Some of the Best Forty Bucks I Ever Spent

I was just going over another teacher observation review with my principal and it was concerning an end-of-nine-weeks reference review lesson with a group of fifth grade students.

She mentioned that while it was just a slide show review multiple-choice thing, she was impressed that I kept circulating and getting answers from more than the same few students raising their hands.  It seemed to keep the lesson light and fun while keeping talking and off-task behaviors to a minimum.

It's because I got myself one of these babies a couple of years ago.  I'm proud that I don't do many slide show presentation-type lessons but when it's needed, this is the best thing to have.  Makes you feel like you're giving a TED talk.  Actually, it's better than a TED talk that because, like she said, you can circulate around the room and not be tied to your keyboard (or worse, have someone else do it for you and have to spend half your time telling them to "go back," or "go on.)"

I'm not endorsing a specific product here.  Any of these type of pointer doohickeys will do the job. (Click the image in this post to see some options.) But it's one of those things that some teachers or school librarians might be hesitant to spend on for themselves yet I think if you do indeed use any type of presentation format more than a couple times of year, then you'll be more than happy you have this in your desk drawer.

Washing Machines = Literacy!

Hans Rosling is always fascinating.  If you haven't seen them, he has many more inspiring talks on TED.

GA Conference on Children's Literature

Mary Downing Hahn - Winner of the book award for Deep and Dark and Dangerous.  Was a delight.  Tall, willowy and sweet.  You'd never believe she could creep you out a bit.  A fun, brisk talk with slides of her beginnings as an artist and writer.  Once again, not a stellar student (that's always an interesting thing, many famous writers weren't).  Bad with direction and a "quiet little passive/aggressive" according to some teachers.  My favorite bit was her love of Penrod.  That is one fun book!

Next I went to see fellow GLMA blogger Dr. Phyllis Snipes and her talk on the use of wiki's to share literature links.  The wiki stuff wasn't new to me, but she had some great link I'll be checking out.  The best part was sitting and chatting with another fellow GLMA blogger, Andy Plemmons and his Dr. Seuss Converse high-top sneakers.  No, really.

Alma Flor Ada - This was painful.  Apparently she was scheduled to come but couldn't for some reason.  They tried to run it anyway as a Skype session but it was a bad connection and garbled.  She looked so earnest and I knew she had great stuff to share but there was no getting it.  I left early and ran into Mary Downing Hahn.  I told her my joke about sneaking up behind her and shouting "boo!"  She said, laughing, "I so glad you didn't!  I'm really quite jumpy!"

Luncheon - I got to sit with some other new school librarians and enjoy a nice conference luncheon.  If you've ever been to a conference like this, you know what to expect but apparently these guys hadn't so they we pleasantly surprised by the fanciness and the service.  All educators should get to be treated that way once in a while!  I got to speak with Judy Serritella, the coordinator of library media services for the state.  She's graciously reprinted a couple of my posts in the state newsletter, so it was nice to talk to her in person, even if I did probably look like a dork in this t-shirt.

Previews - Next up was a session introducing the nominees for next year for the book and picture book awards.  A whole lot of nice white ladies on the committees, though there was at least one guy on each.  I was on the picture book committee in 2003.  Maybe I should sign up again...

Oral History Project - Fellow GLMA blogger and elementary school librarian Andy Plemmons showed off a fascinating collaborative oral history project he worked on with the fifth grade teachers and students at his school.  He has the rare ability to pull together the most amazing projects and showcase them without sounding the least bit self-congratulatory.  In fact he was humble and quite forthright in the strengths and weaknesses and his recommendations for trying a similar project.  He'd learned along with the teachers and students when he came across some great suggestions from the Library of Congress in a free web-chat session they did with them.  Links below.

Gail Gibbons - A fun and wide-ranging talk with wonderful pictures from her photographer husband.  I was happy to hear she'd been to Mote Marine in Sarasota researching her Coral Reefs book.  It was informative and light for mot of the talk, but a simple question about recycling from a classroom teacher at the end led to an emotional plea for better human stewardship of the natural world and a standing ovation.

Next morning I was too late to make the first session, so stood in line to get my daughter an autographed copy of I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by a delightful Ms. Beaumont.  Then I browsed the vendors until running into fellow elementary educator and blogger, Eric Carpenter who was very psyched to be seeing M. T. Anderson.  Turns out he teaches at a school I once student taught at...sometime in the last century.

M. T. Anderson - My favorite presentation.  A great mix of the funny, the absurd, and the serious desire to share his love of discovery and, as he put it, "the romance of geography."  I definitely need to catch up on reading his books!  From his desire to travel and subsequent realization of the problems involved, to his inappropriate use of French Baroque opera, to his meeting with the governor of a strange and mysterious place called "Delaware."

