1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age? (Are you not just making toilet brushes, but toilet brushes that satisfy the user’s aesthetic sensibilities as well?)

As a result of these trends, Pink believes we are shifting from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age – and that “right-brainers will rule the future.” Successful players in this new economy will increasing be required to develop and use the right-brain abilities of high concept (seeing the larger picture, synthesizing information) and high touch (being empathetic, creating meaning). Happy news, perhaps, for those of us who never were all that good the left-brain stuff in the first place.

More specifically, he suggests we work toward developing in ourselves (and I hope by implication, our students), six right brain “senses,” to complement our left-brain, analytic skills.

In the age of educational accountability, too many classrooms seem to be gearing all their instructional efforts to helping students master left-brain skills, since that is what standardized tests measure, of course. But to what extent as library media specialists do we and should we also be developing design sense, storytelling abilities, synthesis, empathy, humor and the ability to detect the importance of the information? How do we create true “life-long learners?”

Using Pink’s model, might libraries cultivate the skills needed by the “conceptual age” worker?

1. Not just function, but also DESIGN. “It’s no longer sufficient to create a product, a service, an experience, or a lifestyle that’s merely functional. Today it’s economically crucial and personally rewarding to create something that is also beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging.”

Library programs can:

• Introduce and read picture books. Study illustrators and their work, not just authors.
• Buy and promote graphic novels.
• Assess not just content, but appearance of student work.
• Teach visual literacy.
• Teach design principles as part of desktop publishing, multi-media presentations, web page development.

1. Not just argument, but also STORY. “When our lives are brimming with information and data, it’s not enough to marshal an effective argument… The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability also to fashion a compelling story.”

Library programs can:

• Ask for student writing using the narrative voice.
• Teach speaking skills.
• Use storytelling as a part of teaching.
• Give students opportunities to both hear and tell stories.
• Promote the reading of narratives – fiction, biography, and narrative non-fiction

1. Not just focus, but also SYMPHONY. “What’s in greatest demand today isn’t analysis but synthesis – seeing the big picture and, crossing boundaries, being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole.”

Library programs can:

• Help design classroom projects that cross disciplines.
• Ask for the application of skills and concepts to genuine problems.
• Ask for multiple sources of information when doing a research or information literacy activity.

1. Not just logic, but also EMPATHY. “What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.

Library programs can:

• Emphasize reading literature about people from other cultures and socio-economic groups.
• Give students service learning and volunteer opportunities – including as library volunteers.
• Give students the opportunity to take part as an actor in theater productions.
• Design group projects.

1. Not just seriousness, but also PLAY (“Ample evidence points to the enormous health and professional benefits of laughter, lightheartedness, games and humor.”

Library programs can:

• Teach with games. Provide access to both physical and online games.
• Use storytelling techniques that require action and music.
• Teach through riddles and jokes, and encourage students to create and tell them.

1. Not just accumulation, but also MEANING. “[Material plenty] has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.”

Library programs can:

• Share stories from comparative religion, myth and legend.
• Teach ethical behaviors as a part of every project.
• Ask for writings to include statements of personal values.

I will also be bold enough to add a seventh “sense” of my own to Mr. Pink’s list:

1. Not just knowledge, but also LEARNING. Unless a person develops both the ability and the desire to continue to learn new skills, to be open to new ideas, and to be ready to change practices in the face of new technologies, economic forces, and societal demands, he or she will not be able to successfully compete in a global economy.

Library programs can:

• Teach processes, not facts.
• Encourage students to research areas of personal interest (and tolerate a diversity of interests).
• Give students the ability to learn in non-traditional ways (online, early enrollment in college, apprenticeships) and support students in such learning environments.
• Provide access to a wide range of information sources.

Are you as surprised to see how many of these “right-brain” senses we are already expanding? I was.

Our society and educational system sadly sees many of the opportunities listed above which develop “conceptual age” skills as “extras” – frills that are often the first to be cut in times of tight budgets. It’s tragically ironic that we are doing a disservice to our students as future workers and citizens by doing so.

Library programs have always been proponents of “right-brain” skill development. It’s more important than ever that our programs address them.

Especially number five!

2007 Spring/Summer MACUL Journal

Consider these teachers and their technology professional development needs:

Judy has just come back to teaching after a ten-year stint as a stay-at-home mom. During new teacher orientation, she learns that she is now expected to keep her grades using a computerized grade book, take attendance online, read the staff bulletin as an e-mail attachment, use the district’s “mapping” software when writing curriculum, create all student materials using a word processor, and keep her classroom webpage current. There is also this strange looking device called an interactive white board in front of the room. “How, after only ten years,” she wonders, “can I feel so out of touch? And how do I learn to do all these things?”

