Cartoon of the Week --

Cartoon by Tom Gauld, one of a series of awesome literary-inspired cartoons published weekly in The Guardian.

Let's Bring Fat Kid to Boise!

Ridiculously awesome punk-rock YA novel Fat Kid Rules the World is now a movie! It premiered at SXSW in Austin last month, and is being distributed through Tugg.

So how does Tugg work? Rather than the top-down organization of a studio release, individuals request events from the website and choose a venue, date and time. Tugg contracts with the venue--including locally-owned movie theaters--and sets a threshold for ticket sales. Marketing and promotion are up to the theater and to the group or individual who made the request, and if enough people by tickets via Tugg's website, the screening is on!

I love this model of consumers getting together to drive the market. I'm going to float this out to my librarians' book club next week and see if we can make a screening happen.

But even more than that, how could this model be used in schools to democratize activity offerings and increase student participation, particularly if promotion is student-driven? Lots of student suggestions for activities, classes or clubs, or even units of study could be planned from the bottom up by giving students the opportunity to present the idea, then promote and get a certain level of commitment to participate from other students. How powerful--and authentic--would it be to answer "Can we do ___?" with "Yes! How can you make it happen?"

Cartoon of the Week -- Cat and Girl

Existential angst from Cat and Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday -- Top Ten Pacific NW Vacation Spots I've Been Fantasizing About Since June

My summer vacation finally, FINALLY started this week after seven weeks of summer school and a week of AVID training in San Diego. That gives me a week to get the house and yard in shape after eight weeks of neglect and about ten days to get out of town until I have to be back at work. These are the places I've been dreaming of going.

I feel like the pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

1. Crater Lake National Park

2. Yellowstone National Park

3. Glacier National Park

4. The Oregon Coast

5. The Sierra Nevada

6. Coeur d'Alane

7. The California Redwoods

8. Multnomah Falls and the Columbia River Gorge

9. Vancouver Island

10. Washington's Olympic Peninsula

Readers, where have you been itching to go this summer?

Cartoon of the Week -- Tech Support

From XKCD.

Food for Thought

I think I want to let this percolate for a little while:

Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham claims there’s no data to support the fact that kids all learn in fundamentally different ways. This is not to say that all children should be taught in the same way, but that the source of different learning styles has more to do with talents and interests than the development of certain parts of the brain.

Evidence actually supports information to the contrary, which states that students learn best from lessons that employ all verbal, visual, auditory and kinesthetic explanations of the material. In other words, it’s the layered experiences that really allow educational ideas to stick with students, rather than just a single method.

via Edudemic.

Habits

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about routines. Partly because it's my last day of summer school, and the giant list of giant projects I'd intended to get done is still pretty much not done, partly because I know my time will be much more constrained when school gets started and I want to keep this blog and my professional growth going, and partly because my son will be leaving for college and now I am faced with having to do unpleasant but necessary household chores myself instead of having him do them.

A post over at Vicki Davis's blog not too long ago posed the following questions when thinking about routines:

• What are the most important things if I do them every day, that will make the biggest difference in my life?
• What are the things I need to make sure that I do every week in my job that will make the biggest difference?
• What are the things I need to make sure that I do every week at home that will make the biggest difference?
• What are the 20% of my problems that cause 80% of my headaches?
• What is the one habit that is most important to start in my life right now? (Set an appointment with yourself every day this week to do that one thing.)

I was especially curious about the 80/20 split she mentioned, so I spent some time reading up on the Pareto Efficiency, including some neat mathematical equations. The gist was this: in general, 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of the factors involved. To put it more specifically, 80 percent of my time is sucked up by only 20 percent of the things I do or need to do.  Or 20 percent of the housework is pretty much guaranteed to take up 80 percent of the time I spend doing it. Doesn't this ring true for you in the classroom? Think of those six kids in that one aggravating just-after-lunch class and how my attention you have to devote to managing them so you can do your actual job and teach the other thirty.

