Fall in Love with Reading: Read Across America Day!

This Friday, March 2, is Read Across America Day!  This yearly event is to celebrate the birthday of the beloved Dr. Seuss and a lifelong love of reading.  Everyone who has checked out a book in February is eligible for our drawing for gift prizes this Friday!  We will be having a drawing Friday morning for:

• One (1) $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble
• Two (2) $25 gift cards to Barnes and Noble
• Five (5) $10 gift cards to Starbucks

If you have not had checked out our great selection of books in the Grizzly library, there is still time!  Everyone who checks out a book through Thursday afternoon is eligible for the drawing!  Good luck to all our Grizzly readers for the big drawing this Friday!

Technology Trends for the 21st Century Classroom

Today’s issue of e-School News Online identifies six major technology trends that will impact education and classrooms of the not-so-distant future.  “The Horizon Report” identifies these technologies as ones that will have a “significant impact on education in the next one to five years”:

• User-created content
• Social networking
• Mobile phones
• Virtual worlds
• New scholarship and emerging forms of publication
• Massively multiplayer educational gaming.

You can read the entire article at http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6870.  What do you think?  How do you see these technologies impacting education?  How do you think these technologies could transform teaching and learning?  Do you agree or disagree with the report?

Putting an End to Topical Research

I just finished reading the February issue of From Now On, an online educational technology journal.  The editor, Jamie McKenzie, is a champion of creating learning experiences that move beyond the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and challenge our students to think critically.In this month’s issue, “Putting an End to Topical Research,” McKenzie calls for educators to stop giving research assignments that merely ask students to collect information.  What are “topical research” assignments?  McKenzie provides this vivid description:

“First students scoop. Then they smush. It is a school ritual that serves students poorly and accomplishes little of worth.  Note the article “Smushing is Simply Low Grade Synthesis” at http://fno.org/apr05/smushing.html.  If we keep assigning topics, students will drive their earth moving equipment through the information landfill, pleased by the height and depth of the piles.”

How do we create research assignments that don’t ask students to merely “scoop” and “smush”?   As your media specialist, I want to challenge you to think about the research assignments your students have done this year.  Are they “scoop and smush”, or are your research assignments asking students to think critically?  How do we as educators create research questions that require our students to be engaged researchers? I believe there are two pathways to meeting the challenge of creating critical research assignments.  First, we must find ways to create convert “topical” questions into higher level research questions.  Jamie McKenzie calls these “essential” research questions that force students to interpret, synthesize, and analzye.   One technique that McKenzie suggests is “The Great Question Press” ; you can read more about this great questioning strategy at http://fno.org/feb04/questionpress.html.   I believe the second way to meet this challenge is for increased collaboration between the media center and classroom teachers.  While collaboration may seem initially like more work, the front-end planning I can do with you can help us to create meaningful and thoughtful research tasks that will challenge our students to move beyond the “copy, paste, and regurgitate” mode. 

As your media specialist, I want to be your teaching partner and support your efforts to create higher level research projects.  Take a few minutes to read McKenzie’s current article at http://fno.org/feb07/topic.html and let me know what you think about his ideas!  

What book do you love?

Today is Valentine’s Day, and I have enjoyed discussing books that people love with students in our library today.  What book or writer do you love?  Why?  Give us your favorites and recommendations!

Book Suggestions for 2007-08

You as students have given us invaluable input this past year on books, authors, genres, and topics you wanted to see added to our collection.  What suggestions do you have for our library collection for 2007-08?  Please post your suggestion(s).  Thank you!

Hello world!

Welcome to the Creekview High School Media Center blog!  This blog is maintained by Mrs. Buffy Hamilton, Media Specialist.  This blog will be a forum for book talk, tech tips, information literacy musings, and all other topic related to an unquiet library experience!  Please check back often as our community of learners in “the unquiet library” grows online and at Creekview High School!