Using Google Wisely

After my last blog posting about Google, I have continued to work with my seventh grade students to evaluate web sites. We first examined the Dog Island web site to determine if it was valid, and it passed many of the characteristics of a valid web site. (Dog Island purports to be a place where one can send a dog to live “free from the stress and hardship associated with daily life among humans.”)

Not until we researched which other web sites link to the Dog Island site did students become more skeptical. (You can do this by typing link:http://thedogisland.com into Google or Altavista search engines.) As we scrolled the list of results, we noticed references to hoax and bogus web sites. We returned to the Dog Island site, dug a little deeper, and finally came upon its disclaimer.

I then asked students to use Google to find sites to support building background knowledge for their social studies unit. They had to cite 4 ways they knew each source was trustworthy. We discussed their findings and sometimes had to refer back to the Dog Island site for “trustworthy” characteristics. We collaboratively generated the following list of mostly infallible ways to judge the veracity of web sites:

• The site was created by a reputable organization, such as a museum, the government, or an institution of learning (pbs).
• The author is an expert on the topic.
• Bibliographic resources are provided and accurate.
• The information is validated by other resources.

As we continue researching this year, I will review and strongly encourage the use of our library databases, as well. But, for now, if students are going to rely heavily on Google, this seems like a reasonable approach for them to take.

I remain a little puzzled that students weren't quicker to doubt the validity of the Dog Island web site. Anyone have any thoughts about that? Other hoax sites you could share with kids include Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, Velcro Crop, and DHMO.

Pierce Reads -- View Night of the Radishes Slide Show and Pictures of Julian Huston
By Joan Hamilton, Pierce School Librarian

One hundred and one Pierce students, parents and staff members came together as a community of readers to the Pierce School Library on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 to participate in PIERCE READS, an evening book discussion program for 5th – 8th graders.
The theme of this year’s Pierce Reads and Teachers as Readers is “Between Two Worlds.”

Fifth and sixth graders read and discussed Becoming Naomi Leon by Pamela Munoz Ryan, the story of a bi-racial family living in Southern California. Toward the end, there is a dramatic car ride to Oaxaca, Mexico where Naomi finds her father and participates in the Night of the Radishes, a festival held annually in Oaxaca on December 23rd. As you will see from this slide show, the radish carvings are magnificently intricate and beyond anything we might have imagined.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/sets/1401300/show

Seventh and eighth graders read and discussed New Boy by Julian Houston, the story of a young man from Virginia who is the first African American to attend a prestigious boys' boarding school in Connecticut during the late 1950’s. The book presents not only the complexities of the civil rights movement but also the courage of those who were the first of their generation to break racial barriers and those who organized and carried out sit-ins at lunch counters all over the South. Pierce Reads particpants were aided in their understanding and appreciation of this important era by the presence of the author of New Boy, Julian Houston, a retired justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts and a former community organizer in Harlem during the civil rights movement. He answered our questions and told the stories that inspired his writing. This was Mr. Houston’s second visit to Pierce School in less than a week. On Wednesday, November 12th, he participated in Pierce’s Teachers as Readers, also discussing New Boy. As Mr. Houston said in a recent New York Times interview, “Most young people today, even those in the South, have only a superficial knowledge of the civil rights movement and segregation.” He further explained that one of the reasons he wrote New Boy was to give young people a detailed picture of what it was like to live in a segregated community in the late 1950’s and an appreciation for what the civil rights movement accomplished.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/books/12houston-interview.html
Several attendees commented that in light of last week’s historic presidential election, Mr. Houston’s remarks were especially poignant.

Language Arts Test Scores and Online Literacy
by Joan Hamilton, Pierce School Librarian

Two recent articles provide food for thought about current literacy practices. The first is an article released by the Massachusetts Department of Education stating that for the 2008 MCAS,
English language arts results in the elementary grades declined and the middle schools were flat.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.asp?printscreen=yes&id=4287

The second article is from the September 19, 2008 Chronicle of Higher Education and is entitled "Online Literacy is a Lesser Kind" by Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University and author of a book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Tarcher/Penguin, 2008).
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i04/04b01001.htm
Bauerlein describes the style of literacy used for screen reading (web sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) as "racing across the surface, dicing language and ideas into bullets and graphics, seeking what they already want and shunning the rest." He argues that when reading a long narrative, a long political tract, a dense argument, a modern poem, a complicated narrtive or academic texts, this style of reading breaks down. He concludes by advocating "slow reading" and a plea that educators keep at least some of our students' educations "unplugged and logged off."

