THINK PINK @ Lake Hood!

Today the staff showed up in all shades of pink to support a co-worker who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is starting her fight tomorrow with surgery! The statistics say that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer - this is the 8th woman I have known personally that has been diagnosed with this disease. We are with you on your journey, Shirlyn, offering hope and support!

Brandon Mull - Fablehaven author

I just posted about Brandon Mull's presentation in Juneau for my last journal entry for the AKLA 2011 library conference and thought I would add a note here, too! I want to remember that he surprised himself and the audience when talking about Frodo as a hero, and cried.

Brandon Mull was one of the best author speakers I have heard in a long time - I bet teenage boys would really identify with him! His writing goal was/is to create a fun ride for kids, original, different, smart.
Apparently he was a weird kid with crazy stories in his head. “I was a kid who lived in my head. I had a crazy imagination and daydreams got more vivid with age. Then I realized not all people daydreamed all the time! I liked doing stupid creative things and just stupid things! I write because I couldn’t turn off my head! The Lion/ Witch/Wardrobe was a pivital book - after reading that I checked the closets everywhere and started to spin my own Narnia stories.”

Publishing was his goal and he reached the finish line with Fablehaven. Funny thing, he realized that his finish line wasn’t the end, rather a starting line! Another realization about being an author - "I am not only a writer, but also, speaker, teacher, small business owner, public personality, elaborate illusionist and killer!"

An interesting thought that he presented was how "Rules of Reality" matter in fantasy. While mysteries and realistic fiction may present an exaggerated reality, sci-fi speculates about possibilities but is still anchored in our reality. In fantasy, when characters break the rules (as defined by the author) they must pay the price!

Technology Use in the Funnies

Today, I glanced at the daily comic strips in the Anchorage Daily News and was struck by the fact that four of them featured technology that did not exist when I was growing up - some not even a few years ago! I didn't think any of them were particularly "funny" but maybe the authors are offering some commentary on technology's invasion into our real life, too. Is technology is getting in the way of connecting to nature and interacting with face-to-face friends?

Zits - Jeremy is texting at a traffic light to no good end.

Sally Forth - Attempting to take advantage of the good weather the family ventures outside with laptop, then laments the lack of connectivity (Wi-fi, Hulu, NetFlix Streaming ) and the non-wacky squirrel noises.

Family Circus - "Grandma why does your phone have all these wires?"

Hi & Lois - Dad goes out bowling and the baby wonders why he doesn't just stay home and bowl with the rest of the family (using Wii).

Spinach Strawberry Salad

What to make for the staff potluck? It was a low energy evening so I used ingredients on hand to make the ever popular, ever delicious Spinach Strawberry Salad!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 10 ounces fresh spinach - rinsed, dried and torn into bite-size pieces
• 1 quart strawberries - cleaned, hulled and sliced
• 1/4 cup almonds, blanched and slivered

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sugar, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce and onion. Cover, and chill for one hour.
2. In a large bowl, combine the spinach, strawberries and almonds. Pour dressing over salad, and toss. Refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes before serving.
   

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/strawberry-spinach-salad-i/Detail.aspx

Technology Overload

I am pondering the multitude of technology tools that I have been exposed to during five class sessions; Kidpix, Photobooth, Discovery Education, Atomic Learning, iWeb, Blabberize, Keynote, Comic Life, Storyjumper, and ASD's use of Google Apps. Now it is time to choose three of these programs and develop a series of lesson plans that I might actually use with a group of students.

Due to years of PC use in an Apple environment I have become a fan of any web-based or cross-platform application so my work is not limited by choice of platform. For the purposes of our class, five of these programs are Apple only, which is great as long as the student is working at school, but if true enthusiasm is generated, wouldn't it be better if the student could then continue working at home? In particular I have a problem with iWeb, which must be edited from the very same computer on which it was first created!