Reading Fair presentation - a great breakout session in which we were treated to photos and videos of some schools that, along with those tri-fold Science Fait projects, have a session of Reading Fair projects as well.  Got my wheels turning...

Karen Beaumont - Winner of the GA Children Picture Book award for I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! Changed her planned presentation based on seeing Hahn and Gibbons tell so much about their backgrounds.  Told us about hers and it was compelling stuff.  Was fully aware of the genius of David Catrow and wished he could have been there as well.

Storyteller's Luncheon - Susan Liverpool is amazing.  She had us all in the palm of her hand.  We were all laughing, but Gail Gibbons was weeping with laughter and I saw people holding onto each other from cracking up.  She says her book has been sold to the movies and they'll have her songs in there as well.  If it's a tenth as funny as the two stories she told us it'll be something to see.

Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
Barrow Elementary Oral History Project Links
What We Read and What We Think by Eric Carpenter
M. T. Anderson's "Delaware"
I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont and David Catrow
Little Liverpool Diaries by Susan Liverpool

Dragon*Con 2010

I shook hands with James Randi!  That was probably my highlight for the whole weekend.  He is also known as James "The Amazing" Randi, the magician.  He is probably the most influential skeptical activist ever and is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).  It was truly an honor.

I also shook hands and chatted with Joe Nickell, a leading paranormal investigator for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.  He likes to joke that he's been in "more haunted houses than Casper" but of course has yet to find any compelling evidence for ghosts.  He's the nicest guy ever.

I met  Daniel Loxton and got him to sign my Evolution book. He's the editor of Junior Skeptic Magazine and does most of the writing and illustrating.  Ok, maybe he's the nicest guy ever.

I also interacted with George Hrab, got a hug from the amazing Kylie Sturgess of PodBlack Cat blog, Skeptic Zone and Token Skeptic fame and Rebecca Watson, among other awesome Skepchicks.

And I can't say enough good things about the Atlanta Skeptics who run this thing.  All volunteer and all amazing.

I sat in on another fun episode of the Australian Mystery Investigators.  This is great for getting ideas on just how exactly to teach critical thinking to younger kids.  Show them cool stuff and ask thoughtful questions.  Richard Saunders kept asking, "How could I test this?"  "Can we all be tricked?"  "So does that prove anything?"  A great show and great interactions for the kids.  The covered optical illusions, dowsing, psychic abilities, and even a bit of consumer protection with their Fabulous Amazing Kinetic Electricity device.  Adults need to see this too!

The highlight talk for me was "I Very Much Doubt That!" a talk from James Randi.  The ballroom was packed.  I don't think anyone knew what a huge draw Randi would be.  He got a standing ovation just walking into the room.  He just sat and talked and answered questions but he tells them so well and is so inspiring.  He reported doing well after his chemotherapy due, he winked, to "a little thing called modern medical science."  He discussed the particulars of his famous $1 million dollar challenge if evidence can be found for paranormal abilities.  At another talk he was involved in, the moderator asked the audience of skeptics to raise their hand if they would be happy if he had to give the money away--if compelling scientific evidence could be found for some paranormal ability.  All hands went up.

I also attended the talk "Spotlight on Adam Savage" which was one hour with the Mythbuster in a wide-raging, funny, insightful, and intelligent talk.  He said they had no idea that the show would be embraced by kids and teachers and that he's glad they didn't because if they were shooting for that audience they probably would have messed up.  Now there's a commercial free version on cable due to the STEM initiatives to get kids interested in science.  It's called Head Rush and is hosted by Kari Byron.

Another fun one was "How to Raise a Mad Scientist" put on by the National Science Center's Fort Discovery folks.  They did a number of explosive and fun science experiments you can do with kids using around-the-house or very cheap stuff.  Awesome.

I went to the Astronomy Cast Live! podcast and heard all about the funding issues at NASA.  I wish there was a way that the federal government could only be in charge of funding, but not how the money is spent.  Then we wouldn't have the change in administration whiplash we have to suffer every four to eight years.  Of course, I wish the same thing about education!  Just give us the money and let us figure out how to spend it.  Leave the politicians out of it.

A surprisingly moving discussion was the "Raising Skeptical Geeks" panel.  The panel included Jamie Ian Swiss, Daniel Loxton, Adam Savage, Barabra Dresher and more.  It also included Will Philips' mother.  He's the 10-year-old who decided to quit standing for the pledge in his classroom in Arkansas because until gay people can marry, he decided, then "we don't have liberty and justice for all."  There were some great comments on bullying and then she told her story.  He's now being home schooled because not only the kids but the teacher's and administrators were awful to him and his family for "all the gay stuff."  Nice.

