the conversation at these conferences?

Yesterday, I actually gave a brief demo about searching for images for reuse because the copyright and fair use question came up.  I had questions about how to teach kids about how to attribute and cite images properly. And at one point, one of my colleagues commented, "Wow..our librarian never even talked about this with us." 

Our colleagues do not even know what it is we know!!! My eyes about popped out of my head.

We need to share, we need to be at less librarian-specific conferences, we need to get out there.

Practical Advice on Picking a Portable Camera for Schools

We are on the hunt for an alternative to the awesome Flip Videos cameras that Casio has decided to discontinue. Why, Casio? Why? This portable video camera is perfect for a school. It's durable, it used 2 double AA batteries, it's plug and play/download/work, super easy to use and has help up pretty well with the amount of  students we have using the devices.

There is a great list that someone from AISL emailed me
12 Fabulous Flip Camera Alternatives

The thing with the list is that it reviews the products but does not really take into account workflow and how these items are when used in the library, classroom and in an environment where there are 700+ users checking them in and out, plugging and unplugging them into computers, and where the librarians are maintaining them in addition to our daily tasks.

I posted a tweet, checked in with my friends' on various SNS sites, and posted to the list-servs. I did not get too many responses. However, I did receive the helpful link above and a few recommendations for Kodak's Zi8 video camera. I was also testing Sony's Bloggie Camera. However, it did not meet our requirements.


What are some of the factors we considered when testing video camcorders and/or looking at the specifications you wonder?

1. Durability - this is key. We have over 700 students ages 11 - 15 with varying approaches of how to treat things they check out from the library. You know what I'm talking about...
2. Easy of Use - kids just want to get the project completed ; can you plug and play? are there a lot of buttons to distract them? Do you need a separate SD card? 
3. Charging/Batteries - can we use batteries? does it need to charge attached to a computer? is there an adapter? do we need to set up a charging station?
4. Format - what is the video format? is it compatible with our PC school? Do we need to have our Computer Services set up the computers to deal with the format? 

I looked at a lot of specs since we cannot buy all these different devices. That's just not realistic so here is what I found:

1. Though the Kodak Zi8 is great. It's going to be discontinued like the Flip. We definitely need something that will be around for at least a little while which means more than a year or two though who can control that? we thought the Flip would be around for a while.
2. Buying up all those Flips out there is probably not a good option since out CS department does not seem keen on us using them anymore
3. The Sony Bloggie - though pretty is more for a single user who really loves all the bells and whistles it has. 
4. Mac products are just out (yeah..I know, we are freaks here and not on the Mac worship train)
5. The other Kodak options listed on 21st Century EdTech and Learning blog - specifications wise were a bit too much for our users
6. Smart phones - most of our kids have iPhones and those videos, when transferred to our computers, turns upside down and we can't "fix" them so those are out

These are the two I picked based on specs and considering our community:

1. Creative Vado - simple to use; not too many bells and whistles; removable and rechargeable battery (we can order more chargers and batteries); built-in USB - the downside is the auto-sharing option which is now unavoidable on all these camcorders
2. Samsung HMX-U20 though I am wondering if this will be around much longer.
3. More point-and-shoots

Now, also, a lot of these cameras also use SD cards which for us is not a problem but for a lot of places would be. Hopefully, something comparable to the Flip will come out again soon because for schools it is pretty much a perfect portable camcorder.

QR Code Fun!!!

The Library Goddess forwarded an email to me about QR Codes in the Library so I decided to play around with it and brainstormed with one of my students about what we could create QR Codes for.

If you don't know what a QR code is read "What is a QR Code and Why Do You Need One?" or also, this article in FastCompany from last year is great (and also a reason why you should go to SXSW Education or Interactive this year) "What Business Card? Just scan my QR Code." And of course, you can always go to Wikipedia.

