What is February 9? Think B4 U Post Day

First and foremost, here in Vancouver, it is the long-awaited Winter Tonic. This is our antidote to the chilly winter, although here in Vancouver, winter is just about the mildest ever in the only year some would have wished it colder ... for the 2010 Winter Olympics due to start in a week now we feature crocusses!

Winter Tonic is at Gladstone, starting at 4 pm. The theme this year is Italian Carnevale because some of us just came back and think Italy is actually the best antidote to Vancouver winters. We have the usual line-up of great workshops and guests Val and Steve from the mother-ship. Getting together is as much a draw for teacher-librarians as is the professional development. Being the TL, most likely the only one in a school, brings on a hunger for the company of like-minded educators and makes it hard to interrupt for the professional learning ... but not impossible. It`s what makes being the one who gets to help organize and enable events like this so remarkable and unique.

What else is February 9? It is one week before February 16, this year's actual Mardi Gras or Carnevale or Pancake/Shrove Tuesday, that grand celebration that precedes Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday and other rigours of the Christian Lent.

February 9 is also Safer Internet Day. This year's theme is Think B4 U Post. Now while I can't see where Canada has much going on this Day, it is BIG elsewhere.

• Here on the EU Ins@fe site is information for teachers about internet safety.
• Here's the Australian Cyber(smart:) page.
• You may want to review what Danielle Law from UBC has told us about Cyberbullying.
• The local Miss604 blogged about cyberbullying in 2008.
• The BC Government Ministry of Health page on Internet Safety is "down" ... and the Ministry of Children and Family's Safe Kids BC links directly to this page and to NetSmartz, an American site.
• We have print resources available here in Curriculum Publications.

Seems as though there is still work to be done here in Canada but we can be thankful for the globalizing capacity of the internet for sharing the work done elsewhere.

Don't You Simply Love February!

February in Vancouver is a dull month, its highlights being the kind we Canadians celebrate quietly ... we don't have Carnevale or Mardi Gras but tend instead to pancakes like the British and chocolate for Valentine's. This year ... well, we may long for our quiet celebrations after this year where already the anticipation of the Olympics has us fretting about traffic and costs and disruptions to schooling. We Canadians persevere. That's what happens when you live in the colder or damper climates. No masks, street parties, and unfettered celebrations, as a rule. You just learn to wait February out and seek replenishment in the small pleasures of shared food, like pancakes and chocolate, flowers, good company, good things to read and watch, and the annual collective gatherings of educators, things like Winter Tonic.

For those of us preparing for February, there are lots of ways to replenish the spirit and lighten the mood in anticipation of Spring and the peace and quiet that must surely follow the hoopla and challenges of the Olympics here this year in Vancouver.

On Monday, February 1, 30 keen TLs are meeting for a mini-Pro D Day to do things digital, technical, and practical at McBride. We will savour the day with treats and make our way to hands-on lessons in weeding. This will be a fun day with special guests on Smartboards and Mentoring who have agreed happily, as is the way of TLs, to come to help out, alongside the usual MK and ME.

On Tuesday, February 9, many more TLs and others will gather at Gladstone after school for Winter Tonic, the annual "professional" evening that is simply more fun than work. And when the workshops are over, we have a visit from our new superintendent who is joining us for dinner -- reported to be an Italian feast in our quiet Canadian celebration of Carnevale. Decorations in the theme are spectacular this year, thanks to Shaughnessy art program. I can't wait to see the fantastic display of masks. All this and a year-long membership in the VTLA for $30. It's such a deal.

On Monday, February 15, the District Day, teachers in the district have a choice of venues and topics. These they can "shop" for by perusing the online Current Professional Development listings and registering through the VSB website. You might choose:

• The Smartboard Academy at Livingstone
• Technology Day, "Everything Digital" at Magee, with keynote Steve Cardwell in the afternoon
• Assessment Day at the Italian Cultural Centre - registration by school group
• ESL Focus Day at Tupper
• Science Day at Hamber
• and so on and so on and so on ... check out Pro D listings.

