Updating Blogs (regularly)

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I have posted to this blog, and I apologize if any of you have been waiting anxiously for helpful hints or news about technology at Pierce. So much time has passed that momentum has ceased and complete inertia taken its place. I have decided that what I need to do is set a time biweekly in my schedule to write on the blog. With the inauguration of teacher web sites on homeworknow.com, I thought that some of you also might need a gentle reminder to update your web sites. There are a few ways to do that. (I decided to focus on iCal, since it is free and is available on all school Apple computers.)

• Low tech: Write in your plan book a time each week or biweekly to update your site. The more often that you update it, the less difficult the task becomes.
• Middle tech: Use a calendar program like iCal to schedule time to update your site. Create an event that appears on your calendar and use the Repeat function to schedule regularly occurring events.
• Higher tech: Use a calendar program not only to set aside time to blog or update your site but also to remind you to do so. iCal can send you an email with a reminder, display a notice on the screen, or display a notice with an alert sound.

I have been using an electronic calendar program for almost ten years to remind me about important events and birthday. Now it will remind me to update my blog, too.

For a video on how to use iCal, check out this instructional video on YouTube.

Do you have other tips on scheduling regular tasks in your life? Please share them here!

Pierce Reads is Bigger Than Ever

by Joan Hamilton

This coming Thursday, May 7th, nearly 190 Pierce students, their parents, and teachers will gather in the Pierce School library as a community of Readers to participate in Pierce Reads, a program created and run through the Pierce School Library for the past 14 years. Sadly, it may be the last Pierce Reads if there is no Library Assistant on board next year.

The following is a letter I sent to the Brookline School Committee concerning this issue.

April 28, 2009

Dear School Committee Members,

I would like to invite you all to attend Pierce Reads on Thursday, May 7th at 7p.m. in the Pierce School Library. Pierce Reads is a book discussion evening that entails students, their parents and teachers coming together as a community of readers to exchange views on a book read in common. This program, which occurs once in the fall and once in the spring, began fourteen years ago thanks to a grant from The Brookline Foundation. It is a program that has been replicated in most of the other seven elementary schools.

Our theme this year is “Between Two Worlds.” 4th graders are reading a book about a 4th grader just arrived from Kosovo; 5th and 6th graders are reading about a Sudanese “lost boy” and his first year in Minneapolis following the trauma of losing most of his family; 7th and 8th graders are reading about a Muslim family from Bangladesh who suddenly become “the enemy” following the terrorism of 9/11.

At present 81 students have signed up, meaning 81 parents will accompany them, plus approximately 15 Pierce staff members. We never have to coerce teachers to participate as discussion leaders. They always tell us being here is reward enough. One teacher, several years ago, put it thus: “I almost didn’t come. I was extremely tired and just wanted to go home and sleep; but I decided to come and I can only say this about Pierce Reads – It’s better than sleep.” Parents ask why we don’t have a Pierce Reads every month. Students, as well, give high marks to the evening. One African American boy being mentored by a sixth grade teacher (thanks to another Brookline Foundation grant), whispered (great excitement in his voice) to me one day last week, “I’m coming to my first Pierce Reads. A teacher is bringing me.”

Sadly, it will also be the last Pierce Reads if there is no library assistant at Pierce next year. The amount of person hours it takes both Shirley and me to read and choose the books, order and process them, book talk them in each class, advertise to parents, distribute the books, re-read the books the week prior to the discussions in order to prepare discussion packets for each co-leader, make up the discussion groups balanced between boys and girls, talkative and quiet students, make color-coded name tags for each participant, plan the discussion leaders’ dinner which takes place at 5:30p.m. prior to the event, prepare evaluation sheets, buy and prepare the refreshments and then clean up afterward, will be too many to make it possible to execute this twice-yearly event, given the 2/3 cut in the library program that will occur without an assistant.

You’ve heard me speak before about the culture of reading that takes years to build up in a school. This is the biggest Pierce Reads ever. It seems more than sad that it may be the last.

Sincerely,
Joan Hamilton
Pierce School Librarian

Research Redux

In our last few blog postings, Mrs. Hamilton and I have discussed the research projects that we've been doing with both the sixth and seventh grade classes. I've spent a lot of my class time with seventh grade students, discussing, practicing (is "Googleing" a word?), and engaging in research. While we do meet just once a week, much time and energy has been devoted to the practice of research in those classes. I've really been hoping that the concept of authenticating resources (a.k.a. checking sources) was solidifying in their minds. However, much to my dismay, one of the three sections of classes had that look of confusion on their faces when I was reviewing the requirements of their I-Search project and mentioned authenticated resources.

As a teacher, I wondered what went wrong. I used the same agendas, rubric, and models for all three sections. I utilized a constructivist approach so that each student had to create a list of characteristics of a valid research site. Doesn't this mean that by creating their understanding, they should remember it better? Was this class just more honest than the others? And lastly, how will these students survive in our world of information overload? So I did what I could -
continued to discuss authenticated resources seemingly ad nauseam in class (and probably in this blog, too) and engaged in deep breathing exercises.

I am fairly certain that I am not the only teacher who has experienced this, and we will move on to a new topic in class soon. If the true indication of students' understanding is their ability to use their knowledge flexibly, then I can know only if I succeeded from the results of future projects and from the experiences of colleagues who ask these students to research. Please let me know what happens.

Sixth Graders Learning about the CIvil RIghts Movement

Sixth Graders Learning about the Civil Rights Movement
by Joan Hamilton

Collaboration is a core value of the Brookline Public Schools. Scott Moore, head of the Educational Technology and Libraries Department, used a recent two hour meeting to give librarians and ET specialists time to work together to plan a research unit. The result for Sandra Sicard and me was a sixth grade research unit on the Civil Rights era. Following that two hour meeting, we worked several more hours with the sixth grade teachers and specialists to work out the logistics of implemention.

The result is Pierce's sixth graders have been hard at work since their first day of school in 2009 researching, reading, and writing about the Civil Rights Movement in this country. The essential question they are answering is: What happened during the Civil Rights era (1950 - 1968) that brought change to our country? One objective is to gain the background information that will allow them to understand better the novel, The Watson's Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis, a 6th grade benchmark book. The book is paritially set in Alabama in 1963 during the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Each student individually is researching a person, event, or organization. Each student's final product will be one page containing two paragraphs -- one telling the "who, what, where" about their topic, and the second explaining the impact on the progress of civil rights in this country. They must also include a picture and a quotation. Each class will produce a civil rights era "primer", a compilation of individual student work, that will be available on line as well as in print in each classroom.
Students' research tools have been books both from Pierce School Library and the Brookline Public Library as well as online databases and web sites. They have seemed both excited and amazed by what they are finding. "It's hard to believe it was so violent." "These people were amazingly courageous," are two comments I have overheard. Searching for primary sources, one student exclaimed with excitement, "Oh, look! here is an intereview." Another chimed in, "I found a letter." Besides giving students background information for Watson's , we hope this research will increase their appreciation of the historic inauguration that will take place next week.