Back-to-school



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I facilitated a two and a half hour literacy workshop for our faculty yeterday morning. It was really unlike anything I've ever done at school in that I did not break a sweat. Granted, it wasn't terribly demanding of me -- I introduced two hours of Cris Tovani video and led discussion every half hour, in between tapes (yes, we use VCRs, go head and laugh). But I do usually get anxious when I have to present anything to the whole staff.

I often talk to larger groups, usually librarians or technology teachers, but for some reason speaking to my own faculty always worries me out of all proportion. Maybe it's all the men, the sometimes loutish coaches (I mean the one who left the Mountain Dew can with the tobacco spit out in it where I had to pick it up this morning. Yuck!). I'm starting my tenth school year here, so maybe I have the veteran status which quiets them. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to not play the smiling ingenue. Or maybe just because I'm on my game after a summer off. Or maybe it was the incredibly applicable strategies Tovani showcased. Whatever the reason, I felt like the group was actually quite easy to manage and even engage on the topic of improving adolescent literacy, our school-wide mission.

We've 76 certified staff members, down from 81 last year, and of course more students. Our really wonderful principal, who has been in that position almost three decades, announced he will be retiring December 1st. When school starts on Monday, the classes will be huge, and this will probably be a third year without instructional supply money, including library materials funding. But, on the whole, it seemed like everyone was in an incredibly positive mood, despite the S.O.S. Rally, despite the teacher-bashing in the media, and despite the sense of gloom and doom from outside. We have eight new teachers, and I'm particularly excited about our new social studies department chair, since I especially love to work with history classes.

Today, my terrific paraprofessional aide returns, and I'll hold a website training for new faculty. I have a few new books I begged and borrowed to get to our kids, and four computers in the back room. If I can figure out a way to get them on the network, it would bring us to 18, which is how many we would need to accomodate a class with 2 students per machine. Since getting the second librarian unit for the second semester last year, I've been in the building more and have both recovered and scavenged some things.

I am trying to relax and savor the possibility and promise of this fresh start. Who knows where I'll be this time next year...

Could riots in London be bad for students in Alabama?

I have been trying to push for the use of student-owned hardware to help improve the overall level of technology integration in K-12 education for a bit. Now, in addition to the anxieties about cheating and sexting, I have to worry about one of the subtler thematic elements playing out now in the press coverage of the London riots, that of the subversive possibilities of organization, be it political or criminal, via mobile devices.

While the Blackberry might be uniquely suited for these purposes (and, meanwhile, I am the only one noticing the predeliction for BBs among teen texters, especially if they have a model with a grandfathered "text-only" plan without data?), I worry that the hysteria will extend to any device which allows students to communicate. Pencil and paper? Slates and chalk?

I guess I have been thinking a lot about organization versus control in school environments. I have been wondering how many policies have been put into place because of the inability of a handful of teachers to manage their students. But, chasing cell phones, I feel a little like these blundering security guards, pulling at some straws related to terror attacks:

Meanwhile, I have resorted to the Torygraph.

#libday7

As a school librarian, this is my much-coveted summer break. I was at a board meeting years ago where there was some suggestion the librarians' contract be extended, so they could serve students all year. Those of us that were there bristled, and we still have our summers off.

What is typical for summer? Would that be traveling, or presenting at a conference, or leading a workshop? Well, for the purposes of #libday7, Monday, I was out of town, Tuesday I was in a meeting until the early afternoon, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all more typical "summer vacation" days. I woke up after 6, about an hour later than I would for school.

I spend my morning reading. I received The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles the day before, and I was desperate to finish it. I'm very glad I got this one in print, I know I will pass it around. The voice is so incredibly convincing that I gasped at the author picture, determined it would be the product of a woman. I also made notes for an article I want to write intermittently, using a black flair pen and a legal pad.

By 8:00, I'm dressed "Portland-style," with a red ikat dress over one of my many pairs of white jeans. I add some sandals when I leave the house. I drink Antony and Cleopatra (a black fermented tea) from a big, Cath Kidston retro 1950s mug I bought in the Seven Dials. I wake up my husband.

I get to my current awareness later in the morning that usual because of the novel. I work creating on my to-list for the rest of the week (and the summer break) with some dissertation targets, a grant application, and some paperwork. I move through my email, my rss and twitter feeds. Everyone I know seems to be in Boston for #blc, which looks like a terrific time. I see that the Kindle terms-of-service have come back to haunt some of the school libraries using that hardware. This was something I've been worried about for a while. I mentioned it explicitly at Internet Librarian in March. It seems to have created a big ripple in the biblioblogosphere.

I switch from the iPad to an actual computer around 9:15. I write up the App of the Week for the YALSA blog, but have trouble with manipulating the images in WordPress. I send the screenshots from my iPad to flickr, and then capture them to the desktop. I have trouble uploading images, and I see multiple iterations of each screenshot but can't embed seem to them from that screen. I switch to the PC, which wants to update, then restart the Mac. At 10:15, I am still fighting with the Mac, and I reset the cable modem and wireless router. It's 10:45 before I'm done posting, which is ridiculous.

As far as the post itself, I had wanted to write about the new feature of the Kindle App ever since I heard about the new support for magazines, but of course it was an especially potent moment with all the anti-Amazon sentiment engendered by their terms-of-service. I bought Self, because I thought it would provide a digital conversion challenge that The Economist might not, but I was not one hundred percent about the admittedly superficial content. I compromised by NOT including the cover with the bikini pose...

Because of the computer woes, I know I will be spending time looking at hardware. Maybe I just need to upgrade!  I have trips to plan for fall break and New Year's. I spend a lot of time on this sort of thing during the summer, requiring some elaborate calculus like "x pairs of Frye shoes equal y tickets to Paris equals z iPads."

