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Western Tour Turns Toward a New Fall

How many other professions besides teaching give their employees two and a half months to recharge so that they are physically, emotionally and mentally ready to be present and give their all once the next season comes along? I don’t know of many and am so thankful to be part of the one that does.

After months of coordinating with friends, on July 13th I embarked on a western tour of the United States (pictures!), visiting California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming along the way. Out of 26 nights, I stayed in a hotel by myself twice. Friends, all from different parts of my past and present, were generous enough to host my visit or, in the case of the dude ranch reunion, share a cabin on the river with me.

It was a trip that gave me many things: reunions with friends from all walks of life; driving time to think about my life’s trajectory, how much I love my family, why I love to travel, who I am; time alone on the road to sing Sugarland’s new song as loudly as possible on the open roads that are so beautiful out west; opportunities to try fun new things like surfing and seeing Hollywood; and lots of time to enjoy old fun things like hiking and camping.

I’ve been home for a week now, planning a trip to Egypt next summer, and have a hard time imagining my life without the space in my life to take these journeys. I think one of these reasons I love being in Boston so much is that it’s incredibly easy to be anywhere else relatively quickly. We’re pretty central to some amazing destinations.

Not that Boston isn’t one of the destinations in my life. It is, in fact, the destination of my life. It is home and where I have the chance to put into practice my passion for introducing children to literature and teaching them information seeking skills.

This coming year brings new challenges: I have left a suburban middle school library for a place in urban K-8 education, just blocks from my house. The job is going to require me to teach 28-or-so Library classes per week which will be quite different from the librarian life I’ve been leading for the past four years. I’m welcoming the challenge with open arms. Bring on the picture books!

Here’s to a great end to the summer and a wonderful start to the teaching year!

eReaders: For School Libraries, Too?

It all started when I purchased The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at my school library’s book fair back in the fall. Reluctantly, as school librarians the world-over can relate, I tucked it on my bookshelf and said to it: “I will see you in the summer”.

But then I went to Costa Rica with six 8th grade students and, on the way out the door, I stuffed it in my backpack to carry on the plane. On the way home, I opened it up. Five plane hours later, I was hooked.

I get home. My friend Kate is also into the series and says I should read the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire.

I ask if she has it and she says, “Yes, but it’s on my Kindle.”

“Aw,” I say.

Kate says, “But you can borrow it if you’d like.”

I pause for half a second, realizing what this means. I get to test an eReader without pouring money into something of which I’ve been skeptical for a long time. I was the first person to argue that you can’t cuddle up on the couch with an computer-like device to read for hours on end.

I am hear to tell you that you most definitely can.

After spending some time with the Kindle, I realized that I would soon have to give it up and…big, huge surprise…I didn’t want to! It is incredibly convenient to carry around, stuff in my purse, and open and close like a print book. Most importantly, the screen is easy on the eyes. eInk is not like reading a computer screen; it’s like reading…dare I say…paper.

So I hopped on the trusty Internet, Googled my way around reviews, and realized that the B&N nook was the reader for me. It has a little touch screen at the bottom and I can easily borrow library books – two handy features the Kindle lacks.

As I’ve been sharing the news of my latest acquisition with friends I’ve been wondering how an eReader would work in a school library. The fact that you can change font type and size would be a great tool for some of our struggling readers. It’s also possible to download audiobooks onto eReaders to allow students to listen and read on the same device. Many of our students would love that feature.

But there are some burning questions: Would students enjoy reading on it as much as I do? I’ve done some cursory searching of children’s and teen eBooks and am wondering, how many popular titles do you think are readily available? How would the purchasing and lending process work? The thought of lending out $260 machines to students is a bit daunting.

Well, in a few hours I’ll be off to the gym to read, you guessed it, The Girl Who Played with Fire on my nook. When working out on the treadmill, it beats a book or a magazine by far. Lovin’ it.

MacMini to the Rescue or, How I Broke Up with Cable TV

Admittedly, this post has little to do with being a school librarian, per se. However, I like to think my adventure in kicking my RCN DVR/cable box to the curb displays the fact that I truly am a librarian to the core – researching, testing, and triumphing! You can let me know what you think when you read about my newest Mac-powered (of course) concoction.

I’ll start with a brief history. There came a point, gradual but undeniable, when I realized that paying almost $100 a month for cable and a DVR box was a complete waste of good money. It probably came when I ended up watching one-too-many of my DVR recorded shows on Hulu in another room in my house. Why, I thought, am I paying to record TV when I watch it on the Internet for free so often?

