You've got to try these resources!

Last Wednesday I helped facilitate a full day workshop with middle school social studies teachers on preparing for History Day. In the course of the day I shared information about WorldBook, Destiny, and NetTrekker. We invited JoEllen Haugo from the MPL to share Minneapolis's rich resources. That's a BIG WOW! It could take weeks just to look at everyone of them, without getting in depth. Todd Pierson also shared two excellent research tools that are available online: Think Tank and Note Star. Think Tank allows users to narrow down a topic and create powerful subtopics. NoteStar is as you can imagine, a notetaking program that can be managed by a teacher and allows collaboration between teams of students. Both programs come from the same group, http://4teachers.org, which has also created a rubrics program. Think Tank and Note Star can theoretically work together, but there are problems with the length of subtopics created in Think Tank and a cut and paste method works better. http://thinktank.4teachers.org/ and http://notestar.4teachers.org/

A Spooky Day at the End of October

Know what's really spooky? How many libraries are available at your fingertips. (Maybe not spooky...but cool, isn't it?) I personally have an Anoka County card, but frequently go into Forest Lake and use the Washington Cty library, or stop at the Ramsey Cty library by Har Mar Mall. I'm a member of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library and enjoyed the trips I made to the Franklin library and the North Regional library with pre-K students this summer. The ITS staff has made us of the meeting room at No Regional for a quiet work session and I am always reserving books that I come across and want to read.

What next? I know I don't utilize the online resources very much beyond reserving books, but here I go! In my next post I will go into what I learn from the public library.
I will be developing an online resources class that I'm going to deliver through Moodle. That is a new experience for me.

Somewhere on a Monday

I am currently proofreading a grant application that another district technology person has been working on for the past few days. I am researching various things to tweak or add depth to the application. One question that I have been pursuing is:
What is the purpose of education? What is our priority for students? Here are some of the possibilities I have found:
1. to mold and develop our young children into positive, caring and intelligent individuals.
(Educational Priority: Character Education Jack Bowen, Guest Author Character Education Partnership Advisory Board June 2001)
2. to prepare students for success in the job market
3. to widen students' horizons and help them develop a love of learning
4. to educate students to be responsible citizens (The purposes of education, http://www. publicagenda.org)

Each one of these goals shapes the discussion differently and calls for different pedagogical approaches, different curriculum, different assessment tools. What do you think? What is the best research on the subject and how does it all fit in with our stated national educational goals
http://www.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/sec102.html

Second Night

I have just been listening to an audio cd about the Great Books. The latest lecture was about the book of Job, so I am thinking in Biblical terms about this project. After two classes with a deluge of new ideas, concepts and tools, I feel distinctly underwater and in need of an ark! Having been hired by the district as a tech trainer I feel that I need to fill the role of Noah and rescue other drowning souls. Maybe I am more of an Evan Almighty and will turnout to be a box office disaster!!
I know a lot, I learn quickly, but I'm not a kid anymore and I have the baggage of many years of thinking in certain ways. Experience is not valued as much as it used to be. Flexibility and agile thinking are more vital in an exponential world. I know that I do sieve new learning through old filters. However, if I am thoughtful about the process, I can present information more clearly to others that also have "filters of experience".
There is a mixture of emotions that people deal with when they are presented with new learning, technological or otherwise. There is excitement! There is fear and uncertainty? There is opportunity for both success and failure. There is a sense of responsibility to make the most of your new learnings. I did figure out how to post a picture!

First Night

The group has gathered, the adventure has commenced. Minneapolis MILI is a go! We have teachers and media specialists from three Minneapolis high schools and the guidance of Ann Walker Smalley, Karen Eidem and Deanna Sylte. We have discussed plagarism, shared proposed research projects and did a post-it note activity about our place (comfort,ease, knowledge) on the continuum of cutting edge technologies. It made a colorful picture of our varied skills and opportunities for growth. Dinner was delicious...falafel from the Holy Land, and amazing, still fresh! Who knew that "Nordeast" was really the Middle East?