Muppets--Bohemian Rhapsody

I just couldn't resist sharing this video. It is a wonderful reminder of why I so loved the Muppet show long ago and far away.

Enjoy.

Surprised Reactions

A bit of wandering from my usual rants into a different one today--the importance of working to inspire and challenge gifted students. I am a reader of the blog "Unwrapping the Gifted" (which I highly recommend). Today the writer posted this video, which managed to move me to tears. Granted, I am home sick today, so my emotions are a bit closer to the surface, but this poem is amazing.






I hope that we as a culture move toward encouraging these wonderful students because our future depends so much upon them.

What is a Librarian's Job?

Okay, this is NOT a complaint. What it is, however, is a description of the various things I spent my day on. Some of them clearly fall under my other job--Special Programs--but I find that my days are not what many outside the field would envision.


Today I:

• worked on creating a template in Davkah (which supports Hebrew and English) for a booklet that will contain text and artwork by our 5th grade students when they read Torah for the first time.
• designed a Publisher template for an invitation to an event celebrating the learning of our 1st and 2nd graders--the illustration on the invitation will be created by the students using KidPix
• added a new category and link to our staff wiki to help teachers work with special needs students
  
• worked with a teacher and afternoon school principal on creating and finding materials to use on the SMART board--included teaching how to do a screenshot
• helped 5th graders use their personal log on for one of the first times
• worked with a teacher to create a few shelves of "good books" for 7th and 8th graders
• worked on a SMART board lesson on "Ben's Dream," a Chris Van Allsburg picture book
• planned my lessons for the week, which includes having 3rd and 4th graders begin to do basic research on some popular children's authors
• took down a display case on the Bubble festival which we did about 6 weeks ago

Gee, I'm tired just looking at the list! No wonder I come home and want to take a nap. I confess, if someone had told me 10 to 15 years ago that my job would involve so much time on the computer, I would have laughed. But I find myself energized by the interaction between reading and using technology--I enjoy the daily complexity I encounter. Now if only someone could invent a book that puts itself away....

A Perfect Day for Reading

It's rainy, and an autumn chill is in the air. I want nothing more than to curl up with a book, a cup of tea or coffee in my hand, with some music in the background.

Instead, it is computers, lunch duty (with 7th and 8th graders), and maybe a couple of stories for the smaller ones. Sigh. I least I get to be NEAR books, if not amusing myself with them.

dreams of autumn

I am so happy that is at least technically autumn. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur should come when it is cool, when the apples are fresh and numerous and varied, and when baking a pie is a pleasant thing. I made my first pie of the new season this past weekend, and it was a thing of beauty. (It also tasted pretty darn good!) Today I think I will branch out into making an apple cake, one that also looks fun from the bundt pan.

My house has Cortlands, Haralsons, Honey Crisp, and Ginger Golds right now. And still I want more varieties and more options.

I was going to paste in photos of the varieties, but instead I include a link to the Minnesota Apple Growers Association. Look, drool, bake.

Happy Autumn!

Bubble Festival Redux

Well, I now have seen some of the wonderful photos from our school bubble festival. I won't post the ones that are appearing in the local neighborhood paper out of courtesy, but here are some that one of our teachers took.

Even though everything did NOT go according to plan, children learned and had fun. What more can you ask of a special, whole school event?

Too Many Balls in the Air

I had forgotten how much attention everything at school can take. While the bubble festival went quite well, I still had classes to plan and teach, a SMART board to learn how to use, a back-to-school night for parents to prepare for, and also a new special project to plan, organize, and shop for. I am, quite simply, exhausted. And we've only finished two weeks of school. Sigh.

On top of all that, I had wanted to keep up my so-called professional development, with writing here and at my book review site, Book Frontiers. I managed to get two reviews posted this weekend, but it is hard to have time to read and write if you are lurching from special project to special project. I need to get organized again. And, not surprisingly, I haven't written any poetry lately, since contemplation seems to have evaporated from my life.

But even given all that, I wouldn't trade working in education for anything else. It is what I am meant to do.

It's Back to School!

Today is our first day back to school, and the butterflies are fluttering mightily! But I came into my office with some flowers on my desk (I suspect the principal), the children seem both nervous and excited, and the day is bright and sunny.

I don't see classes today, but I am in charge of the Bubble festival on Friday. Yikes! I will post pictures when I have succeeded (or at least survived).

Happy first days of school everyone!