Then came the next question: How do I brake up with cable and still 1) get network TV reception and 2) record Oprah? True story! I love The Oprah Show. I can’t help myself so I might as well just admit it in public. It’s the only show not available for free on the Internet (not a big surprise) so I needed to know: How?!

I surfed the Internet for days, weeks, months looking for a box that would record TV, stream Netflix, Amazon, Hulu (and whatever will be the newest media medium of the future), and play DVDs. It didn’t exist. TiVo? Nope. Sony’s Blue-Ray players with WiFi? Close, but nope, again.

And then I realized that I am a fool! I, a self-professed believer, follower, and all-around Mac-obsessed user, was sitting on the most wonderful product available for my needs! The MacMini!

So, to create my Home Entertainment Center, I needed a few gadgets:

1) An antenna. Radio Shack sold me a digital antenna for $35, but I’ve heard that any old antenna will do.

2) EyeTV Hybrid. If you want to record what comes in on the antenna, purchase a teeny tiny USB drive-sized EyeTV. You can only record one channel at a time, but for my needs, it fits the bill. It’s $130 on Amazon.com. It comes with a guide through TV Guide so you can pre-set recordings. EyeTV comes with a remote that I’ve found useless since I control the whole thing with a mouse and keyboard (see #4), but it’s a handy idea.

3) The wonderful MacMini sells at the Apple Store for $599. Get it new. It’s worth the extra bucks you’ll spend to know you’re starting with a clean and up-to-date computer. For what it’s worth, teachers get $50 off the MacMini. Put that association card to work!

4) Keyboard and mouse. I purchased these at the Apple Store, too. The mouse is wireless and made by Kensington. It was about $40 – cheaper than Bluetooth because you have to plug a little nano receiver into the back of the MacMini for it to (instantly, I might add) recognize the mouse. There are five (5) USB ports on the machine so using one for the mouse is not a problem.

All things Apple amaze me. The wireless keyboard they sell now is tiny and going for $69. I turned it on and the MacMini recognized it immediately without me having to do a single thing. I keep it in its original box on my coffee table and it never gets in the way. It actually acts as one of the several books on the table – just part of the stack. If you don’t care how little the keyboard is, you can get the mouse/keyboard package for less at BestBuy or another electronics store.

5) Cables. A) DVI converter to display the computer screen on your TV. B) Audio cable to run sound to the TV. I’ve been told that you can run these feeds together with a fancy HDMI cable, but I already had the equipment to do it the old fashioned way, and it works great.

That’s it! The whole shebang cost me about $850. In eight and a half months, I will be living in the land of truly free TV.

A couple of things to note:

1) TV Viewing/Reception. I have a 42 inch LCD TV and the computer screen seems to want to be a little smaller than that. I’ve tried to fiddle with Display Profiles in System Preferences. But truthfully, it doesn’t bother me enough to work too hard to fix it. Also, if you like perfect reception, you will find that the feed can be a little jerky. The picture is pretty darn crystal clear, but it seems to be a little sluggish at times. Adjusting the antenna seems to always help this little problem. The audio always works great, though.

2) Sports Fans Beware! You will only be able to watch games that are broadcast on network TV. And don’t think you can be a sneaky MLB.com subscriber. Red Sox games are blacked out for people living in the Boston area. For opening day last night, I streamed WEEI on iTunes Radio and displayed the computer graphic GameDay from the Sox’s Website. This works okay for me, but might not for those who want to see Youkilis hit the Jordan’s sign for real.

3) Bonus! I now realize how much REALLY BAD TV I watched before. My new purchases have freed me from wasting as much time, for which I am eternally grateful. I love Anthony Bourdain, but I’ll find ways to see clips of his show on TV. It’s just not worth the big bucks.

So, there is my entertainment transformation in a nut shell. Breaking up with cable TV was the hardest part. I had to physically take my cable box to RCN within 48 hours of canceling (I’m not sure what they would have done if I hadn’t) and I had to bargain with them mighty hard to lower my Internet speed to cut costs even lower. I was overpaying that, too. Who knew I could stream programs on two computers (yes, I have a MacBook, too) at once at only 1 mbps?

Well, I do now. And feel like I’ve conquered something huge for knowing so.

Let me know if you’ve ventured yourself in this direction or if you’ve ever thought about it. I feel like a modern-day Nancy Drew/Indiana Jones. It’s an adventure but so worth the ingenuity and hard work. I’d like to hear your stories, too.

