Today is day three of the UM 4T Virtual Con. It’s an amazing combination of sessions from across the country, with participants from across the country as well! Sadly, general registration is closed, but you’re welcome to join us for these sessions on Wednesday, featuring School of Information folks! GO BLUE and join us!

(Following this list of Wednesday sessions is a list of the archived sessions from Monday.)

Wednesday, 2:45 - 3:45pm
Empowering Teachers With More Pluggable Educational Technology
Session Type: Lecture
Dr. Charles Severance, University of Michigan School of Information
Tech Plan Strand: Learning: Engage and Empower
Session Description:
Teachers are often greatly limited in the educational technology they can use in their classes because it becomes increasingly complex to use on the web software from many different vendors. Students must get a separate account for each new system, teachers need to jump between systems to assess and grade student work and transfer grades between the different systems. Thorough the IMS Global Learning Consortium (www.imsglobal.org), the marketplace is developing standards that will allow course rosters and roles to be moved from one system to another and for graded to be moved between systems without rewiring hand-copying of data between systems. The new standard is called ‘IMS Learning Tools Interoperability’. For example if your school uses Moodle and you would like to use www.chemvantage.org for Chemistry homework, you can simply ‘plug’ ChemVantage into Moodle and the rest is handled automatically. This presentation will introduce IMS Learning Tools Interoperability at a very high level and show some demonstrations of it working with Sakai, Moodle, and Blackboard.
http://www.dr-chuck.com/
Twitter: @drchuck
Moderated by Kristin Fontichairo
Session URL (link opens 20 minutes prior to session)

Wednesday, 2:45-3:45pm
Storybird for Classes
Session Type: Workshop
Presenter: Kara Fribley, UofM School of Information, Master’s Degree Candidate 2012, Library Information Services
Co Presenter: Natalie Mulder, UofM School of Information, Master’s Degree Candidate 2012, Library Information Services
Tech Plan Strand(s): Learning: Engage and Empower
Session Description:
Storybird is a website that allows online books to be created for free, with artwork provided for users. It supports use by classroom teachers for one or multiple classes or subjects. This session will teach participants how to use this Web 2.0 tool for classroom purposes. It will instruct participants how to create and administer classes in Storybird, how to use the “discussion” feature of Storybird, how Storybird works from the student perspective, and how to create online books using this website. Finally, the option of viewing the book online or ordering a physical book created by the students for the classroom will be discussed.
Session URL (link opens 20 minutes prior to session)

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00pm EST

Amping Up Student Learning With Learning Management Systems
Session Type: Lecture
Presenter: Stephanie Teasley, Research Professor, University of Michigan School of Information
Co-Presenter: Kristin Fontichiaro, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of InformationTech Plan Strand: Learning: Engage and Empower
Session Description: Teachers, administrators, and school districts are adopting learning management systems (LMS) like Moodle, Sakai/CTools, Blackboard, and Edmodo at unprecedented rates. Whether you’re an enthusiastic adopter or reluctantly following a district directive, how can you use these virtual classrooms to improve learning, not just store information? This session focuses on holistic thinking about learning management systems and strategies for how they can be used to improve students’ interaction with content, with instructors, and with one another. We’ll also touch on legal issues of student privacy, parental access, and what’s OK to use in a password-protected system. The concepts discussed can be applied to a variety of learning management systems rather than focusing on any particular LMS.
Moderated by Kristin Fontichairo
Session URL: (link opens 20 minutes prior to session)

Wednesday, 7:45-8:45pm EST
Ten Things That You Can Do At School With a Kindle (Beyond Buying Books From Amazon)
Session Type: Workshop
Presenter: Kristin Fontichiaro, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
Tech Plan Strand: Learning: Engage and Empower
Session Description:
2011 may be remembered as the year ebooks went viral. If you’re considering bringing ereaders like Amazon’s Kindle into your classroom or library, there are many ways you can use the devices beyond reading purchased titles. In this workshop, we’ll look at ten Kindle tools and strategies you and your students can use to support struggling learners, preview new reads, read Web content, hear text read aloud, and more. Although most of the tools we’ll examine are Kindle-specific, some are applicable for other ereader brands.
http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/about/
Twitter: @activelearning
Session URL (link opens up 20 minutes prior to session)

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MONDAY ARCHIVES

Interested in some quick PD that you can browse over the summer? Here are yesterday’s Webinars for the 4TVirtualCon. More are being recorded as we speak! Sadly, general conference registration exceeded the limit, but here’s your chance to see what you missed! We here at the School of Information are particularly tickled about Addie Matteson and Emily Thompson’s session on Twitter, as they are both SI alums!