Tom’s just about had it with the “personal narrative” unit in his writing class – he can’t get the kids interested. But he’s been reading that when students write for a wider audience than just the teacher, their level of concern and writing quality goes up. He thinks he’d like to try a class webblog so students can post their narratives and get reactions from other students. Ah, but where to start learning how to create and use a blog?

Juanita is a part of the site team that is responsible for the building improvement plan. One of the big tasks this year has been looking at student test scores and disaggregating the data for specific groups of students like English Language Learners. While the district uses a giant online data mining/data analysis program, its complexity baffles not just Juanita, but the rest of the site team as well - including the principal.

Do any or all of these scenarios sound familiar to you? Judy, Tom and Juanita are all modeled after real teachers in the Mankato (MN) schools, but can be found in any district across the country. Each of these teachers has a very real, but very different need for “technology” staff development experiences. To think that any one training program or approach will satisfy the requirements of all teachers in a district would be a mistake.

After helping teachers learn to use technology over the past 15 years, I have seen a pattern of technology growth emerge – from Personal Productivity to Upgrading Current Practices to Restructuring the Educational Environment. And our department has come to recognize that each stage requires its own model for professional development. Let’s look at each stage in a bit more detail. 

Personal Productivity

Computer “boot camp” has long been a staple of technology training in schools. Developing a series of often-required hands-on classes has been an efficient means of introducing teachers to fundamental computer operations and basic software. Our program is called CODE 77 - Computers On Desks Everywhere in District 77.  The core competencies the program teaches are listed in the Beginning CODE 77 rubrics <www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/rubrics2002.html#beg> and include fundamental skills such as file management, word processing use, and sending and receiving e-mail.

The aims of the Personal Productivity level of staff development training include:

• To give a novice computer user the fundamental skills needed to operate a computer and basic productivity software.
• To teach new teachers programs specific to our district such as online web authoring tools, computerized grade books, and the shared calendaring system.
• To introduce programs to teachers that might be of value to them, developing an understanding of the software application’s potential.

Over the past 15 years, our computer boot camps have changed, of course. All teachers have gone through an initial 12-hour basic training session when they received their first classroom computer. Now every five years teachers get a new computer and six hours of hands-on instruction on new programs, new operating systems and the advanced features of productivity programs. New teachers to the district currently receive a shorter version of the basic skills that emphasizes technology use that is specific to our district. And when a new product or program is launched in the district, such as a new grade book or the adoption of interactive white boards, special classes are developed.

This is standard fare for most districts and is a necessary part of the staff development program. But it stops short of helping teachers recognize the real power of technology.

Upgrading current practices

We have found that as teachers become more comfortable with using technology for their own personal productivity, they want to start using it with students to help empower them. The first step that that usually takes is what I call “The Technology Upgrade.” This is a traditional unit that is enhanced with the addition of a technology component. Examples can be found here.

For example, a teacher will add a multimedia presentation to a lecture to more clearly illustrate concepts and  heighten student interest. Teachers often require that student writing be word-processed since it is easily edited and can be placed on-line to allow peer review. Or a teacher may ask students to solve a math problem using a spreadsheet in which formulas and operations are clearly visible and which can chart and graph numbers.

When teachers start seeing possibilities for enhancing lessons and activities with technology applications, the philosophy of teacher training shifts from just-in-case the teacher needs to know this to just-in-time for the teacher to use the skill. The just-in-time model of technology training relies not on district-mandated classes, but on personal, individual learning opportunities which are most often one-to-one.

Whether from another teacher, a librarian, technology integration specialist, or student, the rudiments of most software programs can be learned in less than an hour – just enough to get one started. Online tutorials such as AtomicLearning can be a convenient and effective supplement to face-to-face instruction. Many teachers learn technology skills right along with their classes when a librarian or technology specialist collaboratively teaches the class. All of our librarians offer 30-minute voluntary classes after school when there is an interest. And then some teachers are genuinely independent learners who would prefer to be given a program with a decent manual and simply be given time to learn through trial and error.

Planning for and measuring the results of this approach to staff development is difficult. A district needs technology-savvy people who have the flexibility to meet with teachers when the need arises as well as a curriculum that encourages the integration of technology skills into the content areas.

Restructuring the Educational Environment

The final and most powerful stage of staff development is paradoxically when technology becomes a means of achieving a larger educational goal. School improvement is not really about improved technology use, but about giving students more powerful learning experiences, making children more effective problem-solvers, creating teaching methods that reach more students, and developing assessments and data use practices that inform instruction.

