Absolute can be defined as "expressing finality with no implication of possible change;" that which is "pure, perfect, or complete."
As I grow older, I realize that there are few absolutes in life - and this is a good thing. Without absolutes, there is always the possibility of new ideas, deeper understanding, and broader knowledge.
Mentors are simultaneously mentees; students and teachers can become co-learners; old dogs might acquire new tricks.
Everything becomes a work in progress. The journey is the destination.
A twitter friend, William Chamberlain, commented to me today, "I really need to learn more about that period [the 1960s] since it is really affecting our culture today." Later in the day, P.F. Anderson used the phrase "Singing rocks of Greece." These two seemingly unrelated tweets resurrected a long-forgotten family story.
On July 19, 1968, Life Magazine published a feature about "Young American Nomads Abroad." Reporter Thomas Thompson visited the Greek Island of Crete, where he found "40 or 50 caves filled with young people," one of whom called himself "Juan Proteus."
There are levels of isolation here. At the outer edge is Juan Proteus, an American, 24, thin, blond, who has lived for a year on Crete. Hardly anyone knows him because his cave is across the bay from the colony, halfway up a cliff, reachable only by a good climb that you feel quickly in the backs of your legs. You can see Juan, though, because he sits outside his cave much of the day, and if you walk on the sea rocks below him, you can hear his exquisite guitar music.
I caught up with Juan as he carried water back from the village. I introduced myself and wondered if he would talk to me. “I wouldn’t have anything to say,” he said. He sat down and started playing the guitar. It sounded like Scarlatti, but he had written it himself. He. told me he had gone to Annapolis, then to Hunter. He pointed to Mount Ida, which you could see in the distance across the sea, and told me it was where Zeus had been born. His cave was neatly swept; he had built a bed. There were no books, no radio. There were the beginnings of a wall of stone he was putting up outside his cave. He spoke in the manner of a man who had not talked in a long while; the words were dry and few.
“Why have you stayed so long?”
“I don’t think they’re gonna drop the bomb on Crete,” he said. “It’s not of strategic importance.”
“Are you going back to America, ever?”
“It would be a cultural shock to go back...What’s gonna happen is gonna happen. All the rest is irrelevant.”
Was his last name really Proteus? “Yes.”
Many days later, when I could find a book on Greek mythology, I looked up “Proteus.” It said: “The prophetic old man of the sea; he knew all things, past, present, future, but disliked telling what he knew. Those who wished to consult him had first to surprise and bind him during his noonday slumber in a cave beside the sea...”
My father showed me this article, and kept a copy of the magazine tucked away on a shelf in his bedroom closet. The enigmatic Juan Proteus was, in fact, my mother's nephew, my first cousin. He was an intelligent young man from a loving family. After asthma ended his sojourn at Annapolis, he began what must have been a personal quest for meaning. His journey finally ended in Hawaii: when a hiking companion was injured on Molokai, Juan went for help, and was never seen again. It is presumed that he fell from a cliff and his body was washed out to sea.
Although I know his birth name, I won't reveal it here. Juan Proteus is the identity he chose, and I will honor it.
Those of you who are on Facebook must be aware of the campaign to post cartoon avatars as a protest against child abuse.
Recently there have been warnings - with vague mentions of the FBI - that these cartoons are being used by pedophiles to mask their identity and make contact with children.
Snopes addresses both these issues, and reminds us that:
"Real problems don't disappear as a consequence of 'slacktivism;' they're fought through the mechanism of donation of time and/or money. The character one needs display to the world is not that of a cartoon, but of a benefactor."
A further note regarding adult online predators
Police agencies and family safety groups (as well as purveyors of child safety software) warn parents that
"Sexual predators do exist and are a very real threat. They target both boys and girls of all ages and use the anonymity of the Internet to their advantage since they can be whomever they want. Many are master manipulators with skills that can cripple any child's sense of awareness." -Family Safe Computers
How real is this threat?
"While the abduction, rape, and killing of children by strangers is very, very rare, such incidents receive a lot of media coverage, leading the public to overestimate how common these cases are. Most sexually abused children are not victims of convicted sex offenders nor Internet pornographers, and most sex offenders do not re-offend once released. This information is rarely mentioned by journalists more interested in sounding alarms than objective analysis." -Predator Panic: Reality Check on Sex Offenders
Based on his research studies, David Finkelhor, head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, testified at Congressional hearings that
"...the public's perception of Internet pedophiles tricking children into revealing personal information and then stalking or abducting them is false. Most Internet sex crimes begin with weeks of explicit conversations that exploit a teen's sexual curiosity and desire for romance and adventure...To prevent these crimes, we have to take on more awkward and complicated topics and start with an acceptance of the fact that some teens are curious about sex and looking for romance and adventure...prevention efforts should focus on educating teens about drawbacks of a sexual message" (Foster's Online, 7/25/07, linked from CCRC in the News)
So...change your avatar, if you like, but back up your convictions with RL advocacy.