I don't think this one blog post is going to clear everything up for me just yet, but I do all my best thinking out loud, so here goes.

Things I need to do every day to make the biggest difference, at work and at home. Exercise. Eat right. Pick up after myself. Prioritize tasks, especially at work.

Things to do every week at work. Check in with student aides and provide feedback on their work. Personal PD time, a couple of times a week, to catch up on stuff like this. Program planning and development, once or twice a week.

Things I need to do every week at home. Make time for family. Clean. Plan groceries and check financials.

Most important things to start right now.  On the home front, I have roller derby tryouts at the end of September. That makes gym and food especially important, followed closely by being sure to make up the practices I'm going to miss for work and vacation during the next few weeks. For work, I think probably taking some time to think about ways to get student aides proficient at their jobs and what to do about my unfunded plans for a computer lab in the library.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's nice to see the relative shortness of each one. I guess the lesson is this: focus on the most important 20 percent, and let that consume the majority of my time.

Top Ten Tuesday -- Top Ten Books I Still Need to Read Before the End of Summer Vacation

(I realize it's Monday, but I'm out of the library tomorrow.)

With not quite a month of summer left to go, here are ten books I've been meaning to read and must do so before school starts up again.

1. Habibi by Craig Thompson. Gorgeous, intricate, exceptionally well-reviewed graphic novel from the author of Blankets.
2. Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt. Recommended as "another Carter Finally Gets It," funny middle-school-boy humor.
3. Trafficked by Kim Purcell. Story of a Moldovan teen brought to the US as a domestic worker. Compared favorably with Patricia McCormick's Sold.
4. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta. The second book in this series came out not too long ago, and my husband's been hassling me to read Jellicoe Road for I don't know how long. But a fantasy series written by an acclaimed author of teen realistic fiction? I don't know how I missed this one in the first place.
5. Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony. I've flipped through this one a half-dozen times, and I love the storytelling style.  
6. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. This book is regarded as gospel by our environmental science teacher.
7. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. Okay, so this one is for my librarians' book club. Tonight. So I should read it eventually. I will probably be much more motivated after tonight's discussion. Not that I'm not excited about it, or it doesn't sound amazing, it just kind of got relegated to my "need to read" list rather than my "want to read" list.
8. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee. Another book club selection, this one for the Level Up Book Club. I've been feeling left out of the online discussion but haven't been able to place a library order until very recently. Also, in my typical style, I have been terrified about actually participating in the online discussion with people I avidly follow on Twitter, so not having read the book has been a handy excuse for not sucking it up and just joining in, already.
9. Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel. I LOVED her first graphic novel, Fun Home. I'm not expecting an easy read, but so looking forward to getting my hands on this one!
10. Steal Like an Artist: Ten Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative by Austin Kleon. After an exciting discussion at ISTE this June, I'm trying to look at creativity as a series of habits, not just an innate ability.

What about you, readers? What's in that stack of books on your bedside table you've been meaning to get to?

Cartoon of the Week -- Spock

I found this image a bunch of different places, but can't seem to find the original. Anybody know where this comes from so I can credit him or her?

Top Ten Tuesday -- My Top Ten Books this Year

Top ten books I read during the 2011-2012 school year:

