Edging Ahead…

And so how do I try to “walk the talk” of Middle Way thinking? What is it about my library or my program that demonstrates my commitment to preserving the best of traditional teaching/learning environment while giving the nod to the the exquisite potential of new media and web2.0?

Let me see…

• Instead of our stable, but static school-based website as an entry to library collections, programs and services, we’ve created HS and MS blogs which allow us to take advantage of emerging interactive capabilities (commenting on posts), display options (flickr photo streams from our library) and linking technologies (research and reference websites, blogs and wikis). At the same time, we’ve kept the links alive from the schoo website for those that are comfortable with our well-tested “3-clicks-in” to research tools strategy.
• We’re rolling out a new graphic-interface OPAC this year, while at the same time reverting to Genres Collections for our HS Fiction. Patrons can take advantage of the google-like search and results OPAC interface or just walk to their favorite genre and browse for a new Independent Reading title
• Our new catalog features integrated web-searches along with the hunt for traditional print and AV/media references. For those patrons who expect to find their answers on the web, there’s no longer a need to carry out two independent searches.
• On the one hand, we’ve continued to bolster our online subscription reference databases while on the other, we’ve integrated our traditional print Reference Collection into our general Non-Fiction Collection, and encourage patrons to borrow any print item that meets their information needs.
• Both our blogs and our websites link to internal iptv offerings providing live access to news and educational programming on any computer on the campus area network.
• Although we carry very sophisticated subject-specialty databases, including literature references, we’ve retained our 1970-2000 collection of Gale CritLIt references. In order to facilitate student use of these wonderful but weighty references, we offer free photocopying of any Gale references needed for advanced research.
• We’re in the process of retiring our legacy VHS video Collection, but we’re committed to preserving the best of the instructional programming embodied in this collection by either buying new DVD editions of specific titles or transferring the VHS programming to DVD (after due diligence in searching for DVD editions of the specific work)
• Our “Gutenberg’s Intent” LIbrary Club now features three division. For the traditionalists, we’ve got a Readers’ Group who recommend titles, conduct buying trips for local materials, and discuss their current reading interests. To cater to the more action-oriented patrons, we run a Games Divison, currently meeting on Friday afternoons to test their skill with the latest 1st-person shooters, strategy games, and virtual environments. At the same time, a sub-group of Gamers are,playing f2f, real-world chess, and new this year is a Writers’ Group who hope to support each other in getting a student manuscript through to publication before they leave ISB. Although we’re open to traditonal publishing opportunites, we plan to take advantage of emerging Print-on-Demand options to facilitate getting student work into print while minimizing ptotential environmental impact.

Middle-Way? Well, I”ve just read Joyce Valenza’s article in the June SLJ about web2.0 tools in the library, and clearly, we’ve got a ways to go - but we’re on the Path…

It’s a crazy world. Ray Kurzweil claims that “the singularity is near” - that point at which computer processing power will match human capabilities - and it’s likely to happen within the working lifetime of the kids we’re teaching today. 

What’s on the other side of that watershed moment?  On the one hand, a graph of technological change is nearing the vertical, which leads one to wonder if the singularity will signal the end of human evolution as we know it. Are humans destined to be replaced by our creation? Will the Terminator scenario become a reality? Will our daliance with the glitterati of instant access and our infatuation with living largely in the bubble of our personal online community mean that we face the world post-singularity without the social tools to cope with a new reality?  On the other hand, a timeline of world history suggests that nothing really “ends” - it just morphs into something new, although often reminiscent in odd ways, of that which it replaces. And so the question of balance becomes - are we’re adequately - and appropriately - preparing our students for the future, whatever that may be?

The rush to adopt new information-seeking, management and manipulative tools is a daily reminder of this question of balance. As we approach this watershed moment in human history, we’re constantly wowed by powerful new information storage, retrieval and manipulative capabilities, and now the latest web2.0 interactive strategies for becoming participants in this grand experiment. These are powerful and amazing for the sheer kick of what they allow us to do, but down at the heart of it, aren’t we simply reliving the technological promises of the past, albeit on a vastly amplified scale? Back in the Day, as they sometimes say, before educational technology became a synonym for Cool, those of us looking for new and better ways to stimulate learning were almost as wowed by VHS video, Programmed Learning and Interactive Multimedia as the new educational entrepreneurs today are by Skype, Twitter and Jing. Back then, it looked like it couldn’t get any better than “Anywhere, Anytime” Learning, and it seemed that the development curve was reaching the vertical in terms of what was possible with video and multimedia.

But then the Web came along.