At Pierce School, "slow reading" is built into the culture of learning -- from read alouds in the early grades designed to grip children in the thrill of narrative, to literature circles, book discussions, summer reading, book fairs, and required independent reading projects in all grades. It blossoms as parents choose to regularly read aloud at home to their children. It is a habit of mind that will grow and bear fruit as our students go forward into a speeded-up digital world.

Google: First try or last resort?

I have two full disclosures (confessions?) for this blog. First, this article was inspired by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google making us stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains,” in the July/August edition of the Atlantic Monthly. Secondly, to find a copy of the article, I Googled the title. I was unable to access the article that way, so I then turned to our Minuteman Library Network and obtained a copy from the Academic One database.

This week in my seventh grade technology class, I projected the title of Carr’s article and asked students what they thought he meant. Their responses were many and included:
*We don’t go into a book or a library to look things up. We just go to Google.
*It’s spending too much time not thinking – everything is right in front of you.
*Google makes it too easy to forget things. When I didn’t remember how to do my math homework, I used Google.
*Some of the sources you find on Google won’t be true.
*(It’s) Giving us the wrong idea about what you want to know – it could be written by anybody.

I was intrigued to hear their perceptions about Googling. While all their thoughts about the title probably are true, Carr’s argument in the article is that our overuse of the Internet for reading is causing changes in the way our brains function.

And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski (Carr, 2008).

Although I am a heavy user of the Internet for news and information (see disclosure above), I am a firm believer in moderation. I believe that one can adjust his/her reading style depending on the purpose of the reading. I also believe that research and reading non-fiction does involve more skimming than immersing oneself in a novel. That being said, students growing up online should be taught explicitly how and when to use different styles of reading.

So we are going to spend some time in our classes skimming, reading, and comparing research results from Google and from our library databases. My first goal for students is that they are able to judge for their own research purposes when to use Google as a first try or last resort. Secondly, and just as importantly, I want students to learn when to skim and when to read deeply.

Which method do you use when Googling? First try or last resort?

S. Sicard

These Are a Few of my Favorite Tools (Excel)

by Sandra Sicard

For the second installment in my series about tools, I've decided to showcase Microsoft Excel. Excel is a spreadsheet program that, at first glance, is unexciting. It is used widely in the business world to organize and analyze data. I'm trying to encourage teachers to use it not only administratively but also instructionally. Here are some examples of how we've used it this year at Pierce; maybe one will inspire you to try it out.

(I have first-hand knowledge about the following lessons because students were in the lab for some of their learning. There are other examples of students using Excel in various parts of the curriculum; I just don’t know about all of them.)

Students in 4S are learning about minerals in science; as part of the unit, they conduct tests on a variety of samples (about 12) and compare their results to identify a mystery rock. We used Excel to create a chart of their test results; our goal was to organize their data in an easy-to-read way. This is a great first step in learning to navigate the cells, columns, and rows in Excel.

Last fall, 5k researched wolves. As part of their unit, they conducted opinion polls about wolf characteristics and lifestyles. Students then input their data into Excel and created graphs to illustrate the survey results. Printing the graphs in color gave them a polished and professional appearance. Later in the year, students returned to Excel and used it in a science lesson to analyze respiration rates of peers and adults.

Eighth grade students have used Excel in a variety of math and science units this year. Their first lesson reviewed the basics of Excel by using a spreadsheet to calculate grades and some class statistics. Students then used Excel to determine if a correlation existed between stride length and height and then shoe size and height. They graphed the data and found the line of best fit as well as the r squared (the square of the correlation coefficient).

From those lessons, it's easy to see how Excel is a flexible tool that allows you to do a little or a lot with data.

