After retrofitting hundreds of classrooms in our district (with its oldest buildings from the 1920s) for telephones, computer networks, mounted projectors, interactive white boards and voice amplification systems, I was expecting, nay yearning, to see some beautiful, clean, neat, efficient installations - where technology was transparently integrated into the physical structure of these new buildings. You know, an absence of wire molding, no power cords snaking across floors and down walls, and sufficient electrical outlets where they needed to be.

No such luck.

If the wiring looks like that shown above in my new elementary school, I will be ashamed.

Oh, there is a practical as well as aesthetic reason to be neat. Wires are intimidating. The more wires, the scarier the technology looks. The scarier the tech, the less likely it is to be used. Hide the wires to help for the sake of your technophobes.

This is first in what will probably be a series of continuing ruminations addressing the question: How do I keep my district from building a brand new 1950’s school?

What are the qualities of an elementary school building that prepares kids for the future? 

Exactly 20 years ago, my good friend Clair and I left a NESA conference in Bangkok to take a five day tour of what was then known only as Burma. Armed with but a Lonely Planet guide, we visited Rangoon, Mandalay, and Pagan. It was, and remains, the most interesting, exotic and different place I have ever visited.

Clair on left.

Burma in 1988 felt like stepping back into the 1940s. My top 10 memories, now a bit faded, I'm afraid...

1. The Lonely Planet advised travellers to buy a fifth of Jack Daniels and a carton of Marlboros in Bangkok duty-free and sell them on the Burmese black market for enough "kyat" for a one week stay's worth of spending money. It worked. Burma was the only place I have ever done a black market currency exchange. At the time the official exchange rate was 1 US$=20 kyat; the black market rate was 1US$ = 140 kyat. One could buy Burmese currency on the black market and then drink in government run hotels for about $.20 a beer. A stipulation in one hotel was that one needed to buy food with each drink. So the menu would read: Chicken 20K, Chicken wings 10K, Chicken bones 5K. My order - A beer and bones. Hold the bones. Only country I know that had 75 and 35 denomination bills.

2. The Strand Hotel in Rangoon was the colonial equivalent of the Oriental in Bangkok or Raffles in Singapore. But  it had never been restored (as of 1988). The rooms were sad - bare wires and tired beds. The bar closed at 9PM. We learned to order a few beers at 8:55. Then sit quietly. 10 minutes after the lights went out in the room, the rats would entertainingly scurry across the top of the bar.

3. Near Mandalay we waited for 45 minutes to cross a bridge that was closed twice a day to let the ox-drawn carts of hay cross first.

Photo - Doug Johnson - Rangoon, Burma - April 1998 - scanned from Kodachrome slide.

4. The Pagan/Bagan temple area encompasses thousands of acres - stupas as far as the eye can see - quite literally. Clair and I hired a taxi to take us around the region and we spent the day clambering through the crumbling temples. At the end of the day, the taxi driver commented, "You very, very brave men." Really? "Yes, Burma has the highest incident of death by snake bite in the world and the temples are full of snakes."

5. Burma was (is) known for its rubies. We were often accosted by small boys carrying metal Sucrets boxes lined with cotton containing "real" Burmese rubies. One boy offered proof that the stone was real by smashing it with a brick.  I bought one after negotiating down from $100 to an even exchange for my pocket knife and a ball point pen. On my return to Bangkok, the jeweler confirmed I had purchased colored glass, but I still had the "ruby" made into a tie tack. I claim that I plucked it from the navel of a Burmese temple dancer.

6. Hanging in my home office yet today is a ceremonial "nat" (spirit) hat. It is in the shape of a cow's head with a horn spread of about 4 feet, decorated with spangles and glittery balls. I wore my hat through the notoriously strict Saudi customs coming home. No smuggling one of those babies. I still wear it on hat day at school when in the mood.

7. One had a choice of two alcoholic drinks in Burma - Mandalay beer and Mandalay rum. I've drunk beers from all over the world and found the only really bad beer was Mandalay beer. We regretted not keeping the Johnny Walker.

8. Our hotel in Pagan was about a half mile out of town on a narrow dusty road. I don't remember Pagan having any paved roads at the time. The Lonely Planet offered two suggestions for recreation: the Pagan disco and the Pagan massage. The massage was a tiny wooden shack with a very old man and a kid and a couple benches. I got the old man and Clair got the kid. I have never been so viciously pummeled, poked, kneaded, and bent in my life. As I remember, a very sharp elbow was the main instrument of torture. The disco was what looked like a garage lit with florescent lights, posters of pop stars (the BeeGees, maybe?), and a boombox. Clair, the DJ and I were the only people there. Since Clair is a terrible dancer, we didn't stay long.