Learning technology is only a part of a larger professional growth target when the goal is restructuring some aspect of education – doing things in a fundamentally different way.  Learning to use a database should be a part of learning to do more effective assessments. Learning to use mind-mapping software such as Inspiration should be a part of learning better writing instruction practices. Learning to more effectively search the Web should be a part of learning to how to improve student research practices. Other examples can be found here. In other words, the focus should be on improving professional practices, not learning to use a computer.

Staff technology training now becomes far more teacher-directed and personalized. At this stage we see professional development happening in two ways: as a part of an individual teacher’s professional growth targets or at the request of our Professional Learning Communities, site teams or curriculum departments.

Professional Growth Targets have been a staple of our district’s staff development plan for some time. We encourage teachers when writing them to include a technology component that asks for the intended goal of the plan, activities the teacher will engage in to meet the goal, and the means by which the accomplishment of the goal will be demonstrated. Teachers themselves identify the skills and training needed to accomplish the goal.

The emerging pattern of staff development comes from teams of teachers who believe technology can help them reach their building or curriculum department goal. For our district, this means helping serve the needs of our Professional Learning Communities, each of which may have a different set of goals. But the common denominator among all goals is that they are tied back to a building or district goal. Since PLCs are relatively new to our district, we’ve not yet established a formal means of identifying and teaching their members technology skills, but are responding on an as-needed basis.

Most educators, including me, are better teachers than students. I’ll confess I have small patience with most classes and workshops whether they are about technology or anything else. Listening to a presenter often does little for me except help develop a strong empathy for our kids. But if we learn to structure technology training to suit individual adult learning styles and place it within the context of improving educational practices, teachers can and will become “technology-literate.”

…more than 10 million students, staff, faculty and alumni … are actively using Apps for Education - The Official Google Blog, 10/14/2010 <http://tinyurl.com/37xefq8>

• I lost my flash-drive with my homework on it.
• Our computer at home has a different software version than the computers at school so I can’t open my file.
• I was at my grandma’s house last night and my files weren’t on her computer.
• I can’t remember where I put my project.
• I ran out of storage space on my virtual drive.
• My computer’s hard drive failed and I lost my files.

• To give our students practice in using current communication and time-management technology applications.
• To give students access to common, no-cost tools both at school and outside of school.
• To facilitate the paperless transfer of work between students and teachers.
• To provide adequate (seven gigabyte as of this writing) long-term storage space for student and staff work.
• To help students and staff work collaboratively, engage in peer-editing of documents, and publish for a wider audience.

1. This is our chance to be technology gurus - again! We are not just teaching face-to-face staff development classes, but we serve as role models by sharing documents, collaborating, and using these tools as teachers ourselves. One doesn’t need to know much to be the “expert” in your school on GoogleApps - just be about five minutes ahead of everyone else* Such a reputation in a building is gold.
2. We teach students these tools as part of our information and technology curriculum, using GoogleDocs for activities we would have used desktop programs for in the past. We have also accepted major responsibility for helping students use these new resources safely and responsibly.
3. We create templates and tools to help students during the research process. We are finding GoogleApps less cumbersome than managing separate wikis, blogs, and other independent online tools for project-long documentation since everyone’s work is in the same place and is easy to organize.
4. We are the daily “go-to” support for students and staff members for one-on-one help with the apps including using Docs for file storage/portfolios, sharing documents for viewing and editing, and solving log-on/access/password problems.
5. We use the tools for our own library information gathering efforts - conducting surveys, tracking classes via shared calendars, and organizing data. Do a search on “library” or “books” in the templates section and you will be amazed by what librarians have already shared - schedules, forms, surveys, worksheets and dozens of other free and modifiable documents to give a head start on any task.
6. We use e-mail, Groups and chat for communication with our staff and students, making information available in real time - not just relying just on monthly newsletters.
7. We use GoogleDocs for curriculum writing, lesson planning, and collaboration with teachers and with other members of the library media department. We can use and model self-made video tutorials shared via GoogleVideo.

1. Type “Add graphic to signature file in GoogleMail” into the Google search engine box.
2. Select one of the first credible-looking hits.
3. Read the steps.
4. Try the steps out on my computer.
5. Reply to the person asking the question as though the answer was my own hard won discovery.

You can observe a lot by just watching. Yogi Berra

School libraries … receive good grades in national surveys, which indicate that 96-plus percent of Americans feel they are an essential part of the education experience because they provide resources to students and teachers and because they give every child the opportunity to read and learn.