1. The Fault in our Stars by John Green. It's John Green. Do I really need to elaborate? Beautiful story about teen relationships and cancer.
2. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. This book takes a lot of flak for its main character who at the beginning of the book is completely unlikable.  Really, she and the high school social scheme she represents are reprehensible. But the book is lovely and redeeming and makes me trust that teen popularity is a phase my students will eventually grow out of.
3. My Family for the War by Anna Voorhoeve. WWII historical fiction centering on a ethnically-Jewish  German girl placed in foster care with an Orthodox family in London. I love the questions this book raises about what makes a family.
4. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. One of only two fantasy pieces on this list, primarily because the story is so great and the fantasy universe is revealed so gradually that it feels like a great novel set in a fantasy universe, not a fantasy novel. In other words, Twilight is a "book about vampires," this is anything but a "book about angels."
5. The Less-Dead by April Lurie. This LBGTQ novel centers not just on acceptance of a gay teen, but religious tolerance of gays, without being saccharine or preachy. This gives me faith in people changing their minds when they're faced with other real, live people.
6. How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. Funny and irreverent. A failed author working at a company that writes others' academic papers for money decides to write a bestselling novel based entirely on market trends--and succeeds. It makes me smile a little smile whenever someone brings yet another James Patterson or Nicholas Sparks novel up to the checkout desk.
7. How to Save a Life by Sarah Zarr. I really identified with the main character Jill as she tried to sort out her relationships with her boyfriend, family, and friends after her father's death, using her anger and sadness to keep everyone at arm's distance. 
8. REAMDE by Neal Stephenson. Intricate and kind of amazing. Complete with CIA and KGB agents, terrorists, computer hackers, and grizzly bears.
9. Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King. A really touching book about a teen boy coping with depression--his own, his parents', and his extended family's. 
10. Tyger, Tyger by Kersten Hamilton. Fantasy novel with a very accurate basis in Irish mythology and folklore. It's dark, and rich, and awesome.

Cartoon of the Week -- Self-Improvement

 Yep, pretty much.

If crazy is a contest, the Texas GOP wins!

The progressive news organization truthout reported Saturday that the revised Texas GOP official platform calls for schools to stop teaching critical thinking and other skills that would cause children to rethink, well, anything. Yes, I have been following the state of education in Texas since I left in 2000, but I still thought that maybe the article was a bit alarmist and maybe had their facts a little off.

Alas, no.

Let's review some of the highlights of the platform document, shall we?

In the section entitled "American Identity Patriotism and Loyalty," the document decries the current multicultural curriculum as "divisive." I'm a product of Texas public schools, and I can say I spent a great deal of time learning about dead white men, with a little "Hey, it's Black History Month!" thrown in. We learned some about Mexico, because it's kind of hard to skip in history class, seeing as Texas WAS Mexico for a while there. I just don't see how learning that there are other ways of doing things out there is "divisive."

My favorite part, though, is this one: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

I can't even begin to describe what a terrible idea this is. First, why the dismissal of mastery learning? Encouraging students to understand a subject completely and then demonstrate their knowledge of it is bad? It sounds like the GOP is looking for a generation of high school graduates who know just enough reading and writing to show up at work on time every day and do what they're told.

Is that really such a good idea in today's economy? Turning out students with no critical thinking skills, no creativity, no real growth potential? How are they going to be "job creators" if all they know how to do is absorb and regurgitate information?

The document also calls for "objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories," where these theories should be taught as "challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced."  Okay, it doesn't sound so bad since that is, in fact, pretty much what something being a theory means--that it's just about the best way we have so far of describing how things work but by all means if your science says something different let's figure out why--but the "all sides" part means that scientific explanations get put on equal footing with religious ones, and the elimination of higher-order thinking skills from the curriculum virtually guarantees kids won't be able to tell the difference between the two.

Besides these educational reforms called for, other prime examples of crazy include:

• Eliminating Congressional representation for the District of Columbia
• "Protection from Extreme Environmentalists," repeal of the Endangered Species Act, and an end to the EPA
• Freedom for religious organizations to openly endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status. Religious organizations who contribute to political campaigns should not have to disclose information about the individual contributors.
• Opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which "coerces" business owners to hire fairly
• The US Flag Code should be made into law.
• Opposition to hate crimes laws or "any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality"
• "Unequivocal" opposition to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• Withdrawal from the United Nations and relocation of UN headquarters elsewhere
• Abolition of the federal Department of Education
• Abstinence-only sex and drug awareness education, and no provision of reproductive health care services, including counseling or referrals, to public school students
• Emphasis on faith-based drug rehabilitation programs
• Elimination of capital gains, estate, and property taxes
• Repeal of Minimum Wage legislation
• Worker's Compensation coverage should be optional for employers, not mandatory

And, finally, Israel. Full support of Israel, "based on God's biblical promise to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel and we further invite other nations and organizations to enjoy the benefits of that promise." I just don't know what you can even say to that, except wow.

