BFTP: A letter from the Flat World Library Corporation

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post, October 7, 2005. This post also appears as a "cleaned-up" column.

 
October 7, 20xx

Superintendent Dennis Wormwood
Left Overshoe Public Schools
Left Overshoe, MN 56034

Dear Superintendent Wormwood:

We at the Flat World Library Corporation can offer you a complete library program at a very attractive price.

For considerably less than you currently pay for your K-12 library program, we can provide a full range of library resources AND library expertise – all online.

For only pennies a day per student, FWLC will:

1. Provide a full range of reading materials (periodicals, picture books, fiction and non-fiction titles), videos and reference sources that are tailored to your state standards, your district’s curriculum and your digital textbook series. These resources are being continuously updated, and are available, of course, in a wide range of lexile ranges to support your differentiated instruction efforts. Our filters allow you to specify access only to the materials supporting your community’s views on issues ranging from abortion to gay rights to evolution. Select from “university community” to “small town Kansas” in your settings.
2. Provide ready reference services, student research help, readers’ advisory service, and curricular planning advice through our real-time connections (video, chat or e-mail) to our experts in Bangalore, India. These highly-qualified MLS certified professionals will be available 24/7 to both your staff and students from school or home. (Do you currently get service from your library staff outside of school hours, in the summer or on weekends?)
3. Allow teachers to submit student work for comment and assessment. Our staff will give each project a grade, check for plagiarism, and provide a report for each child to share with parents about the technology skill level of that student. We can even help your teachers design assignments and assessments so they are free to lecture.

Just think of the advantages:

• No musty books from the 1950’s cluttering your library shelves, driving up your insurance rates. No more lost or missing books. No gum under library desks.
• No library facilities. Turn that old library space into those badly needed special education classrooms.
• No annoying librarians who want more money for materials, support staff, and staff development (or a living wage and health insurance). Our highly-skilled Indian workers are delighted with their $5 per hour jobs!
• Your entire library program can be maintained by a single, semi-competent technician in your district.
• You can justify your district’s expensive, unpopular 1:1 computer/student initiative.
• No ugly book “challenges” since all materials have been “tailored” to your parents’ religious views.

Please read the attached study (scientifically-based research conducted by FWLC’s very own research department) that empirically demonstrates that the FWLC product can dramatically improve student performance where it counts - on high stakes tests. (FWLC has been approved by the DOE for Title II, III, IV, and IX funding – unlike traditional library materials and librarians.)

AND take advantage of our offer by December 31, and we will throw in absolutely free, 50 of MIT’s $100 laptops for families in your district that qualify for FRP meals! Act today!

Coming soon – special pricing for regional and state-wide purchases.

Sincerely,
Bob Screwtape,
President and CEO
Flat World Library Corporation
300 Gates Drive
Redmond WA
1-800-NO-BOOKS

Will you, as a librarian, be prepared when this letter appears in YOUR superintendent’s mailbox in the next couple years?

Image source

The proof is in the proofing

I hate to write but I love having written. - Dorothy Parker
Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen. - Peter Drucker

I've been spending an inordinate amount of time proof reading the manuscript of my "survival skills for the classroom teacher" book that is due the publisher May 1. Yes, May 1 of 2011. And as a result, I've had almost no time for blogging.

I am thoroughly sick of reading the damn manuscript. It will be about the fourth time I'm going through each chapter - each reading requiring changes, major and minor, all embarrassing. Adding to my misery is that the weather has turned very nice here in Minnesota - perfect for walking, bicycling and just being a bum.

Anyone who writes knows that the act is very much a love/hate relationship. The highs when thoughts are flowing smoothly are the highest; the lows are pretty low when it seems each word must be drug out kicking and screaming on to the page screen - and that ornery word too often turns out to be the wrong one.

Much has been written about how the Internet seems to have reduced our abilities to focus on longer works of text as readers. (See The Onion's Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text, Carr's the The Shallows, etc.) But I'm thinking that writers, not just readers, may be experiencing a diminution of attention as well. So can a writer be expected to produce a book?

My metier, if I have one, has been the column. 800 words suites me. I can crank out the 3-4000 article when needed. 500 word blog posts are great fun. So the only way I can think about writing a 70,000 word book that makes such an endeavor palatable to readers and conceivable to me is to look at the book as a collection of about 90 columns stitched together in a narrative frame and given single voice. Ah, The mind games we chronically lazy, easily distracted, play with ourselves.

OK, time to stop procrastinating and back to editing. Ignore the blue sky, the greening grass, and e.e. cummings observation...

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom

BFTP: Becoming George

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post April 5, 2006. The original post stirred up a lot of comments that are well worth reading.

When I was working as a high school librarian in the early 90s, my nemesis was the technology director, George.

As the librarian, I felt my job was to get as many teachers and students excited about using technology as possible; George's job was keeping everything running smoothly. And the best way to keep devices in good order, he firmly believed, was to not let them be used.* George seemed to be continuously removing software and features and installing controls to lock users out of as much of the computer as possible. When I once asked him why he removed all but the system fonts on the computers in a lab; he explained that "kids just use the fancy fonts to write dirty words."

Until this morning, I had always viewed George as my evil twin. But now I think I have become George.

We give teachers the option of a laptop computer instead of a desktop computer. My techs want to use DeepFreeze or a similar product on teacher laptops for security purposes.  When DeepFreeze is installed, a "clean" copy of the operating system and authorized software is created each time the computer is rebooted. Any teacher-made OS changes or teacher-installed software goes away - including viruses, spyware and unlicensed/unauthorized programs.

And I found myself liking the idea. What's changed?

The main reason that I'm more sympathetic to locking down computers is that their reliability has become so damned important. Attendance will not be taken, grades will not be recorded, bulletins will go unread, parent e-mail will not be received; presentations will not be made; streaming video will not be shown; Smartboard lessons will go untaught, and web sites will not be updated if the teacher's computer doesn't work. The list of mission-critical tasks that teachers are using their computer for gets longer each year.**

Even a few years ago if a teacher's computer was unusable or unavailable for a few days, schooling barely slowed down. Such is not the case today.

I expect to get grief from teachers when they learn that 'their" new computers are not their personal computers to ding with at will. And my reply?

1. Were you working at the bank, the insurance office, the medial clinic, the law office or any other place of business, you would not have the freedom to install or modify your company computer to suit yourself. You would have access to the programs that help you get your work done. Period. Why should this not hold true in schools?
2. We can only protect you (somewhat) from viruses, spyware and other nasties when you are inside our firewalled network. If you use your machine at home or in the coffeeshop, you might very well pick something up that once inside our network would wreak havoc.
3. Our tech staff has enough to do without fixing problems brought about when unauthorized software causes system crashes, slow downs or other problems.

I've always believed that technology policy decisions are best made by as large a group of stakeholders as possible. Our district advisory committee meets in a couple weeks to discuss this plan. But if they nix the use of DeepFreeze, I may just override them.***

I am becoming George. This must be what it feels like to be caught in quicksand - you are completely aware of the situation, but powerless to do anything about the relentless downward pull... 

* Plenty of librarians have a similar theory: the books stay in order on the shelves better if they aren't checked out.

** Since this was written five years ago, our networks are even more mission-critical to the operation of the school. Across the WAN fibers ride VOIP telephone signals, testing data, security camera signals, and all sorts of educational software that complements instruction. Security breaches are more serious now than ever.

*** Our teacher Mac laptops remain free of DeepFreeze and similar programs. And no digital apocolypse has occurred - knock wood.