Hello (again) World
Just a quick post to say the The Blacklist is back online for its soft reopening. You can look forward to several new things on this blog in the days to come. First I expect the name and address to change. Second I will do a quick recap in my most recent conference ITEM 2014. Lastly I will post about what I've been up to since I last posted in 2011.
Talk at you soon.
Google Apps Marketplace: You Can Book Me
In my current position as a long term substitute at a local high school, I have found a few instances when an electronic calendar would be very helpful. Like when people intentionally overbook the schedule. *Facepalm*
Knowing that the district has Google Apps, I decided to browse through the marketplace to see if there were any scheduling add-ons. That is when I found, http://youcanbook.me/
The solution looked promising. I did a quick web search to see if anyone is using it out in the school library world. Sure enough Chad Lehman, @imcguy, is all over it. Check out his post on the Discovery Education Network Blog to see how he has integrated http://youcanbook.me/ for scheduling. After a short conversation with Chad I decided to do a proof of concept.
Creating a bookable calendar is very easy. You can use either your own personal GMail account or a Google Apps for education account. Simply click register or login. Then enter your GMail or GoogleApps email account. You can create a bookable schedule for any calendar in you gcal list. In the case of a school library you can create a calendar for any resource that you need to manage i.e. a calendar for each computer lab and a calendar for the library proper.
You can easily set the time that the day starts and the day ends and also arrange the booking time, in that way it is easy to approximate the time slots of any school day. But if your "booking period", which in this case is "school hour of the day", changes from day to day you can't reflect that on your booking calendar. Not the best solution in a high school setting.
If you are in a school setting when periods of the day are less regimented then this is a wonderful solution. I think with a little practice and a little patience you can make this solution work in a middle/high school too.
Here is what your you can book me calendar looks like (you can easily embed it into a web page with an iframe code):
If you want to have transparency about how your lab is getting booked you can also easily embed the lab calendar using the calendar embed code in your Google Account:
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| FacePalm Image from: Joshua M. Neff. Licensed under Creative Commons |
Knowing that the district has Google Apps, I decided to browse through the marketplace to see if there were any scheduling add-ons. That is when I found, http://youcanbook.me/
The solution looked promising. I did a quick web search to see if anyone is using it out in the school library world. Sure enough Chad Lehman, @imcguy, is all over it. Check out his post on the Discovery Education Network Blog to see how he has integrated http://youcanbook.me/ for scheduling. After a short conversation with Chad I decided to do a proof of concept.
Creating a bookable calendar is very easy. You can use either your own personal GMail account or a Google Apps for education account. Simply click register or login. Then enter your GMail or GoogleApps email account. You can create a bookable schedule for any calendar in you gcal list. In the case of a school library you can create a calendar for any resource that you need to manage i.e. a calendar for each computer lab and a calendar for the library proper.
You can easily set the time that the day starts and the day ends and also arrange the booking time, in that way it is easy to approximate the time slots of any school day. But if your "booking period", which in this case is "school hour of the day", changes from day to day you can't reflect that on your booking calendar. Not the best solution in a high school setting.
If you are in a school setting when periods of the day are less regimented then this is a wonderful solution. I think with a little practice and a little patience you can make this solution work in a middle/high school too.
Here is what your you can book me calendar looks like (you can easily embed it into a web page with an iframe code):
If you want to have transparency about how your lab is getting booked you can also easily embed the lab calendar using the calendar embed code in your Google Account:
Encyclopedia Brittanica
In 1989 the encyclopedia salesman knocked on my parents rental home. One month later we owned what is now espoused as the most advanced encyclopedia in existence. Were my parents brilliant prognosticators or did they fall victim to agressive door to door sales tactics?
I don't know, but I do know that they definitely had some buyer's remorse when they went around belittling my friends parents who purchased Funk and Wagnall at the grocery store. Why the personal narrative? Well, I wanted to introduce my memory again of reading the encyclopedia and comment one of the fun parts of browsing Britannica that I don't get anymore. Cassell and Hiremath call it the "element of serendipitous knowledge."
On my way to frogs, I probably accidentally ran into frozen food or freemasonry or fringe movements etc. You get the point. I kind of miss that. Now my wandering/wondering mind has to click through the boring related hyperlinks. Who wants that? I would rather imagine random connections between radical freemasons hooked on frozen food frog legs from France.
I don't know, but I do know that they definitely had some buyer's remorse when they went around belittling my friends parents who purchased Funk and Wagnall at the grocery store. Why the personal narrative? Well, I wanted to introduce my memory again of reading the encyclopedia and comment one of the fun parts of browsing Britannica that I don't get anymore. Cassell and Hiremath call it the "element of serendipitous knowledge."