9.  We stumbled on a village having, we think, a wedding festival. Along the dusty streets passing between wooden shanties, was a parade of brilliantly costumed and gorgeous young women and men riding in carts being pulled by equally brilliantly caparisoned oxen. Every photo we took looked worthy of the cover of National Geographic. (I gotta get back to scanning my slides!)

10. Beautiful sunsets and beautiful people are my two major images of Burma. Wearing a protective clay on their faces, the women were delicate, shy and lovely. The men, small, wiry and smiling. And each evening seem to start with an outstanding sunset. But that was years ago and the world and I have both changed more than a little, I fear.

My rational side says everyone in the world should have the opportunities provided by a Starbucks-Toyota-iPod economy. My romantic side yearns for corners of the world that remain culturally unique. If anything I've written sounds patronizing or politically incorrect, I apologize. I am writing out of fondness and from memory. As a traveller, I never claim to be anything more than a tourist.

I know there is controversy over traveling to Myanmar/Burma today. One's tourist dollars either support a totalitarian government or aid the local people, depending on your political views. For myself, I would go back in an instant, given the opportunity. 

Photo - Doug Johnson - Rangoon, Burma - April 1998 - scanned from Kodachrome slide.

After reading this comment, I began wondering - might it be both? Do we suffer from media specialitis when one reads this on LM_Net:

In our district we have a policy which says that I keep the money tendered for lost books for 2 weeks and then turn the money in to the district treasurer.  I had a child return the lost book after that 2-week window.  So, I did not return his money.  Well, doesn't his mom call saying he should have the book back or his money back.  After counting down from 10, I said "okay" and gave him back the lousy $3.99. If it had been more, I would have had the district treasurer deal with
her.  But, for that piddly amount, I picked my battles.....BUT I walked right over to the child's classroom and told him and the classroom teacher that the library was not a bookstore!  And this is NOT going to happen again!

What a great deal - for only $3.99 this librarian bought at least $399 worth of ill will and bad feelings from a student, a parent and, BONUS, a classroom teacher. If the teacher complains to the principal, this might just be a bad PR home run.

Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant writes about his "not so friendly library," and reminds his readers:

Seth Godin reminds us that every interaction with a customer / client / patron / stakeholder / visitor is a marketing interaction. It’s an opportunity for us to build or erode our brand, a chance to increase or decrease the trust and goodwill of the people with whom we are interacting.

 "Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" is a trite, but in this case apropos expression.

What are other symptoms of "media specialitis?"

 Yes, you can get this image on a t-shirt here. <http://www.strangersinparadise.com/>

One of my favorite educational scolds, Gary Stager, yesterday excoriated "the most popular, hired and prolific members of the EduBlogosphere" for not jumping up and down about the recent findings that showed the Reading First program was not as effective as promised. He writes:

Literacy dominates my esteemed colleague's thoughts about education. Therefore, I find it shocking that there is so little [read: none] discussion of the news that the federal Department of Education has concluded that Reading First, the $6 billion shock and awe approach to literacy education at the core of No Child Left Behind, has FAILED to improve the reading comprehension of American students.

Why the silence among EduBloggers? Is this issue unimportant? Should we ignore the calamity created by Reading First just because it doesn't mention Twitter, Apture, Ning or other made-up words?

Or, are you waiting to be told what to think by Tom Friedman or Daniel Pink?

First let me say that I am positive that I am not even on Mr. Stager's radar, so this did not hurt my feelings in the least. But I have a much different take on whether Reading First was shamefully neglected as a topic of discussion among the bloggers I like to read for a few reasons:

1. I too was shocked, shocked to learn that politics and money and cronyism have ever played a role in education in this country. What will they discover next - that politicians have affairs? That governments sometimes spend money on stupid things?  Gary takes great pride in predicting Reading First would not be a success. Ya know, Gary, guessing this didn't require the skills of a Nostradamus. Sorry. And while this is a case of politics influencing education, most of us think of ourselves as educators first, political pundits a distant second. Or tenth.
   
2. A great many of us at a school district level simply have not been impacted by Reading First, didn't buy the product, didn't sacrifice other programs. Those bloggers working in schools tend to write and be interested in what they know and what impacts them. On a fundamental level, as long as federal funding accounts for about 3-4% of my district's financing, I will invest about 3-4% of my energy on federal issues. Even NCLB has had less impact on how a state decides to enforce it and district's to have it impact what they do as a result of it.
   