On Line DNA

Okay, I am a sucker for the fun and colorful. What can I say? Today, thanks to Helene Blowers, I calculated my online DNA based on my name. I figured out that I had to add my middle initial to get the profile to focus mostly on me and not others with parts of my name. Here is the image I ended up with:

I love the colors it came up with and I am tempted to use it as a header for any number of documents or on-line stuff I am doing. But I am going to wait and see what calmer heads might consider reasonable.

If you want to find out your online DNA, here is the link to Personas at MIT.

SMART boards and the Library Lady

My school got its first SMART board, and yesterday was my first day in training. At first I wasn't sure if installing it in our media center was the best choice, in part because our upper school science teacher wanted to use it a great deal.

But now that I have had enough training to become dangerous :-D , I think our principal made the right choice. While I like the potential that I see in the board, and think that I would love to play with it, I also think it is good that it is in the Lab instead of in a particular classroom. Not only will a greater variety of teachers get to play with using it, but it also prevents a teacher from using it when a different sort of lesson would be better. As Richard Byrne says in his blog, Free Technology for Teachers, if a teacher simply uses technology to present the same notes in a different way, it really isn't integration.

Plus, the librarian in me wants to make sure that we don't become so hooked on bells and whistles that we forget the fundamentals of teaching. We need to draw on as many different ways and platforms to present material as we possibly can, so that we can reach as many students as we possibly can.

At least that is my opinion for today. We'll see what my attitude is after I have played more with it. Maybe it's just that I am reluctant to share....

Trying a new endeavor

For all those librarian types out there, I am starting a site for reviewing books for school-aged children, with an occasional foray into the grown-up books I read for fun. In part I am trying to put to use the skills I learned in my 23 Things and More Things classes. I put together a static (relatively speaking) front page as a web site, and then added blog pages for the reviews themselves. Some aspects will be varying, because, as we have learned, most things on the internet are works in progress. (I typed "woks in progress" first, which made me hungry for Asian food....) I want the reviews to be useful to teachers and librarians in particular.

Anyway, I would love you to look at the site and to offer any suggestions, feedback, ideas for books to review, whatever. I have come to value our community of learners, and would love for you to share your opinions.

The site is Book Frontiers and hope to hear from you.

Fun Avatar Generator

Just made a new avatar using a model based on MadMen (thanks to School Library Journal feed!). It was fun to play with and I like my stylish new look! See what you think.


Mad Men Avatar

A New Poem

For those of you who have read my work here, you know that I also struggle with writing poetry as well. This summer an acquaintance died by her own hand, and I wrote this poem to help me figure out my thoughts about it all.

As always,I welcome feedback. It is very much a work in progress. Unfortunately, I can find no way to keep the spacing and formatting, no matter how much I tweak it. But at least you can read the words.

____________________________________

The Inchworm and the Heron

On my son’s shoulder sat the inchworm,
Having hitched a ride into the sanctuary.
The eulogy progressed.
I gently coaxed it
Onto a Torah cover,
To bide its time
Until I could help it
Return to its world.

It measured the cover’s perimeter—
Up down, up down—
At the corner it stretched out
Sightlessly reaching
seeking
striving
A life carefully measured,
Centered on words of wisdom
Trying to find connection
purpose
community

When we went to leave
It had vanished, lost to view.

At the cemetery we mourners
unmoored
unconnected
unsure,
Struggled to strengthen our earthly ties,
Reaching out, looking helplessly,
For what had been lost

Over our heads a heron
Crossed the sky
Effortlessly floating
gliding
drifting

Might rootlessness be desirable?
Might the ceasing of striving be purposeful?

Above the confines of earth
the heron soared.


(c) Lydia A. Schultz 2009

Which Jane Austen Character Are You?

Ok, I am not usually a quiz person, but I loved the idea of this one. Here are my results:

Take the Quiz here!

I must confess to being pleased. Especially given that my name is Lydia, it could have been unpleasant!

Take the quiz at the link above.

CampPBWorks

I have been working away at Camp PB Works, developing and expanding a wiki for my school. I have decided to try to focus on making the wiki a cross between the media (read "computer") part of the program and the library part of the program.

It seemed really clear at first, as I narrowed in on making the site helpful for the various research projects that students do over the course of the year. But as I keep thinking about it, and as I sit in on curriculum meetings with classroom teachers, I remember other things that I should probably include, like current events, map and geography sites, and so on.

So if anyone out there is willing to give me some feedback on the wiki, you can find it at TTSP Media Wiki for Students. You probably will need to leave me comments here, because I don't want anyone else changing or adding to the wiki quite yet.