1. Believes education is about teaching kids how to ask and answer questions, not just know the “right” answers and that asking good questions is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.
2. Believes kids should have access to a diversity of topics and points-of-view and be taught the skills to make informed opinions of their own. This should be as important to every parent, regardless of political affiliation.
3. Believes kids’ personal interests are legitimate areas of investigation and that curiosity is a trait worth cultivating. Kids who won’t read novels may well read books and magazines devoted to cars, video games or sports.
4. Believes it is as important to create kids who want to read as to simply create kids who can read and that everyone should read for pleasure. Whether the reading is done in books, magazines or online, fiction or factual, long works or short, all reading is respected and valued.
5. Believes access to good fiction collections of both contemporary novels and classics helps kids meet critical developmental tasks and that reading fiction builds the capacity for empathy.
6. Believes kids should be content creators and content sharers as well as content consumers. The skills, guidance and equipment to make a movies, websites or audio casts is a critical function of our best library programs.
7. Believes it is important to have more research skills than simply being able to Google a topic - and that it is important to have a professional who teaches those skills. Good librarians teach discrimination, organization and synthesis skills - not just how to create footnotes.
8. Believes high quality commercial sources of information should be available to all kids regardless of economic level. While there is a good deal of information available at no cost. much of it has a commercial bias, may be incomplete, and lack authority. Good databases and online reference materials cost money - just like print.
9. Believes technology use in education is about creativity, problem-solving and communications, not just drill and practice.
10. Believes learning occurs in lots of places, not just in the classroom and that learning takes place outside school hours. Good libraries are open before and after school, during lunch time, and when students have study periods. And really good libraries are “open” virtually, 24/7
11. Believes kids, like adults, sometimes need a “third place” that is neither the classroom nor home where they feel welcome, comfortable and productive. Good libraries recognize that learning is often social in physical spaces as well as online.
12. Believes life-long learning applies to adults as well as to children. An important role of the librarian is teaching teachers new skills and new resources.

________________________________________

• Can I do the same thing I’ve been doing, but a significant cost savings?
• Can I substantially improve learning opportunities for students and staff?

1. What kind of device is required to read your e-books? What does it cost and how would you suggest I provide ready equipment access to all my students? Will your e-books work with many different devices or just one proprietary device? Can your e-books be read on a device that also allows productivity software (word processing, multimedia production, etc.) to be used and that had a good web browser?
2. Can my patrons put your e-books on their personally owned, portable devices? Can more than one reader access an e-book at a time? Is there a time limit on how long a student can use one of your e-books? What is your electronic equivalent of the “first sale doctrine?”
3. Can text from your e-books be copy/pasted into student documents? Can students bookmark, highlight and add notes to your e-text?
4. How might your e-book collection be a better value than a print collection? Let’s use these numbers as a starting point. Print collection of 10,000 volumes = $200,000 investment. Book life-span 20 years.  Used by 500 students. Cost of print collection per year per student: $20 (at 5% annual replacement rate.) Remember to factor in the cost of the equipment needed to read your e-books.
5. Do your electronic texts offer any features that would help my learners, especially those who are beginning or struggling readers? Does you book convert text to speech, have a built in dictionary, illuminate concepts with video or animation, or use artificial intelligence to offer help? Do your e-books actually help kids read or just keep non-readers entertained? Are your e-books “social” - promoting group discussions, reviews, and commentary?
6. If the collection is actually a subscription, not a purchase, how do I know that your company won’t increase the price to a point we can’t afford it? Or change the collection so that teachers can’t rely on having titles? Or that you won’t align with a single publisher or three and limit the access to titles by other publishers? How do I know the titles you are offering are high quality, aligned to the curriculum, and developmentally appropriate?

Rules for the Social Web

Threshold, Summer 2007

Doug Johnson

doug0077@gmail.com

In the spring of 2006, the television news program Dateline aired a story about how pedophiles use information gleaned from the social networking site MySpace <www.myspace.com> to locate and abduct children. The story set off a storm of reactions in schools and communities around the nation so strong that even federal legislation was proposed to address this perceived threat to children. Parents learned almost overnight that their children were leading two lives – the one they knew about and one they didn’t – online. And if the television news was to be believed, it was a certainty that their children’s online activities put them at risk in the physical world.

As a result, schools are still struggling to determine just how to deal with the problems and possibilities of MySpace and other social networking sites.

What is “the social web?”

MySpace is only one incarnation of what is popularly being called Web 2.0, the social web or the read/write web. The simplest explanation of this phenomenon is that the World Wide Web is changing from a “read only” resource to one which user input is not just allowed, but encouraged. The development of online tools that allow content to be entered, uploaded, edited, displayed and made public has made this Web 2.0 possible.