3. A great many bloggers would prefer to write about the positive, offering concrete suggestions about how education can be improved on a daily, personal, school or classroom level. I think we take Emily's to heart when she writes: "I dwell in Possibility-- A fairer House than Prose." We need people like you, Gary, with that 20,000 foot view. It's just that the stuff here on the ground is of more immediacy, more interest, more importance to many of us - even Nings. It's naive, I suppose, to think we can make change by celebrating the positive rather than crticizing negative, but ya just never know.
   
4. As a corollary, many of us have a pretty accurate perception of the limits of our influence (which I explored more fully here), knowing where we can most make a difference. Besides ranting - and belaboring the obvious that politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are clueless and corrupted by special interests - what in the Sam Hill do I have to contribute to this discussion, to urge my readers to do, to act in a way that will actually change a system? I'll certainly share this information within my own district to make better informed decisions about our reading efforts, but what more? Venting feels good, but does it do good?

Gary, I sincerely appreciate YOU writing about this. It does need to brought to all educators' attention. But the world only needs (and can take) so many Gary Stagers!

I like my bloggers building arks - not just predicting rain. 

I like using my imagination to create an image of the person I am listening to or reading. Some of the people that I have been reading or listening to for over a year have become real people in my imagination. Their hair is cut a certain way, they wear certain clothes, and they walk a certain way.

OK, the theory is fine and dandy, but then he gets .... PERSONAL:

There is one person that I am lucky to not have seen his picture. Doug Johnson. I have read his blog on and off for a year. I know he is a short, squat, cigar, crushed hat, beard that is white, no hair, I mean nothing on top, slick talkin’ Minnesotite. He looks weathered, in a way that makes someone look tough, not old. He has been on one too many ice fishing trips without a shelter, even though people offer him a beer and he accepts, he would rather have a malted milk. He is definitely a hunter and has a stuffed rabbit, no deer, no moose head above the computer he works at. I hope that image is never shattered.

As anyone who has seen me knows, I can best be described as a cross between George Clooney and Brad Pitt - only taller, more buff, and with better hair. Although I am over half a century old, I still get carded in most bars. The only taxidermy near my desk is the rabid grizzly bear I killed in self-defense when I was twelve-years-old, using only my pocket comb.

Just wanted to set the record straight, OK?

Now when read I Paul I envision him looking like the love child of Don Knotts and RoseAnne Barr... Ewwwwwwww, as the kids would say. (He may have slipped up on January 18th and left a photo of himself.) Regardless of looks, Paul has a great blog. Put it in your reader.

So what do you think, would prefer a picture or your imagination for the bloggers you read?

Illustration of your humble author from May '08 School Library Journal's Re-Boot Camp article.. At least they got the body right.

Each box that you mark on each test that you take,
Remember your teachers, their jobs are at stake.
Your score is their score, but don't get all stressed.
They'd never teach anything not on the test.
from Not On The Test by John Forster & Tom Chapin

I suppose I am the last person in the world to see video/website, but it's wonderful:

 http://www.notonthetest.com/

Especially meaningful right now when we are up to our ears in testing, testing, testing.

Thanks Barbara Braxton for posting this on LM_Net. Finding our what your countrymen are up to via Cooma, Australia. Amazing still to me. 

What is cumul.us? cumul.us is a place to get simple, accurate, and useful weather information.

What makes it simple and accurate is that it collects weather forecasts from several sources and combines them together to give you a more accurate average, using the idea of the "wisdom of crowds". In short, cumul.us is the "wisdom of clouds". Not only is there data from meteorological sources, but people can make predictions themselves.  (from the cumul.us help page)

Monica Hess's article "Truth: Can You Handle It?" (Washingtonpost.com, April 25, 2008*) uses culum.us as an example of "what happens to the concepts of truth and knowledge in a user-generated world of information saturation," questioning the "wisdom of the crowds" theory and students' attitudes toward information quality. Although the article doesn't cover tons of new ground, it is well-worth spending a few minutes reading.

Among other topics, Hess describes a number of ways teachers and librarians are working to insure students pay attention to the quality of the information they use in research projects. In one example a teacher requires that students use a certain number of print sources of information. Not an uncommon requirement.

But is requiring print sources of information in a paper or project desirable, practical or effective in 2008? Why is print - a format - considered sacred by so many teachers and librarians?  Should we automatically assume that the quality of information in a book or magazine is superior to that "found on the Internet?"

Here are three reasons that we should drop the "must contain print resources" requirement:

1. Such a requirement does not require any analysis of information quality on the part of the student. BOTH online and print resources need to be judged by their authority, currency and objectivity. The automatic assumption that print resources are reliable is dangerous.
   
