The Scanner In this Issue: Teaching & Learning
Volume 2, Number 2
Page 2 Our Organization Page 3 Chair’s Message Page 4 Professionally Speaking Page 5 ISTE 2011: Unlocking Potential Page 6 SIGMS Playground Page 7
What is SIGMS? SIGMS provides a support network to school library media specialists and others in leadership positions who are working to promote the use of instructional technologies to enhance student learning. It provides a forum where we can consider and explore ways in which we can best use existing and emerging technologies to improve and enhance teaching and instruction, student learning and management, helping students and teachers become competent, critical and ethical users of information.
SIGMS Newsletter Guidelines Pages 8—10 Parent Partners in Digital Citizenship Page 12-15 Hybrary: Blended Learning Program Builds P21 Skills Page 15 ISTE 2011 Important Registration Dates
Second Life
Our Organization Executive Committee
Committee Chairs
Lisa Perez Chair Chicago Public Schools Dept of Libraries leperez1@cps.edu
Advocacy Kathy Sanders Taylor Prairie IMC Director kathy_sanders@mgschools. net
Maureen Sanders Brunner Chair-Elect Pike High School MSD Pike Township, Indiana mdsbrunner@gmail.com
International Librarianship Lesley Farmer California State University Long Beach lfarmer@csulb.edu
Shelee King George Vice Chair Peer-Ed skgeorge@peer-ed.com
Newsletter Carolyn Starkey Buckhorn High School admin@jojo-starkey.com
Laurie Conzemius Communications Chair Pine Meadow Elementary School conzemius@q.com
Webinar Jennifer Gossman Holy Redeemer jgossman@insightbb.com Andrea Christman Rosa Parks Middle School Andrea_L_christman@mcpsmd .org
Brenda Anderson Professional Development Chair Montgomery County Public Schools brendadanderson@gmail.com Joyce Valenza Member-at-Large Springfield Township High School Erdenheim, Pennsylvania joyce_valenza@sdst.org
Technology Innovation Award Tim Staal Michigan Association for Media in Education tstaal@gmail.com
QR Code for SIGMS Wiki http://sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/
Lisa Perez SIGMS Chair A Message from the SIGMS Chair Dear SIGMS Members: It’s been a long winter and I know we are all looking forward to the fresh beginnings promised in spring. Your SIGMS Executive Board and a host of volunteers have been hard at work each month to provide you with timely professional development, advocacy support, and opportunities to network with your colleagues. Recently, we concluded our SIGMS “Winter Huddle” – a monthly series of online conversations about librarianrelated technology topics that took place in our ISTE Community Ning group. Four of our randomly-selected members won professional books as prizes. It is never too late to join these discussions or to start your own topic. If you are not yet a member, you can join the Ning group at http://www.iste -community.org/group/sigms.
In addition, we have been engaged in collecting nominations for the Technology Innovation Award. This award recognizes two outstanding teams – one elementary level and one high school level – of collaborating librarians and classroom teachers who have co-taught an exemplary, technology-integrated unit of instruction. Currently, our SIGMS award committee is hard at work evaluating the
Chad Lehman, Wendy Stephens, and Joyce Valenza. These librarians exemplify the concept of a robust library program that seamlessly integrates technology with the curriculum. We could likely write a book about all of the good work done by SIGMS members in their library programs. You can access the article at http:// sigms.iste.wikispaces.net or at http://www.iste.org/learn/ publications/learning -and-leading.aspx.
sigms submissions and selecting our winners. Watch for a formal announcement about our award winners in upcoming weeks. Also this month, ISTE’s “Learning & Leading” magazine featured an article written by me that showcases four of our outstanding SIGMS librarians – Keisa Williams,
Finally, for months now, the SIGMS Executive Committee has been hard at work planning for ISTE 2011 in Denver. In upcoming weeks, you’ll continue to receive detailed information about how you can participate in person and/or virtually. I am proud to be a part of such a professionally uplifting group of members and I look forward to seeing many of you in Philadelphia!