My work life in February is narrowed to supporting professional development in several venues, the biggest of which is the Technology Day at Magee, not that I want to press you ... but I do hope to see lots of TLs there. Workshops will include:

• Web Writing and Design
• Collaborative Internet Tools: Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning
• LEGO Robotics
• Digital Storytelling
• Simple Stop Motion Videos
• Titanium Chef / Le chef titane: A Digital Game for Grades 6-8
• Introduction to Digital Cameras
• Introduction to Smartboards
• Quickstart: OpenOffice and Google Docs
• VSB Digital Library
• Moodle
• Picasa

David Brear, Alan Zisman, Brian Kerr, Bruno Vernier, Maryann Kempthorne, and many other Vancouver and local educators are lined up to provide a full array of digitally focussed enrichment opportunities. Stay tuned for more details, but do be sure to register online (it's under Registration there, see?) ... we need to be sure to have enough food.

It's the first one -- Web Writing and Design -- that I am most delighted to be offering. This worshop is designed to appeal to anyone who is personally interested in writing, in writing for the web, and in visually designing that web presence, as well as to TLs and teachers of English and Language Arts who acknowledge the new genre of writing for the web. The presenter is Amanda Grondahl who several of us met recently through the EastmeetsWest Book Club. Amanda is the designer of a downtown eastside women's book club and Intrepid Pens writers' workshop about which you can read in the blog attached to her website (click onto the DTES tab). She is also a freelance writer, editor, and design consultant and the granddaughter of a long-time now-retired Vancouver secondary science teacher. We think about acorns and trees when we work with Amanda.

Vancouver TLs and their various associations have provided support for Amanda's DTES projects; we follow their literary journeys with amazement and joy. We are learning as they go.

And yes, I know, this blog doesn't really use "web writing strategies" so I may just be attending this one myself. I have asked to have this workshop in the library.

Looking forward to seeing you at something this month.

Happy Valentine's Day

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Winter Tonic with a Theme of Love

This year's Winter Tonic was perhaps the BEST ever. Certainly well attended, the event at once entertained us, moved us, nourished us, and informed us, all in good spirit and spirited participation. Thanks to all kinds of people who made this a success, including the VTLA Winter Tonic organizing committee who always do such a great job, the VTLA Exec who saw the need to invite and welcome new TLs, the newbies who came and we know will be back, the presenters who "wow'ed" us, and the out-of-district TLs who always join us too.

Our Superintendent warmed to the invitation to say a few words on one or more aspect of this year's theme of Love, Libraries, and Chocolate. Using a booktalk approach, a strategy we are very familiar with and were delighted to see, Chris shared three authors' perspectives on love.

• From Robertson Davies (in When We Were Young, ed. Stuart McLean), on the subject of a young boy's realization of love and life while gazing at peonies -- for a review of McLean's collection, see page 66 of Adult Canadian Books for Strong Teenage Readers, by Margaret McKey et al, published with 10th edition of Resource Links. Davies' use of this moment in other writings would suggest it is for the child a moment poignant and exquisite, as well as autobiographical.
  
• From Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts, the largely autobiographical story of Lindsay, later renamed Shantaram, or "man of peace," who escapes an Australian jail to become a slumdweller and petty operator out of the Mumbai slums. Writes Lindsday in the opening lines, “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.” No copies of this 900+ page read are available from our schools!
  
• Finally, from Buckminster Fuller, in his 1970s free verse book Intuition: Fuller coins the term synergy, seeks to explain life's complexities as well: Writes Fuller, “Love is omni-inclusive, progressively exquisite, understanding and tender and compassionately attuned to other than self.” Suggests Kelly, as are schools.
  

Mary, looking for all the world the proudest mom, was with us all for the early evening. The young performers astounded the crowd, taking us instantly from thoughts of love to high culture. Amazing, they were.

I went to see the Adult Reads this year, where Jennifer from Hager Books "booktalked" 25 books in 45 minutes. I will attach her recommended list to the tlspecial wiki (linked to this blog in left-hand sidebar) ... this was unquestionably a dizzying repertoire of reading possibilities and one of the very best we've seen do this.

I dropped in on David Brear's Web 2.0 lab session where 40 people were jammed in. Suzanne from Maple Ridge, who was extremely happy she had come in for the event, noted that the hand-out alone was worth the trip! I found the lab just as jammed when I came to find a seat for Ciara and Gwen doing databases. Fantastic amounts of work went into making databases more accessible for inquiry and curriculum-related projects.

I am hoping that people who attended Tiffany's session -- she talked about her new book, to be published in the Spring -- will add reviews of her session as comments in this blog. Also, Linda's puppets were very busy. Your reviews are important. Please use the comment feature to add to the description here.