"And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect." -Seth Godin
Voting is now open for the 2010 Edublog Awards, a yearly opportunity to acknowledge the blogging and tweeting efforts of educators who choose to connect and share online.
The "Best librarian / library blog" category is a roll call of some (but by no means all) of the best and brightest in my field. I am happy to note, however, that teacher/librarians, and their sites, appear under a number of other headings:
I believe that these nominations reflect a necessary broadening of our profession's vision and a continuing commitment to explore new ways to better serve our students and staff members.
Vote for excellence, not for job titles, but be proud of those nominees who represent TLs in this very public forum.
Good luck to my friends and colleagues: Buffy, Carolyn, Cathy, Doug, Gwyneth, Joyce, Shannon, and all the rest of our Tribe.
"There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas Edison
P.S. I've been nominated for Best Individual Tweeter. If you feel it's warranted, I'd appreciate your vote!
History can be defined as "the aggregate of past events," but also as "the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings."
It's the human element which sometimes gets lost.
I've recently come across two options for exploring family histories, one digital, the other, at least in its initial stages, very low tech.
Our local newspaper shared a project called "the memory jar." According to blogger Carol McDowell, of Burlington, Vermont, "the best Christmas gift" she ever received started with a jar full of questions and a journal in which to record the answers. McDowell placed 52 slips of paper, each with its own question, in a decorated Mason jar and asked 89-year-old Ruth McDowell to answer one each week, then return the completed journal to her granddaughter for a Christmas gift.
"My grandmother loves to tell stories, so she not only did the questions, she pasted in old pictures and newspaper bits that she had saved. I ended up with a most cherished piece of her that I probably would never had known and she enjoyed every minute of doing it."
While McDowell's project involved paper and pen, a new website, Proust, offers the opportunity to digitally archive the same sort of information.
Still in beta, Proust aims to help people "discover stories you never knew about your family and friends, gain insights you'll long cherish, and enjoy sharing your own memories." A few of the sample questions might seem a bit trite: What did your mom always pack in your lunch? but such details make up the fabric of a person's life and may, in fact, serve as the key to unlock deeper truths.
Proust is a free service; information is kept private, only shared with chosen family members and friends. Individuals can use questions from the site or substitute their own queries, with the option of adding images or video clips.
The Memory Jar project and Proust share a common goal: to capture and preserve personal history. Imagine the power of combining the two! Ms. McDowell could record reminiscences in her grandmother's own voice, scan the fragile clippings and photos, and preserve them all on Proust. Not only would they then be accessible to other family members, but there would be less danger that these artifacts might be lost or destroyed.
As the holidays approach, why not plan to initiate a Family History project, whether on Proust, Voicethread, Flickr or elsewhere? Create a gift that will have value long after the ornaments and tinsel have been packed away.
"Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future." -Gail Lumet Buckley
"If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me!" -George Macaulay Trevelyan
The holiday season is about to kick into high gear, and so is the energy level of students. Many schools, particularly at the elementary level, choose to schedule movie screenings as a fun group activity.
Unfortunately, this practice is illegal, in most instances.
Copyright and fair use regulations can be difficult to decipher. Tools like the Fair Use Evaluator recommend that users "collect, organize & archive the information you might need to support a fair use evaluation" while cautioning that "Only a court of law can definitively rule on whether a use is fair or unfair. This tool does not assume or predict a court outcome."
When it comes to movies, however, the rules are quite specific:
"the showing of copyrighted motion pictures (videos and DVD's) outside of a classroom educational setting (including such uses as after school programs, student rewards, rainy days, lunch hour movies, summer camps, clubs, assemblies, staffing emergencies and idle periods between state testing) constitutes copyright infringement." -Showing Movies at School
There are some exceptions:
Under the "Educational Exemption" copyrighted entertainment movies may be shown in a school without copyright permission only if all criteria are met:
A teacher or instructor is present
The showing takes place in a classroom setting with only the enrolled students attending
The movie is used as an essential part of the core, current curriculum being taught. (The instructor should be able to show how the use of the motion picture contributes to the overall required course study and syllabus.)
The movie being used is a legitimate copy, not taped from a legitimate copy or taped from TV
Schools districts could, of course, obtain a Public Performance Site License or a One-Time License (as do public libraries) and eliminate any question of illegality.
I was recently contacted by a fellow teacher/librarian who was frustrated by administrators' response to the sharing of this information. They blatantly ignored it. My professional experience has been similar.
Teacher/librarians don't want to be perceived as "copyright cops." But we do feel that teaching and modeling good digital citizenship is part of our role as educators.
How can we preach responsible use to students when adults in authority fail to exhibit ethical behavior?
