Librarians, Media Specialists and New Tech

Today I confirmed what I long suspected...I am the only Library/Media Specialist at the New Tech Network training in 2011. This is very worrisome to me. Most of all, I am concerned about what this says about the library profession.

I'm personally very invested in this profession and I've called myself a librarian for a full decade now. I've always bought into the idea of a librarian as a leader in teaching 21st Century skills. There are many of us that play this role and I'm proud of many of my colleagues, but the writing is on the wall. Not enough librarians are making the leap into the 21st Century.

Many of the people from New Tech Schools that I have spoken with recently cut their library positions after their librarians retired. Others have librarians, but they have not made themselves critical to the mission of the school. One person said that it took 3 years for the administration to figure out the librarians role in their New Tech school. That is so sad.

I am not just concerned about the profession, but our entire culture. Libraries represent so much that is critical for the continuation of Democracy. I don't think the Internet by itself is a substitute. I believe the future needs reflective people that understand complexity and the many perspectives of different people and cultures; people read widely and deeply. Nicholas Carr has called the human mind of the Internet era "The Shallows." I think he's correct. I'm concerned that there won't be enough people capable of deep and abstract thought to sustain this great country as a bastion of freedom. Ignorant people are prone to tyranny.

The New Tech model of teaching is wonderful, but I think every New Tech school needs a library (even if it is called the Media Center or the Learning Commons). The library is nothing without a passionate and skilled librarian. Without such a person, who will advocate for students to read full-length books in the course of their high school careers? Who will teach how to find and process quality information in the vast sea of propaganda and who will man the information hub of our schools? It's possible that teachers can fill this void, but it is equally possible that no one will do so.

I'm proud to be a part of the New Schools Network, and I don't blame anyone within the organization for the state of affairs in public education and school libraries. I simply urge more of my librarian colleagues to get involved and be a part of the future of education.

New Tech Network 2nd Day

I'm now starting to settle in and get familiar with the group, the instructional model and the software of the New Tech Network. One thing I noticed today is that most of the schools at this training are from smaller cities or rural communities. My school of Dallas and another school from San Antonio are the only truly urban ones represented here. This is actually something I'm very proud of. We have a great group of people on our staff, and I really think we can make this school of South Dallas into one of the crown jewels of the New Tech Network, and encourage more urban school around this country to adopt this excellent model.

First Impressions from New Schools Training

After my first full day at NST, I now have a better understanding of why this training takes place over a full-week. Never in my career have I been through a full-scale school change. As the keynote speaker said yesterday, most school reform/staff development initiatives are doomed to fail because of their piecemeal approach. This one strives for going all the way with an all-encompassing model that drives the entire school. I'm completely on board with the instructional model,and understand what my individual role in this school will be, but it is clear now that our task as a campus is pretty enormous.

New Tech Network creates a very good impression. The trainers and IT staff that I have dealt with are very positive and sincere people that believe in their mission. As a participant, I can say I feel overwhelmed, but supported. On the downside, the ECHO system that we will be using is a Drupal based software that has some bugs and is somewhat hard to embrace fully.

Echo is very early in development and the IT staff is aware of many of the bugs, but I am mainly concerned about the difficultly of mastering the course and project creation tools. I feel that teachers need software that is intuitive and this one is difficult for someone like myself that is more on the IT side of things.

For the rest of the week, I will be analyzing ECHO and figuring out a simple approach to making good projects accessible to students so that we can help our Freshmen hit the ground running with project based learning. Look forward to more posts about PBL and the software connection.

Comprehensive High School RIP!?

When I began this blog, I wanted to showcase some of my successes with promoting the strategic use of technology. I'm a Library media specialist, my career satisfaction depends on working with teachers to improve learning outcomes.

I have spent the last 10 years serving as a Library Media Specialist in comprehensive high schools, but I am now moving on. I have worked in 3 very different schools, each one had its strengths and weaknesses, but each was fundamentally flawed in its basic operating assumptions. For each of my jobs, I tried very hard to integrate myself into the faculty of the school and develop relationships towards helping students develop 21st Century skills. While I'm proud of the work I did, I am left with the feeling that I was ultimately unsuccessful.

My next job will be at a New Tech High School in Dallas ISD. It's everything I want in a school: a small cohesive staff with low student-teacher ratio, a solid instructional model that involves students in thought-provoking projects, and an overall emphasis on vital outcomes such as creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking.