That kind of makes me wonder what's in my state's platform documents. What examples of crazy can you find in your state?

Top Ten Tuesday -- Top Ten New Releases I Will Knock Students Down to Get to First

(in ascending order relative to the desperation with which I will elbow said children out of the way)

1. Tilt by Ellen Hopkins
2. The Diviners by Libba Bray
3. Son (conclusion to the Giver) by Lois Lowry
4. The Archived by Victoria Schwab
5. Prodigy (sequel to Legend) by Marie Lu
6. Crown of Embers (sequel to The Girl of Fire and Thorns) by Rae Carson
7. whatever John Green’s next book is going to be
8. Sapphire Blue (sequel to Ruby Red) by Kerstin Gier
9. Requiem (third in Delirium series) by Lauren Oliver
10. Days of Blood and Starlight (sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone) by Laini Taylor

Readers: What book are you seriously considering staking out a publishing house to get an ARC for?

Cartoon of the Week -- Library Timeline

Ohmygoodness this is why I'm not a public librarian. And why I agree to submit to internet filtering.

Whoever keeps +1ing me...

...you are awesome!!

Happy Friday!

Ambitious Curation--Better than shelling out for nonfiction?

From the Young Adult Library Services blog post by Hannah Gomez :

“Blogs like Awful Library Books love to poke fun at the fact that non-fiction in libraries gets very dated very fast. It’s true, but what can you do about it? As I recycled a big pile of magazines the other day, and when I came across this Unclutterer post, I had an idea. Why not compile some binders or folders (physical and/or digital) of articles, blog posts, book reviews, and other timely publications on topics of high interest and high turnover rate to teens, like health, dating, and technology so that you have a non-fiction resource that’s guaranteed to always be up to date? If you’re already using Pinterest, start a new page. Otherwise, start signing up for RSS feeds and a Twitter account to grab relevant links and put them somewhere where your patrons can have easy access. Make sure you make note of this on your library website and perhaps in your physical nonfiction stacks as well. If you don’t have time to follow as many blogs as you’d like, assign a topic each to your interns, volunteers, or advisory board members. Not only are you providing a great service to your patrons, then, but it becomes a great exercise in how to do research, how to use technology or publishing tools, and how to gauge an article’s relevance and integrity.” 

My book budget is still puttering along at about a fifth of what it was three years ago, before I got here. (It dropped from $13,000 to $1,000 that year.) For the past two years I've been doing my best to keep my readers in the best new fiction as it comes out and developing modern and postmodern novel collections with the English department, but nonfiction has been daunting. So much collection development for nonfiction relies upon sets of books--a 13-book series on social issues, a 5-volume set on recent presidents, and so on, but let's face it, when you're a high school student anything older than 4 or 5 years old is positively ancient, and so many of the nonfiction topics my library users are interested in change rapidly in that time.

Wow, but relaxing on nonfiction CD in favor of electronic resource curation is a huge idea, and one I'd prefer to get right within the first couple of tries. I'm thinking maintaining a collection of LiveBinders on different subjects, all organized pretty similarly, would be helpful, as would a stack on Delicious, or a library resources wiki. LiveBinders seems like an obvious choice because I really like being able to see webpages before I go to the trouble of clicking a link, and I can find relevant articles in our paid databases and add a note describing where to go to find more like that.