These are some of the more popular manifestations of the social web as of spring 2007. But be warned: new online applications for sharing personal information seem to surface on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

• MySpace and Facebook are among the most popular sites where users can easily post information about themselves, create lists of friends, and share comments about interests. According to the Pew Internet & American Life project <www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_SNS_Data_Memo_Jan_2007.pdf> 55% of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.
• Blogs (web logs) started as personal journals, often with highly political overtones. A blog in its most generic sense is a website that is updated on a regular basis, displays the content in reverse chronological order (newest entries first), and allows, even invites, reader response. Technocrati <technorati.com> estimates there are about 55 million blogs as of early 2007.
• Wikis are online tools that allow group editing. The most popular wiki is Wikipedia <www.wikipedia.org>, a user-edited encyclopedia that rivals traditional encyclopedias for student use.
• Social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us <del.icio.us> allow users to share their Internet bookmarks and create descriptive “tags” to help organize these resources. Flickr <www.flickr.com> does the same for photographs, and YouTube <www.youtube.com> allows video tagging and sharing.
• 3-D virtual environments like Second Life <secondlife.com> and Teen Second Life <teen.secondlife.com> allow users to create avatars, pictorial representations of themselves, and explore these worlds, converse with other avatars, participate in their economies, create habitats, and attend events, some educational.

A comprehensive list of sites for social networking and user created information appears in The Horizon Report- 2007 published by The Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE <www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf>.

How do Web 2.0 safe and ethical use issues differ from those of Web 1.0?

Educators have been concerned about the safe and appropriate use of the Internet for as long as it has been available as a resource in schools. Our district’s board-adopted acceptable use policy (AUP) <www.isd77.k12.mn.us/district/isd77policies/524.pdf> reflects the requirements of the Childhood Internet Protection Act (CIPA) of 2001. This law requires schools make efforts to ensure that students cannot access materials that can be classified as “child pornography, obscenity and harmful to minors” and requires that a content filtering system be put in place. When such devices are properly installed and updated, access to content that meets CIPA’s definitions can deterred  – at least from school networks.

The social web, however, is creating a new set of concerns about safe and ethical behaviors of the Internet by students – ones less easily controlled by mechanical solutions such as filters. These include:

• Protecting children from predators. Pedophiles using the information gleaned from sites like FaceBook and MySpace is arguably the area of greatest concern to parents and educators. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children <www.missingkids.com>, “Approximately one in seven youths (10 to 17 years) experience a sexual solicitation or approach while online.” Other authorities doubt such figures. In its article “Predators & cyberbullies: Reality check,” BlogSafety.com writes that in 2005 there were only 100 known cases of child exploitation related to social-networking sites nationwide and that there was “not a single case related to MySpace where someone has been abducted.”

• Protecting children from each other (cyberbullying). Nationally recognized Internet safety expert Nancy Willard <www.cyberbully.org> defines cyberbullying as “sending or posting harmful or cruel text or images using the Internet or other digital communication devices,” and she documents instances when such activities have resulted severe psychological damage to the victim.

• Protecting children from themselves (making inappropriate and personal information public). Larry Magid and Anne Collier in their book MySpace Unraveled: What it is and how to use it safely. (Peachpit, 2006) argue that the greatest likelihood of children and young adults doing harm to themselves on the social web is by posting pictures and messages that portray them in a negative light and that can be viewed by teachers, coaches, relatives, college admission officers, and potential employers. Few students (and adults) understand that material once placed on the Internet and made public has the potential of always being accessible. Projects like The Internet Archive <www.archive.org> store snapshots of the Internet and make them available as historical documents long after websites have changed.

In other words, the danger to kids in Web 2.0 comes not from what they may find online, but from what they themselves put online for others to access.

Our current acceptable use policy (cited above) does include the following language:

Users will not use the school district system to post private information about another person, personal contact information about themselves or other persons, or other personally identifiable information, including but not limited to, home addresses, telephone numbers, identification numbers, account numbers, access codes or passwords, labeled photographs or other information that would make the individual’s identity easily traceable….

As educators, we must respond proactively to these real dangers children face in using social networking and read/write web resources. But unfortunately the knee-jerk reaction has been to block all social networking resources – blogs, wikis, YouTube, Flickr, and virtual worlds. The well-named, but misguided, Federal 2006 Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) proposed last May would have required all schools and libraries receiving E-Rate to filter out all interactive websites since they might lead to students’ contact with online predators.

American Library Association president Leslie Berger issued a statement highly critical of the nearly unanimous vote (96%) that passed the bill in the House:

This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students’ ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential Internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs.