Comprehensive High Schools provide the opposite. The structure of the school inhibits real teamwork among teachers of different subjects. The institution is generally large and impersonal, and the main emphasis is on grades and credits granted by teachers as opposed to student outputs. Often the work needed to earn grades and credits in mindless, irrelevant stuff that discourages deep thinking and creativity.

Why is it not possible to reform the comprehensive high school? I have my theories. One time when I was sitting in a curriculum meeting at my previous job, I realized that I was the only one in the room that did not have mostly warm, fuzzy memories of high school. In other words, I was the only one that was actively working to provide students with a drastically different high school experience than I myself had back in the 1980's. The others where emotionally invested in doing the opposite, providing light academics while emphasizing the traditions of high school: letter jackets, athletics, dances, etc. At the very heart of the old high school tradition, is a bias towards not working the kids to hard, so they can enjoy their adolescence. Sizer's brilliant analysis in Horace's Compromise, written back when I was in high school, is still true today. That's not to say that all of the teachers I worked with were this way, but the exceptions were a small minority.

So, in a nutshell, I'm done with trying to reform the beast from within. I look forward to the day when all high schools offer are exciting, vibrant places where students and teachers feel connected to the institution and the youthful energy is channeled towards productive ends instead of creating a feeling of being a rat on wheel until graduation. Yes, I'm still an idealist, but a slightly more realistic one.

High Tech version of Two Truths and a Lie

I love the icebreaker "Two Truths and Lie." Since I've been home for the last 3 days because of a little ice storm closing most of Dallas, I have had some think time. I've formulated a fun idea based on this game. All I need is a collaborative partner that is enthusiastic. I was thinking about doing this activity in May, sometime after the TAKS test. Here's the idea.

Students in 2 different schools will create online projects which could be about themselves as individuals, a historical personality or a topic. They could use any online tool to exhibit their work: Glogster, Fakewall, Google Sites, a Blog, just to name a few. All of the projects would be completely truthful and accurate with the exception of one detail. Obviously guidelines and standards for the students would be very critical.

When the projects are ready, the students from the other school would view some of the other projects and attempt to identify the false aspect of the project. The culminating activity would be a video conference where the students from different schools would meet to reveal the lies and meet the people behind the deception.

Particulars for this project would depend on class subject and grade level. The main objectives of the exercise would be to get students to become become more critical consumers of information and the understand effects of Web anonymity on how people portray themselves and others.

Any one that is interested, please leave a comment.

My Letter to the Texas Legislature

In these times of budget shortfall, it is reasonable to expect cuts to State services. However, it is another thing to cut so severely that it stymies progress on matters vital to the State's future. No one disputes that a first rate public education system is critical to our economy and our people, but progress in public education depends on vital people such as school librarians.

Cutting libraries and librarians during this budget crisis would be a huge mistake for countless reasons, but mostly it is about the librarians and the role in they play in school improvement and student outcomes.

Many studies conducted in States around the USA show a clear correlation between library funding and staffing and student achievement. Behind those numbers are talented, dedicated professionals that involve themselves in all aspects of the school including: staff development, classroom instruction and innovative programs that encourage student creativity and personal growth. Without librarians, classroom teachers would lack valuable partners that help them incorporate technology and critical thinking skills into their loaded curriculum.

I urge the Texas Legislature to avoid short-sighted budget cuts that will only hamper efforts to improve schools in the long run. Librarians are creative and resourceful. They can do more with less, but not without any support from the State. Please help assure a brighter future in public education by funding school library positions and resources as much as practically possible.

Resolution for 2011

Image via WikipediaI've been an outlaw since my education career started in 1995. That means I don't quite fit into the system even if I am a part of it. Often I feel a need to work at cross-purposes with the administration. I'm getting tired of it really. I would much rather work in a healthy team-oriented environment where we talk about provoking student learning, rather than dragging students over the finish line of passing the state test and getting them to comply with policies.

Barry Schwartz provides the basis for my New Year's resolution, which is to be more of a "system changer" rather than an outlaw. He points out that outlaws eventually tire of fighting and that the world can't rely on them for change. What we need are more "system changers." These are the ones that actively work to change the culture of their work. I still don't know how to do this in practice, but I think it means starting the discussion with colleagues and administrators. Let the emphasis be on learning strategies. Roll the video