"Mom, guess what? Just caught a wild boar..."

Now, let's say that you're the mom of a 20-year-old who is studying in Rome for spring semester and is taking weekend trips to Dublin, Amsterdam, Krakow, Greece and a week's trip to Tunisia. Let's further say that this weekend she tells you she is going to a cute farm in a small town two hours outside of Rome where she can have her own room (something she hasn't had in ages) and will be hiking and horseback riding. I investigate online and any concerns I had are put to rest. http://www.italyfarmstay.com/index.html This, from a mom's perspective, is pretty much a slam dunk, worry-free jaunt, except, of course, for the Saturday a.m. phone call which proves to be a momentary snag in the bliss. She was stranded at a train station alone in a small Italian town whose name she didn't know. Apparently her connecting train hadn't shown up. But that's another story. Fast forward to Sunday morning when this text arrives: "Mom, guess what? I just
hiked barefoot through a waterfall and caught a wild boar!" Hmmmmmmm. I text back, "With what, your hands?" and the reply is, "No, the guy did, but we circled it." The first picture that flies through my head is my barefooted daughter going nose to nose with a boar. The next thought is, what guy? After calming down, however, and remembering "the guy" is the bed and breakfast guy, I find myself so excited that she can experience this and have such an unforgettable moment. And I'm so glad she decided to forge forward after getting stranded in the small town, proceeding to get on the wrong train, having to go back to that small town to get the right train, and finally making it to this wonderful bed and breakfast near Sora where she successfully connected with her friend from school. It was worth the newly sprouted gray hairs I now sport because I believe it's true that the challenges and setbacks we conquer bring us wisdom and strength that will serve us well throughout life. On to the next adventure....

(Sources of images:
http://www.italyfarmstay.com/gallery/gallery.html and http://www.swla.co.uk/SWLAmembers/meadh/Mead_wild_boar.JPG)

Back At It

My daughter is in Rome and plans to record her impressions and thoughts on her blog, to critique cities and restaurants, to describe her dorm and classes or anything else she fancies. Suddenly I found myself missing my blog. I had originally set it up in 2007 as part of an information literacy initiative, but now I can write not only about information literacy and school, but about family, weather, pets, friends, food, movies, or in this case neighbors. Now I know that people complain about neighbors, but I've been lucky in mine. For example, I just went out to blow the 4 inches of snow from my driveway before the -30 degree wind chill set in, and what did I find? My kind neighbor had already done it for me! Who says being neighborly is a thing of the past? Thanks, Gary. Here's to Minnesota nice.
Source of image: Google Images. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.worldproutassembly.org/images/snowstorm.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/12/snowstorm_leave.html&usg=___kmOPa92axUix9oSxlm3hHqCKoM=&h=391&w=580&sz=35&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=RfX5xcjBlvfjBM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnowstorm%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DG

Library Orientation Video - iMovie

For five years now every fall I have presented a library orientation for our new freshmen. The talk lasts about 40 minutes. I do 13 of these presentations in a 2 week span. Even I can see that listening to me describe what goes on in the library for 40 minutes can get a little, well, ho-hum. Since year 2 I've been thinking how much better it would be to SHOW the kids instead of tell them, and the best way would be through a video using students as the actors and narrators. This year I was so fortunate to be able to work with Karen, a techno-savvy intern whom I knew could not only handle this daunting task, but would do it well. I"m happy to say that my mama didn't raise no fool. Asking Karen to produce the video was one of my better decisions (unlike the one to use my long sweater as a mini-dress for student teaching, but that's another story...) The iMovie is almost done and it will accomplish in about 15 minutes what took me 40, and will do it in an entertaining and informative way. We plan to post it on TeacherTube when it's done and I'll provide a link to it on my website. I'm excited. When you see it, you will not believe that this is Karen's first experience with iMovie. I knew she could do it. Thank you Karen!
(iMovie logo found on Google Images http://www.edb.utexas.edu/lhd/images/imovie.jpg)

Using SlideShare & Google Docs Presentation

At today's MILP meeting we learned how to use SlideShare and I created my first Google Docs presentation. Coincidentally, it happens to be on Google Docs:

| View | Upload your own

Google Docs Across the Curriculum? Thing #11 Revisited

Lately I've been thinking that we might serve our students well if we included Google Docs instruction across the curriculum somehow. I'm planning on proposing this idea to our English Department first to get some feedback, and if they agree, then figure out the best way to teach every student how to use Google Docs. Why? Every day I have students coming to me with floppies or flash drives that won't open on our computers. They unknowingly used Works instead of Word at home to word process and our school computers have been ghosted without the conversion software, or at home kids have the latest Word version which our school computers don't recognize, or the floppy is old and useless, or the computers won't open the flash drive. Novell is a great way for kids to work on projects and save them when they are at school, but it doesn't solve the home-to-school issue. Google Docs would. The first step would be how to get at every student. I could do it through the Information Literacy homeroom lessons I do with 9th graders, but 20 minutes isn't really enough time to help every student set up a Google account and show them how to use Google docs. English would be a good spot, but English gets hit with so many reach-every-student initiatives already. Maybe I could train the staff during opening week next fall, or maybe the Tech Integration program next year could train the 20 or so participants. I'll have to think about this.
(Google docs logo above taken from Google Images: http://larryhendrick.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/google-docs-logo.jpg)

More Reliable Online Resources - Thing #14

Four of the MILP members and I have formed an Information Literacy Professional Learning Committee (PLC) this year at our school. Last week we met for an update. All four have been using the ROR sites, including databases, but additionally have now introduced their students to the world of reliable online public library and textbook links. Through the direction of these teachers, students are poking around in the St. Paul Public Library's Contemporary Literary Criticism database, the Smithsonian, Library of Congress and McDougal Littel websites. Our students are delving even further into that big online world beyond Google.

Sprucing Up My Homepage - Thing #27

I love having an iGoogle homepage because it allows me to have the information I want all in one place. I recently added my Google Reader subscriptions as an RSS feed to my homepage. So now whenever there's an update on any activity taking place in state or federal legislatures regarding school libraries, I find out about it pronto.
On another note, I am very taken with del.icio.us and have already used it to put together some links for a teacher on the 1940s. Thanks, Karen!

(Source for image: http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/01/14/rss_tools_and_services.htm)