P. S. The Apple Store continues to bring my dream shopping experience to life. It’s the most efficient and pleasant way to shop on the planet. I realize I’m biased, but it’s also a totally true statement.

Beware of the Single Story

I stumbled upon a TED talk today that made me stop to think about the harm we do to a child’s world view when we offer to them only one story, one example, of a culture in the world – whether it be the child’s own culture or that of another country on another continent.

Chimamanda Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing Around Your Neck, inspired her audience with a presentation about the power single stories had on her global consciousness as a child. She grew up as a Nigerian girl reading British and American literature. Consequently, she believed that all children in literature had to be white and play in the snow. She did not have even one model that portrayed in literature people who talked and lived as she did. Here is the rest in her own words:

Adichie’s main point hits home for me. She recounts her experience traveling to Guadalajara, Mexico from the U.S. While in the U.S., she had been reading the U.S. accounts of Mexico being a state torn apart by immigration laws and drug wars. When she arrived in Mexico, she discovered that many people were living healthy and happy lives. She felt as if she had played into and believed the stereotypes that the American media was feeding its citizens. Choosing to only learn about one story of a culture, event, or political “fact” means that your world view is limited and so often, wrong.

I wish upon wishes that when I teach So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins that I had the time to also teach A Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi. As it stands, I stopped teaching the former because I didn’t have enough time to teach the latter, too. And now that I think about it, I probably wouldn’t be doing the subject (Japanese occupation of Korea at the end of WWII) justice even if I did teach both books because they are single stories of each country’s experiences, failing to offer multiple perspectives of each.

As the librarian at my school, I have the wonderful opportunity to create electives and suggest ideas that might otherwise be impossible if I were a classroom teacher with a more set schedule. Perhaps I’ll think of a way to teach more than the single story to a classroom of kids so that my students (and I, too) develop and nurture a multi-story view of the world in which we all live.

P.S. TED truly rocks:

Book Review: Wintergirls

There is one word to describe this book: Stunning. I eagerly added Wintergirls to my middle school library’s book shelves because 8th grade girls were chomping at the bit to read it. When a very excited 8th grade girl dropped the book off the day before vacation, I saw my chance to get my hands on this must-read.

I was not let down. Was it difficult to read at times? Yes. Was I wondering how my students felt and what they thought as they read it, too? Definitely. Was I kept up way past my bedtime on a school night because I couldn’t put it down? Oh, ya. It is one of those books that I found myself breaking all of the “turn off the lights” bargains I was making for myself at the end of each chapter. I just had to keep turning the pages.

Cassie is dead. They way she dies, which is described later in the book, is horrifying, tragic, and ultimately preventable. 18 year old Lia, still living, is Cassie’s former best friend and easting-disorder companion. Cassie suffered from bulimia and Lia suffers from anorexia. To make matters complicated, as they usually are for a teenager, Lia’s parents are divorced. She currently lives with her father, his wife and her stepsister, Emma. Thank goodness for Emma. I do not think Lia would have survived without the undeniable love she has for her sister.

Sentences are peppered with calorie counts and obsessive thinking, especially when it comes to food. The narration is painful, gripping, hopeful, and incredibly real. Anderson (who I firmly believe is one of the greatest writers to ever create literature for young people) dives head first into the minds of eating disordered and depressed teens. We read Lia’s thoughts and feel her obsessions along with her, especially when the calories, weights, and slashed out words are sprawled across the page.

That said, this book is not for every teenage girl or boy. I would strongly discourage 6th grade students from checking it out of the library. There may be a 7th grade student who I feel is mature enough to enter into this world, but we would have to discuss together the extreme nature of the content and why the student really wants to read it. Even some 8th grade students may feel it’s too much for them to handle. This is one of those books that I discuss with all interested students ahead of time to make sure that they’re ready for its subject matter.

If you work in a middle school, how do you handle purchasing and cataloging books that you know you want 8th grade students to access but also want 6th grade students to avoid?

Next on the reading list? Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. I’m also reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. About time, right?

Digital Storytelling

During an in-service this coming Wednesday afternoon, I will present the idea and how-tos of digital storytelling to a group of middle school teachers. Photo Story3 will be the software of choice for the session. It makes it very easy to create a self-narrated slide show set to music, allowing students to make projects in a matter of a day or two. If you use Apple computers in your district, iMovie is comparable software, although iMovie can also incorporate video into projects.

