Gloria J. Reeves, McKinley Technology High School, DC Public Schools

her school is predicted to be at the forefront of preparing "techites" and the next generation of 21st century workers
the school represents hope and a new beginning for high schools and quality education in DCPS
in a third year resurgence, McKinley is demonstrating a penchant for innovation and creativity
they hosted a video gaming summit!
students are designing video games for classroom use
is the first school in the world to install a Vicon Motion Capture Studio for students to design games
unique in that the school combines a first class liberal arts education with a job skills development technical program
- students are prepared to go to college or directly into the workforce
technology is the adhesive that strengthens teaching and learning across the curriculum
social studies and history coming alive for students using powerpoint presentations, graphs, mp3 downloads, etc.
geography classes utilize GIS to construct, analyze, and reinforce mapping concepts
students create videos for pieces of music
art classes are designing on the computer

video game to take students on a tour of the library
edutopia article (October 2006) - "a new generation of kids will radically change how you teach"

there is an intense interest in gaming; this appeals to students
why not exert some effort to capture some of the gleam found in the eyes of students engaged in gaming - enthusiasm, joy, etc.

the idea of "what if..."
the lack of technology modeling at the school level

this is the first year they've had seniors since they reopened as a technology high school so started a "senior projects" class
- students use gaming technology to create a product for a nonprofit organization
- have already done a project for the American Red Cross about fire safety; will be available on the web soon

a student was assigned the project of creating a tour and orientation of the library as a game
- two students, Kellee Herbert and Larniece Brown

students had to render the physical library in a virtual setting; very time-consuming to add each book because they had to be done individually
using Maya software to create this

creating screencast tutorials integrated into the virtual world tour/game
shows a student looking up something in the catalog using embedded screenshots and then walking through the library to get to the item

issues:
- going to have to talk about a dress code for avatars (heh)
- question about content; there's another version of the game where kids come in blasting with a machine gun! (they don't use this one)

next step is to work more closely with IT and assemble a team of 8-12 students to work on the project (including over summers) in order to create a game that is commercial-shelf-worthy
maybe write grants to give students stipends to do this and expanded work
want to locate mentors in the gaming industry to provide additional guidance and expertise

looking at Teen Second Life for how they can use it for library instruction

there is incentive to meet students where they are, including their gaming interests

told the students, "whatever you create, just make it fun"
the kids added Gnarls Barkely's song "crazy" as the soundtrack for the library tour

using maya on mac professional computers (teen second life, too), which is why it might run better for them than it does on windows at the charlotte mecklenburg [public] library

"gaming life" column by kelly czarnecki is starting up next month in SLJ - she's looking for school librarians working with gaming

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Joyce Valenza

personal note: wow. I've always wanted to see Joyce present, and she didn't disappoint. this is my favorite presentation so far at this conference, and I learned a lot, which is about the best thing I can say about a session. if you ever have the chance to see Joyce talk, do not hesitate to take it!

All of this information will be available at http://informationfluency.wikispaces.com/

More info at http://joycevalenzaworkshop.wikispaces.com/

in the last year and a half, everything has shifted
felt she needed to come up with some solutions so that we weren't just grabbing at these tools, but are really harnessing the power of these new tools in ways that are relevant to 21st century learners

what place do these tools have in learning
citizens of the future will have to blend traditional and new
media-rich, participatory, brilliantly-chaotic future

Joyce is in perpetual beta (Joyce 1.8, not 2.0)

showed a video from the T4 Jordan School District

sees two threads:
1. information fluency and web 2.0 brilliantly woven together into a beautiful cloth
2. funky vibrant moon with learners as collaborators

prefers information fluency to information literacy (wants her students to be more than just literate)
draft of new AASL standards
it's about creativity, inquiry, creating knowledge and understanding
a little less linear and buckety than the old standards
seem to resonate with the next new standards
mesh well with ISTE NETS-S Refresh Model (also in draft?)

things that have been keeping her up at night:
1. Horizon Report
two trends
- user-created content
- social networking
new business model, participatory and collaborative leadership ("The Starfish and the Spider")
how do we turn our organizations into starfish?