The last big panel I just had to see was "Skepticism in Education."  It was moderated by JREF president D. J. Grothe and included Matt Lowry (The Skeptical Teacher), Daniel Loxton (Jr. Skeptic), Dr. Pamela Gay (Astronomy Cast), Barbara Drescher (ICBS Everywhere), Kylie Sturgess, (PodBlack Cat) and Michael Blanford (Director of Educational Programs at the JREF).  Matt and Kylie get extra points for mentioning the great work of school librarians!  Some of the main points they discussed will not be a surprise to anyone interested in teaching real critical thinking.  They talked of teaching students to use multiple lines of evidence.  They talked of there being more than one way to an answer.  They talked of letting students follow their enthusiasm and mess with things to see what they can come up with, that, as Drescher put it, "The natural world is discoverable."  My two favorite quotes:  "Kids dig monsters!" from Loxton and "I like to ask my students what is a unit of chi?" from Lowry.

A great, thoughtful and inspiring round of discussions.  Check out their sites for more.

Astronomy Cast

James Randi Educational Foundation

Joe Nickell

Junior Skeptic Magazine

Mystery Investigators

National Science Center

PodBlack Cat

Skepchicks

The Skeptic Zone

Skeptrack 2010

Token Skeptic

Big Plans, I Say!

A quick search of the blog reveals that I have not posted about this wonderfulness before.  I should probably post about bedtime reading as well, and this was a library favorite of my daughter's some time ago and I love it for the beginning of the year read aloud.  Until the other day, though, I didn't own my own copy.  But what with freaking out about starting the new library job, I'm not afraid to buy those necessary items!

This is a great read aloud because it's BIG and most of the text is BIG so you just can't help shouting out "Big Plans!  BIG PLANS, I SAY!" which is sure to get the kids more fired up than if I started with Thomas and the Library Lady again.  (Not to say anything bad about Thomas, I love it, but it's just not the same).

As for the new job: Monday was Mimio board training which was mostly good for meeting more staff members.  Tuesday was Instructional Leadership Team and while we were all reminded that, like Vegas and Fight Club, what gets said there stays there I think it's okay to share that I found it to be a pretty great group of people and it seemed like a good start to me!

Wednesday was just setting up, straightening up (lots to do there!) and then two wonderful ladies from the district office came to spend hours with me getting me all checked out on the morning announcement broadcast and the closed-circuit system.  We're all set up for the 21st century with green screen technology, stock footage video clips for the pledge and the moment of silence and fancy editing equipment.  (Which reminds me, I need to practice that part because those Teacher of the Year videos come up quick).

I'm going to start from scratch on the announcement slide show because, well, I'm not a fan of the clip art.  I'd rather use more images and book covers.  For example, August 9th is the first day of school and I see that it's Seymour Simon's birthday.  It's also the day Jesse Owens won gold in 1936.  I can add images of book covers we actually carry in the library to pique interest and I don't think it takes any longer than finding generic clip art.

I got BIG PLANS!  BIG PLANS, I SAY!

Your Inner Fish

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, one of the members of the team that discovered the beautiful Tiktaalik transitional fossil, is just delightful. It's a short, but comprehensive whirlwind tour of evolutionary biology with a fantastic guide. We learn not only all this great freaky stuff about anatomy and fossils and geology and taxonomy and everything in between but we also learn how they know all that stuff.

And it's clearly written! It's easy to understand and entertaining. And the best part is, Shubin is a humble, smart and funny narrator. He describes going out on fossil digs with old pros early in his career and finding himself embarrassed to be walking the exact spots they are and not being able to see the fossils in the rocks the way they are, until one day they just pop out at him, like one of those 3D pictures you stare at and stare at and finally "see" right as you're about to give it up.

This would be a great book for someone thinking about going into the biological sciences, or as an undergrad course as well as a fun popular read for the rest of us. He's even loaded all the diagrams as slides onto this website and is encouraging their use in the classroom.

Gary Hartzell, Research Star

Earlier this month, I asked you guys to vote on my professor's list of library-field "research stars" and you cracked me up by voting on people not on the list. Doug Johnson (on the list) voted for Joyce Valenza (not on the list) and Alice Yucht (on the list) voted for Christopher Harris, Buffy Hamilton, Deb Logan, Carl Harvey, Diane Chen, Cathy Jo Nelson and Kristin Fontichiaro (not on the list).

Thinking I had to choose someone from the list, I was going to go for Doug or Alice but since an earlier class had already gotten to pick (sheesh!) I snagged Gary Hartzell.

But then I used my ninja mind powers to convince the professor to add all the new names to the list, so there will be some new blood in the projects this year.

I'm happy with Gary Hartzell, though. I've found some great stuff on him--including a video interview--and he's great. His book, Building Influence for the School Librarian was recently named by Doug as "probably the most important book written for our profession. Bar none."

Since Dr. Hartzell seems to approve of more free-flowing presentations rather than the typical web pages or slide shows, I think I'll do a Prezi presentation on him. I'll share what I come up with soon.