For those who like simpler step-by-step video production, Photo Story3 is an excellent choice. Photo Story 3 does have some limitations: it is only available for Windows XP and Vista, the stories created with the program can only be played back with Windows Media Player on PCs running Windows and not on Macs, and it only supports the used of still images, not full-motion video clips. (Thank you to the University of Houston for pointing out these limitations.)

But for the price (Free!), you can’t beat Photo Story’s easy-of-use.

I would like to thank (I think her name is) Millie from Furman University for creating a most wonderful tutorial, complete with image resources! We will be using the images and step-by-step directions on this Website during the workshop: Digital Storytelling: Photostory 3 Tutorial
http://millie.furman.edu/mll/tutorials/photostory3/index.htm

Check out some other links below that offer more instruction and a ton of ideas. Enjoy!

The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
From the University of Houston
Wow! Available on this Website are a myriad of resources. Explore, learn, and use! There are examples of digital stories for every discipline including math, health, pop culture and music.

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/index.html

Photobus – Digital Storytelling
by Daniel Meadows
Meadows creates some beautiful stories that you can watch right at the top of each tabbed page and has experience teaching digital storytelling to others. There are some nice tutorials here, too.

http://www.photobus.co.uk/index.php?id=2&movie=painted_skies.flv

Ideas for Photo Story3 Projects
This wiki is full of excellent ideas for incorporating Photo Story3 into the classroom and school.

http://21stcenturyteaching.pbworks.com/Ideas-for-Photostory-3-Projects

Create a Story from a Single Still Photo with Photo Story 3
From Microsoft, a step-by-step tutorial.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/tips/create.mspx

Video Storytelling Projects Made with PhotoStory
This page is a nice series of clear screen shots to take you through the Photo Story process.

http://drscavanaugh.org/digitalcamera/photostorytelling/storytelling_PhotoStory.htm

Talk About Books
Digital storytelling, book talk style.

http://blog.woodward.edu/widener/?p=683

Past and Present – Social Studies

http://blog.woodward.edu/widener/?p=693

Book Review: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

So yes, this book just won the Newbery Award. I finished it last night and decidedly ended a bit confused. Mind you, I read it in two parts, taking a break somewhere in the middle to tend to other kid/teen books on my shelf. However, I’m usually able to jump back into a read and finish with a flourish.

In a nutshell, the book is very well-written and the main character is more real-to-life than most 6th graders I meet in children’s novels. Stead wrapped up each and every story line and character without sentimentality or neatness. Realistic chance and true-to-life relationships ring just right. Do I think it’s Newbery-worthy? Yes. But there’s one thing I wonder…

Would I understand it better if I re-read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time? There’s a little element of time-travel that Stead weaves expertly into the storyline but it’s intricately entwined using the plot of L’Engle’s novel. And if I’m asking this question, will kids feel the same way?

I must say, its length at just about 200 pages will attract many a reluctant reader and Stead’s use of humor and inclusion of depth in dialogue, setting, circumstance, narration, and plot will most definitely draw readers in to this gem.

Hope for Haiti Now with Partners in Health

I wasn’t able to tune into the Hope for Haiti Now concert benefit that aired on Friday but now that I’ve peeked at the clips on Hulu and YouTube, I’m sorry that I missed seeing it in its entirety. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the performances, but Justin Timberlake’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is my favorite. I loved that song when I first heard during one of the most touching and beautiful scenes in animation history and JT’s rendition was full of class and uniqueness.

via The Insider

Boston.com published an article, Rising to meet an infinite need, about the Boston-based Partners in Health that conveys nicely what they have done for years to help build health care services in Haiti and what they’re doing now in the wake of the earthquake. If you’re wondering which organization of the many you should donate to help recovery efforts, I strongly suggest Partners in Health. Your money will go directly to saving peoples’ lives.

Talkin’ ‘Bout Books

Yesterday, four 8th grade classes came to the Library to learn about titles that they might find interesting. Their teacher, Mr. Olivo, made and posted a little movie to show what it was all about:

Check out Mr. Olivo’s blog.

An Introduction to Internet Vocabulary

This afternoon I’ll be introducing teachers to basic Internet vocabulary and a little bit about Delicious, too. Feel free to use these resources when teaching similar material to people you know who need to know a little bit more about the difference between search engines and Web browsers or what that URL/HTML thing means. Pass the knowledge along…

Delicious Handout

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