Have some data of your own to collect, organize, and/or analyze? Let’s talk about what tool makes the most sense to do what you need. I'll be sharing some lessons from The Graph Club in my next blog - a very simple data tool for primary students.

Research Supports Summer Reading

Research Supports Summer Reading
by Joan Hamilton

The Book Fair is coming! The Book Fair is coming! This wonderful event sponsored annually by the hardworking, energetic members of our amazing PTO will have hundreds of books for sale, many of which are on Pierce's summer reading lists. As in the past, for Pierce students entering grades 2 - 8, there will be a required title -- one book to be read by every person in the class, plus a list of books from which students must choose four other titles.

There is a great deal of research that states that children who don't read over the summer actually lose ground in reading proficiency. Recent research from John Hopkins University's Center for Summer Learning concludes, "The effect of reading four to five books during the summer is large enough to prevent a decline in reading scores from spring to fall." Another study entitled Summer Learning and the Effects of Schooling by Barbara Heyns states. "Children (she was working with 6th and 7th graders) in every income group who read six or more books over the summer gained more in reading achievement that children who did not."

Stephen Krashen, in his report, The Power of Reading, says that children read more when they see other people reading. This suggests a practice my family indulged in successfully during the summers when my three children were still in school -- family reading time. The time was announced and it was expected that every family member would produce a book and we would all sit and read silently for half an hour. This could be followed by discussion or read aloud. It worked as well for family journaling--especially effective while on vacation. Krashen states, "If children read one million words a year, at least one thousand words will be added to their vocabulary." He concludes that reading as a leisure activity increases comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary as well as making the reader a better speller and a better writer.

So, see you at the Book Fair on May 27th, 28th, and 29th, and Happy Reading!

These Are a Few of my Favorite Tools (TimeLiner)

by Sandra Sicard

I've decided to write a series of blogs on software tools that work well across grade levels and subject areas. The first tool I'm highlighting is TimeLiner, which allows students to create, illustrate and present timelines easily.

In 2G, students read biographies in Reading Workshop and noted important events from their subject's life. They then came to the lab and created a timeline of 5-6 important events. They could then add text notes to identify turning points. Lastly, they added a picture of their subject; most of their subjects had pictures included as part of the TimeLiner clipart. (Their teacher and I had to go online to find a few pictures of subjects not included in the clipart collection.)

4H recently completed a thorough investigation of European explorers. Students worked in pairs to research an explorer's life to present to their classmates. They created a timeline, a slideshow, a handout, and a board game. TimeLiner allowed students to import pictures from the Internet as well as pictures that students had drawn in KidPix and then exported. Each event on the timeline became a slide; parents were able to view the students' final slideshow and products during a family breakfast.

Lastly, seventh grade students used TimeLiner in a brief project to organize Revolutionary War dates and events in order to make generalizations about the challenges and successes of the Patriot war effort. Seeing this information visually allowed them to make predictions about the immediate consequences of independence.

Sidebar: I had been under the illusion that TimeLiner didn't work on our computers so it wasn't installed in the lab and laptops until a few months ago. If you'd like it on your classroom computer(s), just let me know.

The Power of Story

By Joan Hamilton

When author Mitali Perkins visited Pierce School last week, she talked to the 6th and 7th grade students about the human need for "a story fix." "Where do you go when you need story?" she asked, "because we all need stories." When asked how many students had seen one movie five times, nearly every student raised his hand. When she asked how many played video games (now many of them also using the concept of story to hook kids), many also raised hands. But what surprised Ms. Perkins was that when she asked how many had read one book at least five times, a majority of the students raised their hands. She explained, "If you've read it five times, it is a story that speaks to something in your heart, in your soul. Later she told me, "I'm amazed. I speak at schools all over the country, and seldom do I have such a high percentage of students who have a book they've read five times."

Why is this reading experience so common to Pierce students? I would like to claim it is because from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of 8th grade, we build around them a culture of reading. It is a culture built through read-alouds, author study, genre study, literature circles, Bingo for Books, Pierce Reads, author visits, the study of folk literature motifs, independent reading projects, poetry recitations, required summer reading and participation in the Massachusetts Book Awards. It is a culture based on the 1,500 titles of multiples housed in the library that form the foundation of our literacy program.

