21st Century Learning

I think maybe these guys got it right. We need to start thinking outside the box in education.

Love the idea of teaching with Primary Sources but Primary Sources are not just Library of Congress archives. A bus ticket or subway token can be a primary source. Show and tell is an example of teaching with a primary source, and helps students use 21St Century Skills when planning their presentations. As educators we must get on the rocket that is 21st Century Learning or we will get left behind. And if we are left behind so are our students and that can't happen!

Build a Squid

Not sure what the point of this is, besides fun, but I just built my own squid and played with it for a while until it went off to find new adventures. I think it could be educational if students were doing research on what can happen to squid. My squid swam through a cloud of plankton already and it's not even an hour old. Now Squiky, my squid, had a fight with a leopard seal. Poor guy. It is a pretty cool interactive game for those science minded elementary teachers. Check it out, it is from the Government of New Zealand. It is called Build a Squid. Again, my squid's name is Squiky. You can visit him by searching on his name. If you look at the picture on the right, it looks like Squiky is waveing to you! I did the screen captures using Jing and then edited the pictures in PhotoShop.

Yearbook yourself

I was having a lot of fun with this web applet called Yearbook yourself. Here is how I would look in a yearbook in 1964:

Hope you are laughing with me.

Wordle of Obama's Speech to School Children

President Obama is speaking to school children on what is the first day of school for many tomorrow. His remarks have been posted and while they seem quite genuine, he will not be speaking to the children in my school district. Not live anyway. Our assistant superintendent sent an e-mail to staff last week insisting that the speech be previewed before it is shared with students. My principal went one step further and said it should not be shared with elementary students in our building. Why is this so controversial? I offered to have the speech on in the library for whoever wanted to watch it but that is not going to happen now. Some high school students in the mid west are quietly protesting their school district’s decision to keep them from watching the president. They are simply taking their laptops outside at noon and will return to class when the speech is over. I am proud of them for exercising their rights. This is America and with Constitution Day coming up next week we should be celebrating Free Speech, not squelching it. Of course this is a militant radical librarian talking and not a classroom teacher. Maybe it would be considered political posturing if a teacher forced his/her class to listen to a speech. But in the library it is free speech for all and all opinions are welcome. Here is a Wordle of the president’s speech that someone in my PLN on Plurk created. Enjoy!

Arrowhead Library Orientation Video 2009

It is finally finished. I have been working on this video for more than three days and yesterday I spent most of the day on it. Three days for such a short video seems like a lot of time. Not only that but it is not professional in any way and husband says it is boring. But I ask you when was the Dewey Decimal System not boring? It is only exciting to us librarians. This is my second attempt using iMovie. The first attempt was a baby shower video and I never uploaded that anywhere. Just gave a copy to the mom to be. We use Movie Maker at school and let me tell you the two are not alike at all. I actually uploaded this library orientation video to blip.tv so I could embed it here. I had forgotten that I even had an account and blip.tv seems to take larger videos than YouTube (which is blocked in my district). Hopefully it will embed easily and I will be able to show it to my students as we begin school this week. I sure hope they appreciate all my hard work! Hope everyone has a good school year!

Let me know what you think.