Jenni Clark

The Biography Maker

http://www.fno.org/bio/biomaker.htm--

For third grade project with Mrs. Westbrook

Engaged Learners

Characteristics of Engaged Learners*-Jamie McKenzie

Responsible for their own learning

They invest personally in the quest for knowledge and understanding, in part because the questions or issues being investigated are drawn from their own curiosity about the world. Projects are pertinent and questions are essential.

Energized by learning

They feel excited, intrigued and motivated to solve the puzzles, make new answers and reach insight. Their work feels both important and worthwhile.

Strategic

They make thoughtful choices from a toolkit of strategies, considering carefully which approach, which source and which technique may work best to resolve a particular information challenge.

Collaborative

They work with others in a coordinated, planful manner, splitting up the work according to a plan and sharing good ideas during the search for understanding.

*These concepts are based upon the work of Barbara Means quoted in Plugging In.

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/edtalk/toc.htm

Notes from Jamie McKenzie

Building an Information Literate School Community-Jamie McKenzie FNO

1. Prospecting: The first component of information literacy relates to the discovery of relevant information. This prospecting requires navigation skills as well as the ability to sort, sift and select pertinent and reliable data.

2. Interpreting: It is not enough to locate numbers, text and visual data. The learner must be able to translate data and information into knowledge, insight and understanding. The learner must be skilled at interpretation. Huge number sets have little value if we do not know how to "crunch" the data and convert it into charts or other forms which show relationships and help us to resolve issues and questions.

3. Creating New Ideas: True information literacy includes the development of new insights. We cannot be satisfied with rehashing the ideas of others. We expect to see fresh knowledge. We expect more than thinly veiled plagerism.

How does a school know when it deserves to be called an information literate school community? When the following characteristics are abundantly evident, the phrase is well deserved . . .

• Invention: Much of the school program is dedicated to problem-solving, decision-making, exploration and the creation of new ideas. Both teachers and students are increasingly engaged in the discovery and building of meaning.
• Fluency: Teachers are becoming more comfortable with the need to move back and forth between an array of instructional roles and strategies. Sometimes they take advantage of efficiencies associated with direct instruction (the sage on the stage). Other times they facilitate more active student participation and inquiry (guide on the side). They are building a toolkit of strategies.
• Support: The school provides ongoing support for all learners to develop thinking and information skills. These opportunities are rich and frequent.
• Navigation: Teachers and students are developing efficient navigation skills. They can find their way through the new information landscape (as well as the old) with little lost time.
• Searching: Teachers and students are sharpening search skills. They apply Boolean Logic. They search with appropriate syntax. They employ powerful search engine features to carve through mountains of information on their way to the most relevant sources.
• Selection: Teachers and students are honing selection skills. They know how to separate the reliable from the unreliable source. They recognize propaganda, bias and distortion.
• Questioning: Teachers and students are extending questioning skills. They know how and when to employ dozens of different types of questions. Some are best to solve a problem. Others help in making a decision or building an answer. Some work best early in the search. Others come into play toward the end.
• Planning: Teachers and students are acquiring additional planning and organizational skills. They sort, sift and store findings to enhance later questioning. They make wise choices from a toolkit of research strategies and resources. They learn when a particular stage in the research process might prove most timely and when a particular strategy might produce the best results.
• Interpretation: Teachers and students are improving in their ability to interpret information. They convert primary sources and raw data into information, and then they proceed further (beyond information) to insight. They translate, infer and apply what they have gathered to the issue at hand. They are skilled at making new meanings. They pass beyond mere consumption of information. They create new knowledge.
• Deep Thinking: Teachers and students combine deep thinking and reading with a wide ranging search for relevant information. This quest for information is but the prelude to the more important work . . . solving a problem, creating a new idea, inventing a product or composing a symphony. Information literacy includes awareness of the limitations of information and the types of thinking required to move beyond those limitations.
• Commitment: All curriculum documents include clear statements regarding the information literacy expectations that are developmentally appropriate for each grade level.

Presentation

After a long break and lots of happenings, I am back.  What is great about this medium, especially if no one is reading, is that you can go away for almost a full year and come back without any reprisals.  I've been busy and you know,dear reader, how that is sometimes.

