Reflections on #NTAC13-New Tech Schools Annual Conference New Orleans

After missing NTAC 2012 due to the birth of my daughter, I felt a need to make up for lost time regarding my New Tech schools background knowledge. In particular, since I am stepping into the role of literacy coordinator this year, my number one priority for the conference was freshening up my skills in that department.

After years of cultivating an image as a 'techie' librarian, this new 'literacy' title is both a homecoming and a fresh identity. The main reason for my new professional focus is my disillusionment with education technology. When I adopted the techie label, I truly believed that tech integration was the number one need for reaching students and facilitating learning. Now, I just see technology as a tool, not a panacea. It's become part of everyday life and the education landscape for better or worse, and its something we education professionals must understand and adapt our instruction accordingly. The big downside of ubiquitous tech and constant online connection is that most students let the cloud serve as their brain. As a result, I see a decline in inquisitiveness, weaker problem solving skills, and lower attention spans for literacy tasks, which brings me to the rest of the story.

The best thing about conferences, is meeting people that practice in the same field. NTAC is full of great people and I met many literacy coordinators and English Teachers that helped me prepare for the role. However, I was very sad (and a bit worried) to discover few Library/Media Specialists in the sessions. In my 3 days at NTAC, only one person I met was a fellow librarian and this was in a session about using books for building bridges. She was the presenter of that session, and I found it to be among the most enjoyable of the conference.

In other sessions about literacy, I learned some terrific classroom strategies for developing thinking and writing skills related to literacy. However, I couldn't help feel that something was missing.

What traditional librarians (ideally) bring to the table is an orientation toward reading promotion as well as a focus on information literacy instruction. Literacy Tasks as defined by the New Tech Network are generally focused on writing. While literacy and writing are strongly connected and the practices I see employed by literacy coordinators are sound and effective, I see a lack of an emphasis on information literacy, which is basically the ability to locate information and determine whether of not it is reliable information. Information literacy is an umbrella term for a giant subset of skills that includes many New Tech outcomes such as critical thinking, real-world tasks, persistence, work-ethic, and much more.

If we truly want our students to thrive in the complex information universe of the Internet, we will have to demand more of them. This means asking students to locate reliable information on their own and use the information in a practical way. This goes beyond 'text dependent questions' and other literacy strategies.

Information Literacy instruction and PBL are certainly a natural fit. However, there are no easy answers and simple strategies. The best way forward in my view is the bring more of us librarians into the collaborative process of project design! The starting point for this collaborative process is on literacy; the fundamental questions being:

1. How to we get our students to read more and read more complicated and diverse text?
2. How can we wean them off their Googling and scrolling habits?
3. How can we coach students to be skeptical and critical about the information they encounter online?

Of course these questions are by no means the end of the discussion, but I believe we need to ask them when talking literacy tasks.

New Year's Resolution-Information Diet

I've read a lot of books and articles about the effects of information technology on the brain and society.  The ones that stand out for me are: Is Google Making Us Stupid by Nicholas Carr, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online by Howard Rheingold and the most recent one I've read Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption by Clay Johnson. 

I found Carr's argument compelling because I have long believed that deep knowledge of content is important and that deep learning is discouraged in the information age. I've watched Students apply their Google skills to nearly every academic task without learning anything and this unfortunate habit has taken over higher education and the professional workplace as well, a point made in the Golden Globe nominated movie, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. 

With Rheingold, I found his book incredibly challenging and comprehensive. I took pages of notes with the intention of developing some instructional units on various chapters. Um, well, I haven't gotten very far on that project, which may have something to do with the points made by Clay Johnson in his book. 

Johnson's point is encapsulated in the metaphor about diet. Over-consumption of food makes us fat. Over-consumption of information makes us stupid and unproductive. A variety of nutritious foods is necessary to keep the body healthy, the way a variety of information sources of high quality will keep the brain healthy. Junk food and junk information are both equally addictive and must be avoided. It's a message I certainly took more personally than Carr and Rheingold. I'm definitely guilty of information over-consumption and I certainly need to curtail my over-indulgence in consumption and focus more on production, that is writing and activities that help build communities and relationships. Of course if I succeed in doing that, I'm contributing to this problem in others! 

Currently, I have 4 email accounts, a Facebook account, two Google+ accounts (one for work and one for persona) and I'm responsible for 2 Twitter accounts. Additionally, I spend anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour reading news articles about world events which I have absolutely no control over. With the Smartphone, iPad laptop and desktop computer time combined I probably spend between 1 hour and 3 just reading over feeds and I'm not including the time I spend communicating the other direction.  That time, being spread out through the day does not equal the total cost of information over-consumption. It takes time to switch tasks and focus on productive activities. Therefore, I should wonder how it is I get anything done! 

The other main challenge of Johnson's information is to avoid the echo chambers of opinion's that are in sync with our own. Confirmation bias has left most people blind to different perspectives and hindered the quest for accurate information, aka the Truth. Since reading the book over month ago, I've definitely avoiding the time-sucking pitfalls of reading opinions and analyses that I'm inclined to agree with and actively sought out fresh perspectives that actually challenge my thinking. That's the reason I still subscribe to National Geographic in print. It's one of the last mainstream publications with an editorial policy not entirely decimated and dominated by political or commercial interests. When I read this good old magazine I know my horizons will be broadened each month. The reason I don't read it on the iPad is because of the many other distracting information sources available with a single-touch that don't conform to the high standards of National Geographic.