Beginning in the mid-’90’s, the World Wide Web became the new Library of Alexandria - all the world’s information gathered in one (virtual) place. Building on the ubiquity of informationa access that resulted, communications technologies have shrunk the world to the size of your monitor and input device so with Skype, SMS and Twitter (just some of today’s catchwords) you can keep up a moment-by-moment discourse with like-minded colleagues in the far corners of the globe. And now the rendering capabilities of the new machines make a virtual tour of London, New York or the Grand Canyon only as far away as Google Earth and exploration of worlds of the imagination another click away in virtual environments like World of Warcraft or Second Life.

The Point (again)?

I guess, for me, the point is that while we need to invest relatively heavily in exploring what’s possible with the range of new tools available to us as educators, it’s important to not lose sight of “the forest for the trees”. It’s important to find a Balance between exploring the new and the unknown and paying homage to (and reapplying lessons from) the past. The Balancing Point is the Here and Now. Lean too much on past experience and we risk slipping back into obscelescence and Irrelevance - but bound too eagerly forward, and we run the equal risk of sliding into the chaos of entrepreneurial anarchy. I’m playing with words here, extrapolating to the logical conclusion of either course, but the sentiment is real

The Big Picture is what’s important, and for me, that means imparting to kids the analytic, metacognitive and communications skills to cope with the next generation of technological gewgaws and bangles - and to be ready as adults for not only whatever’s beyond the Big Bang of the technological Singularity, but what’s on the horizon in the next decade, or perhaps even next year. And that means not abandoning the personal 1on1, F2F learning that takes place when two learners sit down together - in the same physical space - and learn from each other.  Or when one person sits down in a quiet room - with a piece of “realia” - a physical, tangible item that he or she can hold, examine, study and ingest -  a painting, a piece of sculpture, a book.. and learns from it - as we have done since man’s first steps on that long road to the Singularity.

As always, when it’s a question of Balance, one’s attention can never stray for long…

I had an interesting conversation with a former student yesterday. After spending his Freshman year here, he went off to an exclusive ivy-league prep school in New Jersey where, his parents decided, he’d become better prepared to face the world following HS graduation than he would be here in the hinterlands of Southeast Asia.

“Do you use wireless laptops?” I asked.

“We-lll,” he finally said. “Most students have them in their dorms. But there’s a cable plug-in.”

“Mmm,” I thought. “We’d never go back to wired laptops here, now that we’re untethered.”

“How about SmartBoards?” I asked, and once again, I was unprepared for his answer.

“No,” he said. “We still use chalkboards.”

“You mean WhiteBoards?” I countered.

“NO!” he insisted. “We still use green CHALKboards. There are almost no computers in our classrooms.

Needless to say, I was almost speechless. We’re now so heavily invested in technology that even whiteboards are an endangered species here, and we haven’t seen a CHALKboard since we moved to this campus in 1990.

But then I paused to consider, and the reality of the world at large was once again brought home to me. If even in America, there are expensive private schools still using chalkboards and eschewing the “wired” world, what exactly are the percentages of students around the world for whom Web ANYTHING is a reality, much less web2.0?

I haven’t made time yet to search this out, but my own experience tells me that classrooms in MOST schools in China, India, Indonesia and the “have-not” Southeast Asian countries (Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos), and even the “haves” (Thailand and Malaysia, with the possible exception of Singapore) will look more like this one than the wireless laptop, Smartboard-equipped, media-rich environments that we now take for granted in our classrooms. Together, these eight countries account for nearly half the world’s population. The students going to these institutions today will become the next generation’s “Renewable Energy” labor supply.

The point?

Buddhism suggests “the Middle Way” as the path to overcoming “dukkha” (”unsatisfactoryness”) Perhaps a little “Middle Way Thinking” is in order as we strive to ensure that we are preparing our students for the world of tomorrow. Perhaps the expensive prep school still relying on 19th century technology to shape the thinking of students today is onto something. Perhaps their graduates will be better equipped to relate to the “huddled masses” exiting the unwired schools still dominating the landscape of schools around the world than the pampered, gadget-rich graduates of our ultra-wired schools. Perhaps we should all take a step back and “seek the Middle Way” as we prepare to embrace yet another round of “best-yet” educational technologies and practices.

Oh-ohmmm. Manee Padme Ohm…

Hard to believe it’s been FIVE months since I posted here. It’s been a whirlwind, with end of school, setting up for a new Integrated Library System in ISB’s Main Library, summer travel, my son’s first birthday, and the abortive (:() release of my first novel on Amazon! (for the whole story, check out my Writing Blog at http://maishangrila.blogspot.com/. 

Happily, the book’s back on track, our new system is gradually working out it’s kinks, and the school year’s about to kick of with a powerhouse team in our ISB21 group. Check out the video on Kim Cofino’s summer posting at http://mscofino.edublogs.org/.

Let the Games Begin!!!