Paperless Classes

Let me start out by saying that kids not only love the Internet, but they also love drawing on paper, coloring, cutting, scrunching, etc. with paper. So in grades k-4, I think paper is essential. I know kids love to create using the computer, but they also love to create the traditional way as well. As students get older, they will be better able to succeed in paperless classrooms, probably by junior high. By the time students reach college, they will be used to these types of classrooms. In fact, the combination of face-to-face classroom exchange plus the online exhange will make them better communicators.

Paperless classes would improve my role when I teach information literacy classes to community college students. I would still have to create assignments and readings, but these would be online. In fact, for several years, preparation has all been online. Paperless classes would be more time efficient as comments can be easily added in Word. Currently the class assignments are paper, but I can see this changing quickly.

We use a class management system, so in essence, we are in the paperless classroom. Grading, presentations, and resources are just a part of the this system. The syllabus is online with the assignments, so students have access to this information 24/7 (as long as they can find a computer or a fairly new cell phone). Assignments are turned in electronically. The only problem is the dog can no longer eat your homework. Of course, the computer can crash, the class management system may hiccup, but all in all, it’s efficient.

Paperless classrooms enhance, from my experience, the instructor-student relationship. It’s more work for the instructor, but the student is better motivated from the steady communication. The student can post questions about assignments after office hours or write a question to the class. This means that instructors will need to rethink their office hours and will need to check the class discussion board instead of the regular office hours (which they will still have). Class discussion and questions may not end at the end of the regular face-to-face classroom period. So, yes, it’s a challenge because students will expect more. .

Shift #6: Readers Are No Longer Just Readers

This shift was particularly pertinent because I just learned about the CAAP results from the Assessment Team at MCC.  One of the results compared ACT reading to reading after their freshman year. Believe it or not, reading decreased so much that it indicated that the students were illiterate. How could this be? One person answered that students ignored this question as they just did not want to read it and there was no incentive to complete this volunteer test.

I think if the test had been presented differently, the assessment team would have found better results. I know many college age and graduate school students don’t read for pleasure. Their medium is television, text and online. They read all the time, but not what we consider formal reading. I remember when a teacher told me not to worry that my child wasn’t reading. She asked me: “does he read the sports column in the paper?” She also asked if he read magazines. Wasn’t she the wise one? Well, I think the same today. If a student is asked to participate in a survey, why not change the its venue.  Richardson states “[they] must learn to be critical consumers of … information.” He also states that “reading is a more active undertaking.” To me, the best way to find out their level is to change the playing field.

So, where does this leave me? I don’t teach on a regular basis and when I do, I involve students in activities where they must evaluate the validity of information on web sites. So as they read, they must be critical and be able to communicate their opinion.

My views haven’t changed much because I think technology is the expression of critical thinking. Social networking skills are the tools, but we have to use these tools (whether these are chisel and stone, blackboard and chalk, paper and pencil), to discuss, compare, create, read, and evaluate. This technology encourages participation. Participation is communication. So, is communication the throughway of technology?

One Stop Shopping–so to speak

I just found out about a great web site, allmyfaves. This one page contains just about all the sites you need for work and stuff on the one page. So, you spend less time going to your faves, pulling down the menu, and clicking on the link. It’s all there on this page.

Neat.

Social Revolution

So far we have discussed writing and learning in the Read/Write Web; we’ve examined blogs, wikis, bookmarking tools, photo sites, RSS and Skype; and we’ve evaluated connectivism. It seems, too, that we are doing this to become a larger part of a learning community. As I see our progress, we are in a cycle of learning, creating, and participating almost simultaneously. We’ve all come to a point where we are communicating, tagging, reading and writing; we’ve become social networkers and we’ve assimilated quite well in our working communities and beyond.

And then, just as we become comfortable, along comes a new idea that makes us stop and think “oh yes” I can see that. Have you all heard of Chris Anderson and his book, The Long Tail? Basically he’s examining the changes in marketing. Only a few years ago, marketing groups were concerned with reaching large numbers of people. Now, it’s the niche markets and the specialized groups who are important.  Clay Shirky is shaking matters up in the online world with his philosophy of online democracy. Shirky explains this in his book, Here Comes Everybody, a discussion of the Internet as a social revolution. Ok, you say, we all know this. And, we do; Shirky, however, extends this a bit further.