Brenda Anderson Professional Development Chair Professionally Speaking Catapulting into the 21st century and beyond is the topic for the ISTE SIGMS free monthly webinar series for May. This one-hour learning opportunity takes place in the comfort of your home and addresses technology and instructional needs of library media specialists. It is a great way to virtually meet other professionals and build your personal learning network (PLN). Attendees come from all over the United States and there are also some brave international attendees getting up early to attend. In additional to the rich content provided by the speakers, the webinar chats are filled with helpful suggestions, links to resources, and insight from the attendees.
ing doesn’t have to stop after the webinar. So attend, make connections and share. And don’t forget to take advantage of the half hour 1 Tool at a Time webinars which feature one technology tool to add to your tool belt.
If you can’t attend, the webinars are always recorded and the archived sessions are available at the SIGMS wiki. The expert speakers also provided their slide sets and additional resources. The learn-
Archived Events
ISTE SIGMS Webinar Series http://sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/Webinars
Upcoming Event
The 1 Tool At a Time: Build Your Toolbelt webinar series is brought to you monthly by ISTE's SIGMS and SIGILT. Each webinar lasts for 30 minutes and focuses on a particular tool. Classroom integration strategies are highlighted and there is time for discussion.
May 16th, 2011 8 PM Eastern, 7 PM Central 6PM Mountain, 5 PM Pacific Topic: Catapult into the 21st century and Beyond Presenter: Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano
2010-2011 and 2009-2010 Webinars are available on the SIGMS wiki at http:// sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/ Webinars.
Previews of the upcoming 1 Tool at a Time events as well as archives of previous events can be accessed at http://1toolatatime.wikispaces.com
ISTE SIGMS Events Calendar To stay in the know about all the useful, professional development that SIGMS provides, just bookmark the SIGMS Events calendar: http://sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/
Laurie Conzemius Communications Chair ISTE 2011: Unlocking Potential ISTE 2011, Unlocking Potential, is fast approaching! We are planning many exciting SIGMS events and activities – and we hope that you’ll be joining us in Philadelphia, June 26-29, 2011. In preparation for the conference, your first stop is the ISTE Conference Ning – a great social networking site for all ISTE attendees (and anyone wishing they could attend!) Visit http:// www.iste2011.org/ and be sure to join the SIGMS group so you can get in touch with all your friends and stay informed of what’s happening. Next stop: the conference registration page at http:// www.isteconference.org/2011/. While you’re there be sure to register for these two powerhouse events, which have very limited attendance: SIGMS Forum: There is No Better Time: A Dawning Era for School Librarians Presenter: Doug Johnson w/ a
panel of stellar librarians Tue, June 28 10:30am-12:30pm SIGMS Breakfast & Annual Meeting: Swimming in the Flow Presenter: Will Richardson Wed, June 29 8:00am-9:30am
June 26. This is a great time to visit with your SIGMS leadership – so be sure to stop by! Another fun social event is the Birds of a Feather session held on Monday night. Hosted by Proquest, this event allows us to network in a less formal setting. Specific room and time will be sent through all SIGMS channels. Of course a highlight of the conference is our SIGMS Playground, held 8:00 – 4:00 on Monday, June 27. If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please fill out the Google spreadsheet at: http:// bit.ly/eRBYl6.
There is no extra fee for the Forum or the Breakfast. However, only those who have registered will be admitted. These sessions have been extremely popular and you won’t want to miss them: be sure your name is on the list! In addition to the Forum and Breakfast, watch for more information about the SIG Fair to be held on Sunday,
I have found that I am even more engaged and excited about an ISTE Conference when I am involved as a volunteer. We’d love to have YOU join us in volunteering at the Playground, or in any other capacity in SIGMS. It’s a great place to be! Please stop by and greet us at one of these conference events: we look forward to seeing you at ISTE 2011!
Maureen Brunner SIGMS Playground Chair ISTE 2011 SIGMS Playground Chair It is time to start planning the 21st Century Media Center Playground event at ISTE 2011. If you are looking for an easy way to get involved at the conference, grow your PLN, and share your mad 21st Century skills with others, please consider volunteering.
Here is how it works.
Sign up to be a part of the 21st Century Playground at ISTE 2011 by completing this quick volunteer form. https:// spreadsheets.google.com/ccc? key=0AhPQGOlYOgPjdDl6Xzl RWXBRZ1dsU1FFY2NpU2VZdl E&hl=en&authkey=CPOw_YIL #gid=0 or http://bit.ly/eRBYl6
Going to ISTE 2011? Play Well With Others? We Need YOU to Help Build the Playground!