Sadly, it is a culture at risk. It is at risk because Brookline will be eliminating all library assistants in the elementary schools if the override does not pass. The result will be an erosion of that culture--perhaps not noticeable at once, but over the years an inexorable erosion.

Later in the same day that Mitali Perkins was so impressed by our students' love of reading, a retired colleague stopped by. She had been substituting for several weeks at a school that had no library. She said the 4th graders in that school could not even sit still for a story read-aloud.
In contrast, I pictured Pierce 4th graders. Mention the word "story" and their ears perk up and they settle quietly into their listening positions. At Pierce children often clap at the end of a read-aloud. For they know, as cultures throughout the ages have known, that it is through story that we learn our history, we learn what we kind of persons we hope to become, what kind of community we want to live in. I remember Chet Raymo, the Boston Globe's science writer for many years, saying if you want your child to become a scientist, read him stories; for then he will be able to wonder and imagine. There have been civilizations without the wheel. There has never been a civilization without story.

How Can We Make a Difference?

It was one of those a-ha moments at a technology conference... Ms. Wang and I attended a presentation by Dr. Tim Tyson, former principal of Mabry Middle School. He spoke about his vision for technology in education; through his leadership, the Annual Mabry Film Festival was launched as a way to propel technology integration into engaging instructional activities for students. His passion about wanting to make a difference and to inspire students to know they could make a difference was contagious. On the way home from the conference, Ms. Wang and I started conspiring about how we could do something similar with her students.

This morning, Pierce School had its very first "film festival". The students in 5W showed their Environmental Science films to an audience of their parents, during a class breakfast. They will show their little buddies in 1W their videos in a few weeks; the students of 5W hope these movies will educate others about issues in the environment and what each person can do to save the environment.

Students had researched, planned, written scripts, directed, filmed, added voice-overs, chose images, and edited their films. From the very beginning of the process, students had to decide what information was most essential to share in a two-minute video. Information was found, read, and discussed; before each groups could receive approval to proceed to the next step in the process, they had to reach consensus.

Through this video experience, students learned about working cooperatively, the environment, and all the technical skills necessary to create a video. Ms. Wang and I learned that one person truly can inspire others to make a difference. If you have a chance, borrow the 5W DVD or check out the Mabry videos online. These students make me think about how I can make a difference.

PIcture Books for Older Readers

Picture Books for Older Readers

by Joan Hamilton

Read Across America Day was March 3, 2008 -- last Monday. It was celebrated across America by children listening to prominent community members visiting their schools and reading aloud to them. Pierce School was very fortunate to have Congressman Barney Frank who read to the entire fifth grade What to Do about Alice by Barbara Kerley, a picture book about Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. The book was chosen for him by me, the school librarian.

When first handed the book, he remarked, "Pictures books! Fifth graders! Aren't fifth grade students too old for picture books?" The answer to his question is "Not at all." In fact, Pierce students read picture books throughout their nine years here. They use picture books to learn character mapping, plot structure, themes and motifs in literature, structures of non-fiction and literary terms such as allegory, allusion and point of view. They study imagery, metaphor, visual literacy and genre. They glean from pictures books ways to write tall tales, folk tales, personal narratives and mysteries. They use picture books to learn the reading strategies of compare and contrast, prediction, inference, and synthesis, as well as to make text-to-self and text-to-text connections.

Recognizing this trend, many children's literature websites give special attention to picture books for older readers: Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site--Looking Critically at Picture Books;

Children's Literature: Independent Information and Reviews -- Picture Books for Older Readers; University of Iowa's Curriculum Lab -- Picture Books for Older Students; and NCTE's Read. Write. Think. -- Using Picture Books to Teach Characterization in Writer's Workshop to name but a few.

Tech Tips

I thought I'd include a few tech tips in this blog posting. I'll try to be more proactive in the future about these technology issues; however, some things have changed at the district level, without any forewarning.

Converting Files from AppleWorks (AW) to Microsoft Word (Word)
Still using AW when nobody's looking? Or do you need to convert some older AW files to Word? Here's how you can do that in just a few steps - sometimes copying and pasting doesn't capture all the formatting.

