sharing the #ecislib2011 love

this is the email i sent to staff (and an edited version to students) on returning from #ecislib2011...

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the triennial ECIS Librarians conference in Istanbul, a fantastic conference in a fantastic city.

You can read all my notes on my 2 page conference blog – it’s not just for librarians – the majority of points are relevant to all teachers, looking at the future of learning.

Naturally I have bookmarked everything online but I wanted to highlight some of the tools that were shared, you may know some already, there is literally ‘something for everyone’ J

squrl – bookmark videos, thumbnail for each with your own text

livebinders - create binder online, students or teachers can gather research, inc media
only two clicks – screenshots of everything you want to link to with thumbnail links

photo peach – no account needed, slideshow, add music, audience add comments

easywhois – shows you who owns a website - useful for evaluating
polleverywhere – multiple choice poll including by mobile

finding dulcinea – pathfinders

wallwisher - for backchat, can post questions for later or look up or for content analysis, building on knowledge
hashtag paper - to pull together info daily from twitter, rather like flipboard on the ipad, good way of using twitter for the first time

Flubaroo – takes google forms - runs script, you select answer key and it gives total points and percentages
Mobilefish - tools for web design, inc. qr codes

jamstudio for creating your own music

artstor – for art and history

for ebooks, book trailers and more:
booktrailersforall – collection of book trailers, includes qr codes

Digitales – inc. interactive rubrics for video stories
skype an author – for virtual author visits

children’s digital library – works esp. well on whiteboard, celebrates language and culture

big universe – for ls books

canadian shakespeare – great for Shakespeare – enhanced books

glogster - use to gather book trailers or other info together

shelfari, book box – social networking for book lovers

@bookchica’s wiki - for book trailers 
@mrshureads “Watch Connect Read”

and for internet searching alternatives:
google squared - search results tabulated, nice for comparative ideas/perspectives 
mashpedia - real time searching - great for up to second news

google advanced - example use local view on issue – specify site:tr for certain country (turkey) etc
sortfix – for sorting searching, good for search process, thinking tool
quintura – a visual search, inc quintura for kids
twurdy – returns results by lexile
searchcredible – reminds of alternative sources, including many i recommend for advanced searching (bubl, intute)
wolfram alpha – you might know this already esp. if you’re a maths/science teacher
pipl – people search
flickr storm – creative commons image search, you can set up a ‘tray’ of images to share with URL
comp fight – image searching (flickr search, cc and safesearch)

please feel free to leave a comment

thanks

Donna

The Tech Factor - my saturday presentation

the tech factor on Prezi
please leave a comment or question below

Joyce Valencia and Doug Johnson

here's the smackdown where we're posting stuff to share

vision for the profession, not time to sit back, create own future
not about stuff but what is in librarian's heads
ok to be beta - not perfect if outside the box
learners learn with you

concentrate on what's important
work with the living - realise you can't work with everyone
web 2.0 freedom banner for librarians

3 ideas to embrace
smartest person in the room is the room
we are a 'tribe'
who's in charge of starting stuff - you should be saying 'go'

look at the bookmarks i've been making btw, here's a few to start...
Flubaroo - takes google forms - runs script - select answer key - gives total points and percentage
Mobilefish.com - tools for webdesign, inc qr codes
google squared - search results tabulated - have seen before but worth playing with again
mashpedia* need to play with - real time searching - great for up to second news

Debbie Abilock – Cultural Competence and New Authority

Debbie Abilock – Cultural Competence and New Authority

What is culture – what do we have in common?

Culture shapes motivation
Culture shapes our view of history
Culture shapes whom we credit with our success
Cultural shapes our emotional responses

Our cultures shape evaluation of sources
point of view has a cultural component
trust in media and scepticism varies

teaching suggestions:
ask students to shift lens
initiate conversation among diverse students
ask students how they could modulate their communication to diverse audience
work with teachers to have students develop complex questions about a culture they are researching
expect diversity in answers

change the rhetoric from debate to deliberative dialogue – understanding dif points of view
teach ethnographic observation – looking and understanding rather than judging
don’t predict behaviour by group
seek to understand, talk about race

Continuum of cultural proficiency

self awareness – of own culture
awareness of other cultures – like but different

just different not good or bad

Digital book trailers – Tara Russell Ethridge

See ‘Presentation Zen’ Garr Reynolds – alternative to powerpoint – image based linear

