A Wandering Eyre

Mental note:
Remember in May when you made that list of all the things you were going to do when the students were gone? Well, they are coming back in two weeks so you better ramp it up a notch.

–Jane, ramped

Sometimes there are too many words and sometimes there are not enough.

There are a lot of things changing at MPOW. I think most are for the best, for individuals and for the organization. Some are unexpected and some come as no surprise. I am optimistic that good things are coming. It is my way to think good thoughts.

What is not my way is the silence. The lack of auditory planning. For some people, planning out loud is disruptive, frightening, because half formed ideas make people nervous. I also think that sometimes organizations on the upper levels see out loud brainstorming as weakness. From my point of view, it implies the exact opposite because a publicly acknowledged discussion invites input. Input makes employees feel valued. A little, “Hey do you have any ideas” sure would be nice. Sooner rather than later

I have to talk things through until they make sense. One of the reasons I keep this space is to have a place for all my thoughts, formed or not. I do not need to know what exactly will happen, things will happen pretty definitely, but I do need to know that someone with power to move is thinking about things and how my world will be.

Right now there is just the very loud roar of silence reverberating down the halls.

–Jane, frustrated in Houston

Midnighters #1: The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld

This book was recommended to me by a friend who is a fan of Westerfeld author of Peeps, Uglies, Pretties, The Risen Empire, and many more.

The Midnighters are a group of high school kids in Bixby, OK who are the only ones awake during the 25th hour of the day. Well, the only humans anyway. There are a fair share of baddies, called slithers and darklings, that become increasingly more active and the Midnighters are wondering if it has anything to do with the new girl in town. This book focuses a lot on action with enough character development to satisfy but leaves you wanting just a little bit more.

Westerfeld has created a very interesting world in which an even more interesting troupe of characters tries, a bit unsuccessfully, to be a team. Each of the Midnighters has a unique ability which helps them to fend of the darklings and survive the secret hour, but their flaws keep them from being a team. It is these flaws that make the story interesting. If only 5 people were “alive” for an hour, who would assume the leadership role? Who would be the muscle? What if self preservation is more important than the whole to one or more members?

These are the questions that Westerfeld poses through the characters. As the first book in a series, this novel merely sets up a larger struggle and many of the questions above are left unanswered. The second book in the series, Touching Darkness, promises to reveal more and is sitting on my dining room table right now.

Highly Recommended – fantasy-esque so not necessarily for everyone

Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin

This was not my first Le Guin novel, though I think that it is thus far (out of two mind you) my favorite. It is classified as a juvenile fiction book at my library, but it read more like a YA book to me.

The story is centered around Orrec, a young man who is waiting for his gift, the undoing, which causes things to be unmade, to appear. Orrec lives in the Uplands, a place in the hills where each family has a gift that helps them protect their land and their people. His best friend, Gry, has the gift of calling animals to the hunt. Le Guin’s story is one of tragedy, deceptions, love, and growing up. Do not let the fantasy label deter you from reading this book. The fantasy touch is light and the themes are transcendent.

Gifts is a great read. At 288 pages, juvenile pages mind you, it is also a quick read. The thing I like most about reading Le Guin is that you can be right in the middle of a perfectly ordinary, but good, description of something and suddenly you will stumble upon a beautiful sentence. A sentence whose very craftsmanship causes you to go back and reread it over again, to prolong the taste of it on your tongue. Gifts is a delightful book full of robust themes for such a small novel.

Recommended, even for those who are not already fans of Le Guin or fantasy

Wow. I just realized I am very behind in my book reviews. Yikes. I am going to try to spend the next couple days catching up.

–Jane, has been reading, just not writing about it

In keeping with the silliness theme, I offer you a library story.

In MPOW, we are not administrators of our own computing environments. This makes for much teeth gnashing and the occasional pleading for programs. Sometimes the requests are easily filled and sometimes it seems like your arm must be given to get something on your computer. IM for example is forbidden, but those of us who do want to use IM use Meebo, GTalk, or other internet clients to get around this problem.

After having a couple things added to my computer, I tried to clean up my desktop of unused icons. Alas, because I am not the administrator (and those files were saved on the admin profile) I can not remove some shortcuts from my desktop.

This also means I am stuck with shortcuts that get loaded on everyone’s machine whether I use them or not. I did point out my dilemma to our head of Systems (whom I really like, but with whom I do not always agree). I am unsure that he saw the ridiculous humor in it I spotted.

So I can answer reference questions, teach information literacy, and have training sessions on technology, but am not to be trusted to delete my own shortcuts.

–Jane, *sigh*

Something a little less serious today. The comments on one of my Immersion posts made me think about something I used to love as a kid: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Being the librarian I am, I looked around on the web and was surprised to see that Warner Brothers is releasing a new TMNT movie in March of 2007. I think this is a movie I will have to go see with my brother, for old time’s sake.

I mean, what is not fun about life-size turtles who eat pizza and kick ass?

–Jane, predictably liked Michelangelo

Things I learned at Immersion:

• The shopping cart is Tyranny!
• There are other people who learn in the same spastic way I do – Hooray for the Loonies!
• I sometimes have trouble slowing down from my looniness to address the learners that do not always appreciate my pace. Some people think about things far longer than my patience allows! But I must try.
• I learned that one of my favorite coworkers is a thinker and my looniness may not always be, erm, appreciated. I need to think more about her and less about me. (I know. I know. It should be ALL about me).
• I have heard proof that librarians are smart and have come up with funny ways to deal with the tragic workplaces some of us face.
• It was reinforced in my mind that some librarians should not be teachers (or work in public service for that matter) and need to find other things to do with their time. This comment stems from the story in this post.
• Writing outcomes is even easier when you use “in order to” as the connecting phrase.
• There are other non-blog people who think that tools are made for librarians and we design classes for teachers not students. Now, how are we going to fix it?
• The less surface area you place on a water slide, the quicker you go down.
• Sometimes you get a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Jane, ready to apply knowledge gained

Immersion is over. The librarians have departed for their home institutions and the library is back to normal. I posted a few reflective pieces last week, so I decided something more concrete was in order.

To say that I learned a lot during Immersion would be the grossest of understatements, but it is the experience that makes the impression, not the content alone. After some digestion of said content, I have made this list. A list of things I will change because of my experience at Immersion.

• I will write better outcomes. I am already in the habit of writing outcomes for each of my classes, but now they will be more exact, with an action verb and a reason for the doing. This will force me to justify each thing I teach. Why do they need to learn X? So they can do Y!
• I will consistently use various methods of assessment to place value on my outcomes. My assessment techniques will start out being simple. Note cards for the students to write down what they learned and what was left unlearned. I plan on giving my outline and outcomes to my faculty before the instruction session. After the session takes place, I will email them and ask them if they felt I addressed each outcome adequately.
• I will address multiple learning styles in my classes. Though reflection is harder to work into a lesson than group exploration, I will try to find new ways to allow people who learn by reflection areas of respite from the group work.
• I will strive to be more deliberate in my dealings with the politics of my organization. I think I already play this game well, but I should have a goal in mind, something I want to achieve. What am I about, anyway?
• I will try to daily remember the reasons why I love my job and love teaching. This exercise should keep the cynical, angry reavers at bay.

I know Immersion is expensive, but if you can get institutional support and the time to go, I recommend it in the highest fashion.

–Jane, still dripping from the immersion

I just created a nice Flickr profile widget, see below, and I realized I take entirely too many pictures of my dog.

Cat is to librarian as dog is to Jane.

Also notice that the largest tube of meat ever, made it into the spread.