Classrooms and Libraries for the Net Generation June 26, 2007
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : NECC2006 , add a commentFor my last session of the afternoon I went to Doug Johnson’s Classrooms and Libraries for the Net Generation”. Doug always has great presentations full of humor and food for thought. This was no exception as Doug talked about the attributes of the “millenials” verses the X generation and the Boomers.
Over the course of my evening I pondered his presentation and have several questions for which I don’t have the answers but woudl be interested in a discussion.
Are the millenials truly that much different? Doug mentioned that they want relevance, personalized learning, opportunites to socialize and collaborate. I am not so sure that back in the dark ages I didn’t want the same things. The challenge, I am thinking is to accommodate these things with the wonderful new tools while still giving them the education they need.
Doug mentioned multi tasking. I multi task often, I can’t imaging a librarian who doesn’t. But I know that when I want to do quality work, then I have to shut down all other channels to focus on the task. I watched some students last year learn how to use and be really creative with a photo editing program. They were in the library multiple times. In ALL CASES, while they were being creative they were NOT trying to slip into myspace, do email, chat or any of the other things that I montior. Is the challeng to teach students when to multitask and when to focus on a quality product?
My last question, do we truly know enought about the brain, and how kids learn to throw out all we have done in the past in favor of these new tools? I may sound like I am agains technology and I am not. I am just a little uneasy with the idea that WE need to totally change rather than meet in the middle.
Posted by Debbie Stafford
NECC - the exhibit floor July 12, 2006
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : NECC2006 , add a commentA big part of NECC (and ALA) is the exhibit floor. Wandering through the area lets you see so many vendors all in one place. Collecting free goodies is always fun. I like to use these freebies as give aways during professional development back at my school.
This year there was the usual variety of vendors some who have been around for a good while such as Adobe, Apple, Scholastic but some new ones as well. Many of the vendors give mini workshops at their booth and these are often as good as or better than the other workshops.
In terms of Libraries, only some of the exhibits pertained solely to libraries. There were a few library automation vendors, and a very few database providers (the main one I saw was Gale). In terms of equipment I saw nothing specific to libraries. I would like to see some new products for barcode scanners. But I saw nothing here and do not remember seeing anything at AASL in October.
There were lots of vendors offering school management programs, and those instant feedback programs which use a small clicker device. Internet safety, online courses and tutorials were also there. But I didn’t see anything really new in these areas.
Many of the booths that I spent time in offered free content, for example NASA and Library of Congress.
I would be interested to hear what others thought of the vendor exhibit.
Tag: NECC2006
Adobe Breakfast July 11, 2006
Posted by lrjohnson in : NECC2006 , add a commentNo conference is complete without going to presentations by vendors. It is a great opportunity to help out on the food budget and at the same time network with your table. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had attended the Adobe presentation at FETC but they did it right this time!
Three different educators shared what they were using Adobe for. I need to follow up with Adobe Breeze. You first put together a PowerPoint presentation and then put it in Adobe Breeze. This allows you to take PowerPoint up to another level and include handouts for tutorials or assignments.
A media specialist from Florida gave a great presentation on how she uses Adobe Photoshop with the students for visual literacy projects. Students worked together to create the images that would tell the story. With the students creating their own book covers using the program the potential for sharing book hooks is tremendous. Half of the screen is an intro to the book and the other half the cover they created. Gave me lots of ideas and she will be presenting at FAME in November!
The last one was a film and design class from Bellarmine HS. Unfortunately I did not catch where they were from and thinking it was a unique name I planned to go on their web page but there are a lot of Bellarmine High Schools! The teacher showed the awesome projects the students did for their film and design class with the purpose to taek them from Academic to Industry. They actually did designs for companies. With the expanded venue for viewing the students took great pride in their work and it showed in all their products. They did logos, CD covers, posters, trailers…
Keynote: DeWitt Jones
Posted by lrjohnson in : NECC2006 , add a commentImmediately get the video online of his presentation. The web site is http://www.DewittJones.com The beauty of his photography behind him as he presented was awesome! What he had to say was very inspiring. Before he spoke they used Turning Point, an immediate response system that polled the audience on what we thought was needed for the transformation of education to meet the needs of the digital generation and almost half said Visionary Leadership.
Jones was a great follow up for that! He spoke of having a vision, passion, creativity and a dream. He himself read National Geographic by flashlight as a kid. He had a dream and he persisted in spite of the family push for business through acceptance at Harvard. He spoke of National Geographic’s passion for sharing what is right with the world. (Don’t we need to change our focus in the news?) He spoke of hearing Robert Frost’s poems and the impact the words had on him.
One thing that really hit home was discipline and commitment are non-issues when you have passion. He spoke of the view we have, is it seeing the possibilities? The stone chipper vs the cathedral builder?
He talked about in photography there is more than one right answer. Nature is beauty and possibility. We need to be willing to take a risk. Open ourselves to the possibilities and remember that is is not what will I take but what will I be given.
Celebrate our journey in life with gratitude and grace. He ended it with know our purpose, have passion, vision and values!
What a perfect opening session!
Beyond Acceptable Use: Developing and Implementing a Plagiarism Policy July 10, 2006
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : NECC2006 , add a commentPresented by Debbie Abilock (editor of AASL’s Knowledge Quest).
Much of the information can be found on her site at www.noodletools.com/debbie/ethical Checking in here will give you a better outline than I can give here form my notes. Beyond Acceptable Use: Ethical and Academic Use (.pdf)
Debbie focused on reasons why students plagiarize and why having an acceptable use policy is not enough. The most interesting thought, “it is not enough to “tweak the assignment”. Many of us tell teachers that they need to make the assignments more interesting or more difficult for students to copy/paste. However, if the pressure for a student to succeed academically, then even really interesting compelling projects may still be plagiarized.
Several resources mentioned during the session; film “Shattered Glass” book “Doing School” Yale University Press, author Geoffrey Nunberg “power of blog culture to credit.
Resources which help students with creating bibliographic citations and note taking were also discussed. Along this line, Noodletools will soon have a note-taking component.
Tag: NECC2006