* The Playground will be open from 8:00am to 4:00pm on Monday, June 27th * Volunteers sign up for two hour sessions * Eight awesome stations will be set up for conference attendees to explore best practices using engaging instructional technologies.
* Sessions may feature technologies
such as interactive whiteboards, tablet computers, eBooks, wikis, blogs, social networking, CPS systems, social bookmarking, digital research and inquiry tools, audio/ video production, etc.. * Everyone plays and has a lot of FUN!
We look forward to meeting and working with you!
Carolyn Starkey Newsletter Committee Chair SIGMS Newsletter Guidelines The SIGMS Scanner is the newsletter of ISTE's special interest group for library media specialists and related school leaders working to promote the use of instructional technologies to enhance student learning. This newsletter will feature SIGMS business items, SIGMS professional development alerts, member article submissions, personal success stories, and links to great resources. We will be publishing 3 newsletters this year.
Issue Themes Winter (January 2011) Tools of the Trade Spring (March 2011) Teaching and Learning Pre-Conference (June 2011) Professional Development Policy Issues
Deadlines Deadlines associated with The Scanner may be found on the SIGMS wiki at http:// sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/ SIGMS+Scanner+Newsletter+Gui delines.
Article Proposals
Proposals for feature and short articles should be 100 words or less and submitted through this Googledoc form: https:// spreadsheets.google.com/ viewform? hl=en&formkey=dFppbmwtT1 9EM3pIcm1SYmxBVk9iVUE6M Q#gid=0
Article Lengths
a) Feature articles and personal success stories should be between 500 and 1,000 words. A maximum of 2 photos and/or graphics may be submitted with the article. b) Short articles of less than 500 words are welcome. These articles may be accompanied by 1 photo or graphic. c) A new feature will be a "What's Your Opinion?" column where SIGMS members will be asked to express their views on a hot topic in 50 words or less.
Final Submissions After notification of acceptance, final versions of articles and other submissions should be submitted to sigms.newsletter@gmail.com.
Information Additional information regarding SIGMS Scanner submissions should addressed to sigms.newsletter@gmail.com.
Nancy White 21st Century Learning and Innovation Specialist Parent Partners in Digital Citizenship Academy School District 20 in Northern Colorado Springs is a mid-sized district serving mostly middle class families including many military families. We are fortunate to have a supportive parent community, and we work to build relationships with our parents in various ways. One initiative, Parent Academies, is a series of information sessions, classes and workshops geared to help educate parents on district initiatives and programs. Parent Academies proved to be a perfect venue for our ITEducational Services team to address an action step in our district's 21st Century Learning Plan, to “provide professional development for teachers and parents to help them better understand internet safety issues.” IT-ES director Michael Doub realized that this was an opportunity not only to address important safety issues, but also to help educate parents on the broader spectrum of digital citizenship. The rest of our team eagerly signed on: Lori Hartman, technology specialist, Linda Conway, information
literacy specialist, Christine Schein, coordinator of schools of Innovative Learning and Technology, and me, 21st Century Learning and Innovation Specialist. Our team was determined to give parents opportunities for hands-on, active participation while clarifying issues and facts related to myths and misconceptions surrounding social media and Web 2.0 tools. This allowed us to model appropriate teaching strategies as well as build important background knowledge regarding Internet safety for children. We opened our event with a quiz using e-Instruction “clickers.” Our questions were
designed with the dual purpose of dispelling myths while helping parents to see the larger dangers to students, and to get them thinking about things they can and should do to help keep their children safe. We assembled a panel of experts to offer detailed information on each question and answer, the research or statistics behind it, and experiences they have had in their different roles. The panel was facilitated by Michael Doub, and included our Chief Information Officer, Shelley Kooser, Director for Internet Security, Barry Young, a member of the local police task force on internet sex crimes, Kent Clayton, along with a school librarian and a technology teacher. Parents were engaged in thinking about the facts and statistics through the use of the clickers, resulting in thoughtful questions and discussion. Following this introductory activity, parents were offered three separate breakout sessions: Cyberbulling, district internet access policies, and Surfing Safety.