1. Open your AW document.
2. From the File menu, choose Save As.
3. Click the File Format drop-down menu (default is AppleWorks) and choose Word Mac 98, 2001 Document.
4. Check to be sure that the name of the document makes sense and that you know where the file is being saved.
5. Click Save. Your file should now open seamlessly in Word.
   

FirstClass (FC) Settings
The network technicians made some changes to our server over the break, which erased the settings in many of your FC accounts. That's why some of you have been able to login from your home computer (unaffected) and not your work computer. Without the setting, FC doesn't know where to find your mail.

1. Open FC.
2. On the Login screen, click Setup. (If you have a newer version of FC, first click Advanced and then Setup.)
3. In the Server box, type fc.brookline.k12.ma.us
4. Click Save

Firefox Proxy Settings
As I wrote in an email earlier this week (which you couldn't read if your FC wasn't working), a change at the district level required a change in the Firefox Preferences. I placed a handout in the staff lunch room for directions to change the proxy settings. Please feel free to use the handout or ask me for help.
I will work with students as they come to the lab, to ensure they can continue to use Firefox.
By the way, our proxy is our network filter; this filter differs from the FC spam filter. That's another blog posting altogether.

As always, please let me know how I can help!
Sandra Sicard

Accessing Research Databases from Home computers

Accessing Research Databases from Home Computers
by Joan Hamilton

Pierce School students learn as early as third grade how to access databases that will help them do research. Using the Pierce Library Catalog, students can easily find full text articles from over seventy-five Children's magazines and reference sources, using such Infotrac databases as Kids Infobits (grades k - 5) and Junior Edition (middle school). Many are aware that these same databases can be used from home IF one has a Brookline Public Library card; however, exactly how to tap into these superb reference sources from home seems to remain a mystery for many. Following are easy steps for all to follow:

1. Get a Library Card. Cards are free when you sign up for the first time, and cost only one dollar ($1.00) to replace.

2. Using a web browser, go to the Brookline Public Library website.

3. In the upper right hand corner, click on Online Services.

4. There you will find a list of the online databases available to those who have a library card.

5. Scroll down to Kids Infobits. Next you will get a screen that asks you to type in your 14-digit library card number.

6. After your card number is entered, you will get another screen. Scroll down to Magazines for k-12 students. Choose Kids Infobits. You may get a screen that says Infotrac-Proceed. Click on Proceed, and you should finally get to the database.

7. Articles are from reference books, magazines, and newspapers. They are usually full text and can be printed or e-mailed.

8. Other databases that may be useful are Junior Edition and Worldbook Online.

Credit your Sources!

by Sandra Sicard

I've shared this online tool with a few teachers, but as I see more and more students engrossed in research of one type or another, I am going to put it out there for all to use. It's Citation Machine, a simple tool for citing sources. A student (or teacher) can choose the style (APA, MLA, Chicago, or Turabian) of the citation; then Citation Machine asks him/her for all the required information. It works for both print and non-print (online) resources. At the end, the user clicks submit, and Citation Machine spits out the citation in a format that can be copied and pasted into a word processing document.
Try it out; let's make it easy for students to give credit where credit is due.

Massachusetts Children's Book Award Project Helps Build a Culture of Reading

Massachusetts Children's Book Awards Project Helps Create a Culture of Reading at Pierce School

by Joan Hamilton


A sixth grade girl, who by her own admission is a reluctant reader, stood looking over the cart of books nominated for the Massachusetts Children Book Awards and told her friend, "These are all really good books."


All fifth and sixth grade students at Pierce School are now about half-way through the Massachusetts Book Awards Reading Project. Most book awards that children learn about, such as the Newbery, the Caldecott, the Coretta Scott King, the Pure Belpre Award and various others are chosen in committees made up of teachers, librarians, book store owners, and/or children's literature professors -- in other words, adults choose the books that receive the awards. The state book awards are different. They are nominated by children and adults, but voted upon exclusively by children. In order to be eligible to vote a child must read at least five of twenty-five nominated titles. This is the sixth year that all fifth and sixth graders have participated in these awards, and as in years past, we find a constant buzz of excitement around the book cart, as students talk to one another about what they have read, and what they plan to read next.


