I Am NOT Achieving My Goals

I ran into a former student and her mother at the store yesterday.  It was very nice to see them and catch up.  When I asked Kristen how her first year of college went, she sheepishly hung her head and confessed that she had not done as well as she had wanted.

I assured that transitioning to college was an adjustment and that it was not unusual to have a less than stellar start.  

Then her mother said, "Ask her what she means by not doing as well as she had hoped!"  I looked at Kristen.

"I only had a 3.4," she admitted.  

"A 3.4!  That's nothing to be ashamed of!"  I told her.  I continued saying that there was more to life than studying and that she should, in essence, stop and smell the roses.

Later that evening I realized that the same advice applied to me.  

I began my summer vacation with a wild list of plans.  For starters, here is the list of resources I wanted to read and annotate:

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness [Kindle Edition]

Breaking Free [Kindle Edition]

Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life [Kindle Edition]

Cyber literacy : evaluating the reliability of data
Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs [Paperback] [2009] American Library Association.

The End Games [Kindle Edition]

Facebook House: Insider Tales of Mark Zuckerberg and His Empire's Tumultuous First Days

Goal Sticking: How to Go Beyond Goal Setting and Get on the Road to Success (Goal Sticking Series) [Kindle Edition]

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians)[Kindle Edition]

The Myth of the Garage[Kindle Edition]

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty [Kindle Edition]

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home (P.S.) [Kindle Edition]

Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment [Kindle Edition]

So far, I am on Empowering Learners.  

Next, consider my lesson planning goals:  By now I should have completed 10 lesson plans for kindergarten and first grades, and five for second grade.  So far: 10 for kindergarten and six for first.

According to my Google Tasks list, by the time the weekend is over I should have:

Nolan is quite a charmer.

• displayed my Big6 posters
• laminated construction paper for my Reading Counts markers
• ordered digital duplicator supplies for the beginning of the school year

So why am I so far behind?  One word: Nolan.  Nolan is my adorable almost 10 week old grandson.  He is taking a lot of my time.  And I am taking my one advice and enjoying this.  On the rest, I will do what I can!

  

Why the New Header?

I recently changed the header photo on my blog from the stock photo of a beautiful beach to a photo I had taken at my farm circa 1980.  I think the change reflects how I have grown (and aged) over the last few years since this blog began.

When the picture was taken, I did not technically own the farm.  It was part of the estate my great-grandmother (Ida Knost Burgy) left to my grandmother (Cora Burgy Westbrook) and her siblings.  My grandmother died in 1957, passing her interest to my grandfather (Thomas Harry Westbrook), who in turn bequeathed his interest in the property to my father (Harry Clifton Westbrook) and uncle (Darrell Lynn Westbrook).  My grandmother's brother (Noah Burgy) passed in 1970, leaving his 1/3 interest with my grandmother's remaining sibling (Marie Burgy Matheny).  When Aunt Marie passed in 2002, my husband and I bought the interest from both Aunt Marie's and Uncle Darrell's heirs.

None of the names listed above are important to the reader.  To me, however, they are important in preserving a piece of the past as a wheelhouse to which I can return and center myself.  While the beach captured my imagination as a child and young adult, it left little for me to hold onto, aside from memories of vacations past.  The beach is wild and every changing.  My writing, planning and thinking when I was there was fanciful and based on dreams with no real foundation. The farm is solid and slow to change.  It is a place of peace and solitude.  I do my best writing, planning and reflecting there, seeded on the solid experiences of the past and nurtured by the thoughtful contemplation of the writings of others.

One of the most important admissions of learning is realizing that in the total scheme of things, one knows nothing.  In my beach days, I knew everything.  Today, in my farm days, I realize how little I know.  Today, I am much more receptive to the thoughts and experiences of others.

Ironically, none of the man-made items in this photo remain.  The house was consumed by fire in 1997.  The barn fell down years ago, and the garage and the smokehouse were demolished soon after we bought the property.  My first car, a 1971 Plymouth Valiant (aka Prince) expired in 1982, and my dogs, Tiny and Mabeline, died in the mid-80s.  

I still dream of all of these, the house and my dogs, the smokehouse and barn. I still maintain that Prince was a more rugged and maneuverable vehicle than most four-wheel drive trucks.  These are parts of my past that cannot (I hope and pray) be erased by time.

What keeps me focused is what remains: my husband (barely visible on the porch) and the land itself. Like  my reading, writing and reflecting on my practice as a teacher and a school library media specialist, they require commitment and nurturing, time and care.

That is fine by me.

A Backwards Review of the 100 Most Influential Education Blogs

On June 18 Onalytica released its six-month ranking of the 100 most influential education blogs. According to the post the 'influence factor' measures the impact of a blog, popularity measures how well the blog is know by other education bloggers. and over-influence is a measurement of how influential a blog is beyond its popularity. All of this is based on the number and quality of citations a blog receives.

Needless to say, I am unfamiliar with most of these blogs. During the next several weeks I will look at all the blogs in reverse order.  I want to see what I am missing!

