findingEducation’s Digital Teachers’ LoungeTips and insights from the findingEducation team.

Helene Blowers is the digital strategies director for the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio, which was recently rated a five-star library by Library Journal for the second year in a row. Named a “mover and a shaker” by the same publication in 2007, Blowers created the Learning 2.0 project, which has been duplicated by more than 700 organizations worldwide.

Blowers also writes a blog called LibraryBytes where she examines trends and offers constructive advice for other lifelong learners.

fE: What made you choose to become a librarian?

HB: By some people’s definition I may not be a librarian because I do not have formalized training. But I have worked in libraries for 17 years.

I work in libraries because I’m passionate about learning. I started as a library page at my hometown library when I was in high school and ended up also working in the library in college, processing interlibrary loans as part of my work-study program. My degree is actually in organizational communications and after college I started doing a lot of  technology training. That was in the early 1990s. From teaching technology at the community college, I then jumped back into libraries from an education standpoint, becoming Charlotte Mecklenberg’s public library’s first library resource trainer.

Now, I’m the digital strategies director for the Columbus Metropolitan Library and although my specific area of focus is mostly in the digital space, it’s really the learning  aspect that keeps me here.

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Subject: Integrated Technology
Tags: Educator Profiles

danah boyd in a photo by Gilad Lotan.

Last week, findingEducation caught up with Dr. danah boyd at the American Association of School Librarians National Conference in Charlotte, N.C. boyd is an internationally recognized social media expert researcher for Microsoft Research New England, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and an ethnographer, blogger and contributing author to the book “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.”

boyd explains on her blog that “there are a lot of reasons … some personal and some political” as to why she decided to omit the capital letters in her name. A keynote speaker at the conference, she drew from her research on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to explain how kids use these tools to communicate and to “create digital bodies” to express themselves.

In her online biography, boyd describes herself as a bored and rebellious student that went to “smart kids camp” in the summer but had trouble fitting in until she went online. “The Internet opened the door of possibilities to me. I found other smart kids year round … Strangers taught me so much about the world and about myself,” she wrote.

“Unstructured environments are critical to social learning,” boyd said in her talk. Educators must “work with the grain, not against it.” She told findingEducation, “It’s not about getting kids to be passionate about the things that librarians and teachers are passionate about, but using what kids are passionate about as gateways to learning.”

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Subject: Integrated Technology
Tags: Educator Profiles

Torrey Maldonado in a photo by Allison Maletz.

Torrey Maldonado is an author, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Middle School 88 in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a trained specialist in conflict resolution. Maldonado, who describes himself as a Black Puerto Rican, says he was inspired to become a teacher by his mother, who gave him homework she created herself, and by a few good teachers in Red Hook.

“I had a lot of teachers who encouraged students to become factoid regurgitators, and then I had a lot of teachers who encouraged us to learn the stories in history and see the humanity behind the facts and behind the dates,” he told findingEducation.

Maldonado’s first book, “Secret Saturdays,” will publish in April 2010. Learn more about “Secret Saturdays” at torreymaldonado.com.

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Subject: Social Studies, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

David Lee King by Amy Miller Photography.

In Topeka, Kan., the library is the second favorite place for teens to hang out. “We’re sort of kicked out at the mall,” they tell David Lee King, the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s digital branch and services manager. As a result, the building, particularly the new media area and gaming room, are a little noisier than your average library. But King, a former DJ and assistant recording engineer, and now an author, blogger and librarian thought leader, takes pride in all the bustle. “Not too many people can say, ‘Yeah, teenagers think that the library’s cool.’”

On Oct. 28, King is launching the Library 101 Project with fellow information specialist Michael Porter. The project will include a music video, educator essays and 101 resources.

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Other, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Josie Carbone, founding principal of Girls Prep Bronx.

Josie Carbone, the founding principal of Girls Prep Bronx, an all-girls charter school for pre-K through first-grade students in the Bronx, New York, got involved in teaching while volunteering to teach Spanish at a local elementary school during high school. After graduating from college in 1997, she worked with Teach For America in New York. Carbone taught for six more years before becoming involved with the New York charter school movement in 2003.

fE:  Why did you choose teaching?