Wishing to build on this early, success, Buffy attempted to place an order for additional Kindles...and was blindsided by a new Amazon policy:
Due to strong customer demand, the current quantity limit is 3 Kindle devices per customer. We will forward your inquiry to the Kindle team and someone will contact you if we can meet your requirements and schedule.
A long phone conversation with customer service reps resulted in the same response. No exceptions for classrooms or libraries. Three per customer, period.
What has this policy accomplished for Amazon? In the short term, the loss of an order for 20-25 Kindles might seem an insignificant drop in the bucket. But there may be long term repercussions:
educators who have been debating the relative merits of Kindles, Nooks, and other eBook readers might decide to choose the more school-friendly alternatives
students will purchase (or request as gifts) the device with which they are familiar
as the reader goes, so go the book purchases
This could well be a temporary, pre-Christmas, quota system, but if so, it would have been politic for Amazon to indicate this in response to Buffy's queries.
I have to wonder if Amazon is subtly (perhaps not so subtly) trying to discourage Kindle use by libraries in general, rather than make concessions regarding the lending of eBooks.
Visit The Unquiet Librarian blog and follow the progression for yourself: from enthusiasm to frustration; adoption to...alternatives?
What are you thinking, Amazon? Really.
"CVHS Student Caitlyn Checks Out the First Unquiet Library Kindle" by theunquietlibrary
I've always had a difficult time choosing the "best" of anything - books, movies, even desserts. Absolutes make me feel hemmed in, and I can usually imagine alternative scenarios that would justify a different response.
That said, I feel a responsibility to participate in the annual Edublog Awards. I read, enjoy, and learn from a variety of feeds in my Google Reader. It's time to recognize some of the bloggers who contribute to my personal and professional growth.
Here are my nominations for the 2010 Edublog Awards:
The blogs & sites that you want to nominate (must be linked to)
You can nominate:
For as many categories as you like,
But only one nomination per category,
A blog (or site) for more than one category
Any blog or site you like but not your own blogs (sites)
Step 2: Email us the link to your nomination post
Use the form (on the Edublogs Awards home page) to contact us, please include a genuine email address (spam free, just in case we need to confirm identity) and the link to your nominations post.
You can’t submit your nominations without writing a blog post
Please note: You will receive an automated email reply when you successfully complete the contact form.
An important part of being an educator is self-reflection. Please take this opportunity to review your RSS feeds and social networking sites, determine what content has proven valuable to your life as a learner, and acknowledge those who have influenced your thinking in a positive way.
Edmund Burke said that "Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting." I believe that the same is true of presenting.
As a teacher, I asked that my students practice self-reflection as an integral part of their learning. I wanted them to critically examine their work, to decide what was successful, what didn't quite make the grade, and how they might use their experience in constructing new knowledge.
On Monday, November 1, I presented my first webinar, Eyes to See, for the TL Virtual Cafe. One of the great benefits of using Elluminate as our venue is that the entire session is archived: slides, audio, chat, etc., so I was able to revisit the experience and "see" it from a number of perspectives.
After the initial shock of hearing my own voice, I started to notice speaking strengths and quirks. Pacing wasn't bad, not too many "uhs" but a previously undetected predilection for the word "now" as in "Now sometimes...Now this project..." which immediately brought to mind a sweet family memory. When my daughter was small, she would gather her toy ponies, unicorns, mermaids, and fairies, and begin weaving tales. Frequently the first word of these sagas was "Now..." Did she pick up on that from me, or did I unconsciously echo this totemic word when I began sharing stories with others? At any rate, it was a connection that made me smile.
The content of my slidedeck was appropriate, I felt, if limited by time constraints. In order to supplement and expand the resources shared in the webinar, I've started to build a wiki, Using Digital Images, which I hope will become a useful resource for myself and others.
I had wondered about the dynamics of a webinar. Practice runs left me worried that I would sound stilted, sitting alone and talking into a microphone. I found, however, that even though I couldn't see the faces of my audience, their presence was very real. The online interaction was lively, and it was nice to see familiar names popping up.
Most valuable to me, as both presenter and co-learner, were the comments in the chat section, which I had been unable to follow while speaking. Participants shared projects and links that deepened the conversation; they will provide a rich source of additional material for the wiki.
There were a few technical glitches, mainly due to a prior Elluminate session that hadn't properly exited the room, but the always incredible Gwyneth Jones, handled the situation with great aplomb and even created a special handout explaining how to access the archive.
What I Knew: I was familiar with the content of my slides and comfortable with the topic in general
What I Wanted to Know: How to effectively communicate in a new (to me) format
What I Learned: Practice sessions are important (thank goodness Gwyneth pointed out that an exterior microphone was vital!); an experienced hostess makes everything flow smoothly; webinars are fun!
That was then:
NYS-certified School Library Media Specialist;
online facilitator and research consultant for CyberSmart Education Company; photographer and author.
This is now: retired; world traveler; proud Nonna!