That said, two of the coolest programs available are Photobooth and Comic Life, both part of the Apple only family. So I am going to use them in my lessons, as well as the web-based StoryJumper. When using StoryJumper I almost feel like I have fallen back in time and are using one of the cool-then-but-clunky-now Broderbund programs.

Perhaps my digital immigration status is showing, but I haven't been able to imagine starting any of these applications without "frontloading" the students by providing opportunities to gain information or experience and then rough draft ideas using good old paper and pencil.

Lorrie Heagy/aKeynote Address : Promoting Libraries

It is easy to see why Lorrie Heagy is the 2010 Alaska Teacher of the Year! Her keynote speech was tailored to echo the conference theme of illumination and was delivered in a polished, professional presentation.

Points of Interest:

• TED video- El Sistema in Venezuela - amazing demonstration of passion + a plan for teaching music. The quote from this video that has been circling in my head is that playing in the orchestra gives kids in poverty 3 things and one of those things is a “noble identity”. Question for self - what “noble identity” do our students leave school with?
• Lorrie became one of the first Abreau fellows (based on a wish from Ted Prize winner José Antonio Abreu of El Sistema fame) at the New England Conservatory of Music / Venezuela / Scotland and studied El Sistema and has since applied the program principles to teaching all Kindergarten students at her school in Juneau how to play violin!
  
• TED talk - Ken Robinson “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
• Creativity most valued skill for new workers by business industry - not valued by data-driven schools.
• Daniel Pink’s book “Whole New Mind” is about the elements of right-brained thinking-being creative for the 21st Century; w/Story, Design, Play, Empathy, Sympathy, & Meaning.
  
• Librarians can make a difference - be visible, proactive and positive. Modern students learn to read, not love to read and are missing love of “story” and satisfaction of curiosity.
• She received a grant to create a digital storytelling club after school and showed student work. Many of her students chose to reveal a side of themselves that nobody knows, for example one student created “My Different Life.” Her final report is a story of this effort!
• Don’t place limits on what you can do or what the students can do.

Eight key messages from Lorrie Heagy:

1. Develop a culture of sharing.
2. Nurture creative capacities.
3. Collaborate.
4. Don’t place limits.
5. Document online.
6. Tell stories using multiple literacies.
7. Share your passion.
8. Never stop learning!

Social Media Starter Kit

Coral Sheldon-Hess, from the UAA/APU Consortium Library, knows her Facebook & Twitter! This past year, the UAA/APU Consortium Library decided to make an entrance into the social media scene. While not a how-to-do-it session per say, it was a how-we-did-it and what we have learned session. The audience was intensely interested in the Facebook details and the mission of being in the social media arena. There are quite a few differences between creating a site for personal use and a public page for an organization/institution. One big difference is that a public page can't "friend" anyone, so users have to find and friend the public page! So far the library has 190 friends.

UAA/APU wrote a plan before launching their social media sites – a good idea so there is a document to back up the thinking behind the idea! UAA/APU is unwilling to be boring! One interesting feature was photos of books being made into structures! They said that making time for posting is the hard part, so they used a team approach, having a different person assigned to post on different days. Facebook can be a motivator "If I don't do it, I can't post it!"

Thoughts about Facebook vs Twitter

• Twitter = chatty, 1x day minimum
  
• Facebook = 1 post/day maximum

In order to have multiple users post on one Facebook page, one of the users has to be the administrator of the page. One suggestion for beginners was to make a public page for your organization/institution and create a "sock puppet" account in order to see how to administer the account. A new feature of these public pages is that they can now talk to each other. I think everyone was going home to create their own library Facebook page!

Why is social media important?

• free
  
• proactive reference in Twitter via rss feeds
  
• responsive, reply to comments and posts
  
• not having a page is an organizational barrier
  

Read Across America

Lucky Lake Hood had four guest readers from West High School read with seven different classrooms. Whew! At the reading of "Green Eggs and Ham" the readers asked if anyone in the class liked them too. One kindergarten hand shot straight up and the student blurted "I'm Jewish, so I can't eat that!"