Creating a culture of reading in school or home can be a daunting challenge. According to a Boston Globe article, a recent report by the National Endowment for the Arts entitled "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence," presents some fairly bleak findings about reading and young people -- such as, "The average person between ages 15 and 24 spends two to two and a half hours a day watching television and only seven minutes reading." One of the most interesting findings in the report is that, "regardless of income, levels of reading for pleasure correlate closely with levels of social life, voting, and political activism, participation in culture and fine arts, volunteerism, charity work and even regular exercise." In other words the poorest readers are more community-minded and concerned about their fellow human beings that the richest non-readers.

That quote makes me realize how important it is for Pierce School to continue programs that encourage love of reading, such as the Massachusetts Children Book Awards; and for me to continue with "every child will become a life-long lover of reading" as one of my major goals. It goes beyond the correlation with academic success. Having our kids love reading is an investment in the future our country -- in how we live in community, participate in democracy and maintain healthy lifestyles. How can we not do everything in our power to promote it?

Facebook, YouTube, IM'ing... How do your kids spend their time?

Facebook, youtube, text messaging. Online personas. Friends met through friends of friends or a friend's cousin. What does this mean for us? Is the world getting smaller? Are your children inherently at more risk if they spend more time online on these social networking sites?

I tend to side with Danah Boyd, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “We can turn our backs and say, ‘This is bad,’ or, ‘We don’t want a world like this.’ It’s not going away. So instead of saying that this is terrible, instead of saying, ‘Stop MySpace; stop Facebook; stop the Internet,’ it’s a question for us of how we teach ourselves and our children to live in a society where these properties are fundamentally a way of life. This is public life today.”

I know, it's easy for me to say... I'm obviously a proponent of technology. I also don't have a teenager at home yet. It's still pretty easy for me to limit access to online games such as pbskids.org for my four year old son.

So I'm recommending that you watch a Frontline special, Growing Up Online, on Tuesday, January 22nd on PBS at 9 pm. Hear from experts with varying opinions and from teens with different experiences. Watch this with your teen as a way to start discussing how s/he spends time online. It's a start to learning about the online world. At least it can be a conversation starter, if you haven't yet had that conversation.

Reading material that's easy

Children coming to the Pierce Library looking for books often tell me they need to get a book that's hard to read. "This looks too easy," is a common comment. Or from a first or second grader, "I only read chapter books." Parents, too, often tell teachers they want the books their children choose to be "challenging." It is natural for parents to want to push their children onto the next level up. However, current research from reading guru Richard Allingham informs us of what we now know about proficient readers. They have all read tons of stuff that's easy for them. Reading books below one's reading level builds fluency and confidence. Reading books on one's own, for a child, should be like eating popcorn. Even as adults, not many of us are toting War and Peace to the beach. So if your above average reading child comes home with a book that seems way too easy, encourage him/her to enjoy it.

Keyboarding - in context of the writing process

My last blog was about the importance of having fluent keyboarding skills. To follow up on that theme, I thought I would share some reasons why, as often as possible, we should have our students using technology during the writing process.
The first and easy answer is engagement. Some students would rather do anything using the computer. I've found this generally wears off around middle school, but in the early and intermediate grades, the use of technology for writing can be its own reward.
The better answer is that students write more, edit more willingly and frequently, and thus create better quality writing assignments when using a word processor. See the complete study at An AlphaSmart for Each Student: Does Teaching and Learning Change with Full Access to Word Processors? (Michael Russell, Damian Bebell, Jennifer Cowan, & Mary Corbelli, April 2002)
Skeptical about the study? Ask our own Cheryl Klausner. She conducted her own research with her class a few years ago; from that point forward, her students have used technology to write almost all their assignments.
Concerned with the lack of access to technology? See me. I'll help solve your problems with AlphaSmarts, time in the lab, and the iBook cart.
Don't know where to start? Again, see me. Maybe it makes sense to start with a few struggling writers. Or do just one writing assignment this year using our technology. I'll help you figure out what makes the most sense for you and your students.