Sales of books and puppets seemed brisk. Thanks to our friend Helen for the fantastic meal and Valentine desserts, along with the serving princesses Nancy and Sylvia whose very presence at an event makes everything more fun. Thanks to Cecil for putting up with all of us.

Allison thanked me for bringing in Dr Jason Ohler for next Friday's Technology Day. She'd heard such great things from her husband who had seen him in October and she was so pleased she'd be able to see him too.

So here's the reminder: Have you registered for Technology Day yet? We are still looking for 70 more to register. AND I need more people (10 to date are committed) to the online conference which I am sure will be something like the Summer Institute, an event you won't want to have missed.

Coquitlam's Pro D Day:

Three of us took the New Databases / Technology Integration workshop on the road and travelled out to Port Coquitlam to Coquitlam's Technology Day event. In addition to doing a workshop for 20 or more TLs, we knew we could hear their keynote speaker Marco Torres, an educator whose work with new visual and other technologies, whose message to become more involved with the verbs than the nouns, whose focus on the process, has inspired young learners in his San Fernando school and community. We attended Alan November's session as well. I also ran into Tom Grant ... and guess what? He blogs every Friday!

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Be sure to READ the GiggleIT information (Feb 10 posting) below!

What funny Canadian stories do we need to share?

I'm back ... are you still there?

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Hello? Hello? Vancouver here. Downadup be gone! My little local audience of teacher-librarians has been limited by the unthinkable consequences of the onslaught of a little-known new virus. Can you imagine doing our work without computers? Not for circulating, not for communicating across our particularly connected community, not even for working in standard software applications like Excel.

Pending are the deliberations about awards for valiant perseverance and innovative practice, for a willingness to dust off the encyclopedias and hit the books, and for the collective spirit of service delivery Gutenberg-style under the direst of cicumstances. TLs rallied ... and our Maryann ran without hesitation to stem the tide of collapsing circulation due to the faltering system. Not every location has been successfully returned, but school libraries were made a priority for inocculation and restoration, clear evidence that children`s reading and research needs are a priority for schools here. Whew!

Where I work on the penthouse floor of the Mother Ship, technical overtime ensured we were only a little more than three days down. People found lots to do in those 3+ days; at first as a visitor to the building you might not have noticed that all computer monitors were turned off. But the number of phone and personal conversations and small meetings, and focus on filing and paperwork and the FAX machine, even the dying art of writing, not evident at first, would have unfolded for visitors as they moved through floors and various work spaces.

By the third day, I had checked that my Starbucks cards were registered and moved my personal laptop and workload into a jury-rigged office in the nearby cafe. Frankly, with no audience and no computer, it felt as though everything important I needed to pass along was log-jammed in my fingertips.

I blog outside the system but count on those inside to access what I write. Weekly on Fridays I have sent the email (with link) that reminds my TL colleagues to check the blog for the lastest news. Three Fridays have passed now since our return from the arduous Winter Break which seemed, here on the balmy Canadian West Coast, unrelentingly cold and punitive. Contextualize further in the uncertainties of our economic downturn. Then this! One might reasonably ask, Why us, Lord, why us? In some corners, it is rumoured that collective sighs of relief could be heard as the pace slowed, the pressure to move with technology abated, and the focus on reading and basic literacy skills was re-embraced. Then came deadlines for such things as interim reports and groans of despair from schools became audible. Way to go, TL colleagues. You have unquestionably stood up well in the face of trying circumstances. We hope to have you all back soon.
Big News Items

• From the BCTLA Executive Meeting on Saturday -- we are almost finished a hefty agenda discussing many exciting new developments for us. Hearing about The Bookmark due in early February was amazing. More attuned to developments in relation to the work of academic teacher-librarianship now, The Bookmark will feature articles by Branch, Oberg, Asselin, Doiron, and Margaret Ruurs. Of course, you'll find regular contributors Goldsmith, Savard, and Smith. Word is we can look forward to more in this new direction.
  
  Also important is the announcement that the BCTLA proposal for a BCTF Inquiry Project was successful and a great group to TLs has submitted applications to be involved. Whoo-hoo! We are awaiting word on an application for a VSB Inquiry into Inquiry project too.
  
• POSTPONED: Plagiarism Workshop scheduled for January 27 at Gladstone after school, on the assumption that low registration is due to the local technology crisis ... and besides, with stress of last few weeks, Pat and I are still working on this. What is under development is a new webpage with lots of links, resources, and ideas about preventing, not catching, plagiarism. Stay tuned ....
  