This plea is especially for my "Things on a Stick" colleagues--I would value your input.

More fun with Animoto

I have been playing with Animoto to create a video for Banned book week.

Summer Camp Fun

Hi everyone. I just found (and enjoyed) the idea of using ChatTango from my PBWorks Summer Camp class. I've posted the chat window in the sidebar. I am finding that the Things classes have prepared me well for doing this course. In the section of ideas for using technology on Wikis, I discovered that I had done almost all of the suggestions as part of the Things classes.

So, Thanks to the folks who ran the classes, and stop by my new Wiki for some of what I am doing there. The link is TTSP Media Wiki for Students.

The Education Continues

I have started CampPBWiki as part of my continuing on the path of learning more about technology and library stuff. So far I have begun another wiki for school, focused on helping me teach students how to use the internet and technology with care and thought. On the plus side, I am already getting ideas from seeing what other people have done. On the negative side, the site has been down for most of a day now, and I haven't been able to get back to my "homework" or with playing on my own wiki. It reminds me that I could stand to cultivate a little patience. When it gets back up the site is TTSP Media for Students. I would love ideas or feedback from any of the Things on a Stick folks.

I am also learning how to coexist with my family, which is both easier and harder than I thought it would be. I am finding that I have to ignore that they are here so that I go off and behave the way I would if they weren't here. Otherwise, I am likely to spend all day sitting at a computer or feeling frustrated that they don't move enough.

So I am off to ride my bike for a while or to go for a walk. Otherwise, I will turn into one of those scary blob people from Wall-E!

The Intrusion of Life (and Death)

Yesterday the mother of one of my older son's friends died quite suddenly. Today is the first day of vacation from school for me, and I was expecting to feel footloose and fancy-free. But instead I am thinking about what to wear to a funeral and how to be supportive to a family with a 22 year old and an 18 year old. So many issues bubble to the surface. I remember when my son and this group of friends were 13 years old and had to deal with a death of one of their classmates. (My son ended up being a pall bearer, and I think it was harder on me than him.)

Yet these are the lessons of life. Last week one of my coworkers had her baby a month early, yet the little peanut and mom are doing fine.

Circles and cycles go around, life goes up and down, and we just keep doing the best we can.

May Sharon's memory only be for a blessing.

Technology and education

I came across this link via a fabulous blog called "Free Technology for Teachers." I think this video sums up what the 23 things and more things were all about.




I like how this video shows some of the ways the technology keeps changing and that we have been and need to continue to adapt to it.

Another Avatar site

Found this one that a teacher recommended for students doing a project in which they were creating a visual for characters from a book that they were reading. Here is the one I created for myself. I thought it might be an interesting thing to try with older students.

It did give some options, but it felt somewhat more limited than Yahoo. But it did seem more appropriate for students. The link is http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml

Thing 47 -- Survey Time

Well, I have to say I have enjoyed these classes. I haven't universally loved everything, but I have become much more fearless in trying things, both generally with technology and specifically with the Internet. And right now I have the pleasure of typing this entry on my own laptop that I just got today. I just spent far more time configuring everything than I would have thought possible. But part of that is that I now need to add my delicious bar, and all those other goodies (did I mention puzzle pirates?) that I have become accustomed to.

I am grateful to the powers that be for offering these programs on line. I came to being a librarian via the backdoor (I have a Ph.D. in English), and the work for these programs has made me much more confident in my ability to get the job done.

Thanks so much. Now it's time to play Puzzle Pirates and to watch the American Idol results show. Because sometimes I have to be shallow...

Thing 46 -- Web Junction

I signed up for WEb Junction during the last set of Things, but haven't had a chance to use it. I tried very hard to find someone I knew, either personally or in cyberspace, to "friend" at Web Junction, but none of them had created profiles or were doing it under a name I didn't know. So I did try to friend someone I didn't know. Since I would ignore such a "friending" I doubt it will be successful.

I do get the newsletters from WebJunction by email, but I don't really have the time to look at them regularly. Perhaps when I am done with my "things" I will be able to make the time.

I do like that I can take webinars and classes on line there. I hope to make that work.

Thing 45--Cloud Computing

I have already, on rare occasions, “remoted in” to my work computer from my home computer to grab a file I had there, or to use a program I don’t have on my home computer. But so much of what I now do on the computer IS web-based, that I rarely need to link to my own computer. I check email, read my feeds, etc., from whichever computer I have access to. I guess I already use the cloud more than I realized.