On my way to frogs, I probably accidentally ran into frozen food or freemasonry or fringe movements etc. You get the point. I kind of miss that. Now my wandering/wondering mind has to click through the boring related hyperlinks. Who wants that? I would rather imagine random connections between radical freemasons hooked on frozen food frog legs from France.
Overheard in the library:
While working on the "Why I Need My Library Video Contest"
Girl 1: This video is going to be hard because our library is so nice.
Girl 2: What do you mean?
Girl 1: It is going to be hard to make it look like we need money because our library is so nice.
Girl 2: The point is not to make the library look bad and beg for money. They point is to show how important our library is to us.
+1 for realizing how awesome the library is!
Girl 1: This video is going to be hard because our library is so nice.
Girl 2: What do you mean?
Girl 1: It is going to be hard to make it look like we need money because our library is so nice.
Girl 2: The point is not to make the library look bad and beg for money. They point is to show how important our library is to us.
+1 for realizing how awesome the library is!
Transitions
I sent 25 emails on Friday. I was tying up the lose ends as I transitioned out of life as a graduate assistant and into my temporary role as the Library Media Specialist at a local high school. Each outgoing email was like watching my assistantship flash before my eyes. I was closing the door on two years of relationships and projects and opening new doors to the future.
With this transition, I have found that mind is freed to dream new dreams in a new space. Albeit a much more confined space. My contract puts me into the library for the remaining 3 months of the school year. I've chatted with a few of my librarian superstar contacts and their advice is to focus on being a learning centered librarian and developing collaborative projects.
I was at the movie theater this afternoon and a flood of ideas hit me. I stepped out to jot them down and here is what I came up with as possible goals/activities:
With this transition, I have found that mind is freed to dream new dreams in a new space. Albeit a much more confined space. My contract puts me into the library for the remaining 3 months of the school year. I've chatted with a few of my librarian superstar contacts and their advice is to focus on being a learning centered librarian and developing collaborative projects.
I was at the movie theater this afternoon and a flood of ideas hit me. I stepped out to jot them down and here is what I came up with as possible goals/activities:
- Bathroom Library Newsletter complete with QR codes
- Reading Motivation Project - Guys Read - Spring/Summer activities focused
- Laminated maps of local lakes with fishing books and a link to a Google Maps fishing report mashup
- Short film contest - TBD
- Collaborative projects with at least one teacher in every grade level, and every major subject area
- Seasonal reading collection displays
- Information literacy and research presentations in all ninth grade language arts classes
The wall
Between 2003-2006 my father ran 5 marathons. I never once heard him tell me a story about hitting the wall. He finished every race he started. Never in record time. Never with a complaint. But almost always in visible pain. Still, never a story about the wall.
A few weeks ago I had a dream. I started running. Soon I was running a race. I was running faster than I have ever ran before. I was piling up 6:00 minute mile after 6:00 minute mile. I've never even run a 5k in under 30 minutes. My best half marathon pace is an 11 minute mile. As each mile passed I thought to myself, "How long is this race? Can I keep up this pace? Am I running a marathon? How long is this going to go on?" Despite my uncertainty I continued along the route of, what turned out to be a marathon, in a time that I never believed I could achieve.
All of the sudden I was called elsewhere. Some day matter from work broke its way into my fantasy. I had to coach someone how to turn on a computer, find their way to a web browser, create an account at a blog service and then type their first blog post. This process took a long time, but I felt unphased.
By the time I returned to the race my personal record pace was all but eliminated. My finish with the elite runners unachievable. I finished the last 9 miles at the 6 minute mile pace but given my delay by the time I finished my final average was an 11:00 minute mile pace.
I have been struggling for two weeks to discover the meaning of this dream. At first I thought that I am not following my dreams and I need to retreat from the world, abandon all obligations and focus on my distance running. Believe me, I would really love to interpret the dream this way. My latest interpretation is two fold.
First, we never know when and where we will receive the call to go beyond our selfish fantasies and be asked to become a part of something bigger than ourselves. I support pre-service teachers as they venture into the world of technology. I love what I do. Each day is a new adventure and I anticipate every opportunity to teach, lead, serve and learn from the future educators of the world.
My second conclusion is that, a dream does not need to be some unachievable thing to be a dream. I had a dream that I ran an 11 min. mile marathon. At first I felt disappointed, that if only this or if only that I would have finished the race in this time or that time. After careful reflection I have come to relish in that idea that my dream is to run an 11 min. mile marathon. I know I can do it!