Here is a tiny glimpse of what our front page looks like. I am restricted in what I can do since this is only part of a bigger site but you get the picture. If not, check it out here. LibGuides actually has a nice mobile version so students can use their phones. I just discovered this when I created the QR code. A lot of our kids have smartphones and tend to work on the bus to games or what not. A lot of our students have iPads as well. I hope that when the new iPads come out with the camera feature, students can also scan these QR codes.

If you want to read more about how libraries are using QR codes, check out LibSuccess.org's QR page. If we had historical buildings we could actually put QR codes with the history of our campus around for when people are walking around campus waiting for their tours. But we are middle school so that might be a bit too much. I also was thinking it would be a great way to familiarize our kids about the library by using it for a scavenger hunt. Most of the libraries featured on that wiki page are universities but I don't see why it wouldn't be great to use it for a school.

Are you doing anything with QR codes at your school? I know one school is using it to promote books on their newsletter to parents.

"Brevity. Levity. Repetition." thoughts on Daniel Pink's talk

Last night, I attended a lecture given by Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, with Blades and Ambookgeek. It was hosted by Brentwood School which has a yearly lecture series in honor of John Hutson, a loved and respected History teacher of the school. The John Hutson Memorial Lecture Series is open to the public so if you hear about it next year and like the guest you can go.

I read and wrote about how A Whole New Mind completely blew my mind with Pink's ideas about how the world is changing focus from skills that are logical and routine and moving to more towards the artistic side of thinking (this is really simplistic so you should read the book). He reiterated that a bit in this lecture but focused mainly on what needs to be done in education. From the onset, he emphasized that he is not a trained educator but he does talk to those in the fields children are being trained to work in - medicine, law, arts, etc. For me, a lot of what he speaks about is valid. There is a shift and it seems that other places are getting it and the US education system needs to catch up. I am not sure if Arne Duncan will strive to make the public education system better but I hope something changes.

Working at the type of school I work at and being a product of the public school system, I have a real fear for my nieces and nephews. I fear for kids in low-income and middle-income public schools. I work at a public library as well and the gap between middle schools at the public library and the middle schoolers I work with is incredible and I am only commenting on research skills and some technology skills. I am not even sure about other skills in other subjects. Of course, all kinds of factors need to be considered, economics, parent involvement, teacher skills, etc...but it is very appalling witnessing how unprepared students are.

Pink emphasized how important having a well-rounded mind is for our kids and ourselves. There should be a focus on using both sides of our brains - the artsy, creative side as well as the logical side. I am not going do much justice here but if you do have an opportunity to hear him speak, I highly recommend going...but if you cannot see him, here is a link to his lecture from Americans from the Arts website.

IL 2007 - "Next Generation Research Tools"

Saturday 1:30 - 4:30 - Preconference Workshop - "Next Generation Research Tools"

Here is a link to the Internet Librarian 2007 blog.

Pam Howard & Mira Foster hosted the workshop. They talked about different Web 2.0 tools, such as Flickr, YouTube, Furl, Zotero, del.icio.us, and Clipmarks, and how these tools have been incorporated into the librarians/researchers repetoire.

They focused on how relationship between the librarian and the user. Librarians need to foster and nurture relationships with users using the tools that their communities are using outside the "library" environment. We also need to take the time to utilize new tools that are transforming how individuals conduct research. There are practices that we are teaching, for example, note taking techniques, that are now being transformed by online tools or new software. Also, multimedia projects are being incorporated into school curricula and we need to be aware and knowledgable on how to use these different tools.

What I really liked about this workshop was the fact that they had practical examples on how students can use RSS aggregators, online note-taking & bibliographic applications, flickr or google maps, in real world assignments.

Tools I am interested in are Zotero, Clipmarks, Noodle and Furl (you can archive webpages). I will post a list of cool links later.

Looking at some of these tools, like Zotero, makes me want to go back to school. It's made creating bibliographies and taking notes from online sources and even collaborating with peers so much easier.