2. Such a requirement may limit the questions students might explore. A few years ago, my son Brady wanted to do a term paper for a college psychology class exploring the question whether playing video games (his passion) lead to increased real-world aggression on the part of the player. Because of strict requirements on the ratio of print to online resources, he found that he could not find enough sources for the topic (or so he said.) He changed his question to one of less personal interest and relevance to him. Does this happen to many students wishing to explore contemporary issues in their research?
   
3. Such a requirement ignores that many resources are identical in print and online formats. As many students (but possibly fewer adults) recognize, much of what can be found in hard copy is available online. Must a Newsweek or Encyclopedia Britannica citation come from its print incarnation - and why? Does information from a Google BookSearch count as an online or a print citation? The line is blurring.
   

Here is my modest proposal. Drop the requirement that students use print resources. Period. But ADD the requirement that each citation include a sentence that argues for the authority of the source.

Is requiring print resources a sacred cow that needs to be put out to pasture?


*thanks to Cheri Dobbs for sharing this on the AASLForum

Best Practices for Library Media Center Programs and for Library Media Specialists
Brevard (FL) Public Schools

Purpose/Philosophy
Effective library media programs are creative, dynamic, enthusiastic, and committed to the development of a community of learners that is centered on the student.  Library media specialists provide the essential link in this program connecting students, teachers, and others with the information resources they need.  The effective library media specialist draws upon a vision for the student-centered library media program that is based on three central ideas: collaboration, leadership, and technology.

Effective Media Center Programs demonstrate that:

• The program supports the mission, goals, objectives, and continuous improvement of the school
• The library media center is staffed appropriately with at least one full-time certified media specialist who is supported by additional qualified staff
• Administrative support is ongoing
• Funding supports a large, diverse, in-depth, school-wide collection
• State-of-the-art technology is integrated into the learning/teaching and information-seeking processes
• Cooperation with other libraries is practiced
  

Accomplished library media specialists are teachers who

• understand students and their diverse social, emotional , and intellectual needs
• support the learning of all students in the school community
• encourage and engage students in reading, viewing, and listening for understanding and enjoyment
• create an environment of mutual respect and trust
• use their expert knowledge in acquiring and evaluating, developing and promoting the effective use of learning resources in different formats and media, both on-site and remote, to support the instructional program
• integrate information literacy standards for student learning into the content and objectives of the school’s curriculum
• integrate technology for learning and teaching
• plan instructional units collaboratively with classroom teachers
• provide leadership in collaborative program planning and teaching to ensure both physical and intellectual access to information
• know curriculum programs mandated by the state, district, and school
• model strategies for locating, accessing, and evaluating information within and beyond the library media center
• provide appropriate information, resources or instruction to satisfy the needs of individuals and groups and foster individual and collaborative inquiry
• use appropriate information technology to acquire, organize and disseminate information
• manage library programs, services and staff to support the stated educational goals of the school and district
• work collaboratively to define policies of the library media program
• evaluate the library media program and services
• are committed to program excellence, and remain flexible and positive in a time of continuing change
• have effective communications skills, and work well with others in a team
• are committed to lifelong learning
• serve as teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and program administrator
  

References for these practices include

• Information Power:  Building Partnerships for Learning, (1998) and A Planning Guide for Information Power (1999) prepared by the American Association of School Librarians,.
• Program Evaluation:  Library Media Services (1998) prepared by National Study of School Evaluation.
• Teacher Librarian, The Journal for School Library Professionals (Dec. 1999) published by Rockland Press
• “Proof of the Power:  A First Look at the Result of the Colorado Study” by Keith Curry Lance
• “How School Librarians Help Kids Achieve Standards” (1999) from Library Research Service, www.lrs.org
• For Your Information, Media Guidelines,  printed by Brevard County Public Schools (July, 1998).

Just a friendly reminder - this is the good work of Brevard Schools - not the Blue Skunk! Thanks.

It's not really a big secret.

Writers like knowing that they have been read. I don't care how loud the protestations of bloggers who insist they write "only for themselves" or "for personal growth," every public scribbler likes knowing other people have considered what they have written. If they didn't, they'd be writing in a spiral notebook - probably locked away in a garret. I just don't envision Emily Dickinson having a "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" blog.

Anywho, if you would like to make a blogger's day, leave a comment on a post. Agree, disagree, add, or just say thanks, but make it heart-felt. Make it relevant. Don't be a troll.

If you are a blogger and receive a comment, I've always thought it polite to say thanks to the commenter when possible. This is not a universally practiced - or endorsed - practice. Somehow, I just think if a person has given up a chunk of life to read and craft a response, I should be grateful. 