The attempt to pass similar (and worse) legislation continues. Andy Carvin on his learning.now blog for PBS teachers reports on what he calls “DOPA Jr.” <www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/01/lifting_the_hood_on_dopa_jr.html>

What is problematic about DOPA and school districts’ decisions to block blogs, wikis and chatrooms is that these policies block formats, not contents. In other words, since a student might place personal information on MySpace, all blogs are blocked. This would be like a school banning all magazines because Penthouse is published in magazine format. Formats are content-neutral, but many adults seem to be having a difficult time understanding this.

Safety comes from education, not blocking.

Even if social networking sites are effectively blocked in schools, most students will still get access to them. The Pew study cited earlier in this article found:

Teens often use the Internet in several locales, especially home and school. This survey shows that teenagers’ use of social network sites relates to the place where he or she uses the internet most often. Teens who go online most often from home are more likely to report using social network sites than are teens who go online most often from school (42%). Home users are more likely to have profiles posted online (59% compared with 38%) and are more likely to visit social networks once a day or more frequently than are those who go online mostly from school.

Proxies and mobile networking devices also help the ambitious student avoid district filtering efforts. Do you know about SchoolBoredom.com <www.schoolboredom.com/>? Trust me, your kids do. Highly portable, personal networking devices that use cell phone signals to access the Internet are gaining in popularity among students – who, of course, bring them to school.

To think simple Internet filters will eliminate or even minimize the real risks associated with social networking, is a dangerous misconception. It will take educating students about the appropriate use of the Web 2.0 to genuinely protect them.

Responsible adults are using online curricula from organizations like iLearn <ilearn.isafe.org/>.  (See sidebar for a list of resources for parents and teachers.) One site, NetSmartz, has created eye-opening videos such as “Tracking Theresa” and “Julie’s Journey” <www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm>. Teachers find these ready-made curricula simple to integrate into their classrooms when teaching safety units.

Our school district, like others, has been actively working to educate communities and parents on issues surrounding Internet safety. We have developed a resource list of websites for parents about safe Internet use <www.isd77.k12.mn.us/parents>, have worked with our parent-teacher organizations and community education department to arrange programs about the topic, and have sent home reminders about good computer use in building newsletters home.

The need for the social web in schools – and children’s lives

Pioneering educators are finding exciting ways to make good use of Web 2.0 resources. Schools and libraries are replacing their newsletters with blogs that can be rapidly updated and allow readers to respond. Teachers are using wikis to facilitate peer-reviewed and collaborative writing projects – including student created textbooks. Social book marking sites are proving to be an efficient means of creating bibliographies and reading lists. Creative teachers are asking students to create Facebook-like profiles for literary characters. (Who would be on Juliet Capulet’s friends or music favorites list?) Virtual literary worlds are allowing students to walk through Orwell’s world of 1984 and Richard Wright’s Native Son Chicago setting.

But the issues are larger than these resources simply being used to facilitate traditional learning experiences. Henry Jenkins Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the MIT and author of the McArthur report, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture <www.digitallearning.macfound.org> writes: “We are using participation as a term that cuts across educational practices, creative processes, community life, and democratic citizenship. Our goals should be to encourage youth to develop the skills, knowledge, ethical frameworks, and self-confidence needed to be full participants in contemporary culture,” he asserts, and adds, “What a person can accomplish with an outdated machine in a public library with mandatory filtering software and no opportunity for storage or transmission pales in comparison to what person can accomplish with a home computer with unfettered Internet access, high bandwidth, and continuous connectivity… The school system’s inability to close this participation gap has negative consequences for everyone involved.”

Obviously, districts must create a balance between opportunity for student engagement and new teaching methods and the need to protect children. But it is not a simple determination to make.

How are good decisions made about filtering and policy?

Look at the language of CIPA – “obscene, child pornographic and harmful to minors.” These terms are open to a broad range of interpretations. Our own district’s board set AUP includes phrases like:

• The school district system has a limited educational purpose, which includes use of the system for classroom activities, professional or career development, and limited high-quality, self-discovery activities.
• Users will not use the school district system to access, review, upload, download, store, print, post, or distribute materials that use language or images that are inappropriate to the educational setting
• An individual investigation or search will be conducted if school authorities have a reasonable suspicion that the search will uncover a violation of law or school district policy.

“High-quality,” “inapropriate,” “reasonable.” Lovely, but ambiguous terms. Again, all open to interpretation.

Which leads to questions like this that I hear regularly from teachers and students  – “Is there any definitive answer to what should or should not be filtered to meet CIPA requirements? Our technology director has been checking more little boxes on our filter.” Or, “Our district has blocked access to all blogs. How can we get this policy changed?”

Who in a school should ultimately decide what is blocked and what is accessible to students and staff?