• STILL ON: TL Studio 1 (Kerrisdale) this week with Michele and crew. Hope to see lots of you there ...
  
• Are you coming? Caroline, Nancy, and I are signed up, I think, on February 3 (4:30 to 7:30 pm) to hear Dr Leu on The New Literacies at the Italian Cultural Centre. For more information, contact Meredyth at mkezar@vsb.bc.ca. $65 includes dinner.


• Are you getting ready to meet up at Winter Tonic? Thanks for the generosity of the VTLA, all new TLs are being invited to Winter Tonic as guests. On Feb 10 at Tupper, we'll learn about databases, Web 2.0, Linda's puppets, Tiffany's new book, and some great adult reads, then eat and win prizes, as is our custom.


• Technology Day at Magee is revived under the DLS banner.
  
  You can now register online for a morning with keynote speaker Dr Jason Ohler from the University of Alaska. Jason spoke here in Vancouver in October as the keynote speaker at the CUEBC Conference -- now non-CUE members can hear The Word.
  
  
  Technology 2.0: Teaching for Today and Tomorrow:
  
  Dr Jason Ohler
  Going Beyond Essays: New kids, New Media and New Literacies
  
  Helping digital kids “write the media they read” in order to become active media creators, not simply passive consumers, promotes teachers’ moving from teaching for traditional literacy to creative and thoughtful teaching for multiliteracies. Why not cultivate students’ new media talents, incorporate art as the 4th R, and use research and narrative to create rich, compelling formats for students’ learning? With student-created media stories and articulate, transformative projects, students can imagine the world they want to create and share their work and talents within the collaborative community of the social web.
  
  Dr Ohler will also show practical tools and processes that work with new media narrative and digital storytelling projects in educational contexts. These tools are largely free digital or Web 2.0 tools. Consider with Jason questions about media assessment, media grammar, and the role of research-based digital stories and media curriculum development.
  
  Jason Ohler (Professor, Educational Technology, U of Alaska) is a well-known speaker and storyteller. Having received his PhD from SFU Communications Department in 1994 and recently delivered the keynote presentation for the CUEBC Conference at Magee, Dr Ohler is no stranger to Vancouver. He is noted for the passion, humour and intelligence he brings to his keynotes. Jason has 25 years of experience in the educational technology field; with n eye on the future, he is able to connect where teachers are to their learning and working in the Digital Age.
  
  
• TL Sandbox Session on the Afternoon of Technology Day
  
  Learning 21st Century Style: School Libraries, Web 2.0 and More
  
  As a feature of this year's Technology Day we are offering meetings for groups with similar technology interests. These are to be scheduled in the early afternoon so that you can come from Literacy Day or 4REAL Day or Math Day or many other Pro D events on February 20. Ours, the TL Sandbox, is available now for online registration.
  
  You are invited to the TL Sandbox if you are a teacher/librarian interested in learning how to use Web 2.0 to enhance opportunities for collaboration and working relationships. Teachers interested in and considering careers in school librarianship are also welcome. Here you can meet Sandra Lee in person, find out more about Web 2.0, and hear how you can enroll in a nine-day Online Conference (click link for more information).
  
  The Online Conference, February 20 to March 1
  Professional Development to Transform School Libraries with Web 2.0
  
  For just an hour a day, starting on February 20, using strategies for teacher-librarian collaboration, you can work within a flexible Web platform with featured international practitioners to explore the challenging issue: How can school libraries use Web 2.0 tools to engage teachers as well as students in learning, 21st century style?
  
  James Henri and Sandra Lee, former colleagues at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education, were recently here in Vancouver as co-presenters at our VSB Summer Institute, The Changing Landscapes of School Libraries. James is President of the International Association of School Libraries (IASL) and Sandra is Information literacy librarian at a private university in Canada. Both teach UBC TL courses online. They are again joining forces to organize an exceptional virtual conference to advance teacher librarianship.
  
  James and Sandra will bring you a world class collection of web 2.0, and school library, leaders who will work with you in a Web 2.0 environment. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage in flexible online learning about Web 2.0.
  
  NOTE: Vancouver TLs (and TLs-in-progress) who wish to register for the 9-day conference will be eligible for both a group discount and district-subsidized rates and should email or contact Moira about registering ASAP. Non-VSB applications to join us for the afternoon will also be accepted as online registrations.