Whither the Postmodern Library?

Oh my William H. Wisner certainly does have his undies in a bundle. He gets so carried away with his rhetoric that I am afraid his meaning is lost. I was very confused by some of his writings. And what is it with The Pearson Integrated Humanities Program. Students actually got credit for this? It sounds all so very cult-ish and I would hate to think I had to sit through hours of 3 professors talking poetry with each other.....with no apparent curriculum or syllabus.....whatever their whim was their discussion.....Oh my goodness but the Spring Waltz certainly sounded romantic. He so eloquently waxed and waned on it enough...sorry I missed it.

When I first began to read his book I thought some of his ideas were sound and true, in many ways, to how I feel about libraries and librarians. I was increasingly more shocked and appalled as I read on. The man surely has some strong opinions and he is not afraid to state them.....I was wondering.........did he had to pay to have his book published? As he becomes more rabid, his writing becomes more disjointed and confusing. And I was really befuddled with all the talk of his father and his relationship with his father. And what of Mom?? She would drop him off at the public library when he was six or so.....all day.....unsupervised.....and leave him all day??

I did not and do not understand why his childhood literature is so painful to him?? Why?? I have always felt joy when sharing my favorite books as a child to both of my children and my classrooms of children. I may feel a bit nostalgic but that is to be expected with any of the wonderful memories you have of your childhood. I have read Wind in the Willows many times as a child and as an adult, to myself and to children. I do not understand his dread of this delightful children's book. Maybe it goes back to his days of being dropped off at the library, all alone, in the quiet (even if that quiet is timeless), without someone to share it with.

That is enough for now. I will continue this at a later date when my brain has had time to reflect more on these writings. I can't wait for class discussion to shed insight on some of his musings.

Web design

Well I have discovered another talent that I am sadly lacking......I am sure I can learn and become more comfortable with web design.....but not right now. I have a GeoCities website somewhere out there. I set one up for a tech course I was taking and then conveniently forgot about it....years ago I am afraid. Also in the Intel I course was PowerPoint and the finer points of Publisher, so I really did learn a lot ..... just not in Web Design.

My son has created many web pages......of varying interests. His best was on Haunted Houses and such. My daughter...a NYC girl ... has her own domain, but she had someone design that for her. She does keep it updated and it is soooo funny. Very much her own thing.

I can add a webpage under my school's web site. This is the only way I would do it right now. I may go and browse around on it and see if anything prods me into action. I doubt if it will but I will give it a shot.

Well our school web site is sadly out of date. It lists a librarian that has been gone a year, the 2006-07 TOY (we have just selected our 2008-09 TOY), and includes a 2006-07 calendar. I don't feel quite so prehistoric as I did before I checked. ha

Maybe next year..........or not........

Action Project thoughts (email to Dr. Rob)

I am planning face-to-face one-on-one or two-on-one mentor/mentee
> type training to get everyone on an even playing field. A teacher
> of moderate skill level will work with teachers who feel they are
> on a low to needy level. We only have one person at my school who
> feels like he is working on a high level of skill with SBs. These
> will be after our Easter break. Once everyone has a good
> understanding of the basic tools and basic SmartBoard usage, I have
> planned whole group training provided by our Director of Technology
> and Media Services. We will either do this in a few afternoon
> sessions, or (hopefully) on a Saturday.
>
> All of our classroom teachers have SBs. Some have had them since
> last year and received summer training if they were able to
> attend. Some received SBs this year with no real training at all
> other than what a neighbor has shown them or a few 15 to 20 minute
> whole-group mini-sessions (two to be exact). New staff who came in
> after school began are really at sea about all the boards can do.
>
> We have just gotten more technology this past week. Our principal
> (bless his heart and soul) has gotten Clicker sets, to be housed in
> the library, for the upper grades and AirLiner boards for all
> classrooms. (I am proud to say I was about the only staff member
> who knew what these were...thanks to our class and our cohort.) We
> are going to need training on these that can be incorporated into
> the SB training. We had about 20 minutes of training on each of
> these as a whole group. They will not be up and running until the
> county tech-team can install the software computer by computer
> (because of the deep freeze on the computers).
>
> Our librarian can troubleshoot most problems with our SB but he
> does not know how to use one. I think the training will certainly
> be an asset for him because it will enable to use this technology
> with his students. He will also be able to go into the classrooms
> and use this technology with students.
>
> I want to continue with the broadcasting project. I would like to
> see the whole school connected via SBs with the library being the
> MotherShip. It would be the studio from which the students (junior
> tech team....junior news team....junior reporters...something like
> this)along with the librarian, tech people (person) and classroom
> teachers, broadcast. Eventually perhaps the team could become a
> roving team.
>

