Best Intentions

I return, head hung low. I loved writing my blog that began as a class assignment and I really truly thought that I would continue to write entries even after the class ended. But alas, I did not. I revisited recently and updated my profile, why? For another class assignment. And I am behind schedule on this one. This class is a seminar on intellectual freedom. It is very interesting and one I would recommend for anyone taking classes to obtain their Master's in Library Science or already working in a library setting or for anyone concerned with protecting their constitutional rights.

This assignment involves setting up an account on a social network, I thought about MySpace, but my teen told me I was too, too old, to be on MySpace! So I decided to rev up my blog again, though I admit I don't feel as OUT THERE as I might on MySpace. I don't even know if anyone will read this. I think I had a couple responses to postings from long ago, so we will see. On April 13th, I have to create and submit a podcast (ClickCaster) about this whole experience. So if you are reading this, give me some feedback, but be gentle. If you are a regular blogger, what has your experience been? What motivates you to write blogs in this day and age of constant barrage of email and other time consuming pastimes of the Internet, not to mention your job, family etc.?

Sometimes when I'm Googling for info, I run across other's blogs and am amazed at the things people blog about, so I am not ashamed to use mine for a bit of a ramble. There are quite a few librarians out there blogging. In fact one helped me out with her helpful tips on reading programs for little guys. Flexibility being #1. I didn't panic when I only had two little ones to read to, I expected 15. I tossed out the window one of the rhymes that I had printed up when I realized it was way over their little heads. Instead, I began with animal actions and read a book and did another rhyme involving colors and the clothes they were wearing (by that point the teacher joined in) and read the other book. Then I reread in a round about way each book as each toddler took possession of their favorite and said "read it again." Great fun!

In addition to podcasting in this class, we are also posting wikis, very cool (check out "wikispaces") and tomorrow we are filming vidcasts. My partner and I took on the topic of RFIDs. Radio Frequency Identification Technology. It may be in a library near you or hanging about in your tollpass. It is similar to the chips we have the vet embed in our pets. A new invisible barcode of sorts. Won't go into all the details, but if you want more info, Google RFIDs. Wikipedia also seemed reputable on the subject and if you want to be very scholarly check out your library's databases.

Well I'm off for now, more later I promise.

Wrapping, Waving, Wishing

It's a wrap!!! Not quite the wrap I anticipated, but still I managed to pull together what I consider a good final product. All weekend I tried to find various ways to open my video in imovie on our Mac. We even added software that allowed Quick time to read Mpeg2 files. And it worked, sort of. Only the import was still too dark to make out anything. I tried several suggestions from family and friends to no avail. Basically, to get the quality I wanted I needed to purchase a firewire that would allow me to hook our friend's camera to our computer. That would feed it directly into imovie. John didn't think his camera contained the necessary port and time was an issue anyway. So I accepted defeat.

I'd already decided to drop my text into a PowerPoint presentation and began working on the slides. Some how I wanted it to have the essence of the video. It needed to have a voice. The teen's voices. Then my daughter Sarah suggested using pics she had of her and her friends and a cool speech bubble tool to incorporate the girls and their responses to my interview questions. It worked. What's missing though is the girls interactions with each other during the video taping. I watched it again to transcribe the quotes I used and my husband commented on what a great video it is. A friend stopped by to pick up his daughter and stayed to view the PowerPoint and gave it a thumbs up. My youngest sat and read the whole thing. She even pointed out some editing mistakes for me. Tip: Always have someone read your final work to catch those pesky typos. I'm a great believer in having students exchange final drafts to catch mistakes and make suggestions. This would work with these types of projects too.

I'd be glad to share this with someone. I found as I worked on it that I visualized it as a resource for teens. So I may look into ways to share it with teens. Not sure if they are still offering a life skills class at BRHS or maybe in the health class.

My projects bibliography is as follows:

Adams, Carol J. Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat! : An A-Z Guide to Surviving a Conflict in Diets.. New York: Continuum, 2004.

Belamerich, Peter F., and Keith Thomas Ayoob. "Keeping Teenage Vegetarians Healthy and in the Know." Contemporary Pediatrics. October 2001: 89. (Gale).

Children’s and Women’s Health Center of British Columbia. “Vegetarian Reading List for Teens.” 09/06/05. http://www.cw.bc.ca/endodiab/pdf/vegread.pdf.

Duden, Jane. Vegetarianism for Teens. Mankato: Capstone Press, 2001.

Maurer, Donna. Vegetarianism: Movement or Moment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

National Center for Nutrition and Dietetics. “Vegetarian Food Guide Pyramid.” (1997):
The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.utexas.edu/depts/he/ntr/NTR311pyramidpage5.htm

Palo Alto Medical Foundation. “Vegetarianism in Teens.” http://www.vegsoc.org/youth/Parentteenager.pdf.