I am back because I have a presentation to do on January 4 at the ECS Professional Development Day.  I am supposed to report about NECC 2007 so I have been at that website reviewing handouts and stuff from the conference.  Now I need to review some of the blogs of folks I have come to listen to on the subject.  Should be interesting. 

Vickie Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, says this:

Make it easy for others to follow your lead.

Make it important for them to do so.

Make it important on your to do list.

I need to remember that.

We need to prepare our students for their future, not our past....Dan Pink

Teachers had a role when information was scarce....what is our role now that information is plentiful?

New use for my iPod

I am in love with my iPod and I have found a new use for it.  At the end of last school year, I was required to move my classroom down....down....down to the building farthest away from any school "action".  I am accustomed to the hustle and bustle that is the front hall.  Visitors drop by, police cars and ambulances cruise in....the arrival of the Book Fair.  All the hallmarks of public education.  Now I am down in the hole and it is very quiet.  So quiet that I have trouble concentrating.  Does that even make sense?  It does to me now.

Apparently, I either have ADD or something akin to early onset Alzheimer's.  When I was up by the office, I could easily turn around and go back for something I had forgotten.  Now, it is a major ordeal and I have had to put myself through that ordeal too many times this year.  Wrong dates on leave forms, forgetting keys, a missing file, what was I going to the copy room for?  All of it can drive a recovering perfectionist into quite a tizz.

My solution is to wear my iPod when I am working on paperwork or making a list of things to do.  My level of concentration has gone up and hopefully my productivity.  The extra trips up to the front building certainly have not hurt my physical state.  I need to walk back and forth for about a year....yeah, a year should get me back to my fighting weight.  It was taking a hit on my self esteem.  I am not used to or am I known for being scattered.  Bubbly, efficacious, silly at times perhaps....not scattered.  I hope this continues to work.  If so, I might try it with my teen aged twin boys who take after their mom....

This web carol says it all...

I wonder as I wander all over the net,
If people who write ed tech blogs still forget
That teachers may blog in a workshop and then
Be hampered by tugs between time and the pen.

If we really want to see students who write
On wikis and blogs both in class and at night,
We need to find tools and resources just right
To save teachers time and not force them to fight…

For access to places both simple and safe
So parents and principals never will chafe.
For computers in classrooms that do operate
And home Internet access all over the state.

I wonder as I wander the ed tech blog’sphere
If we preach to the choir– the wise few who come here.
If perhaps it’s the people who show the most fear
Whom we should address with our efforts sincere.

The greatest of gifts we could wrap just might be
Bringing visitors into our midst so they see
The passion of teachers and hopes yet to be
With classes that thrive aboard blogs and wikis.

So to each other we should blog no more,
Instead bring in parents and VIPs galore
To see what the tools of web 2 have in store
For learners not limited to our own shores.

I wonder as I wander if I could invite
Just one parent or maybe a blog neophyte
To comment right here and see the bright light
Of learning not just so that each answer is "right."

Of asking more questions than knowing it all
Of seeking for answers outside the school walls
With peers side by side or in a world virtual
Where loving to learn is the beckoning call.

So speak up and ask what these wiki things are
And how children write blogs from both near and afar
And how you can help make this vision a star
For us all to follow and wander no more

Snowflakes....

Since I live in the southern part of Alabama, the hope of having a White Christmas is usually dashed by a heat wave.  Take today for instance....the high is supposed to be 75.  Ack!  It is December!

I found this site while preparing for my gifted classes.  Lots of fun and it is for a good cause!

Create your own virtual snowflake.

Thanksgiving 2006

Mom and the boys...

My side of the family....Mom came from Knoxville.

Kendall and  her daughter,Jennie

Bill's brother Jimmy and his sister Kendall

Fall Color...

The oak leaf hydrangea that is in my front yard is my favorite plant.  In the fall, the leaves gradually turn the most brilliant shades of red before dying.  In May, the blossoms are so pretty initially white, but gradually turning a dusty pink before drying to a caramel color.  I look forward to pruning dried bouquets to add to arrangements in my house.  Enjoy!

So glad I went....

I am so glad that I went to the parade.  Smiling kids and a community of support for EHS....go Tigers!