Prezi--Not Boring

Franki, over at A Year of Reading had an eye-opening experience with the online presentation tool, Prezi.

Prezi is awesome. I took a graduate-level educational research class this summer. We had two meetings at the beginning, were let loose with our questions for a few weeks, then came together on a Saturday at the end of the summer to present our findings. The only caveat from the instructor was to "not be boring." He also wanted us to try to fit in some on-screen references if possible.

When the day arrived, just out of curiosity he asked everyone to raise their hand if they were using a Powerpoint type show. Everyone raised their hand but a media specialist and I . She was using a movie-maker type program and I was using Prezi.

Now I've seem many crappy and boring slideshows and about half of them were plagued by technical difficulties. I was determined to have mine simple as possible--yet not boring.

I ended up with a spare image of three overlapping circles representing the three overlapping areas of my research. That way, if technical difficulties arose, I could simply draw it on the white board and be good to go.

I also had my presentation online, on my thumb drive and on my hard drive. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I've seen it all go wrong before.

It worked fine, and what's great about Prezi is that I embedded inline citations with photos of the researchers, so as we talked about them, it went zooming around and highlighted whoever we were discussing. You can plan a path for this, but are free to go back and move around as needed. Then in the end it zoomed out and all the clutter disappeared, leaving my original image as I answered questions.

If it sounds boring, I added a wrinkle. I hate big blocks of texts and bullets in slide shows, but wanted to quote some of my researchers. So I turned it into a reader's theater. I made name tags like "Dr. Richard Allington," "Dr. Stephen Krashen," and "Dr. Susan Neuman" and placed them in front of volunteers and gave them quotes to read. Then I did a think aloud of my research process, asking the "researchers" what they had found out about different aspects of their research and the volunteers read me their answers. It was fun, easy, and engaging. I think it also warmed up the class for their presentations. I also liked that I was mixing the high-tech Prezi with the low-tech, but equally engaging back and forth of the reading.

I highly recommend the Prezi tool. Like Franki points out, it's just fun to play with. I ended up making three or four versions of my presentation just to try out different ideas but ended up with the one that was the hardest one to make--the simplest most unadorned one. I think it worked.

Batgirl Was A Librarian

The title of this post comes from the front plate of a car I saw in the parking lot of Macon State College as I attended the GLMA Summer Institute. It wasn't the best conference I've ever been to, but it was a good one for getting the feel of my new career path.

They're librarians, so of course there's a wiki of resources, which is certainly worth checking out. I was dismayed to hear that it's a yearly struggle to get the funding for GALILEO (click here if that link doesn't work), Georgia's online research library and databases. It's an amazing resource and especially great that every school in Georgia has access to it. Much better than Google for the kiddies and you could get the equivalent of multiple Ph.Ds using nothing but this without any books in your media center. How much does this treasure set the 9.4 million citizens of our state back for use in our public schools? Less than .02 cents each. A veritable drop in the bucket.

The best presenter by far was a fellow named Tommy Johns. I have no idea if that is his real name. He has many of great tips and the theme of his talk was perfect. To be a great media specialist he says, you need to have:

Now there's a philosophy I can promote!

Throwing Fish!

This is my (mega-ninja) friend Merlin. We went to college together. We were both goof-offs to some extent (but he was a much smarter goof-off). We'll get back to him in a moment.

During teacher planning week they showed us a motivational video about these guys at a big international fish market in a city who made their job fun by really performing for their customers and making a big show of throwing the fish and just making their "boring" job a ton of fun. It was motivating and as you watched you wanted to be one of those guys.

Then I had to sit through four (!) two-hour (!) slide-show presentations that turned my brains into tapioca pudding. I've mentioned this problem in this blog previously.

Which brings us back to Merlin. He recently gave a slide-show presentation at the Googleplex on how to deal with your email called "Inbox Zero." I've mentioned and linked to these before. Now he has written a post about how he made this presentations so darn good. Please read it if you or anyone you know needs to do a presentation and feels the need to use a slide-show (Powerpoint, etc).

Most important rule: 10-20-30. No more than ten slides. No more than twenty minutes. No font smaller than 30pt. Now go and throw some fish!

Powerpoint is Evil!

Or whatever slideshow program. I had to sit through two two-hour "meetings" today. The first had slides that were dense with text. Bad. I'm not reading all that. The second one handed out photocopies of the slides, then the presentors proceeded to read the slides to us! Since I'm a grown up and can read, I left this "meeting" early. To be fair, these people are good at their jobs and their job is not "professional presenter," but I hope this is something we can all work on.

For a good example of how to use slides during a talk, checkout the Inbox Zero talk Merlin Mann gave at Google. It can be found on his 43folders.com site. It's also an excellent method of dealing with the madness of email. Remember, the video is long but you only need to watch the first thrirty minutes.