So, just thinking out loud here. Some of my most common topics for research papers are:

1. marijuana--legalization/medical use, etc
2. abortion
3. homelessness
4. euthanasia
5. animal rights/animal abuse
6. school reform
7. gay marriage
8. healthcare
9. government spending
10. renewable energy

Curating links and resources for each of these topics seems like a logical and helpful course of action because information on most of these topics either a) change by the minute or b) comes from sources with a political or ideological perspective. It definitely seems like giving kids a starting point of good examples of research sources would help them know what to look for as they continue researching. It would also be an AMAZING assignment for my student aides to get their research, evaluation, and organization skills going. Even better would be if I could get a teacher to have students or groups of students pull together one of these as a prelude to a research paper or project.

It would make sense for each binder to be organized in a similar way, with a section for background/history of the issue, online resources or databases containing facts, opinion pieces, links to blogs or other social media for people who are involved with the issue, and maybe even a breakdown of the smaller pieces of the larger topic. At first I was thinking maybe they'd all have the same 4 or 5 sections, but I don't think each topic is going to split up that easily; I may want to develop the organizational structure of the LiveBinder before turning it over to my aides.

Beyond nonfiction resources for research, there are other topics kids are interested in for which I can't keep my print resources current. These are subjects like:
photography

1. web design
2. programming
3. app development
4. cooking
5. health and exercise
6. sports
7. manga

Most of these are so far down on my priority list that I don't even try to keep up unless something new and exciting gets reviewed in SLJ or something like that, but certainly not anything I can afford to keep current, not in print anyway.

So: another project added to the pile. Is this the year I get really good at delegating while also ensuring the delegate-ees maintain top quality?

More on the Wildfires

Ten large wildfires are currently burning in Idaho, and another several just across the border in Oregon, including the Long Draw fire, currently inching towards half a million acres in size. See the map below from InciWeb this morning.

Applying for Grants--Where do I even start?

My grant proposal to relocate existing computer equipment in my library to create a teaching-learning lab was denied by the Boise Education Foundation this week, but I'm not ready to give up yet. I'm just out to find about $5200 for some electrical work, cutting down and reinstalling metal bookcases, and moving ny ceiling-mounted projector and screen so that I have something resembling an actual computer lab rather than just a collection of computers.  I hate having to give instructions at round tables, then if anything else comes up, give more instructions three different times in the different parts of the library.  Having 30 computers in the same space will help things tremendously.

So here are some of the places I'm finding to locate and apply for grants:

Micron. I can't believe this didn't cross my mind before today, but duh. Micron.

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) provides a full listing of all Federal programs available to State and local governments (including the District of Columbia); federally-recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions) of the United States; domestic public, quasi- public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and individuals.

Grant Sources from Education World. The list is about two years old, but lists several grant programs (with links directly to the relevant sites a grant-seeker needs) that didn't come up elsewhere.

Fundsnet Services. Another directory of grants and fundraising opportunities. It looks like partial support may come from those "sell these products to raise money" companies, but a good, thorough directory for grant dollars, as well.

This is all still so new to me, it needs to marinate for a while before I'm going to know what to do next. I hope we can make this work!

UPDATE: Innovative Approaches to Literacy grants from the DOE are due August 10.

Wildfire Resources

AP Photo of Kinyon Road wildfire
near Buhl, Idaho, July 10.

This morning I woke up at about 4 a.m. to let cats out of the house, and the entire house smelled like fire. After a few seconds of panic in which I tried desperately to remember when was the last time I'd checked the batteries in our smoke detector, I remembered seeing on the news that there were fires burning somewhere in the area, and the wind must've finally blown the smoke into town. The first thing I wanted to know upon sitting down at my computer this morning was where and how large these fires were. Fortunately, I found a few sites that combine up-to-date fire information from dozens of national and local fire agencies.

Yesterday, five new wildfires broke out in southeastern Idaho, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The NIFC is based in Boise, but serves an informational, not administrative, role.  It helps to coordinate services among the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Weather Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Parks Service, US Fish and Wildlife, the US Fire Adminstration, and FEMA.

The site tracks wildfires in all states, including number of fires, acreage, containment, and whether structures are threatened or evacuations are in effect.

