the media window

The week off for spring break has allowed me to explore all manner of things web2.0 and one cool site I discovered today is LibraryThing which allows you to catalog your personal library of books, write reviews on what you have read, rate books, or join a group that shares your book interests. The founder, Tim Spalding was just named one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers for March 2008. It was super easy to sign up, add books and then add a widget to my blog showing off the most current books I’ve been reading! Next I’m going to experiment with the reviews capability. I am intrigued to think that I can add this to my media center website and have “featured” books with reviews for parents and students to read and use.

I am now signed up to earn graduate credits through the K12 Online Conference. The credits are from Plymouth University and the learning is self-directed, but overseen by Jeff Utecht, who is a K12 Technology coordinator at an international school in Shanghai and whose blog is The Thinking Stick. My first assignment will be to watch and reflect on the pre-conference keynote speech presented by David Warlick titled “Inventing the Boundaries”.
Not too long ago I was knocking down and cutting up cardboard for recycling. It had built up in my garage over the summer. I picked up a small yellow stub of paper that drifted out of one of the cardboard boxes that had held some of the paper stuff of my father’s life.
It read:
Dahl Bros. Painting and Decorating
For the pay period ending: January 4, 1951
Employee name: Stanley Dahl
Regular hours: 41
$2.02/hour
Total deductions: $4.64
Net pay: $78.18
In January 1951, I wouldn’t exist for another year and 2 months, but at that time my father had a wife and three children to take care of. He worked as a painter for his brother, Wally. How did they manage on a salary like that? We were always struggling and now I know more clearly, from a little scrap of paper, why. He worked at that same job for more than thirty years.
His choices for a career were more limited than mine, and also, his life shaped mine in ways that I haven’t always considered.
As I listened to David Warlick’s keynote speech and heard him speak of watching his own father put on his tie while dressing each morning it reminded me of that paycheck stub. Neither one of us knew as children how vastly different our lives COULD be from our fathers’ lives. There was a static sense to my world at home and school that led me to adulthood. I received a solid public education that helped me to go on to college and eventually into teaching. At some point, however, I was introduced to an Apple IIe, and from there my fascination with technology began. The boundaries opened up for me and my own children during the time they were in elementary school and the hook was technology.
Now we are in a new era of students and technology, and it was interesting to be presented with David Warlick’s idea that there are three “brand new conditions that are converging on our classrooms”. We as educators need to pay heed to these concepts.

• The first condition he mentioned was info-savvy students. While there are many students today who fit that title, I would argue that students are not all info-savvy. I especially see this in my school where there is quite a range of poor to affluent students. I agree with David when he said that they still need us to help them “work” the information. We also need to make sure that those who have less receive these benefits at school, especially if they cannot get them at home. I also feel that school can help put the vast array of technology choices our students are presented with into meaningful context.
• The second condition to consider is a “New Informational Landscape” in which we provide students with “responsive information environments” that allow them to “communicate and share personal experiences”. We need to allow students to ask questions and to “safely make mistakes”. Just how to do that in relation to emerging web based technologies is the key. It makes me look forward to watching the rest of the presentations in the K12 Online conference.
• The final condition Warlick mentions is the “Unpredictable Future”, which for me brings it back full circle. I do believe that our world is changing much faster than that of my own childhood and I see that in the lives of my children. I’d venture to say that it’s our job to educate ourselves as best we can and be open to the change that continues to occur to better prepare the youngest students for their unpredictable and hopefully positive future.