When you don't really want to be right...

The Flat World Library Corporation

Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 3:32 PM   I am struck by how current articles and postings seem to be bringing your 2005 article to fore. I've used your posting several times before in my classes and thus the recent turn of events make your "letter" even more real.   I've just added this section to one of my classes:   Johnson, Doug. "Letter from the Flat World Library Corporation." Blue Skunk Blog. 5 Oct. 2005. Web. 27 Sept. 2010. <http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2005/10/7/letter-from-the-flat-world-library-corporation.html>. With these current articles, can we say that Johnson was prescient about how libraries will be changed? Streitfield, David. "Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries." The New York Times. 26 Sept. 2010. Web. 27 Sept. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB>. This LM_NET discussion about outsourcing collection development: 14 Sept. 2010 Doyle, Anthony http://askeric.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+listservs+LM_NET+484605+10+wAAA+title%26ez 15 Sept. 2010 Gonzales, Lisa http://www.eduref.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+listservs+LM_NET+484590+4+wAAA+title%26ez 16 Sept. 2010 Combes, Barbara http://askeric.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+listservs+LM_NET+484377+13+wAAA+title%26ez etc Hope you are doing well.   Floyd Pentlin, Instructor Library Science & Information Services University of Central Missour

Thanks, Floyd for the permission to post this e-mail. Glad you can use the piece.

Please ask your students not to hold the messenger responsible for the message content.

Anyone who attended yesterday's LJ/SLJ virtual summit on e-books* must realize the corporate outsourcing of collection development in libraries will accelerate as e-books supplant print books. Companies are selling (and libraries are buying) collection, not titles.

* Kudos of the technical success of this "summit." Each session I attended worked great. What would liked to have heard were joint vendor/library presentations about how different types of libraries were actually managing e-book resources. Or do they exist?

Doug -- The links to LM_NET no longer work. Evidently I haven't figure out yet how to link to archived LM_NET messages. I've put the three postings I referred to in the e-mail in a public Evernote folder: http://www.evernote.com/pub/fpentlin/5250outsourcing

Is blogging hazardous to your career?

Scott McLeod in a Dangerously Irrelevant post, "I misunderstood the technology" quotes a professor Todd Henderson who believes "I misunderstood the technology, and the consequences are devastating for me personally." I applaud Henderson's honesty about underestimating the power of online communications (although I can't quite figure out what actual damage Henderson suffered that has caused him to quit blogging).

I truly wonder how many of us really DO understand "the technology?" If it is even possible to understand the impact of blogging, social networking, online reading and continuous connectivity on our careers, on our personal relationships, on the overall quality of our lives given how recently these things have become available. Books like The Shallows are beginning to explore some of these questions, but it seems like some potential negatives are predictable. (See: Blogging and a little common sense.)

One hazard is the negative impact of a public voice on one's career. I'll maintain that if you are a boat-rocker, a change agent, a questioner, a rabble-rouser, a radical in your online writings about your profession, your chances of getting a job and advancing in your career is jeopardized. In education especially, the people doing the hiring are conservative*. They may want someone who can remodel their home; they don't want someone who will burn it down and rebuild it.

Those who continue to advocate for radical change in education** fall into three categories: the clueless, the protected, and the courageous. Cluelessness and courage need little explanation; the protected include tenured educators, independent consultants, and professional pundits.

I applaud the courageous. We need more of you folks. But remember, it is only risk that makes you courageous in the first place.

* Schools are run by those who were successful in traditional schools.
** I do not include myself in this group.

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Revisiting web-based class information

Ten years ago this month, my article Teacher Webpages That Build Parent Partnerships appeard in Multimedia Schools magazine. Based on the plans our district was making at the time, I shared a rollout timeline and tables of suggested information teachers could provide to parents that parents would find of value.