Essential ingredients for good trailers
- keep it simple
- capture the essence
- don’t give away the ending (end with a question to grab)
- choose photos that make you think, nothing obvious, think bigger and deeper
- keep the flow of emotion
- attribution share the cc love

Books that lend themselves best to book trailers are social realism.
(use for elementary – comp fight (flickr search, cc) and safesearch)
school needs common agreement for citation for images – for US I like the kids to do full MLA format - if someone has taken time to take and post photo then they can spend 2 mins inputting into noodlebib

Only use 8 images max – students plan before what should look like (storyboard)

use free tool, with music, photo peach – no account needed, slideshow
music select (part of tool) at end to avoid distraction
people can even make comments – this is great!

@bookchica’s wiki for book trailers

See also @mrshureads “Watch Connect Read”

Campaigning for the Book – Alan Gibbons

http://alangibbons.net/

Universal problem for libraries at moment, first to be cut

Libraries - literacy and information providers for all
Campaigns best when local goes global
Reading socialized activity.

Right to browse, think, learn

As literacy levels fall the most effective way of improving them (libraries) are being closed

Have won moral argument

To g’ment seems that bankers bonuses are more important than putting book into child’s hand

Joyce Valenza – School Library 2.2 – (or whatever is coming next) library

http://valenzaecis.wikispaces.com/

No longer like a grocery store but more like a kitchen – go there to get stuff and also make stuff and share stuff
pantry of things to use – not only pencils and stuff but also cables, cameras, tripods

Libratory – celebration of transliteracy, creating best essays and media

Librarian is the master chef

springshare worth looking at for libraries as website

Reading 2.0
Screensaver of book covers or photos of people reading

putting author/books links on sticker at back of book (or QR code!)
Book talk mashups
booktrailersforall – collection of book trailers, includes qr codes
could also have a computer (or ipad 2?) dedicated – if it has a camera, kids can scan books to see trailers (or whatever)

Get kids to do library video – either with camera or goanimate/xtranormal
international children’s digital library – works esp well on whiteboard, celebrates language and culture
big universe – for ls books
canadian shakespeare – great for Shakespeare – enhanced books
google custom search to look at certain favourite sites – eg: ebooks
glogster to gather book trailers
can embed google book

social network sites – shelfari, book box,
look at unquiet library for lots of stuff about ebooks
google forms for book suggestions - have been looking for solution for this!
skype an author network
development for our website - have library trailer of the week embedded

Pathfinders – content curation
sqwarl – bookmark videos thumbnail with your own text
also look at livebinders to create binder online, students or teachers can gather research, inc media
and a plug for delicious which makes me happy

Every library tells a story – Mark Lamont

Best learning - students ask questions not give answers
it’s not what you have, it’s what you do with it
‘Flip model’ – homework and classroom flipped – students come to school with questions, eg: Mazur
research can be superficial if student is given the topic
google advanced eg: local view on issue – specify site:tr for certain country (turkey) etc
easywhois – who owns a website - useful for evaluating
polleverywhere – multiple choice poll inc mobile

keynotes - Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza

Doug Johnson - Keynote

Unique characteristics of generation y

Discussion - more aware, more social, less tolerant of bad teaching, instant answers, wide of scope of stuff to learn, vocab narrowing

Research
demographics – 36% of US population, 20% have one immigrant parent.
Valued and Sheltered
grown up immersed, fascinated tech. less tv but more in front of a screen, more ‘on demand’, media saturated homes
digital backpack for many students
distracting?

how about using ipod/mp3 for recording instructions, language learning, concentrating
hs see tech not just as passive entertainment but also learning tools
we  need to use tech as a hook. Education 24/7, kids should want to be in the library, use student’s own tech to teach them (mobiles!)
4.1 billion mobile phones, 75% developing countries
information = conversations not authority
schools should not be tech desert

homework assignments – unmanageable workload leads to lack of buy-in and lack of depth or critique when using resources, needs to be relevant, personal, local, topical – that is what engages

also to think about – students as information creators
teachers seen as vital, personal info, learn by doing, visual, hypertext mind, shift attention rapidly, inductive discovery, like to share, expect fast responses
having a problem to solve is best way to engage

