Inspiring Movie

For my cycling friends:

What does it take to test our limits? How far can we be pushed by nature? Is it our environment? Is it loneliness? Is it our ability to push our pain threshold, our endurance? I found the answer Saturday night at the Peoria Theater in the movie, Ride the Divide. This is a 2700 mile, Canada to Mexico race along the Continental Divide. The race (yes, race) is completely unsupported. This fantastic film, which was Best Adventure Film (first recipient), 2010 Vail Film Festival, mainly follows three people as they attempt to complete the race. We ride with the production team who at times lose the riders in snow storms and the wilderness. The only means of tracking the riders is their GPS tracking devices, but that requires having Internet or a reliable wireless network which most of this ground lacks.

Ride The Divide Movie Trailer from Ride The Divide on Vimeo.

We can see a change in the riders as the miles and climbs begin to take a toll on their bodies and bikes. But, what really is inspiring is to see that the physical toll, in most cases, is not what brings the riders to drop out or push on. It is the emotional strain of riding hundreds and thousands of miles alone. What is it that keeps them out their day after day putting in 50 to 150 miles a day, alone? Most drop out, but those who finish have some good insight of what it takes. It truly is inspiring to hear their stories and see the land. Check out the trailer and check out the movie. Then, air up the tires and get out there!

Avatars: The Real You or Not

I've played around with using avatars a year ago or thereabouts, and I really was not happy with them. I can never get one that I feel resembles me (I mean, when your handsome and all... ahem). Then, I tried coming up with some that fit my likes. Then, I created crazy avatars. The trouble with those is I would get tired of them and want to always change them, and I think consistency is important. So I gave up on using avatars. I did try a couple today and created, again, interesting representations, but nothing that I like to use as a regular. I used Picassoheads and Reasonably Clever lego avatars. I have also used voki in the past without any pleasing results. Yes, that is a lego avatar of me being a famous treasure hunter like Indiana Jones.

I like using pictures of some famous people or characters. On Facebook, I am represented with a famous picture of my favorite president. I have also been Han Solo, Snoopy, and Spiderman. Lots of people complained that they weren't sure it was me. They have gotten over that and now everyone knows on Facebook that I am my favorite president.

I am not a big fan of using a picture of me to represent myself for...well...I don't know. Privacy? No good pictures of myself? I don't have a good reason, but I usually don't use pictures of me. Obviously, if you go to the bottom of the page you will see a picture of me. I figure it is only fair that if you are taking the time to read the ramblings of the Cycling Librarian, you might as well know what I look like. So, avatars? I'm not a big fan.

Virtual Gaming Education

I came across this video from the Florida Virtual School on Scott McLeod's Dangerously Irrelevant blog. Watch the video, for someone like me who loves computer games (I realize calling them computer games dates me) and a digital native, this is exciting.

The concept of video game as education, which meets reading standards and encourages critical thinking skills, is like finding "the answer." The cost probably takes most districts out of the running to take it out of the dream stage, but what about a classroom application? Here is a simplified blueprint of how this could work. A teacher has certain material to teach in a semester or even quarter, lets say in an English classroom there is literature, writing, grammar and vocabulary. Perhaps there is a mystery/story line/plot that could over-arch the semester and use all of the skills the students need to solve the mystery. Maybe there are clues in the literature that students could gather as they read Shakespeare or Gatsby; communication in the form of memos or letters, with the students could use the vocabulary words; grammar or the poor use of it could scramble messages or students might need to recognize the adverb killer, or a character the students interact with might write only in simple sentences with the lack of adjectives. I don't know, but I feel pretty confident to guess this is what the tech folks and curriculum directors at Florida Virtual School did. This "video game" concept that ties together skills really shows the possibilities in education.

This would take a monumental effort to plan, prep, execute and assess, but that is why schools should be promoting collaboration. That means giving teachers time to work. Not 45 minutes at the beginning of a day once a month, but time to think, discuss, disagree, plan, test, reflect and rewrite. Amazing things happen when that time is given. Also, most schools have librarians who love projects like this. Let's get thinking and make education effective, fun and interesting.

History's history

I found myself reading a CNN article online called Subject Matters: Why students fall behind on history. History as a subject is one of my favorites because of the way it impacts everything we do. With a good understanding of history, we have a much better understanding and appreciation of how our world, country, state, etc. work.

The article states how history is being shortchanged because it is not a mandated No Child Left Behind subject and even though it is a growing subject, because history is new yesterday and will be new again tomorrow, the history classroom gets no additional time to cover the subjects. One individual commented below the article that history classes cover basically colonialism to World War II. I would consider that a sizable amount of information in a two semester course.

What I found to be, in my opinion, very sad was what one teacher was quoted as saying. He said, "I think they (students) learn information by itself, in isolation, but putting the big picture together is not happening." I would argue that when students learn history in isolation it keeps them from learning the big picture. My experience has shown that teaching history in the context of other disciplines like English, music, and art help students to understand the cultural values of the people they are studying, which in turn helps them to place the events of the day in time. Integrating history also helps students to understand why people reacted and passed policies, started wars, migrated. The photographs and discussion of the photographers of the 1930's help students to understand the people and conditions. A study of the music and poetry helps students to understand the Great Migration of the 1920's. And an understanding of the rise of cities and industrialism, in turn, helps us to understand why the poetry and music changed.

When I taught an American Studies, combined US history and American Literature class, my co-teacher and I enjoyed challenging the students to think and discuss, what affects what. Does history impact literature or did the literature affect the history. Sometimes it was clear and sometimes it was not.