“We couldn’t have planned this; the
impact on the other parents in the room was powerful.” Academy School District 20 How to Talk to Your Kids was a 30 minute session inspired by Net Cetera's booklet, Chatting with Kids About Being Online. We highlighted points from the booklet, but used much of this time to discuss what the research reveals as the most prevalent problem facing kids and teens- cyberbullying. During our high school parent session, students joined us to offer their viewpoint and experience, and to respond to parent questions. The parents appreciated this opportunity to interact with the students. We also shared information on digital footprints, and the positive aspects of using social media. Most parents didn’t know what a wiki was, however one parent of a 3rd grader whose teacher maintains a classroom wiki shared her concern that the 4th grade teachers weren’t using wikis. She explained how wonderful it is for her daughter to share work online and
get comments and feedback from parents and classmates. She loves the tool as a way of following classroom activities. We couldn’t have planned this; the impact on the other parents in the room was powerful. Another breakout session
featured in-depth conversation with our expert panel. Parents were able to learn about what the community and district have in place to help students be safe online, and what it means to be digital citizens. Community internet safety initiatives were
shared. Our CIO presented the overall view and philosophy of internet access. The district’s computer security director talked about how the web filter works, and our librarians and technology specialists shared the strategies they use to teach and integrate internet safety with the curriculum. Our schools use a variety of programs, often selecting from many of the free online programs. We have a district subscription to iSafe, but schools also use resources from Netsmartz, Cybersmart and others. We also emphasize taking advantage of “teachable moments” and teachers try to constantly model the thinking process when searching for information, evaluating information, and posting information online. The Surfing Safely breakout session was designed to help Continued on page 10
Nancy White 21st Century Learning and Innovation Specialist Parent Partners in Digital Citizenship Continued from page 9 parents learn how to set safety features in Google, YouTube, and the Windows operating system, as well as to provide information on how to access, decipher, and set up Facebook privacy settings. Additionally, parents were introduced to Windows Family Safety, a free, downloadable module in Windows Live. Parents were shown how to set up user accounts for various household members, and how to customize security settings for each. Detailed handouts were provided so that parents could go home and implement the strategies they had learned. Throughout the session, other “non-
technical� strategies were highlighted regarding how to talk as a family about issues like what to do if their children come across inappropriate content on the web, what to do if they are contacted via
whelmingly positive. Following the first round of sessions in the fall, we received numerous requests to offer these again. We believe we are helping to educate our parents on Digital Citizenship and feel our program is stronger by enlisting parents as partners in helping prepare students for the digital world. Quizzes and other resources for parents can be found on our wiki:
the Internet by someone they don’t know, and how to use a family Facebook page to begin discussions about appropriate online privacy and creating a positive digital image. The response from our Parent Academy sessions on Digital Citizenship has been over-
http:// d20internetsafetyforparents.wikispaces.com/ Contact Information: Nancy White Academy School District 20 nancy.white@asd20.org
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Michelle Luhtala Library Dept. Chair, New Canaan High School Hybrary: For school librarians, engaging learners with research instruction can prove challenging. Practitioners frequently voice concern over having the Charlie Brown “Wahh-WahhWahh” effect on students when introducing research instruction. The word databases can incite a collective groan from classes. To minimize one-size fits all teaching, reduce the yawn-factor, and provide on-demand instructional services, my colleague Christina Russo and I shifted our library program to a blended online/face-to-face format in 2008. Our district had recently embraced Moodle as a course management system, and we began uploading our lessons there. Over the past two years, we’ve added much content, and embedded pre and post assessments for assured experiences to measure student learning. This helps us target learners who need support while giving independent
learners the autonomy to practice self-direction. Each research lesson provides students with collaboration and communication space in a discussion forum. We also offer editing rights to our town reference librarians, encouraging them to contribute to our pathfinders. Our online lessons include a narrative component, direct links, and multimedia instruction. The impact of the library’s Moodle content has been transformational, not only for student learning, but also for classroom teachers, demonstrating for them its effect as an instructional tool. It is well documented that millennials are participatory learners. The impact of technology immersion on developing brains is of great interest to education stakeholders. Young people produce, mix and mash-up content in their in their online social world, but they don’t easily transfer the culture of contribution to
their academic world. At New Canaan High School, we implemented the blended program to help nudge that culture shift along. Early on, we had to enlist the help of classroom teachers to require students to share research and post comments in the online research threads, but we found last fall that it was (finally) starting to occur organically. Students have been independently opening collaborative threads in the discussion boards and exchanging information online, peer-to-peer. In its framework, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) outlines a list of essential skills for millennial citizenship. In order to measure student growth in these areas, my colleague Christina Russo and I designed several pre and post assessments, which we administered to students through the online courseware as homework, thus minimizing impact on instructional and computer lab time.