Joyce Valenza – Keynote

If learners are ipads – what are the essential apps?

academic digital footprints – make the stuff online about students (or staff) good rather than focusing on keeping inappropriate stuff off

use people search tool eg: pipl
flickr storm – creative commons images search - you can set up a ‘tray’ of images to share with URL

students should put cc license on their own work
also look at fair use – did it add value or re-purpose material?

use tools to make own stuff – eg: jamstudio for music
info fluency – transparent, interactive, meaningful and original
content curation – putting stuff all together as tool for you and others
artstor – for art and history – international – need p/w from local museum

igoogle for personal info portal
btw Joyce is using glogster a great deal to pull stuff together - nice simple idea
Keeping up with changes in search world
mobile apps for databases

hidden stuff in google – like ‘news timeline’
use custom search for favourite databases/tools – for documentary maybe could look at doing this for more ‘tools’ too?
breaking news search – mashpedia
sortfix – for sorting searching, good for search process, thinking tool
quintura visual search, inc quintura for kids
twurdy – returns results by lexile
searchcredible.com – reminds of alternative sources, inc many i recommend for advanced searching (bubl, intute)
reminder about wolfram alpha

rss feeds from database searches - need to look into this for our databases. Info pushed to you. Can do this in google too.
finding dulcinea – pathfinders
evaluation - crap filter 
Students start in youtube and then Wikipedia.

annotated bibliographies – forces evaluation of sources
primary source – who is an expert? bloggers, youtube
creativity is crucial

celebrate student’s creativity online – post stuff, aggregate content
only two clicks – screenshots of everything – thumbnail links
Digitales – inc. interactive rubrics for video stories
communication and collaboration
skype – expert or author

wallwisher for backchat – questions for later or look up – or for content analysis, building on knowledge
hashtag ‘paper to pull together info daily - not a huge fan of these but not unlike flipboard in a way and good for twitter-shy

Doug Johnson - Facing our challenges in positive ways

link for the talk with all the stuff is http://dougjohnson.wikispaces.com
so i'll just take a few extra notes from discussions etc


see also the smackdown page  and wallwisher


3 big challenges - asking us to do things differently


digitising of information


disadvantages to books (dead trees) - storage, out of date quickly, hard words, dirty etc
separate content from format
what are our kids (or staff or parents) going to be reading
ebook reader - single function device - future? epaper may be exception?
also apps for phones etc.
also problem of availability - 12% of world knowledge electronic - but will increase

clip of multimedia ebooks - penguin on ipad - impressive (but why does apple have such naff music?)
clip of the Kno - would be my perfect device if it was like this
holt macdougal etextbook - more than just a book - even has graphing calculator
all this points to the future

appealing to kids learning styles, collaborative learning environment
funding - how affordable - subscribing (like you do with a phone contract)
question over economics - development tends to be for consumers not education and libraries
tech must empower and save money!
according to UN health org, more people have cell phones than sanitation, even in developing countries


discussion about ebooks - good - bad - interesting
positive - weight of books, engages kids at least at first, differentiation (eg: speech to text, font size, dictionary, multimedia, reading levels), someone can't see what you're reading (no 'baby book' attitude), very fast ordering
bad - what if kids can't afford, durability, adaptability, power, consumer culture, development of scanning skills and fine motor skills, distribution of ebooks legally and ethically
interesting - wondering what the future will be, what will become normal

collective wisdom of the masses - changes the role of teaching, evaluating information Doug Johnson

3 challenges ~  11 opportunities

Re-think physical facilities
new model – info comes to you

More attention to creating social, comfortable – want to be not have to be –

A doing stuff place not a getting stuff place

Emphasizing right brain skills. Should be whole school thing.

Design – story – symphony – empathy – play – meaning

Remain the expert

information literacy of staff as well as students

infusion of library into the curriculum, more than just integrating or adding on

change in dynamics of classroom

information jungle , team playing (purpose of library is to make better students)

let principal know 2 things positive for every negative

be a digital resource guru

diversify
boring is the riskiest strategy (Godin)

schools good for kids – values from adults

positive actions

online resources – reading promo – reading 2.0

tech tools – everyone is a creator

promoting reading via tech eg: polling favourite books, shelfari, skype

Can’t be a book person without using technology