"Prepare for tomorrow by doing your best work today," or some iteration of the phrase, is a famous quote, or idea, that has stuck with me for years. Anytime I've ever felt particularly stressed out or unsure of something, it's almost always because I wasn't prepared enough for it.
Whether completing assignments for school, tasks at work, buying a car, or heck, even deciding what to pack for lunch, preparation has always led me down the path to success. I've told this to my students before undertaking many research projects and believe this concept is essential when responding to the question: what are you preparing students for?
I believe it's my duty to ensure that my students are prepared with the tools, skills and strategies to meet the challenges of tomorrow by doing their best today. No one knows what tomorrow might bring for a child. It could be as simple and innocuous as making sure they have online access and strategies to search for information to complete an assignment on time.
Or, it could be a greater task, like making decisions on whether or not to enter the armed forces, or which college to apply to, or whether or not to attend college at all.
The world has become a very complicated and sometimes scary place for our kids. I want to make sure that I do everything I can to prepare my students to make good, informed choices for tomorrow by giving everything they've got today. That resilience, competence, creativity, confidence and independence will empower students to seize every opportunity and be prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow. All it takes is a little extra preparation today!
Thanks for sharing your comments, as well as what YOU feel you're preparing your students for!
Check out my first attempt to make an RSA-style video; not too shabby! Big shoutout to teacher-librarian maven Joyce Valenza for the inspirational CARRDSS method for evaluating online sources of informational research, as well as the collective support of my #ed584 colleagues. About three hours of frustration, many huffs of dizzying, dry-erase markers, several palmfuls of Sour Patch Kids and a little bit of luck went into making this short, speedy, and hopefully, useful video.
Please to enjoy, and thanks for leaving any feedback for me below!
Although I've only recently started using Twitter for professional purposes, I've been a user since mid-2009 and have always recognized it's value as a news service tailored to my individual interests. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the number of posts flowing into my timeline, feeling compelled to read each one and explore every link in an attempt to "stay caught up." After drinking from the fire hose for a few weeks, I became more selective about what I read and what I might use in my everyday life.
Below are some great resources and tweets I've recently plucked from my Twitter feed. My best advice to you, like the proverbial grizzly bear faced with a barrage of leaping salmon, is once you get one that matters to you, step out of the stream and enjoy; enough is a feast:
Say what you will about Jerry Blumengarten's website or in your face profile images, but I turn to the Cybraryman when I'm searching for relevant library, technology or current events topics to write about and promote in my library. This installment on STEM, STEAM, STREAM and STEMx was rife with inspirational resources for my collaborative STEAM research project with a 5th grade music class, 11th and 12th grade Earth Science students and some Art kids from my high school.
I always enjoy Richard Byrne's FreeTech4Teachers blog, but particularly liked this post about digital tools useful for creating whiteboard videos. We'll be expected to make our own RSA/Commoncraft-style videos soon. This could come in handy if my next grad class meeting gets snowed out and I'm forced to ditch my shower board and dry-erase markers for my iPad instead!
Bloom’s, SAMR, and Beyond: A Practical Guide for Tech Integration. ASCD Express: https://t.co/X6gL2k12Eq
Kathy Schrock is a renowned ed tech leader and as an educator with a penchant for research and inquiry, she's been a go-to resource for much of the information literacy, instructional resources and strategies used in my library lesson planning. After recently discovering the SAMR model in grad class, the concepts of how to truly enhance and transform learning with technology has woven its way into my thinking and discussions with teachers and students. Responsible tech integration, carefully supported with purpose and meaning, is the key to unlocking a lot of potential learning opportunities for kids to showcase their talents.
I believe that librarians must become the technology leaders in our school! #tlchat
Ok, so this may not qualify as an article, but I certainly find it to be a thought-provoking tweet. After a brief back-and-forth on Twitter and Skype call with my grad class, I immediately considered New Jersey-based "work in progress" teacher-librarian, Elissa Malespina, to be an integral member of my Twitter PLN. This tweet was particularly thought-provoking for me, because in spite of all the professional literature I've read and librarian/ed tech conferences I've attended, I've never really paid much attention to leadership. I've always felt that title was reserved for 092s (that's a school administrator, to you) and Board of Education employees. I realize that in my role as a librarian, I'm primed to become a grassroots leader for technology in my own school; raising the ed tech flag high and blaring its horn for all to see and hear. Inspiring stuff, huh? :)
The topic of fear among our students is very intriguing. Our instincts are to protect them from fear, to always make them feel safe and nurtured. In a literal sense, yes, we should do everything within our power to keep our students safe from harm, whether it manifests itself as a third party, or stems from what we're directly doing in our classrooms.