In our era of vicious partisan disagreements, where otherwise good people can't seem to find common ground and solve problems, I think Clay Johnson's little book would do a lot of people and our beloved Democratic Republic a lot of good! The author himself is a former political operative that had an epiphany and learned the importance of living outside of the bubble that the Internet creates for so many users.

In the school library world, we no longer have great influence via the non-fiction materials we select as students mostly take to the Internet for their answers. Our primary concern has to be teaching habits of mind that help young people cultivate the ability to manage time, consider other perspectives and see past the petty, partisan propaganda that seems to dominate our media universe. As educators, its highly important we start with ourselves, and I appreciate Clay Johnson for coming forward to present the Information Diet, which is a great framework for starting conversations with colleagues, students and fellow citizens of all persuasions.

In the new year, I resolve to refine my information diet, and urge you to do the same. Make 2013 a great year!

Retweet! Not Reteach!

For quite a while now, I've believed that the skill of sorting and using information is of far greater importance than merely acquiring the information covered in the school curriculum. Therefore it behooves us to design learning experiences that require students to do that as we move through the curricula.

Today, students are accessing more information than ever via social networks. Unfortunately, young people are often abandoned to learn on their own and much of what they learn is just plain incorrect. Schools must teach skills and habits for students to not always believe what they read in the Twitter stream and to seek out the truth.

My latest presentation exhorts librarians to take the lead in teaching the habits and skills. Using current examples, including the Gabby Douglas hair controversy and the Apple asymmetrical screw hoax, I demonstrate how fake stories are quickly generated, spread and believed by millions of people. In my opinion, the detective work in getting to the bottom of these stories is downright fun!

Much of the material here is owed to Howard Rheingold and his amazing book Net Smart, which is currently serving as my reference Bible for planning my teaching. I welcome comments and requests for further explanation on any slide. Not all of the meaning is expressed, as much of it was spoken in my talk last week.

Retweet, not reteach! from Dallas ISD New Tech High School

Grand Unification Theory of Librarianship...It's the Reading and Thinking!

With time off to think, its only natural that I turn my attention to reading, reflecting and writing. When I left for the Winter break, I had in mind to learn more about some of the latest trends in librarianship, particularly the notions of Enchantment, Transliteracy and Information Literacy.  Specifically, my first goal was to read the E-book, School Libraries: What's Now, What's Next, What's Yet to Come,  put together by Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton, two of the great stars of the School Library world. I was honored to be one of the contributors to this project.  Of course, just as soon as I finished reading that one, Kristin Fontichiaro goes and releases another E-book by her graduate students called Information Literacy in the Wild. Reading that book is another goal for the remainder of this break.

What have I gained from this reading? In terms of content knowledge I now have a firmer grip on the distinctions between Transliteracy and Information literacy. More importantly, I learned about some more amazing colleagues from all over the World that I now follow on Twitter. Finding kindred spirits and role models is what keeps me going in this business, and that alone made the reading worth while.

However, reading through this book in one sitting, its easy to feel overwhelmed with all the talk of new professional standards, roles for librarians, goals for library facilities, as well as deeper concepts that require understanding before applying them to practice. For me, the big takeaways are not anything new, but reaffirmations of the core of my philosophy of librarianship, which can be summed up in two words; Reading and Thinking. Yes, it really is that simple, but its complicated.

Taking just the concept of Transliteracy, which describes a state where an individual is competent at various literacies that enable not just the acquisition of knowledge from reading, but the ability to process information  from all forms of media and participate in the global conversations via the same types of media. Obviously, a very complex and high level outcomes are necessary to produce transliterate students, and it is overwhelming to think about the prospect of all of the individual teaching objectives and lessons that would be necessary. However, when one thinks about it, the underlying skills are really the same as reading.

Expert readers are really capable of being transliterate, assuming they learn various skills such as social media, video production and various other computer applications. None of these latter skills are difficult compared to becoming an expert reader.  An expert reader has more than a strong vocabulary, but a habit of continually asking key questions while reading and highly honed skills of efficiently assimilating the most vital information and perspectives from text. It's practically impossible to become an expert reader without simultaneously becoming an expressive and competent writer and a learner that is at least somewhat comfortable in an ambiguous and complicated world of abstraction. Strong readers don't just passively absorb ideas, but they respond.

So, to make a long-story short, we as librarians should pay attention and teach skills related to transliteracy whenever we have the opportunity. However, out core mission of just plain old literacy is still number one. Kids that regularly read through books of hundreds of pages are prepared to be transliterate, while those that can't or don't read regularly will never be transliterate.  Having a quality mix of books in print and E-book form is more important than ever, and the battle for student minds will be won by librarians that are transliterate themselves, who can connect with students and lead them towards the world of text and abstraction. This leads me to the last point, which is about thinking, specifically the types of thinking that don't happen with a book in hand.

If libraries are to be relevant in the age of the e-book, we have to serve a purpose that is beyond promoting reading.  Librarians need to lead young people towards a life of the mind.  For me, this means games. I allow and encourage video games and I make sure to praise and reward students that go beyond the level of just playing games. Video games can be a gateway to knowledge acquired through books or avenues for learning skills related to transliteracy.

Even more so, I am a big proponent of off-line games such as Chess and Bridge that promote problem solving, critical thinking and social skills on a very high level. These games figure into my library program. I recognize that not all librarians are inclined to start chess clubs and bridge clubs, but I think these two games have proven track records at boosting student skills and self-esteem.  I encourage individual librarians to identify and promote all activities that lead to these outcomes.  If librarians are creative, they will be sure to inspire creativity in others. Just as if we model transliteracy in our practice, we're likely to inspire it in others.