The Machine Stops

I was fascinated by the short story The Machine Stops. I have always enjoyed Science Fiction/Fantasy but this story was amazing because of when it was written. I would have thought it to be contemporary SF. It was also really depressing. There was no quality of life. People did not leave their room----they barely even left their chairs. No family ties, no face-to-face socialing, little sensory enjoyment, no ambition, no recreation as we know it.....nothing real except what you could get virturally from the chair, in your room, all alone. This is not living, this is just existing. I do realize the woman was content with this. She had her lectures and her contacts but she also had such fears of the outside, which wasn't even outside but inside. There was little to no emotional ties with her son, who, bless him, tried to make a better life for himself and even tried to include his mother, but her world (her life) had just become too small.

As the machine began to fail and the world as they knew it became smaller and less comfortable, the people just accepted it. They made calls and complaints, but nothing was ever fixed or improved. The people changed their outlooks and their lives to fit their world as it became less and less and less. They did not communicate with each other. They did not try to escape. They did nothing but sit there and let the time pass until the machine finally stopped and the world ended for them. How depressing!!

I grew up in a big, rambling house outside of town. As my brother, two sisters, and I grew up and moved away, we always returned to the big house for family get-togethers. After my dad passed away, Mother stayed in the big house, but she lived in 'less' of it. She closed off some of the rooms not being used. As her health began to fail, she once again lived in 'less' of her house--she moved her bedroom into the den. By the end of her life she was living in barely three rooms of her big, rambling house. She rarely left her three rooms unless it was for a visit to a doctor. This was not from want of us trying to get her out. She would rarely leave her comfort zone. We brought everything she needed or wanted to her. So I can see how people can give up all independence and live on the whims of others. But I sure don't understand it. I do not foresee a world such as was in the story or a world such as the one chosen by my mother.

Portfolio questions and other thoughts

I am on my way with my project but I am a little concerned with the portfolio part. I do have some notations of meetings with the principal and librarian. I also have the email I sent out and the replies I received. I have collected several interesting websites for SmartBoard ideas and I have talked with different teachers about helping with some faculty training. But is this enough?? I am not sure. It is what it is. I will continue to research and make notations on meetings and discussions with different people. I really am not sure what is expected. This will be a question to discuss in group and/or in class.

Had to write in pink because Spring is just around the corner. We enjoyed Read Across America today. The children love to play the games at Seussville.com. They have some very easy games and some not so easy so all my children could play something. I think the matching game was the favorite of the day. We will continue to visit this site all week. We invited the PreSchool class to our room to hear some Seuss books and to also play on the Seussville games. They do not have a computer for the children to work on in their class......I had no idea......This is shameful. **Need to see principal and librarian about this.** Maybe this could be a mini-action project.....to get this class a computer....

Reflections on case study and other thoughts

Our giroup met in the classroom on Thursday night and worked on the case study. It was much harder than I thought it would be. We work very well as a group and seemed to have similar thoughts and opinions. All of us are classroom teachers and herein perhaps the problem lay. We all felt most of the problem fell right at the principal's feet. She was an ineffective and inefficient leader and failed to communicate her desires for these two new hires. Would we have felt differently if we were administrators.......I don't think so but.......maybe.

I don't see how this case study has relevance to me in the MLS program.....I can't imagine I would ever have to deal with faculty problems such as this. Nonetheless, it brought our group together in a thinking and working situation. So that is a good thing. (And I can say with certainty that I have NO desire to ever go into administration.)

My project is going along well. I have received a bit more feedback on my faculty poll. I don't want to belabor the point, but I will probably send out another email to see if a few more people will reply. You know teachers.....sometimes they need gentle reminders. I work with great people so I don't think they will be annoyed with me .... yet. Once I have more input I believe I can go back to my principal and talk with him about what the faculty would like to learn and to do with our SmartBoards. He is so supportive in this endeavor that I hope he won't be too disappointed when he hears the teachers really would like more training first and then they may become more excited about our broadcasting with them. I do need to research a bit more on training options since there is so many different levels of SmartBoard knowledge within the staff.