So what to make of the wall? Having never hit one I can still imagine that they don't exist. But if I hit one? Then, I guess I will just keep going because I know that my biggest hero has already broken through 5 of them before me.
A few weeks ago I had a dream. I started running. Soon I was running a race. I was running faster than I have ever ran before. I was piling up 6:00 minute mile after 6:00 minute mile. I've never even run a 5k in under 30 minutes. My best half marathon pace is an 11 minute mile. As each mile passed I thought to myself, "How long is this race? Can I keep up this pace? Am I running a marathon? How long is this going to go on?" Despite my uncertainty I continued along the route of, what turned out to be a marathon, in a time that I never believed I could achieve.
All of the sudden I was called elsewhere. Some day matter from work broke its way into my fantasy. I had to coach someone how to turn on a computer, find their way to a web browser, create an account at a blog service and then type their first blog post. This process took a long time, but I felt unphased.
By the time I returned to the race my personal record pace was all but eliminated. My finish with the elite runners unachievable. I finished the last 9 miles at the 6 minute mile pace but given my delay by the time I finished my final average was an 11:00 minute mile pace.
I have been struggling for two weeks to discover the meaning of this dream. At first I thought that I am not following my dreams and I need to retreat from the world, abandon all obligations and focus on my distance running. Believe me, I would really love to interpret the dream this way. My latest interpretation is two fold.
First, we never know when and where we will receive the call to go beyond our selfish fantasies and be asked to become a part of something bigger than ourselves. I support pre-service teachers as they venture into the world of technology. I love what I do. Each day is a new adventure and I anticipate every opportunity to teach, lead, serve and learn from the future educators of the world.
My second conclusion is that, a dream does not need to be some unachievable thing to be a dream. I had a dream that I ran an 11 min. mile marathon. At first I felt disappointed, that if only this or if only that I would have finished the race in this time or that time. After careful reflection I have come to relish in that idea that my dream is to run an 11 min. mile marathon. I know I can do it!
So what to make of the wall? Having never hit one I can still imagine that they don't exist. But if I hit one? Then, I guess I will just keep going because I know that my biggest hero has already broken through 5 of them before me.
Flipping the Classroom with Video
Given that my last several blog posts were conducted via video, I thought it would be fittingly ironic (I never know how to use ironic correctly) to compose this weekly reflection in text during our module on video sharing in education. So, here goes nothing...
This week I read a post by Wes Fryer at the Speed of Creativity blog. First, Wes described an instructional phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. Some (read Daniel Pink) are calling it the "Fisch Flip" although, Karl Fisch himself humbly denies any credit for the approach. Instead Fisch attributes the origin of the concept to Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams work on educational vodcasting.
The basic premiss of the flipped classroom is that a teacher develops their lessons and posts them on a video sharing site or classroom management site prior to face to face class time. Students' homework is to watch the video presentation and then in class they discuss the topics in greater detail. They also participate in independent and group practice of relevant exercises related to the learning task.
Next, Fryer documents a recent interview he had with Dale Eizenga, a chemistry teacher at Holland Christian Schools in Holland, Michigan. Eizenga talks about his experience using the flipped classroom model....
I was struck by Eizengal's use of a sports practice analogy to really bring to light the powerful potential of using web video as an instructional practice. This is certainly a concept I want to explore further as I journey out into the field.
The remainder of Freyer's post outlines his insightful analysis of the interview. I will let you read it for yourself.
This week I read a post by Wes Fryer at the Speed of Creativity blog. First, Wes described an instructional phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. Some (read Daniel Pink) are calling it the "Fisch Flip" although, Karl Fisch himself humbly denies any credit for the approach. Instead Fisch attributes the origin of the concept to Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams work on educational vodcasting.
The basic premiss of the flipped classroom is that a teacher develops their lessons and posts them on a video sharing site or classroom management site prior to face to face class time. Students' homework is to watch the video presentation and then in class they discuss the topics in greater detail. They also participate in independent and group practice of relevant exercises related to the learning task.
Next, Fryer documents a recent interview he had with Dale Eizenga, a chemistry teacher at Holland Christian Schools in Holland, Michigan. Eizenga talks about his experience using the flipped classroom model....
I was struck by Eizengal's use of a sports practice analogy to really bring to light the powerful potential of using web video as an instructional practice. This is certainly a concept I want to explore further as I journey out into the field.
The remainder of Freyer's post outlines his insightful analysis of the interview. I will let you read it for yourself.
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