Ultimately, school boards rule on specific instances of resource selection. But in our district, these daily procedural, rather than policy decisions, are made by our district Technology Advisory Committee, the same folks who make lots of technology planning and budget decisions. This committee is comprised primarily of educators - teachers, media specialists, and administrators - but also includes parents, students, businesspersons, college faculty members, and public librarians. And of course the committee includes our technical staff for their important input on security, compatibility and implementation issues. And we DO listen to everyone. Most of our building technology committees work in the same way. (You can find some tips on forming and running an advisory group at <www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/ advice.html>.)

This has worked well for us. On the difficult filtering issue for example, the committee decided that as a result of CIPA, we would install a filter, but it would be set at its least restrictive setting. Any teacher or librarian can have a site unblocked by simply requesting it – no questions asked. Adults are required to continue to monitor student access to the Internet as if no filter were present. The technicians know that it is the responsibility of the teaching staff to see that students do not access inappropriate materials, not theirs. This is a good policy decision that could not have been reached without a variety of voices heard during its making. And has held up well even as Web 2.0 resources have become available.

It is also a decision that I believe honors the spirit of intellectual freedom – that a resource is innocent until proven guilty. If anyone requests that a site or resource is blocked, the same due process accorded to print or audio visual materials is followed unless it is immediately apparent that the resource violates the “obscene, child pornography or harmful to minors” dictate of CIPA. Without a formal process for the blocking of Internet-based materials, censorship becomes a real possibility. When a teacher complains to me when I refuse to block a game site, I explain that if I blocked every individual request, I would have to honor the request of the next parent who asks that a political or religious site is blocked. And I add that a formal reconsideration request can be made using the same form used to remove print instructional materials from the school.

Vicki Davis on her Cool Cat Blog <coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/02/including-classmate-with-leukemia.html> reflects:

…it is not the tools that are inherently good or evil but rather the use of the tools.

A hammer can kill someone but it can also build a house.

A nail can be driven through a hand but it can also hold the roof over your head.

A fist can hit but a fist can also be clasped in your hand in love.

We do not outlaw hammers, nails, or fists — we teach people to use them properly.

So should we do with blogs, wikis, podcasts, Skype, and any other tool that becomes available for use in the human experience!

Well said.

Sidebar: Recommended websites about Internet safety for parents

Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use <csriu.org>

Children’s Partnership <www.childrenspartnership.org>

CyberBullying information <www.cyberbully.org>

CyberSmart <cybersmart.org>

Family Guide Book <www.familyguidebook.com>

Get Net Wise <www.getnetwise.org>

iKeepSafe.org <ikeepsafe.org/PRC/>

McGruff Online Safety for Kids <www.mcgruff.org/advice/online_safety.php>

MediaWise <www.mediafamily.org/resources.shtml>

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children <www.ncmec.org>

NetLingo: Top 20 Internet Acroynms Every Parent Needs to Know < www.netlingo.com/top20teens.cfm>

NetSmartz <www.netsmartz.org/netparents.htm>

Play It Cyber Safe <www.playitcybersafe.com>

SafeKids.com <www.safekids.com>

SafeTeens.com <www.safeteens.com>

Safety Ed International <www.safetyed.org>

Wired Safety Website  <www.wiredsafety.org/parent.html>

As we look to the future, every K-12 technology leader reading this article should consider the following challenges:

• Forget about IT as you know it today;
• Get ready to outsource IT;
•  Let go of the desire to control;
• Embrace diversity in the IT environment;
• Blow the lid off of storage limits; and
• Quit saying things like, “A wired network infrastructure will always be necessary because wireless will never be fast enough for everything.”*

The bold predictions made above by COSN are in large part a response to K-12 schools rapidly moving to “cloud-based” networking environments. This is a radical shift on how schools provide access to resources, computer applications and file storage to staff and students alike.

And librarians need to understand the implications.

What is cloud computing and what are its advantages?
Anyone who has used GoogleDocs, a set of online productivity tools that allows the creation of documents, spreadsheets, presentations and surveys, has experienced cloud computing. (See Head of the Edge, May/June 2011)

Cloud computing relies on applications and file storage that reside on a network – usually the Internet itself - with minimal resources stored on local computers’ hard drives. (A cloud graphic is often used to represent the Internet on network diagrams, hence the name.) If you have ever stored a file online, edited a photo with an online tool, or used a web-based e-mail program, you have already experienced cloud computing.

There are many genuine advantages to cloud computing. Since both applications and one’s files reside on a network rather than on a specific computer, one can work on any project, anywhere regardless of the computer being used. Given a computer with Internet access - on one’s desk at school, on one’s lap at home, in any computer lab or coffee shop in the world, or at Grandma’s house - one can work without worrying about transporting files on physical media like flashdrives, keeping track of the latest version of a document, or having the right software to open a file. Just as importantly files are easily shared and collaboratively edited in a cloud-base application without having to resort to e-mail attachments and the confusion of multiple versions attachments can create.