JC: The main reason I chose teaching was because I felt that there is a real disparity in this country between who has access [to good schools] and who doesn’t.

My parents are immigrants. My mother had an elementary school education. My father was unable to go to college, because he had to make some decisions to help support the family.  But all through my childhood, no matter where we moved, he always sought out areas where the public schools were strong. And so the message that education is important is something that has been instilled in me since I was very young. (more…)

Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Joyce Valenza in a photo by Jim Graham.

This week, findingEducation spoke with Joyce Valenza, an information specialist and author who manages the Springfield Township High School Library in Erdenheim, Pa. Valenza is also a blogger for School Library Journal, a former tech columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a lecturer on education issues and technology.

Valenza sets the bar exceedingly high for librarians. Inspired by the benchmarks set by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), she recently published “14 Ways K-12 Libraries Can Teach Social Media” (Tech & Learning, 21 Sept. 2009) and her own Manifesto for 21^st Century School Librarians, which calls for librarians to acquire the necessary skills to guide learners in new and emerging information and communications landscapes.

“If you call yourself an information professional, you have to be a professional in the information landscape of your time,” says Valenza.

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Subject: English & Literature, Integrated Technology, Languages, Other
Tags: Educator Profiles

Patrick Sweeney with a model home and blueprints created by his fifth-grade students.

This week findingEducation sat down with Patrick Sweeney, a fifth-grade teacher at Boones Ferry Primary School in the West Linn-Wilsonville School District of Oregon. Sweeney teaches all subjects in his mixed-level, self-contained classroom. How does he keep 27 students with different ability levels engaged and excited about learning while covering the necessary curriculum?

Sweeney is a big proponent of project-based learning and teaming, both within and across grade levels. By bringing interests he’s passionate about into the classroom, and combining them with project-based learning principles, he’s come up with some pretty creative ways to get kids excited about coming to school every day.

fE: What exactly is project-based learning?

PS: Project-based learning is using open-ended projects, usually based off of research, as a model for teaching. You can also define it by what it isn’t. It isn’t where subjects are broken up into sections: Math is taught is in a math class or math block, and literacy is taught separately and technology is taught separately. Project-based learning takes all subjects and integrates them. You’re interconnecting them so that everything seems to have a sense of purpose.

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Subject: Art, Geometry, Integrated Technology, Math, Other, Other Math, Other Science, Science
Tags: Educator Profiles

Blake Harrison, left, and Alex Rappaport of Flocabulary.

This week findingEducation caught up with Blake Harrison, a.k.a. Emcee Escher, rapper, educator and creative director of Flocabulary, to hear how he and Alex Rappaport, cofounder and executive producer, are bringing their energy and passion for hip-hop to the classroom.

By weaving words into rhymes with infectious beats, Harrison and Rappaport knew they could engage students and ultimately teach them something. Their first CD, released in 2004, put vocabulary words in context, helping prepare students for the SATs. Since then, they’ve developed programs for teaching world and U.S. history, math, science and even Shakespeare. They’ve taken their music on tour, held teaching workshops and created a current events series called The Week in Rap, now being broadcast on Channel One, a national TV news network for teens.

fE: When did you get the idea for Flocabulary?

BH: In high school, I had one teacher in particular who used to say “’Sesame Street’ has spoiled you guys. You guys don’t know how to learn. You think education has to be fun, but it doesn’t. It shouldn’t be.” And I couldn’t disagree with him more. I just thought he was being lazy.

Education can be fun and we make it really fun for youngsters. But right around middle school and high school, there isn’t as much emphasis on that. And I just didn’t think that was necessary. I thought you could teach really serious academic content, get people where thy have to be in terms of the standards in achievement, while also doing something that’s really engaging.

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Subject: Biology, Chemistry, English & Literature, Geometry, History, Life & Earth Science, Math, Music, Other Math, Physics & Astronomy, SAT, Science, Social Studies, State exams, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Educator Profiles