100.  Concrete Classroom

If Michael Kaechele's blog is number 100, I can't wait to get to the top of the list.  In reviewing three month's worth of blogs I have uncovered many gems. For starters, following a link of the blog I found Sanderling, a mobile professional development site still currently in beta.  I am excited about the promise of this site, which will allow teachers to track their self-designed professional development.  It wpuld be more than wonderful if districts buy in to this concept and at least recognize the self-directed efforts of their employees.  Equally interesting was an overview of his school's professional development conference that brought in nationally prominent speakers.  I would love to see my district sponsor a conference like this!

It seems the blog is updated about once a week.  Consider me a subscriber!

99. Learning in Burlington

Patrick Larkin is the Assistant Superintendent for Learning in the Burlington (MA) Public Schools.  Among other distinctions he serves as Senior Associate for EdTech Teacher.  

Judging from the content I viewed from early May, Larkin reposts and analyzes posts from other bloggers regularly.  This is great, because it initiates a conversation, analyzing the viewpoints of the writers from his own perspectives.  So far I can tell that he is quite aware and involved with teachers and students in his district.  I am impressed that he, an administrator, takes the time to write this blog.  Staying tuned. 

98. The Fischbowl

Karl Fisch, a math instructor/technology specialist from Colorado has been blogging for many years.  His writings often involve mathematics, understandably, but also address education as a whole.  In one post I read he  commented that he did not know whether to encourage or discourage a student who aspired to be a teacher. In another he described the curriculum map he had written to address Algebra I in the Common Core.  

In 2006 Fisch created the Did You Know/Shift Happens slideshow that most of us have seen at faculty meetings and professional development sessions.  The presentation that was originally used at one of his staff meetings went viral and has now been translated and adapted numerous times.

I think Fisch should be followed because of his reputation as a leader and because of his awesome, extensive Diigo bookmarks that he calls Karl Fisch's Public Library.  As I was reviewing the list I was caught up in links and spent at least an hour digressing from this post.  It was heaven.

97.  edcetera

According to the site's description "We blog about education trends and technology for everyone on the college campus, including administrators, educators and campus bookstore managers. Come for the most recent findings in higher ed, stay for the insight and expert analysis."

My immediate reaction was that this was not likely to be relevant to me, and I maintain that opinion.  With so many quality options to follow, reading this blog is not the best use of my time.  I can see some benefit of following this blog if one is a high school educator.  I saw some great links that my CTE friends might find interesting. There are many tools and ideas here that can be adapted and used at the secondary level.  

96.  Bud the Teacher

The subtitle of this blog is Inquiring and Reflection for Better Learning.  The first post I viewed was titled "What Socrates Would Call Wisdom."  Without going into further depth, I was hooked.

Bud Hunt has an impressive resume as an educator.  He left the language arts classroom six years ago to become the technology director in his Colorado school district.  He writes about classroom and personal life experiences and how they relate to education as a whole.  His beautifully written blog is reflective, inspiring and rooted in improving students' learning experiences.  

I am a new subscriber.

     



Moldovan, Andreea. "What Has Changed in the Top 100 Influential Education Blogs Ranking?" Blog. Onalytica, Ltd., 18 June 2013. Web. 27 June 2013. .

ADHD and Gadgets? An Interesting Look at Attention and Devices

A couple days ago I wrote that my daughter was often upset with me and her husband because of our attachment to our devices.  Today, I stumbled across a link that looks at device addiction and its relationship to ADHD.  I found the article worthy of discussion, and it has raised several questions for me.

According the article, when children are engaged with devices, it looks like they are paying attention - and they are -but the attention is different than that tradionally considered necessary for achievement in school.  Christopher Lucas, associate professor of child psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, notes that while attention associated with successful academic endeavors requires sustained focus in absence of rewards, games present on devices provide intermittent rewards in the form of wins.  

The brain's reaction to the wins is a release of the feel-good substance dopamine.  In other words,  a win produces the same effect as Ritalin.  Children with ADHD who are engaged with devices are in fact self-medicating without the need for pharmaceuticals.

There are many, like my daughter, who see this as a problem.  I agree devices can be addicting and over-engagement can lead to antisocial behavior.  The author notes that children become agitated when detached from their devices.  

Others find this effect to be a positive, if educators can use the apps to engage children in learning and virtual socialization behaviors.

There are two very good videos presented in this article.  It is recommended for reading and viewing.  This article is well-balanced and as I mentioned, thought-provoking.

Here are my questions:

What are the differences between engagement with devices and other media?  My husband has made fun of me for years for shutting everything else out when I was engaged in reading.  Is attachment to devices physiologically so different?  If a reader is engaged in the content and making connections, does this not produce a "win" response?  Or is it the release from the electronic stimulation what causes the dopamine release?

I remember watching television on September 11, 2001.  I was overwhelmed by the replaying of images, the interviews, and although I didn't notice at the time, the volume and the rapidity at which the images changed.  When I got home that evening I  flipped channels and came upon a panel discussion on PBS.  I immediately was overwhelmed by a calm and peace.  It was then that I noticed the discophany of the CNN broadcast.  I couldn't turn away from it, but I didn't notice the stimulation until way after the fact.  While this may seem like a digression from the main topic, I am wondering if it is engagement/disengagement that would cause the dopamine release, rather than the medium itself. I wonder if the amount of dopamine released is dependent on the stimulation provided by the medium.