The article mentions that teachers use history as a "throw in" (in quotes because that is how I interpreted it) to help improve reading skills. A noble attempt; but if we want to confuse students as one teacher was quoted as saying that students could identify an event like the Declaration of Independence but they could not identify the century it happened, we should continue just "throwing in" history to "improve" reading. Agreed that most of the state testing reading selections are non-fiction and some are historical, others are scientific, and others are literary. The answer to improving student test scores is to teach reading in all subjects, not just English class.

I have traditionally been opposed to a national curriculum, but articles like this make me realize that maybe we (the teaching community) cannot prioritize. We struggle, not because we lack professionalism, not because we lack passion, not because we lack know-how, but because we lack leadership. Perhaps it is time for the education community to take decision making out of non-teacher hands. It has been a mystery to me what qualifies a elected officials to make decisions about what should be taught and tested. Elected officials should oversee schools, the money, and hold schools accountable, but educators should be in charge of the what and how.

I have ideas, but I don't have the answers. I sure would like to see some real discussion on a national level. History class is not the problem. It is one of the many problems. What do you think?

Features of an effective About Me page

As I continue Edublog's Teacher Challenge, I have learned to add pages to my blog. You will find pages right below the picture at the top. I added an "About Me" page that will give you a bit of a bio about, well, who else, me. Keep looking for other pages to be added with resources from the Cycling Librarian.

As I browsed through some of my favorite blogs' "About Me" pages, I noticed almost everyone includes a biography including education and past career experiences. I did like that one included a short bio and a long bio. My entire bio is short. One About Me page added some public speaking solicitation, which seemed appropriate on that particular page. I plan to look to more "About Me" pages to find unique elements so I can make mine less "I did this..." and more...something else.

Cycling Librarian is Mobile

If you don't have much time between rides and hanging out at the library, you can read Cycling Librarian on your mobile device. Thanks blogger!

Balance

As the new year gets started, I really seem to be coming across this word, Balance, a lot. National Geographic pointed it out to me in their new series, 7 Billion. All those diet and fitness commercials on television say with a balanced diet. My three-year-old daughter reminds me that she knows how to balance on a beam.

All this reminds me of the balance I am looking for in the library. I started a weeding project in the nonfiction section this week, and I began in the biography section. I am trying to find a balance of what "old" people/biographies do students need or want access too and what biographies seem irrelevant these days. Those will be weeded and new "more relevant" biographies will be added. I am also trying to balance the look of the shelves so students want to approach the biography section. Right now the section looks crowded and unapproachable, and I feel like students don't even want to walk into the stacks, not just in the biography, but in all the non fiction section. So, I need to find some balance.

Here is my plan, so I am curious what others think. I am not too far into the project to put a screeching halt and change things around, but I'm getting close so offer your advice quickly, please. I am re cataloging all of the biography anthologies (presidents, Famous African Americans, Notable Pioneers, kings and queens) as 920 and the "solo" biographies as 921. I feel like the biography anthologies don't get used when they are mixed in with the solo biographies. What I'm not sure about yet is how to organize the 920's. Should I try to categorize them? For example, President biography books would either go 920 PRE (category President) or 920 WAL (organized by author)? If I go with category, what do I do with stand alone 920 books that don't have a category? Well, I have a few weeks to worry about that. I am still in the weeding and separating 920 and 921.

I hope you find balance in your library, on the bike and in your life. I'm working on all three.

Really good blog post

As you may have noticed in yesterday's post, I am reinventing "The Cycling Librarian" blog. Well, it might be considered more like giving the ball a kick after it got stuck in some tall grass. Anyway, I am participating in Edublog's Teacher Challenge where I will complete 30 activities to help my blogging skills improve. I know all one of you will really appreciate this which is why there is probably only one of you (thanks mom) currently reading. Today's activity is to find a good blog post and comment on it. Since I subscribe to several good blogs this activity is not much trouble.

I really enjoy reading Scott McLeod's blog "Dangerously!Irrelevant." Here is the link to his most recent post which is especially timely. It is called Blogging v. teaching. As the title of the post indicates, he poses the questions, "do you see blogging as an extension of your teaching? If not, should you? On the flip side, do you see teaching as an extension of your blogging?"

One thing that I like about his post is that he does explicitly ask the reader questions in which he intends an answer. This works for him because he has several comments which follow the post. I also like that he includes other links that relate to the topic being discussed.

Now, the reason I was especially interested in his topic is because when I look at the goals I listed in yesterday's post, teaching is a big part of what I wanted to do with my blog. I enjoy blogs because they act as a way to think, but where others can think with you. I never pretend to be the authority on any topic in which I write, so I hope no one ever thinks that when they read my thoughts. I put them in the blog because it is what I am thinking and I am curious what others think. If I am certain about something, it will be clearly stated something like this, "I know this to be true." or "I am certain that..." Otherwise, it is all open to discussion. As always, what do you think?

Revisiting

This morning as I was working through a cycling workout, I decided it is time to refocus my efforts on "The Cycling Librarian." My original goal of the blog was to simply get a blog going that reflected my thoughts as a new school librarian. I have the address of the blog linked to my School's Library wiki page so people can easily access it and "see" my thoughts. Kind of a scary proposition put into practice, but it isn't always bad for people to see what we are thinking.

So, to refocus, this blog should start heading down the path of reporting the events in the library, my thoughts on how school libraries are puzzle pieces that fit into the center of schools, my t

houghts on school, education and library advocacy in the political realm, and of course my completely unrelated thoughts on the world of cycling. I hope if something gets your pot boiling or if you somehow would seem to agree with me, let me know by replying to my post.

Now that I am wrapping up, I will be putting the words of the post into Wordle and hopefully the word picture will reveal the truly important things that this blog will address. Take a look.