Let me summarize briefly Shirky’s vision of the Internet from his historical perspective (or you can click here  to hear Shirky’s lecture or here for Shirky on Colbert). First off, Shirkey’s theory: online communities have strength in numbers and online social networks affect culture.  How did Shirky get to this point? He says that previous communication revolutions, the telegraph, telephone, and television were one-way communication channels. The Internet, however, is a two way communication street. And, here’s his main point, group action just got easier. Prior to the development of the Read/Write Web, it would take a long time for groups to form connections. It was complicated and time-consuming. The “reply  all” response to email lessened this process  because it was efficient and timely.

Now it doesn’t take much effort to belong to a group because you have sharing, conversation, and collaboration—three of Shirky’s four major points about the social effect of the Internet on culture.

Do you remember when you first started using instant messaging (IM)? Wasn’t it great that you could carry on a conversation with friends all over the world at any time and it didn’t cost a huge amount of money, nor did this use up precious minutes of cell phone time.  Now we can skype, flickr, and twitter our way across the social landscape. We do this through URLs and tags—the common denominators of sharing. As Shirky puts it: “every URL is a community;” individuals share and through their sharing become a group. These individuals don’t get together; they first put the tags out there and then the group forms.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, Shirky’s 4^th point is collective action. People connect and form communities from tagging. Then they begin to communicate because they have similar interests. Shirky mentions one group that formed in Flickr because of a photographic method, high dynamic range photography. What would have taken years to revise and teach, took just a few months on Flickr. When the photo was posted, others saw this new method, tried working with it, and asked questions. They all helped each other. They formed a community.

Let’s say you hear a lecture. The lecturer states that she writes more about this on her blog. You go to the blog, read the post and the comments. You start commenting and add a link to your blog. All of a sudden, you’ve become part of a community. You’re reading, learning, and participating—in other words, communicating.

So let’s take this one step further. We all have moaned and groaned about IT departments, school boards, state funding, and so on. What would happen if our school board had a blog? Or if one of our favorite journalists posts comments about the state of education on his or her blog? We could write back. We could tag our comments so others would join the fray. We could start a grass roots organization to put these problems out there. We could all as a group demand better educational funding. We could do so many things with just a few tags. I believe that we have been learning not just about social networking, but also about social awareness. It’s obvious we all care about education and children and being life-long learners. Can we use these tools to develop awareness in our society about the lack of funding or about finding solutions to other educational, health, and/or political problems?  Will our groups of connected dots have the ability to affect the world? 

If you want to read more, click here for an interview and this link will take you to a column in Salon.

Skype

When I first heard about Skype, our whole family was excited as many live overseas. Until now, I would not have thought about any educational purposes with Skype.  After reading the Tuttle article, the possibilities opened up as he had so many suggestions.  I thought the artist and the museum experience for students would be a good place for teachers to begin using Skype.  Several blog comments discussed parent involvement.  Parents are the best motivators and their involvement from seeing student presentations and parental expertise would certainly let the students know the importance of education because the parents are there. How many student plays, games, debates, etc. have any one of us missed due to time constraints?

From a viewpoint of mentoring and librarianship, Skype would be an excellent tool. Class work and lectures do not prepare you for true reference face-to-face interviews. Being able to shadow a mentor, discuss the interview process, and ask questions will lead to better preparation and less “first day” jitters.  A student still needs a practicum, but it’s scary and stressful when you really don’t know what’s out there. So, this is a great opportunity in my field to help future librarians see and hear what we do, how we answer questions, and how we sometimes are just stumped.

Responding to Connectivism

I found this theory confusing and filled with what I term as eduspeak. I spent hours in my efforts to comprehend all of this. Even when both groups distilled the information of the pro/con pages on the wiki, it was still confusing. I’m not sure what side of the fence I’m on, nor do I think this matters. What does matter is we know this theory exists if we don’t apply this. After reading the argument against connectivism, in the section “Are Parts of the Theory More Compelling…” I was intrigued with Barbara Ganley’s description of the classroom as a learning ecology; however, what I can’t easily imagine: students motivated by the opportunity to learn. Possibly I could see motivation by opportunity in a poor urban environment, a poor rural environment, or a third world country. In this case, teachers need to team with librarians about opportunity.  I realize that often students are motivated, but they soon become jaded with all the new bells and whistles. My comment: technology helps, but learning, sharing, creating, and participating need to come from within. I think they are all missing the proverbial boat.

As to confusing parts of the theory, yes I believe most of it is confusing. When I read the line about business scams, I thought this was just a bit over the top. What theorist doesn’t push their work? In George’s case, he has to explain because it’s so confusing. Yet, he replies to blog postings and isn’t charging a participatory fee.