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott
A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
The World Is Flat - by Thomas Friedman
most recent issue of Educational Leadership - "Becoming Citizens of the World"
we are preparing different kinds of learners

accessing information, both physically and intellectually
5 significant shortcomings in students' abilities to use technology

does it have to be a "good enough/why bother" world?
disturbs her because she doesn't give up
mathmeticians move learners into higher level thinking, don't give up when doing math problems

need to demand some energy
what does "collection" mean to the 21st century library?
- databases, blogs, wikis, webcasts, podcasts, ebooks, RSS, etc.
equity through open source software
access to experts
students create their own data and research thru survey tools

"Research Recap: How to Make Google Go" video she has her students create

in her pathfinders, links to Google Advanced and teaches them to limit by format
Google Directory for issues

shows them Kartoo, Answers.com, Rollyo, Clusty
- shows them there is a whole world of these things
pops these things into pathfinders and insidiously insists they use them
students love Kartoo's visual search engines
OEDb list of top 25 2.0 search engines

many elementary teachers are putting together wiki-based books
- a growing movement

high school and college level, the OER Commons, where many curricula are being posted as open source for everyone

the only way a K-12 teacher or student will find this stuff is if you point to it, so you have a major responsibility to open up this stone soup

blogs as research sources - you need to make sure that they understand there are search tools just for blogs

showed video of a student talking about how he knows that if he wants to learn about journalists and journalisms, he needs to read their blogs
can't wait for information to be let free for these kids, so still need to point kids to valuable material that is free to them
- ebooks; is moving her reference collection into ebooks
had problems with this until she realized she had to pop each title out individually into pathfinders
metasearch is a problem - not working

one consequence of heavy use of Google is increased usage of jstor, so all of a sudden everyone is requesting stuff from it, so she had to subscribe to it

kids *love* streaming video
she gets safari montage and united streaming
students are putting video into presentations
research channel - a collaboration between major universities to put video of their best speakers online
teachertube - great resource when youtube is blocked at your institution
zamzar - converts files, they email you the link, you download it, and then you can use it in school the next day

her streaming media pathfinder is heavily used by students and teachers

another shift is the ability to now do our own research
many teachers using zoho polls
- students collaborate with teachers
- gather, analyze, interpret, and then present the data
shows kids not all research is book-based and can be original
she uses response-o-matic, one of her favorites
most of these tools are free, especially for educators

news is not just local, news is not just in english
in this global world, we have to make sure kids know that the western press isn't the single source
have to integrate global media (al jazeera, etc.) into your pathfinders

help your students control their own information worlds via RSS feeds
they can restructure the entire search dynamic, channeling information to automatically flow to them
this is the kind of skill 21st century workers need

are kids using tags for navigation
what can they learn from tag clouds?
can use fastr to play a game online with kids to teach about tags

how do we intervene in the research process in a 2.0 world?
it's very important that we find a way to be insidious and supportive but not nosy
her goal in life is to be a window on her students' desktops
uses "embedded explanations" and using "web signage"
right now she's using wiki pathfinders so that the students and faculty can contribute to the growth of these pathfinders

Sandra Hughes-Hassell's student wikis as models

not just about finding information, but also about building knowledge
how do we evaluate in a 2.0 world?