Here's where things get interesting: how do we address what students fear?
"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." - Franklin Delano Rooselvelt, 32nd President of the United States
When faced with a difficult research task or concept, I tell my students that in order to become fearless, they need to fear less. What frightens students, and most people, I'd imagine, is failure. I know that's true for me. For students, this often comes as a result of receiving failing grades, a polarizing phenomena best left explored in a different post.
However, I always reassure my students that because I don't grade them when I co-teach a class, they have no reason to fear failure. Instead, they only need to be afraid of fear itself, because that is their only obstacle in achieving success. We all know that "success" takes different forms for individual students, so being able to overcome this fear and harness that strength to become fearless are the first steps needed for us to teach and live our mission in my library: to create competent, confident and independent users of information and technology.
To some degree, I believe that fear is a good thing. It teaches us humility and can keep us grounded when faced with adversity, affording us an opportunity to make decisions, make mistakes, and learn.
With the proliferation of the web comes a plethora of online learning tools and experiences. The wealth of information being shared, talked about, debated and revised online has transformed the way education operates and how students learn. It's also altered people's expectations of how teachers should teach and how students should learn. These ideas, and the many tools which they inspire, are discussed in Schweizer and Kossow's "WebQuests: Tools for Differentiation" (2007).
WebQuests have been around for more than a decade and were some of the most popular tools for engaging students in web-based activities. These inquiry-oriented activities introduce students to a variety of web-based information, whether it's linking them to other websites or online media (videos, pictures, etc.) WebQuests require students to use these resources to deepen their understanding and expand their knowledge base about a particular concept or desired set of skills. They can be used to make otherwise "flat" research assignments (the dreaded "book report" variety) and make them more dynamic by forcing students to interact with information on a deeper level. Schweizer and Kossow discuss the features and advantages of using WebQuests, presenting their five components: (1) Introduction; (2) Task; (3) Process; (4) Evaluation; and (5) Conclusion, that help teachers organize the WebQuest in a way that students find logical and easy to navigate (2007).
Teachers are always on the lookout for new tips and tricks to add to their toolkits. As a media specialist, I'm always searching for ways to add rigor and use inquiry-based learning to spark my students' curiosity in a topic or idea to drive their research.
So, if WebQuests were considered to be the darling of Web 1.0 engagement for students, what would you consider using as a transformative Web 2.0 tool (even that sounds antiquated) to engage students in a similar way?
As teachers and students, there are a lot of things we're asked to do throughout the school day: pay attention, read this, hand in that, take this survey, scale that mountain of e-mail. We're asked to marginalize certain things in order to address others deemed "more important." Sometimes, we're even asked to compromise our core values and beliefs for the sake of "getting the job done." I think it's important for us to uphold our values at any cost, but most importantly, to maintain that singular, uncompromising, unwavering viewpoint: our own "Golden Rule." Continuing with our #ed584grad class series of questions, I elected to blog about the concept of this rule and what that means to me. No, not necessarily "do unto others," but rather: "What is one, non-negotiable rule that all kids must follow in your class?" I feel like mine is pretty simple, but quite profound when applied in the myriad of our educational contexts: "Be respectful." I mean and expect this of myself, my kids and colleagues in everything we do, whether it's in or out of the classroom. Being respectful means showing respect to others when they're showing you how to do something, or sharing their views on a topic. I think students should respect themselves enough to give it their all when confronted with a difficult activity or concept, as often happens during my co-taught research classes. Being respectful means being a good digital citizen, practicing the ethical use of information, but also being respectful in your interactions with others online. To me, being resilient, actively participating in and contributing to learning process, honoring the views and work of others and building a culture of tolerance means being respectful. Being nonconstructive, negative, opting out of learning, not trying your hardest to fight through adversity and disrespecting others? No, I can't go for that (no can do). What's the one non-negotiable rule in your classroom?
Recently, we were asked to create trailers for our classrooms which could be shown during open houses or with students on the first day of school. The constant struggle of working as a nomadic, gypsy librarian means I don't have a singular classroom or group of students with whom I can share my story with the world. However, I think this video captures what people should generally expect to find me doing with students in and out of the classroom.
I'm happy to share it with the 7 parents who come visit me during our 2-hour open houses as well :)