Back to kids and their devices.  My philosophy is that if a kid who is predisposed to ADHD can self-medicate with his devices, perhaps we all (teachers,parents, medical professionals) should look into a therapeutic method of using these devices to educate and treat those with these tendencies.  If nothing else, it is worth a look.

Rock, Margaret. "A Nation of Kids With Gadgets and ADHD." Mobiledia. Mobiledia, 17 June 2013. Web. 27 June 2013. .

End of the Year Checklist and Reflections, Part I

The end of the year brings lots of stress before we actually get to experience the ultimate relief of summer.  For me the stress is not so much with keeping children engaged in lessons as it is to catch up on the "last minute" duties that will get the library in perfect shape for next year.  I need to run overdues, do inventory (usually a three week job) complete all forms as required by the administration, plan and attend staff development sessions to name a few.  Then I have the end of school social obligations: concerts, awards assemblies, fifth grade promotions, and our volunteer breakfast.  It is enough to make a librarian's head spin.

Added to this are a plethora of reflections that, with the exception of my annual report, are not required but are important to the growth and health of our library program. 

The first of these reflections was written by Steven Anderson in Blogging About the Web 2.0 Connected Classroom. In this blog he poses what he considers the most essential questions from the Principals Technology Leadership Assessment.  They follow:

To what extent do you compare and align your school technology plan with other plans such as your school improvement plan?

 I think this is a very simple question to answer. As required by the state, our technology plan is a component of our school  improvement plan.  Each item in the tech plan must align with and support a curriculum goal.  I am very proud that before our our plans were combined, our tech plans have always reflected our curricular goals.  

To what extent do you promote participation of your school’s stakeholders in the technology planning process of your school or district?  

While I no longer write the technology plan I am consulted frequently by our technology integration specialist.  I know she also works closely with our academic coach and with the county technology visionaries.  I would imagine that, like me, the other teachers are consulted, if only in regard to the number of work orders they submit.  

To what extent did you disseminate or model best practices in learning and teaching with technology to faculty and staff?  My approach has been to model acceptable use (and best use) of technology every chance I get.  For awhile I set up early morning sessions, but after a certain point attendance dropped off.  An effective technique to get the teachers to effectively use the resources our library provides is to  teach federated database searching to the students.  They, in turn, will model it for the teachers, When I asked a third grade teacher to bring her class to the library to finish their research projects, she was amazed at the children's use of OneSearch and the quality sources it was searching. She remarked that all teachers need training on this,, but agreed that all of our staff development time was monopolized by agendas set outside of our school.  Hopefully, with her backing, some changes will be made in our staff development schedule.

Two examples of marketing directly to teachers were very successful.  Classes used the library to take the Statewide Writing Assessment.  As the students were working I was able to describe the new Nexus 7 tablets that were bought out of library funds and to describe the audio and ebook apps I had installed.  At that time I set forth my vision for helping poorer readers enjoy texts on their level.  I proposed units of study to my fourth grade teachers, who agreed to act on the collaboration.

        

Another important "point of sale" was my end of year planning collaboration with the fourth grade team.  We planned at least PBL units that will incorporate higher level thinking skills and targeted uses of all types of technologies.  I showed the teachers how to set up their Destiny Quest accounts, how to create lists, do federated searches and create citation and bibliography lists.  After that, I briefly showed them Google Apps, referencing my class lesson site and collaborative editing of documents.  This was the most successful collaboration I have had since I worked on my National Board certification.

To what extent do you include the effective use of technology as a criterion for assessing the performance of faculty? 

Technology integration is required by the Office of Educational Performance Audits and is a component of our lesson plans.  However, this requirement lacks teeth except for the time our school is actually being audited.  The teachers' unions, one of which I am a member, have worked to minimize the actual requirements for lesson plans.  Therefore it remains at the discretion of the professional how much data is inserted into our plans.  I suspect teachers with fewer than five years experience are held more firmly to this requirement than tenured teachers no longer required to undergo annual performance reviews.  Since I believe in full professionalism (except when it comes to attire) my lesson plans include links to applicable technology.

To what extent do you participate in professional development activities meant to improve and expand your use of technology? 

In short?  All the time.  I mainly make use of webinars and Twitter feeds to gather information on technology and learning trends, but lately I have been incorporating RSS feeds from EbscoHost in my news feed.  Because others may not have the time to sift through the feeds, I post regularly to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as emailing appropriate people.  Recently I began a paper.li for WV Library Media Specialists.  In less than a week I have 13 subscribers.  Not too shabby

So what does all this mean for library services to my young patrons?   

So far, this is telling me what I am doing right.  It does not tell me how to improve.  That is where reflection comes in.  In the next few posts I will look at other checklists and develop a short-term and long-term plan to improve services.

Anderson, Steven. "Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom." : 5 Leadership Questions To Finish (And Start) The School Year With. Web. 24 June 2013.

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