It's the Journey

One year later, I've completed my MLIS, served my last day at P.S. 160 and am now awaiting word from the principal at my new school to see when I can go in and start whipping the library into shape. Right now I am in transition --- moving from school days to summer days, moving from one school to another, taking care of pesty and painful physical complaints, and creating order out of chaos.

Where to start? Nowhere right now. It's time to make the change, not make a change. I'm looking around my house, seeing remnants of the past two years tucked into corners of rooms, spilling out of canvas bags leaning against bookshelves and walls. Soon it will be time to empty those bags and chose between save, share or recycle. It's that easy.

The order lurks under everything, soon it will shine.

Instant Coffee

You may have seen this in the news: there is a machine that can publish a book in 15 minutes -- bound, sealed and ready to read. To read the School Library Journal story, click here: Espresso.

On the other side

So, here I am, on the other side of the requirement to post on my blog, and what am I doing? Not so funny when you know human nature, or when I think about mine. Beatrice wrote that checking her blog became a daily ritual. I really like that.

Today's drama was about the weather and my practica. I hit a snag today regarding finishing the hours in the Fall. I know it will be settled, but between the heat and humidity, I found the end of my rope and sat staring at it for a bit.

Now it's a different moment. Both of my teens are sleeping on the couch, fans blowing (we are not air conditioned). I am grateful for this course's journey, and know that new rituals are in store for me, too.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, a bloggers reflection

I find it hard to separate the blogging experience from the blogging assignment. At one point at class over last weekend, after hearing the confessions of a number of colleagues, I stood up at my table and said: “Hi, my name is Julie, and I didn’t blog this week”. It seemed I wasn’t the only one sitting sheepishly, apologizing to the members of their blogging groups, promising to “do better” next week. I wonder how many members there would be in the IST611 chapter of BA (Bloggers’ Anonymous)?

Having said this, to look at my blog you would see that I was a presence throughout the semester. I felt, however, that I was never doing enough. In many ways, the blogging assignment became the place where I parked my anxiety. I think, in fact, I know, that this is because there were other people relying on my postings to fulfill their course requirements. So, if I didn’t leave a meaningful post, or (as happened at least twice), I did not post at all, the consequences were not solely mine. Furthermore, as the semester wore on, and our IST611 assignment deadlines coalesced with IST668’s, blogging truly became a dark cloud on weekly horizon.

Fortunately the nature of weather is its changeability. I do not have a totally negative view of blogging as an experience. As a life long journal writer, I took more naturally to my blog as a place to express myself, my feelings about what we were exploring, and to share insights and observations. At one point mid-way through, as I struggled under the mounting pressure to perform, I found refuge on my blog and unconditional support from Beatrice, Kate and Thea. It was invaluable during those times; I am grateful for our blogging group.

While length is never an indicator of quality, I know that I posted better ideas and made deeper insights when I had stretches of time to respond. Early on, before I started my fieldwork and practia assignment, I could take the laptop outside with early morning coffee to create my posts and respond to others. Those opportunities diminished as time went on.

To me, blogging by assignment seems artificial, but without it would I have ever continued the blog I started two years ago? My first blog entries were about the Pope John Paul’s death. Now entries include wikis, clickers, podcasting and virtual museums. I have a good feeling that I’ll continue posting, I just wonder who, if anyone, will be responding?

It's time to take stock

I am sitting here at the computer. Well,where else would I be? And actually, while we are on the topic of time spent in front of a computer screen, imagine if there was a way to clock your hours? A pedometer for digital time. I'm sure there is such a thing, but do I really want to know how much time I've sat here, looking at the lighted screen, thinking, searching and creating? Maybe I do. Maybe it's not something to shy away from; I'll bet you agree that this summer has been like no other. I wonder what that means for the future?

As I get my projects in order for this weekend's lessons, one track of my mind is running underneath my conscious actions. I am starting to pull together all my disparate and seemingly unconnected skills, experiences, degrees, talents, etc. and it's rather incredible. Even last year at this time I could not have anticipated where I'd be right now. So often, too often, I am discouraged and overwhelmed. For whatever reason (and maybe it's the last article I just read "Librarians Defeat Nuns in Spelling Bee" that put me in this thoughtful and positive mood), I want to remember to take some time and start a tick list of achievements, just to see what turns up. You many want to do it too. See you tomorrow!

Greetings from C.W. Post

Emma is participating in Freshman Orientation today, and I am playing hooky from the sessions for parents. I am sitting in the library (yep!) which has all the academic trappings enclosed in a quaint building overlooking a beautiful quad. It's amazing to think that Emma will be sitting here researching topics and checking her facebook - - - probably not in that order . . . The theme of the orientation is "iPOST". Kids and parents alike have cell phones in hand, checking in with each other or with the parent who isn't present. I, myself, placed a long text message to Emma at lunch (kids and parents ate at different locations) to tell her about my conversations with the housing folks.

I can only imagine what the college experience will be like for your little ones -- wrist phones? holographic communication? virtual tours using holographic versions of themselves?

Time will tell. In fact, I have to go -- it's time for "Sweet Goodbye's" where we share ice cream and I leave her here overnight.

Deep breath! Some things never change . . .

Time flies . . . THEORY -vs- PRACTICE

My apologies to my fellow bloggers ---- I have not given you very much to chew on lately. Currently I am in the library at Canarsie High School, getting a bird's eye view of a world that is eons away from what I work in back at P. S. 160. First, there are 31,000 books here -- it resembles an academic library far more than a school library. Having said that, it is very warm and welcoming to students. Kids come by every period to say hello to the librarian and "hang out" with their favorite genre (usually comics, cars, computer games--it's ok with the librarian to play because she doesn't consider it her job to police them).

As far as technology goes, not much here but the computers. No smart board, no television, no VCR . . .

The library is automated with the Mandarin system, for circulation and inventory. I've spent some time entering books into the catalog --- via the Library of Congress.

I'm observing and seeing the differences between theory and practice. Last week an economics class came in to research issues on social security, minimum wage and the Great Depression. The teacher stood in the middle of the library, read out a list of 7 or so questions, and told the kids to GOOGLE each topic and look for the answers. In addition, he nodded toward us (there are 3 interns) and said that the librarians would be happy to help us find print material. That's it.

My supervising librarian (who is an absolutly brilliant woman who is leaving this post at the end of the summer to take on a position at a juvenile detention center in the Bronx) was available to assist students, but she did not address the class as a whole.

I couldn't help but think that having known what they were going to research in advance would have made their time more worthwhile. As it was, I looked for some existing webquests on the Great Depresssion and the other topics. It was playing catch-up and turn up some resources, not many.

These high school students only knew GOOGLE, or ask.com, or to type in the whole question in the search box. I'm cosidering working on a series of lessons on webskills for my practicum. I'd love to see students come in with more of a clue regarding research. That is where this high school IS like my elementary school: these digital natives may be comfortable with their digital birthright, but they have been given so much more than they know -- funny that it will be the digital immigrants that lead them on . . .