I totally agree that one theory doesn’t explain everything. Each theory builds, a complex layering that leads to a new direction. Also, are all of these theories linear? If these learning theories try to explain a process, then why are the theorists so bogged down with linear thinking?

It’s just possible that we need to find a “hook” just by talking to a child and discovering his or her interests. If we initially teach to their interest, this may be our window of opportunity.

Podcasting and Library PR

     I’m overwhelmed by the all of the topics that are available. Since I’m not in a regular classroom, I decided to look for a podcast that would help the library connect to the student and to the community. I think I’m on a PR campaign because I believe that libraries are taken for granted by administrators, staff, and faculty who don’t really think about what it takes to make a successful library. In this age of funding cutbacks and mass retirements, how do we reach out to our community? How do we extend our services to new faculty, staff, and administrators?      New faculty instructors participate in faculty orientation. The library portion is about 5 minutes, because everyone knows how to use a library, right? Right off the bat, these new instructors are getting the message that the library is there, so what? It takes more than 5 minutes to talk with us, get a library card, and discuss their needs and how to support their courses. There is no “assignment” for them to meet with the reference librarians, the collection development librarian, or the circulation assistant librarians who can help them with reserves and interlibrary loan.       Using podcasts may just help us with this disconnect. For the librarians, this will take time and be another commitment, but I think the results may be worth it.       I found the Dowling College Library Omnibus through one of the del.icio.us bookmarks in our key information section. The bookmark is the Education Podcast Network (EPN).  Here I located the Dowling College Library and its use of a monthly podcast of interviews, updates, and reports that encourages interaction with the college community. One podcast discussed the return of the osprey and included an interview with a local author.  What faculty member does not want to talk about him or herself? Another podcast looked at a historic site, a late 1800s mansion, on campus. It was a podcast that examined this mansion by reading emails that described personal memories, scary stories, and the use of salvaged materials from this mansion. The interview provided a historical background to one of the buildings on campus and gives students a better insight into the history of the college and the town.       So, I would take the Dowling College Library example and morph this for our purposes. We could all brainstorm a list of topics, and arrange for an interviews, and redesign our library page to include a “what’s new” box under a Flickr photo. This box would contain links to the podcast as well as to podcast tips for studying – just like the Dowling College Library.       (The links to the Dowling College Library podcast are embedded in this article)

Committee work and wikis

I’m chair of a committee that never has enough time to discuss and complete work in a meeting, let alone for the year. If I establish a wiki for this committee, I’m sure we could slog through most of this online. So often, the meetings get bogged down with members who aren’t prepared, or with those who have good ideas but by the time they are done, we have to adjourn. I will have to explore wikiland to look for a space that is user friendly. If I can find the space and clearly express the benefits for our committee, then I’m sure they will agree.

Thanks to Mindy for her comment that precipitated this post and my bringing this to the meeting tomorrow.

Flicker Possibilities 6A1

Since the libary is my classroom, I’m going to discuss how Flickr can help us. Libraries lend resources of all kinds. With monies from local and state government, we provide full-text online databases, books, print journals, newspapers, magazines, DVDs, VHS, CDs, etc., etc. That’s a lot of “stuff”. And, we know a lot. What librarian doesn’t love to share information, stories, and/or news? Yet, we don’t share images about our libraries or ourselves. We don’t post photos of what’s going on, of a patron hitting that one millionth check-out, a class, an exhibit, students using the library, or patrons walking out of the library with armloads of books and DVDs.

Flickr could change all this if we try to take advantage of sharing who we are. Flickr can be a great public relations tool. Why not advertise what we do since we are so successful?

Wiki Whine-tasting

Ok, I have posted and lost material. I have saved and lost material. I finally found out that I should “save and publish” as I go along; I guess “save” just isn’t good enough anymore. And, my lesson plan seems too long, because I couldn’t extend the margins, but had to go with what was there. I mean, what’s up with this? If we’re encouraged to pick a background, at least we should be able to choose a font, font size, spacing, alignment, etc., etc.

And, when I tried to post comments to my classmates’ blogs, I had trouble as well, even though I was signed in. And, to make matters worse, I posted my wiki lesson plan here and not in wikispaces. And that took time to cut and paste and paste and paste.

I must have been in glitch heaven tonight. I don’t know what computer and social networking gods I have offended, but right now, I say, I am innocent!