Unlike much software that resides on computer hard drives, web-based applications that perform a wide-array of productivity tasks are usually provided at no cost to the user. While not as comprehensive as Microsoft Office, iLife or Adobe Photoshop, these tools often have a surprisingly full feature set and are compatible with popular commercial programs.

Cloud computing requires less powerful computers such as netbooks. A school district’s computing costs can be lowered using these inexpensive computers, free file storage and free applications. Money that would have been spent on student workstations in labs, big file servers, support staff, and expensive software can now be used to pay for increased bandwidth, greater wireless coverage or, maybe, just maybe, lower class sizes.

1:1 student to computer plans are more feasible using cloud computing. With a low cost netbook and the cloud, student computers are virtually interchangeable, so if a device needs repair or is left at home, another machine can be easily substituted. At some point, K-12 schools will ask parents to provide basic computing devices for their children as a part of the school supply list. As a parent, I was asked to purchase a $100 graphing calculator for my son when he was in high school only a few years ago. How big a stretch is it to ask parents to provide a $250 netbook computer that can be used in all classes today?

How can librarians take advantage of cloud-based computing today?
Before advocating for cloud computing for my staff and students, I decided to see if I could “live in the cloud” as a computer user – both personal and professional - myself. These are my top computer uses and how I have moved my tasks to the cloud:

1. Netbook. Rather than using a full-scale laptop computer, I used a 10” ASUS laptop that cost about $300. The smaller keyboard and screen size took some getting accustomed too, but I found I could work on the computer for long periods of time. The speed is acceptable, the battery life is good and the wireless connectivity was fast.
2. E-mail. Our district has move successfully transitioned to Gmail accounts for all staff and  students. I have long been a Gmail user for my personal e-mail.
3. Web searching and bookmarking. My delicious.com account has been a long time cloud-based tool.
4. Word processing, presentation creation and spreadsheet use.  After years of using Office, the move to GoogleDocs for my day-to-day productivity has been surprisingly easy. In fact, getting away from Office’s “feature creep” has been refreshing. The presentation program lacks animation, transitions, and in-program image editing. But for 95% of my work and for storing my files, GoogleDocs works just fine, thank you. The work I create is compatible with Office as well. Google adds features to its Docs suite on a regular basis. There are no skills in our information literacy/information technology curriculum that cannot be taught and practiced using GoogleApps for Education.
5. Photo storage and editing. I’ve been storing my best photographs on a commercial storage site for years and editing them with Photoshop Elements. But Flickr and Picasa are online applications that work just fine for this amateur’s editing and storage needs. Picasa gives iPhoto a run for its money as a photo organizer. And Picnik allows me even more photo editing abilities.
6. Web page editing and webmastering. My personal blog, wiki, and website are already completely managed via an application service providers who use online tools for management and editing. As does our school website. As do the professional association websites I help manage - Kiwanis, our lakes association, and our state library/tech association.
7. School specific tasks. All gradebooks, reporting systems, and communications in our district are web-based, as are our accouting and other management systems. Period. Nearly every school document I create, share and collaboratively create is in GoogleDocs, not on my computer’s hard drive.
8. Library catalog and circ system. Our Destiny circ/cat system is accessed by both library staff and library users via a webbrowser. For a nominal fee, a regional telecommunications agency hosts, maintains, and upgrades the system for us. No local storage costs or maintenance!

The future of cloud-based computing.
It’s a good time to consider the impact of cloud computing on our libraries. Now is the time to consider:
●      Does your school have a policy about student owned devices that can be used to access the resources you provide in the cloud? (Parents will not allow a simple ban on them, anymore than they allowed schools to ban cell phones.)

• Does your school have the reliable, adequate and secure wireless infrastructure to support dozens, if not hundreds, of student-owned computing devices designed to take advantage of cloud-based applications?
• Is your library helping your teachers and students receive the training, resources and strategies to use the cloud?
• Is your district exploring cloud-based enterprise solutions like Google Apps Education Edition or Microsoft’s Office365?
• Is your library using cloud-based applications to lower its operating costs?
• Might libraries re-purpose those general use computer labs, providing instead a combination of lots of wireless netbooks that can be used anywhere in and out of the library and fewer, but more powerful media production computers in common labs?

The Future of Information Technology: How The Next Ten Years Will Fundamentally Change the Role of the K-12 CTO: Executive Summary, November 2010 <http://tinyurl.com/28hzqcq>