InciWeb is a similar site providing additional details about many of the larger fires found on NIFC.  It includes a brief narrative overview of the fire, including containment details and information about what areas or structures have burned. In the case of the fire today for example, the burned area includes the range of a wild horse herd that appear not to have been harmed.  

One of the best features of InciWeb is the Google Maps overlay that lets you see the most recently-updated extent of some of the fires. Especially when viewed in the terrain overlay, it's easy to see where the fire is in relation to other locations.

Timely Tech--A PLN Starter Kit on LiveBinders

I love it when the universe syncs up by bringing me just what I need when, or even right before, I know I need it.

Today I found this PLN starter kit by blogger-librarian Jennifer LaGarde, via NeverEndingSearch, an especially awesome blog out of School Library Journal. Breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs!

It's a handy listing of blogs, twitter feeds, and other resources compiled and written by classroom teachers, administrators, teacher-librarians, technology specialists, and others, and a great place to discover other great sources for my PLN. (I'd say "your PLN," but I'm pretty sure for now it's just me here, and anyway I need to work on mine before I tell anybody else how to do theirs.)

One of my favorite posts is Gwenyth Jones of The Daring Librarian about how she decides whose Twitter to follow. It's a great walk-through of how exactly to go about starting to find people whose ideas can support your PLN, not overwhelm it.

Enjoy!

Cartoon of the Week -- Of Cupcakes and Envelopes

Today's comic courtesy of Dinosaur Comics. Ryan North is my hero!

Cartoon of the Week -- Why the Library?

Today's comic is a recent strip from my very favorite webcomic, Questionable Content.

Highlights from YALSA's 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults

Via YALSA, my comments on each book in green.

Each year, YALSA presents the Best Fiction for Young Adults list after ALA's Midwinter Meeting. This year’s list of 112 books was drawn from 211 official nominations. The books, recommended for ages 12-18, meet the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens. The list comprises a wide range of genres and styles, including contemporary realistic fiction, fantasy, horror, historical fiction and novels in verse.

In addition to the full list, the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee also created a Top Ten list of titles from the final list, denoted here by an asterisk.

“The members of the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee worked countless hours, reading, discussing and finally selecting the 2012 list.  Many members of the committee read more than 400 books over the past year, searching for the best titles for teens,”said Chair Patti Tjomsland.  “The resulting list represents exceptional teen literature from a variety of genres that will appeal to teen readers.”

Full list is after the jump.

The first thing I'd like to do when teachers come back in the fall is organize an Ignite session. If you haven't heard of Ignite, it's a series of presentations ala TED talks where presenters have 5 minutes and 20 automatically-advancing slides. Just like TED, speakers share a variety of passions, from the importance of bike lane safety to the pentatonic scale to the inherent pettiness of women's actions towards one another.

The point lies in sharing passions.  After attending the annual ISTE conference this past week, I'm starting to see how passion is going to be one of the major driving forces in educational reform--our passions as individuals, as educators, as change agents, as guides for helping our students and communities discover their own passions.

I'd like to start Ignite Timberline with staff members sharing what they love. I think it will give us the opportunity to start connecting as individuals, not just as committee members or that guy who teaches across the hall, and as we begin sharing our passions we can start looking for ways to use them to impact our students and our school community.

Won't you join us in August for Ignite Timberline?

Places to Start

How timely is this, as I sit and try to figure out where to start merging my virtual PLN into actual changes in my in-building professional relationships.  I will definitely send this around just before everyone comes back in August.

25 Ways Teachers Can Connect More with Their Colleagues

Though this doesn't feel like 25 entire, different things, it's more like a list of 25 ways in to the professional collaboration game, but it links to other articles that describe just how to do each of these things.

I feel like I spend so much of my day sitting around waiting to be needed by someone for more than just checking out a book or collecting a fine payment, but besides blasting my staff with emails about how I am happy to book them some library time, I don't quite know where to begin. I am starting to believe I have a wealth of resources and ideas to share, and this list gives me some ideas on where to start finding outlets.