P21 Skills
“It is well documented that millennials are participatory learners.”
Blended Learning Program Builds P21 Skills After completing a formal research paper in social studies last fall, 11th grade students, in their open-ended responses to the “What did I learn” question on their post-
assessment, articulated growth in several areas, some of which were easy to correlate to the aforementioned P21 skill set. As the chart below indi-
cates, students found that this assignment supported learning in several critical P21 areas. But it did not help build interpersonal skills – Continued on page 14
Skills Comparison Chart – 11th Grade Research Post-Assessment Legend
Michelle Luhtala Library Dept. Chair, New Canaan High School Hybrary: leadership, cross-cultural, flexibility, and collaboration. Nor did students find that they improved their technology literacy. Though adaptability, creativity, innovation and media literacy were not explicitly addressed in students’ open-ended responses, it is hard to imagine that this assessment did not provide an opportunity to at least practice these skills. The gap in interpersonal skills building prompted us to rethink our courseware use. Clearly, in this instance, it failed to promote all the collaborative skills we had in mind when we launched the program two years ago. Students were, once again, working individually – not socially. When asked why, students said they didn’t like the Moodle content, found it too confusing to navigate, didn’t like logging on. So as we began collaborating with English teachers on the spring research paper (our students
complete two in their junior year – one in social studies and one in English), we changed to a new platform. Instead of posting our lessons on Moodle, which requires authentication, we chose Blogger. We linked the account with the library’s webpage, Twitter account and Facebook page for synchronicity and ease of access, and we moved all of our online discussion activity to a Facebook group, which we then linked back to the assignment’s post. Our students see three significant improvements in this shift: 1) they don’t have to log on, 2) it includes embedded podcasting tools that will read the text to them (Audiogo), and 3), it is much easier to locate assignment instructions thanks to the embedded search field. As our 11th graders began working on their second junior research paper and completing its pre-assessment, we shared the above skills com-
parison chart with them via the new blog. By inviting them into the skills evaluation process, we aim to increase their awareness of a) the skills they should be developing, b) the purpose of the pre and post assessments, c) possible gaps in their learning, and d) the long-term value of synthesizing complex research into original writing. We believe this will encourage them to be more reflective about their learning. Their postassessment will provide further opportunity to reflect. The online library (Moodle/ Blogger) chronicles our students’ learning journey. It is fluid, responsive, and relevant to the tasks our students are working on. It is fueled solely by the curriculum in our school. Depending on this pilot’s outcome, we may migrate all of our Moodle content to Blogger. We’ve tried it with several projects, and student feedback is overwhelmingly positive. The hardcore Moodle
“The gap in interpersonal skills
P21 Skills
building prompted us to rethink our courseware use.“
Blended Learning Program Builds P21 Skills -using teachers are skeptical, but the others love it. It is much easier to collaborate with the town librarians, and share lessons with parents and members of the outside
community. Whether or not the platform changes, our objective stays the same – to strengthen students P21 skills, extend library services, provide 24/7 content support,
and minimize the “WhaaWhaa-Whaa” effect. Contact Information: Michelle Luhtala New Canaan High School mluhtala@me.com
ISTE 2011 Important Registration Dates March 31 Super Early-Bird registration deadline
May 1 Early-Bird registration deadline
June 10 Mail registrations close
June 17 Web/phone/fax registrations close
June 25–29 Onsite registration at Pennsylvania Convention Center
ISTE SIGMS The Scanner Volume 2 Number 2