Iteach: Considerations And Possibilites For Using Ipods And Ipads In Classrooms-Steve Best

Microsoft’s Mouse Mischief: Transforming Inexpensive Computer Mice Into Invaluable Assessment Tools By Kevin Hankinson

Moodle Mayhem - Be The Moodle Administrator! - Miguel Guhlin

Technology Awareness And Use–Sara Lukaszewicz

If You Tweet It, They Will Come:using Twitter To Form A Professional Network–Emily Thompson and Addie Matteson

Flip To A More Reflective Practice–Renee Pesheck

Manythings.org For Esl And Efl Students

Cell Phones: The No Excuse Tool–James Kapptie

The Joy Of Trial And Error With 6th Graders–Catina Haugen

Social Networking By Using Edmodo To Engage In Literacy Learning–Liz Kolb

Multiple Uses Of Engrade–Dana Mccarius

Second Life For Professional Development–Jessica Brogley

This year, I’ve really felt the weight of information overload. How about you? The Twitter feed that gets 30 new posts before I’ve finished reading the last 30, the never-empty Google Reader, and my daily battle to beat back my email inbox to fewer than 150 before bedtime, only to find it full again the next day.

And good luck remembering stuff.

I tend to say stuff like, “I read somewhere that there was a study showing that many folks skip the bottom 1/4 of the screen when they read on an e-reader,” and I have no idea where I read it. NO IDEA.

I’m starting to think that Sisyphus had it easy. All he had to do is roll that rock all day. He didn’t even have to read, much less remember, anything he wrote.

Then there’s this survey saying that “information rage” is hitting the workplace because others, like me (and remember, I work in an INFORMATION SCHOOL) are also feeling information overload:

Information Rage Coming Soon To an Office Near You - Slashdot via kwout

We’re even shifting the focus of one of our required courses to focus on information overload and the work that many disciplines are doing to mediate / counteract / re-balance / change / document it.

Now, Ann Blair, a Harvard researcher, says that maybe information overload isn’t anything new. Maybe it’s historical.

Here she is in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Information Overload, Then and Now - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

And here again in a similar article in the Boston Globe:

Information overload, the early years - The Boston Globe via kwout

Both times, Blair points out that librarians, with their controlled vocabulary and consistent organizational methodologies, helped bring order to chaos. They’re long articles but worth a read.

And it has me thinking about how many librarians continue to “show their worth” by showering students, parents, and faculty with an ever-burgeoning set of Web tools. Do you like that browser? We can show you six more! Fond of that online photo editor? We’ve got 20 more just like it!

I wonder if, at times, we put novelty too far ahead on the priority list. Is “one more” always what our students need? I’m not convinced that many of our faculty can handle “one more” with everything else that is on their plate. (Oh my word, has anyone calculated the amount of stress or manhours that Common Core Standards implementation is going to add to teachers’ plates in 44 states in the next 18 months? Does my calculator even go that high?) Or is it that we need to be putting more of our collection development skills to work to narrow the field? To curate the options and abundance and, instead, focus on “best of”?

It strikes me that the librarians I admire most are the ones who commit themselves to finding robust, multi-use tools and then to really helping students move toward having mastery of those tools. They may look at dozens of tools before narrowing in on a handful of amazing workhorses. Tool Of The Week is too stressful for most folks. And the time it takes each time we introduce a new tool to students means they are spending more time with the requisite play time, the “huh, I didn’t know that would happen” time then really digging into learning transferable skills and content..

Perhaps it’s like antique stores. Ever been in the junky ones that have stuff stacked to the rafters? Sure, you might be able to find a deal in there, but in the meantime, you’re worried that if you sneeze, a sideboard will tumble over and konk you on the head. Whereas the finest antique stores put out only the finest items and arrange them artfully, with plenty of space so you can admire each item. (OK, I still worry that I’ll sneeze, but not that I will end up in an ambulance.)

Well, suddenly I am finding myself in need of a Kleenex, so I’ll close this post.

Tech & Learning magazine has announced its 2010 Awards of Excellence.

I’m delighted that my colleague Jeff Stanzler, as well as a number of our MAC students in Teaching with Technology class, are recognized for hours of work evaluating tools, software, and Web tools. Go Blue!

Image from Tech & Learning