Table One: General class description

Information	Schedule for updating	Possibilities
Teacher name and contact information	Annual	Name, school phone number and extension, and email address. Home phone if desired. Best times to contact. A personal note of welcome that includes encouragement for parents to contact teacher if there is a question or concern.
Class rules and expectations	Annual	Policies on classroom behavior, homework and extra-credit assignments. Carefully articulated and agreed upon by parents and students as reasonable, this information can reduce misunderstandings during the year.
Link to school calendar	Check annually	Building-created calendar based on district calendar. Should show beginning and end dates of school, holidays and breaks, days in which students are not in school for other reasons, and events and activities (athletic events, open houses, field trips, science fair, testing dates, etc.)
Supply list	Annual	Paper, pencils, calculators, etc. School policy on how students without financial means can obtain these items.
Field trip information	As necessary	Descriptions and printable permission form. Costs and call for chaperones when necessary.
Class news with photos and descriptions of current class activities	Monthly/weekly	What’s going on? Current projects and interests of students. Special events. Careful with this area – if not regularly updated it will make the class pages look old and tired. Make sure parental permissions are on file if student photos are used. No last names of students should be published.
Requests and guidelines for parent volunteering	Annual	While the district or building may generate these, teachers with special volunteer needs may want to let parents know.
Drop folders for student work.	Annual	If students have access to this page, a write-only drop folder for turning in work electronically has a logical place on the class page.
Class electronic mailing list	Annual with updates as necessary	An easy way for a teacher to communicate quickly with all parents who have an email address, and if desired, for parents to communicate with each other.
A counter that records the number of visits to the page.	Reset annually.	Of value to both teacher and parents if they wish to see if the site is being used and useful.

Table Two: Unit outlines and timetables
Information	Schedule for updating	Possibilities
List of units taught in each subject area (elementary) or in each class (secondary)	As dictated by curricular changes.	A general outline of the major areas the students in the class will be studying.
State requirements met by class or units	Annual update or as needed	If part of a state mandated curriculum, this reference should be made. Indication of any testing the state requires to show mastery.
Projected dates of units beginning and ending.	Annual	Advise parents that these are approximate. “We will be starting our unit on rocks and mineral just after spring break.”
Major goals for each unit.	As dictated by curricular changes.	Simple declarative statements of what the student should know and be able to do. “By the end of this unit, I expect your child to be able to identify the major landmasses on earth and be able to locate the major countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.”
Samples of final projects from previous years.	Annual	Helps give parents examples of exemplary projects as a quality indicator for their own children’s work.

Table Three: Information about specific units and projects
Information	Schedule for updating	Possibilities
Learner outcomes for units	Annual with adjustments as needed.	A detailed list of skills and information that students need to have mastered.
Major activities	Annual with adjustments as needed.	Projects, readings, tests, experiments, papers, etc.. Best if linked to assessments (below).
Homework assignments and due dates.	Weekly	Disclaimer needs to be added for parents that due dates are subject to change. (They might be later, but never earlier.) This could serve in lieu of a lesson plan book.
Vocabulary words, spelling lists, number facts, formulas, etc..	Annual with adjustments as needed.	Lists that call for memorization with which parents can help students practice.
Assessments/ evaluations for unit and projects	Annual with adjustments as needed.	Checklists and rubrics for major projects can be useful to parents to help the student self-assess work.
Online practice tests.	Annual with adjustments as needed.	Practice tests that come with standardized tests or teacher generated tests. This can be created so they can be taken online or printed out. Amazing how much better students do with practice.
Active links to online resources and webpages	Annual	Online lecture notes and links to readings and teacher-selected resources on the web.
Suggested enrichment activities with which parents can help.	Annual	Supplemental reading lists, enrichment activities for G/T students or others who are highly motivated, or “fun” family activities that tie into the content of the unit.

Table Four: Student progress reporting
Information	Schedule for updating	Possibilities
Online gradebook	Weekly	Parent (and student) access to scores on daily work, quizzes, tests and projects. Teacher comments on student performance. Data entered by teacher via the web from any machine in any location.
Final grades for quarter, semester and year (or equivalent marking period)	Each grading period	Part of online gradebook.
GPA and class ranking.	Automated through student information system.	Of interest to some parents and students. This does not need to be hand entered by the teacher, but should be imported from the school’s student information system.
Standardized test results	Automated through student information system.	Of interest to some parents and students. Should be linked to information on how to interpret the scores. Imported from the school’s student information system.
Attendance records	Automated through student information system.	Good check for parents of students who may have attendance problems. Imported from the school’s student information system.

One big change is that our student information system (Infinite Campus) has a good online gradebook which can be accessed via the student and parent portals. Our webhost rSchoolToday makes creating a variety of teacher webpages relatively simple. We have still not adopted any curriculum management software that would relieve individual teachers of putting out course information. Sigh.

After ten years, we are still asking the question: What should be required by all teachers - and what is optional?

And as always, when anything is optional, some teachers will choose not to do it.