The Vegetarian Society. (2005). Parent and Teenager’s Guide, Iron handout and Calcium handout. http://www.vegsoc.org.

Winkler, Kathleen. Vegetarianism and Teens: A Hot Issue. Berkeley Heights: Enslow, 2001.

Hopefully it is all there. I tried to keep good records for all information I used in researching vegetarianism and teens and on materials used in the final project. Wonder now if I should have included this at the end of the PowerPoint too. Can always add it later, especially if I share it.

"Describe how your experiences with personal inquiry are like and unlike those of a child or young adult." Hmm... Let's see. This project took over my life and that of my family. Not sure any K-12 project would require so much. But the freedom to choose our inquiry is probably different. Most kids have to choose from a list of teacher generated topics. My experience with searching for information gave me an advantage. Most school-age students would require some guidance from a teacher/media specialist. Most kids have a leg up on me with technology, and may have had experience already with using tools like Inspiration. I know my own run circles around me on our Mac. Reading and notetaking, students would need to learn how to extract material relevent to their topics and how to take good notes and organize them. I described in an earlier blog about dealing with frustrations of access to equipment and setting up interviews and what that would be like as a student. And I know I'd share their relief at having finished the project and turned it in. I learned alot and I know students learn alot through these experiences too.

Wishing? I just wish that I had had my own digital video equipment and/or that the equipment I used had been compatible with my computer. I still wish the video clips had worked out. What would I do differently? Started the whole darn thing alot earlier. :-)

If anyone would like to check out my PowerPoint, click on final product.

Favorite things about this project: Creating the video and blogging.

Standards and More

Today was a day of ups and downs emotionally. Friends who loaned me their digital video camera burned Cds (one a DVD, one a DVD Data Disc with uncompressed MP files) of my video. They are PC users and we are Mac users. Their camera had not come with an i.LINK cable that would allow me to load the video directly to my computer. We all thought one of the discs would enable me to upload the video to iMovie, so that I could edit it into clips to add to my text about vegetarianism. But when I tried I got audio only, no picture. We knew the images were there, or rather that I had remembered to remove the lens cap, because we had played the DVD in our player and viewed the interview on our t.v. I started to throw in the towel on the whole final product, but first I put out calls to two avid Mac techy types. No one was home, who works on Saturdays, right? My cousin-in-law called and then emailed ideas tonight. One it would have been easiest to buy an i.LINK cable (though, friends with camera said they didn't think the camera had the right port) or two, add a plug-in to Quick Time that would allow it to read the Mpeg 2 files. They both cost basically the same. So tomorrow will try one or both to solve problem.

Students doing this at school may or may not have these equipment woes. At our elementary school, we have a Mac lab and cameras and my daughter has used these to create school movies. Schools are able to write grants or to have teachers participate in special programs that award equipment to schools.

Standards

I consulted the Indiana Health Education Standards and chose the following as suitable to my topic and project. The references to health standards in my reading of Chapter 2 in Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, ALA,1998 (see examples of Content-Area Standards), got me to thinking how they fit with my information inquiry.

Standard 2-Students will demonstrate ability to access and evaluate health information, products and services.

Standard 4-Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze the influence of family, culture, peers, community, media and technology on health and health behaviors.

Standard 6-Students will demonstrate ability to implement decision making and goal setting skills to enhance health.

Standard 7-Students will demonstrate ability to advocate for personal, family and community health.

I included these in that a similar project might be assigned in a health science class. Standard 2, I also see as looking at determining what "is quality information and what's junk?" (Lamb, Wiggling email) in websites with health information, that a student might consult. See figure 6.6: Questions Used to Evaluate Web Sites in Inquiry Learning through Librarian-Teacher Partnerships by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina. This table on page 90, with its criteria and questions, is a useful tool for students.

I also selected a standard from 8th grade English/Language Arts.

Standard 4-Parts of Writing Process: Students discuss, list and graphically organize writing ideas.

This would apply to students projects that include group discussions, emails or blogs and outlining and graphic organizers, like concept maps.

And lastly, I selected a standard from Indiana Standards for Technology Education.

Standard 12-Select the appropriate devices and systems to meet personal and societal needs.

Definitely important, see first paragraph of this blog. I chose this particular format for my final product, because I thought it would be appealing to the age group
my topic is addressing. Teens. Students creating a similar project would want to make peers aware of this imformation and would want to create and share a product that would ultimately educate others. Whether video, PowerPoint or pamphlet. Hoping that I'll still be able to create the final product I have envisioned.