Yahoo's best cities to educate children

I just thought this was interesting. Not that i have children but a lot of people I know do. So, I am just passing it on.

clipped from promo.realestate.yahoo.com Best Cities to Educate Your Child 5. College Options 1. School Support Let's agree with wise experts that the quality of education any child gets comes down to just three things: their own motivation, their parents' support, and good teachers. Still, is there a way to compare America's metro areas for education strengths? Consider five factors. 2. Private School Options 3. Library Popularity 4. College Town

Knol - Google's Wikipedia

I like how Google is calling their wiki "knol." It's just a wiki. Why can't they just say it's a wiki and that they are trying to create their own "wikipedia." Nice but isn't it a little too late we already have Wikipedia.

I really like Google. I use Google. I appreciate Google's various tools but seriously, do they really need to do this?

clipped from googleblog.blogspot.com Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling "knol", which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

Sometimes you just need to crack down...

Today, I had to crack down on my class. They are a great class but with my loose management style (ok, maybe lack of any skills) it is really difficult to get them all to focus. Everyone tells me that I need to run my class so that I can survive the year so that is what I am doing. I never have used a seating chart before. I tried to do it at the beginning of this year but there was a class right before my class so I never had a chance to put down name tags.

I was thinking about a seating chart all weekend. Is that sad? That is how stressed out I am about getting these students to focus. Also, I gave them their first test and 1/2 bombed and the other 1/2 excelled. I did not think it was me since 1/2 of them understood what I was teaching. I did notice that the 1/2 that did not do so well is the 1/2 that goofs off and I have to try to settle down throughout the class period.

I tried to settle the down my giving them a pop quiz. And it worked for a while but then the threat of a pop quiz faded. Plus, I do not want to give pop quizzes all the time. Then I was sick and I think my being there sort of faded from their memories. So, now I have a seating chart and also a class participation sheet that I add slashes or stars too. I know, that sounds very elementary school but I am hoping it works. Though, I feel as if I am bribing them and I am not so sure that that is a good idea.

Hopefully, it will work out. But with Christmas break coming I am not so sure how long it will last. Also, I had to give out detentions today for being late to class.

Not that best day in class but one I will try to learn from. I thought last year was challenging but this is a lot more difficult for me. I am not so sure why. Maybe because of the number of students and the number of different personalities.

The Next Generation Research Tools webpage

This was a great workshop from this year's Internet Librarian conference.

clipped from libguides.sfsu.edu Next Generation Research Tools   (Tags: web 2.0 library 2.0 workshops research del.icio.us flickr clipmarks zotero wikis rss blogs blogging tagging folksonomy notetaking)

Why we need to teach students 21st century skills

Today's comic from xkcd reminded me of how it is the 21st century and times have changed. It is not like I am super old or anything but a lot of changes have occurred in regards to technology, government, teaching, life and I started thinking about the ongoing challenge of convincing great teachers that it is important to teach or expose students to the tools available for them on the world wide web.

And then I read this quote from my Good Earth tea bag:

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

On Friday, one teacher became very passionate about why he does not want to let go of the techniques he uses to teach his students. He talked about how he wants to "perpetuate" some of the skills from his past. (The day before, the head librarian, made a comment, which I am not even sure was about and he claimed that I said it. He was really adamant about wanting to perpetuate the way he was taught and teaches. He commented about how that comment made it sound like "the past" was detrimental. Then he was all up in my space and in my face and I just ignored him.) However, I think he missed the point of our conversation. No one said anything about not teaching "old" skills, like close readings or face-to-face discussions about books or labs, we were just discussing how there are new tools out there that students need to be aware of and where they can practice these same skills only in a different environment, an online one.

My cohort, Ambookgeek, is one of the individuals in charge of our Moodle site and is also on the edtech committee, and is presenting to our fellow teachers about why we need to prepare our students for the future. As a blogger and user of various web 2.0 tools, I understand what he will be discussing but I feel as if he will be presenting to a hostile group. There still seems to be 2 camps - (1) willing to use these tools, who see their value and (2) those who do not see the point of them. At times, I notice the eye-rolls, the comments made in the hallways, the loud sighs, "oh oh..web 2.0 again." However, I think feeling that way will be detrimental to our students. Students are not prepared for the type of thinking, collaboration and other skills that using these tools helps develop. These are skills that they practice in an enclosed classroom environment but with the read/write web, they can take it outside of the classroom to a wider and more diverse audience.

During the course of the discussion on Friday, that teacher commented that he saw more value in face-to-face conversations and why do you need to have a forum when students can do it when they are in the hallways walking to class. We kept mentioning that we were not devaluing that interaction but now there are other ways to interact that students are already using. Instructors/teachers/librarians also need to ask the question, "how are we preparing students for the future?" Yes, they are learning these core subjects but what about utilizing these new tools and exposing them to how to be better citizens offline and online?

I think, it will be an interesting meeting because (1) some of the teachers feel that it will only add to their work load and (2) they do not see the point and in talking to some of them, do not even seem willing to try these things out.

Not all the teachers are like this so there is hope. I was showing my friend "Clipmarks" and he was thinking it would be a great tool to use for his science classes. I will have to show him an example from LibGuides: Next Generation Research Tools page.

Life Beyond Google: Eight Great Alternative Search Engines

Interesting clip! Thought I would pass it on.

clipped from webworkerdaily.com Everyzing is one of my favorite sites for searching for audio- and video-based information found on the web. It actually indexes the words spoken in podcasts and videocasts, and then it displays excerpts as text SearchEngineColossus is great for doing targeted searches in any language using the actual engine that locals use. Answers.com. Answers.com lets you type in a question and then sifts through your search results to find the answer to your question. SearchGov is a great way to search for government institutions and offices, and divisions within them. If you remember a string of text from a book, you can often find it in context at SearcheBooks. IncyWincy crawls the Invisible Web. It’s especially good at executing searches within targeted search engines on the web and letting you know exactly which rock it’s finding promising results under FindArticles. The site houses over 10 million articles

What is your social network worth?

This is a really interesting blog that is making me think about how public I want or need to be online. There is value in having an online presence but how many people do I want to know "all" of the different online social networks I am a part of or use?

clipped from www.thethinkingstick.com Let your presence be known! “Everybody who is in your social network is worth 50 cents to a dollar to your employer.” With social networks comes knowledge power that most schools do not realize they have. Imagine the following interview question: “Could you please share with me the extent of the learning network that you would bring with you to this job?” We tell students to be aware of their social presence. As adults, we too must understand the power of these networks. We need to understand that there is power here and that our social presence adds market value. How do we factor this into our hiring practices? 21st Century hiring practices should not only look at your experience but at the social network you bring with you to the job. I ask you to stop and think for a second how much your knowledge network is worth.