she has gone 180 degrees on wikipedia over the last few years
couldn't find definitions of web 2.0 in traditional encyclopedias
wikipedia had articles and the best links
it's about when is it best to start in wikipedia versus somewhere else

showed criteria for evaluating blogs and wikis
kids are learning when to use what for which audience; know when to use serious sources like school
can't worry about just wikipedia - showed conservapedia for conservative viewpoints - have to be aware of the trend, not one site

student project
for each scene and act they read of Hamlet, they had to gather as a character online on a blog and explore their motivations and feelings, which increased understanding of the work
Hamlet06
have moved their literature circles to blogs
- characterization, each character, etc. are categories
- could easily see each student's writing
- kids who were shy about talking in real life showed up here
students get to hear everyone's perspectives (showed video of a student saying this was valuable to him)

blog posts about student reactions to watching the movie Hotel Rwanda

she started having kids blog the entire senior research process for the entire semester
allowed her to intervene in the research process
had them set up tags as categories so they could see patterns, and they would suggest some throughout the process
was a transparent process
peers could see their blogs and leave comments, as would teachers
by the time they were ready to write the final paper, it was mostly written already on the blog
student reflections were probably the most powerful part of the process

showed a pre-calc blog
AP World History Review wiki
- assigned students chapters throughout the process and they were responsible for maintaining the chapters throughout the school year
- includes media and links

point is that you are the facilitator and you can help teachers create this stuff
it's not hard and the tools are essentially free

information ethics
not just plagiarism, but digital citizenship
how do we create a culture of academic integrity?
most of our teachers are confused and don't understand the shifting information landscape

david warlick's son of citation machine
noodlebib (just added electronic notecards you can tag and cluster; can assign it original, quote, etc. status - very powerful tool)
- both have added citation formats for blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.
- want kids to be ethical, but we need to make it easier for them
95% of her class loves noodlebib

teaching blogging etiquette
showed some guidelines

projects today are different
how do we have kids create projects ethically when they're so excited about the various media?
kids really don't understand copyright restrictions

told a great story about a teacher who wanted to use a piece of copyrighted music with a student project and when joyce said he couldn't because of copyright law, he shut down and wouldn't change the music or post the project online

teaching students about personal social networking, presenting yourself online

Flat Classroom project - a class in India collaborating with a class in Atlanta

discussed setting up a Ning network for your classes
kids create avatars and participate in the networks

kids need to know that if they can't afford the microsoft office suite (and who can), there are free tools that are often more powerful

has evidence of fantastic student writing because teachers can intervene, the process is transparent, kids don't have to worry about the tool (can concentrate on the content), they can collaborate together

when students read the Crucible, they created podcasts "Live from Salem" plus wikis
kids will now set up a wiki for projects even before the teacher or librarian intervenes to do it

low level kids are enjoying writing now because they have an audience and it's easier

the girls lacrosse wiki is their most popular wiki
scouting the competition and strategizing on it!
building knowledge in an authentic way

need to forget what we know about powerpoint and move to digital storytelling
there are 2 or 3 major portals for this
many classrooms are telling their stories in their blogs using media
we are moving into a new presentation era - presentation zen, not bullet points

Marco Torres iCANN Film Festival - student storytelling online
collaboration between an older and younger group of kids
showed a very powerful video about cell phones and driving made by students

Brookline Book Review Podcasts
kids are doing movie trailers about books for succeeding classes
showed a video of a student talking about personal pronouns
the kids are owning their learning and sharing it with the world
they are so excited about this
using flickr as an art gallery and using notes to point out what they want you to see
Springfield Clickart gallery
using Flickr as a vocabulary tool
exposes when they are wrong and teachers/librarians can then intervene

blog reflection rubric

as a librarian, you can be a catalyst and lead from the center
you can be a weaver

new rules for 21st century practice
see opportunities, not obstacles
"ask later!" if what you are planning is instructionally sound
gives everyone permission to not do inventory this year!
delegate up, down, all around - let the kids take on a lot of these projects
don't wait for the next workshop - train yourself!
http://hitchikr.com/
you've got to do some of this at home if you're going to make a difference
it's okay to be beta
it's okay to be beta and fall down, but you'll learn from it and get back up
stop watering the rocks and start working with the living!
teach outside the library - go into the classrooms and visit them virtually through your pathfinders
get up and stand up - tell people what you think an information professional looks like in the 21st century - grab the opportunity!
what is your 2020 vision - plan for it
stop and smell the learning!

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07