I pick up my husband for lunch, but we walk out of the first restaurant after a half hour and the wrong drink order. We end up having veggie burgers which are only so-so, but we are both feeling rushed and I am feeling poisoned from accidently drinking diet soda. I run errands after lunch, going to Starbucks, but it is too crowded, so I don't park. For dinner, I want to re-create an avocado, Brie and pear sandwich from Blackfin Bistro in Key West, and go to both the chi chi market and the bakery. I go to the pharmacy and pick up my prescriptions. I don't take a nap, but spend the afternoon down several online rabbit holes, shopping for airfare, setting up AASL blog logins for a couple of people, looking at some little-used email accounts, reading about Lucien Freud and adding titles to Shelfari. I watch an episode of Bewitched and a show called Nazi London on the military channel, which makes me all the more determined to visit again soon.

In later afternoon, the mailman brings a kaftan-top and shawl I ordered from Cath Kidston a couple of weeks before (and had completely forgotten about in the meantime). They are pink ikat, and the tunic sleeves are 3/4 length and the embroidery's not really my thing, but the shipping was astronomical. At one point, I rub what I think is Molton Brown lotion onto my arms only to discover it's really hair conditioner. Most of the afternoon is spent feeling vaguely guilty for not going to school, but my last trip out there was frustrated because everyone is away from campus, and I don't want to replay that.

Frankly, this summer hasn't reached the atelier-like levels of production I'd hoped. But there is another week to write and plan before we return to school,  and I still have a couple of personal days left to plot out.

Borders...

I was working with a a group of teachers in our county, talking about the kick-backs from Google's digital bookstore to local bookstores yesterday when I realized we don't have any independent booksellers around here. Two Barnes and Noble, three Books-a-Million, a couple of remainder outlets and secondhand places. Then, just this morning, I saw Susan's excellent post about Borders closing, and it started me thinking about the strange relationship I have with big bookstores.

I have never lived in a town with a Borders, except for the year we lived in Ann Arbor.  We were not far from Borders Number One at Liberty street. I found the Paperchase things I had only ever bought in the U.K., and the Post Secret books, and more of the graphic novels I needed for the English department class I was taking second semester than I would at the comic book shop, the Vault of Midnight.

Prior to Michigan, I'd always been a used bookstore kind of girl. I worked at one during high school and college, and it really fit my eclectic and generalist ethos, but the used stores in Ann Arbor were dreadful. There was one shop where all the stock was mildewed, just walking by gave me an asthma attack, and while I scooped up an Agatha Christie or two from the Dawn Treader, it was a rather miserable experience. By contrast, Borders with their weekly 20% off Internet coupons, was a clean, neat, and well-organized nirvana. Plus it was incredibly central, across the street from friends of ours' downtown apartment, a place I met my husband when either of us would need a ride back from campus.

It was so cold that all I did was huddle under the covers, fully dressed, for about seven months. and I did get the bulk of my reading that year from the Ann Arbor District Library. I would go multiple times a week, and it was really rare that they didn't own something I wanted. You could place holds against items on the shelf, too, and I don't think I ever waited more than a couple of weeks for anything.

So while this begun as a paean to a bookstore I am finding is really iconic for a lot of people in my generation, it ended as a celebration of libraries. I somehow always get there in the end.

What I've been up to...

Many of you know how much time I've been devoting to moving forward on my dissertation this summer. I really feel some momentum, and I am giddy with excitement. I know I still have many, many stages ahead, but I am moving, and that is almost entirely new.

Last week, I spent an inordinate amount starting at an Adobe Connect screen. I did a couple of Virtual ALA presentations based on actual ALA presentations from June. The first was Pecha Kucha, with my topic being "reading on the screen." Fun, I love the concept and hope to keep using it with my students this fall.

The second of my Virtual ALA presentations was my piece of "From Gutenberg to Google and Glogs, Books to Vooks," which was immediately afterwards. Beyond the simple, getting-connected issues that plagued the event, it was really fun, particularly the backchanneling. At one point, someone commented that they wanted less of a philosophy course and more practical ideas. I have actually been finding that I enjoy presentations that are more abstract and less proscriptive, so it was a grounding thing to hear. And some of their comments, especially in the social media panel before Pecha Kucha and danah boyd's keynote, really gave me some insight into the minimal level of technological comfort or understanding that some of our membership possess.

Then, last Thursday, also using Adobe Connect, I led a webinar on "eReaders and your Library" for YALSA. Earlier today, I was in a conference call with one of the YALSA members who had participated, and she really emphasized my discussion of low-cost ways to connect readers with ebooks in our later conversation. This was something it was really important for me to convey, so I was glad to know it came across and had obviously inspire her to think beyond paid models. That webinar, like all of those in YALSA's monthly professional development series, will be available to members in a couple of months. At one point, I polled the audience, and it did seem like most libraries were in the planning and research phases, figuring out how to serve their communities with ebooks.

I spent the past two days with teachers in my district, working through the Google Apps but also just talking about e-reading, augmented reality, html5, the stupidity of student response systems, the filter bubble, and playing with Google+. I let them see all my circle and experience the post-and-reply. I wish I could have coordinated a hang-out, but we didn't have a webcam, and most of them were pretty dazzled as it was...

I really enjoyed getting to work with a broad cross-section of teachers, and helping them set up feed readers to create their own PLNs was especially fun. I was so happy I could suggest someone in almost every content area and grade configuration, as well as a lot of general education and reading people, too.

Those were the last of my summer workshops...