• To encourage you to make commenting a regular practice, check out Kim Cofino's 31 Day Comment Challenge. (It's day 3 and I am already a week behind - how does that happen?) For those who really like structure, see the Comment Challenge wiki. Check out using coComment, even though it doesn't work on the Blue Skunk.
  
• To help guide your commenting "etiquette" check out Darren Draper's Edublogger Etiquette - Responding To Comments. Actually read his entire etiquette series. Interesting stuff.

http://www.teesnthings.com

Oops, that's probably NOT the right attitude on the t-shirt... 

But all I am left with are questions about being "Minnesota nice" in a micro-blogging environment and why anyone would use Twitter.

I freely admit that I am not the most social of creatures. I am uncomfortable in environments where I don't know the social norms, the accepted rules. So after feeling edgy for a couple days, I started doing a little digging about Twitiquette. (I thought I was clever in inventing the term, but others beat me to it.) Here's a very short list of sources:

• The Twitter Fan Wiki, the etiquette page
• Stuart Ciske's 5 Essential Twitter Truths.
• GrammarGirl's Twitter Style Guide.
• David Jakes Tragedy of the Commons
• Global Geek News Blog. Twitter Etiquette (Thanks to Darren Draper for last three links.)

Here are questions I am left with:

1. What is the proper content for a Twitter post? (Tweet, yes?) I find I really don't care much if people are eating breakfast or preparing for a presentation or scratching their butts. But then I don't expect others to care about whether I am doing those things either. Am I just insensitive? Should I care more about my fellow human beings? I did get very anxious when it sounded from entries that one person was posting and driving at the same time. I hope that was not true. Or that we are never on the road at the same time.

2. How much material from the "Shameless Self Promotion Department" is a part of this? I read an awful lot of pointing to "Hey looky what I just wrote" or "Hey looky, I am speaking at a conference" etc. What is very icky is feeling oneself slipping into this mode a well.

3. How do you keep from being perceived as rude and uncaring? OK, I was "following" about 60 people - names of people I have actually met or for whom I have some context. I had about 300 people following me. So here is the thing: if a person who is following me posts a message I won't see it since I am not following them. My non-response may well be interpreted as me being a snot.  By not following people who are following me, I may be perceived as looking like I feel superior to them.  Hey, and what about those jerks who I follow, but who don't follow me, and that never respond to my messages? Just who died and left them Twit king/queen? Somehow this seems like a medium designed to hurt feelings.

4. When do people actually log on to Twitter and what kinds of day jobs do people have who can do this during working hours? I would feel very guilty Twittering during my working hours (unless I am in a boring, time-wasting meeting anyway or marginally important training.) Maybe real Twits are a) all self-employed/unemployed, b) outstanding multi-taskers, c) have non traditional work hours, d) attend lots of meetings, or e) don't really care that they may not be giving their employer their all. (Did I just get in a lot of trouble?)

5. What is the ratio of information to time spent? Yes, I got a few really interesting links during my Twittering time, but compared to a lot of other things I could have been doing, there as an awful poor "signal to noise ratio" - even compared to the rest of the Web 2.0 world. Hmmm, this might be an analysis that would be interesting to compare time spent vs. amount discovered in different media.

6. Is there a lack of depth and conversational development? Suggestion such as:"Conversations that require more more than two @ replies should be moved over to a direct message." The limitation of 140 characters per message. The missed pieces of conversations. The non-linear, multiple conversations. Normal interruptions that leave one far behind in this synchronous form of communication. All these characteristics do little to help me increase the depth of my understanding on any topic.

My sense is that we are taking what is meant to be a recreation tool and attempting to shoe-horn it into educational purpose. We trying to pass a cocktail party off as a educational seminar. As Jakes writes in the blog posting mentioned:

"At its best, Twitter is a place to share a resource, a link to a new blog post, or an insight, and even a place to have a little fun. It’s a place that could be about learning. At its very worst, Twitter is a self-indulgent exercise in self-promotion and pettiness."

The funny thing is that I really like the people with whom I've interacted - in other situations and media.

And to be fair, I don't really suffer from a lack of socialization in my off-line world. I work in an office setting with a dozen other people. At home, the LWW is a great "socializer." She socializes when I am trying to read, trying to watch a movie, trying to brush my teeth, trying to get to sleep... ;-) But for those who may work or live in a more isolated environment or have less need for solitude, Twitter may be the best thing since sliced bread. 

But I simply can't warm up to Twitter. I would have a difficult time recommending it as tool for improving one's Personal Learning Network.

The big understanding needs to be that it is OK to personally reject even a popular application if it doesn't fit. 

Not everyone's a Twit.

Monty Python images from: http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/twit.html