While I haven’t made regular use of GoogleDocs, my son in High School has. He was encouraged by his school librarian (YEA!) to use it. She allowed students who were printing from GoogleDocs to print for free. He was immediately sold. He also took a creative writing class last summer that used the program to share and read and comment on each other’s writing. So I recognize the potential, even if I personally am still a dinosaur.

My only concerns about the cloud revolve around security. I don’t mind having what I choose to be public be public—I just don’t want other things to become public without my permission. A concept that is harder and harder to control…

Thing 44--The Economy

I have grown fairly knowledgeable about financial matters, given that my spouse spent many years in the field. I love the Common Craft show explanations of things, and think that it would be a good video to show to students to encourage savings. I looked at several of the other banking sites, and they just aren’t particularly relevant to my life. We have no debt—no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card balances. We are not the people to whom these sites are geared.

I looked at the Gas Buddy site, and if I were still making my former daily commute of 75 miles, I would certainly use it. But again, I am 5 minutes by car, 15 minutes by bike, and 35 minutes by walking from my work. My husband works from a home office and telecommutes. We don’t need gas that often any more.

The Frugal Dad site had some good suggestions, but nothing that was surprising to me. Guess I am just inherently cheap—I mean FRUGAL.

I know people who have used Freecycle before and were very happy with the results. The site looks pretty easy to navigate.

I liked the Savvy shopper’s site. One of the listed sites—Please Dress Me--had some wonderful T-shirts with humor. Here’s an example:




I looked at RetailMeNot, but the manufacturer I looked at—Eddie Bauer—apparently asked to have their coupons removed from the site.

Finally, the site that I explored more deeply was the Minnesota Gardening one, although I ended up mostly at the iVillage Garden Web. There I was able to learn more about the herbs I had planted. I now know much about tarragon that I think I really cared about. But it was fun and I would certainly turn there if I have more questions about my herb garden.

I’m not sure what I would recommend to people about how to get through these financially challenging times. For me, the big issue is mostly common sense. Figure out the difference between NEED and WANT, and move forward from there.

Thing 43--Online TV and Video

I went to Hulu, which I had used before. I had used Hulu in the past to catch an episode of “Heroes” which I had missed. I also watched the first episode of “Time Tunnel” which had been one of my favorite shows as a child.

For this Thing, my husband and I walked down memory lane and watched the first episode of “St. Elsewhere.” We noticed that the older shows are more slowly paced, which gives time to develop characters and themes. We’re old enough to appreciate and prefer that approach. I found the selection of free movies at both sites to be very limited. I might be happy watching some older movies, but a lot of it was the dregs of filmdom.

While I appreciate the freedom to watch whatever I want whenever I want, I prefer the true communal comfort of watching on the TV in my living room. A computer screen is just not the same for me. However, I have noticed that my college-aged son sees no difference.

And more importantly, not everything is free. Many networks are limiting which shows you can catch on line and limiting how long they are available. The quality also differs—the shows on Hulu are not as crisp and clear as the ones I watch on TV or DVD.

So, like many things, I think that these sites provide options in addition to, but not instead of, TV and DVDs.

Thing 42--Music 2.0

I had begun to use the NPR site after the Morning program went off the air. But I found that for the most part, music served as a distraction to me as I was trying to work on the computer. For Thing 40, I signed up for both Pandora and Last.fm, and then the mashup. What I have found is that it is pretty good on gauging my taste in some ways, and not so much in others. (Irish jig music is not Renaissance dance music…just not the same.)

I don’t know if Internet radio will replace broadcast. Right now, I don’t have a computer in my dining room, but I do have a radio (and a turntable, actually). Until I get devices that are everywhere I am and linked to the Internet, it won’t serve as a replacement for me.

I’m choosing to add only the Pandora widget to my blog. The Lifestream/fm is listing my music played, so I don’t think I really need to duplicate the effort.

I didn’t find any difficulty adding things. I enjoyed playing with this, but without an internet-linked portable device, it isn’t a truly practical option for me.

Thing 41--Mashup Your Life

While I signed up for Lifestream.fm, I am not convinced that I am all that comfortable with the concept. I understand how some people might find it convenient, but I am just, well, old enough to feel like this is too much of an invasion into my privacy. I have moved over the course of doing these "things" to having a more open and public presence on the web, but I really am uncomfortable with just how much personal data can be out there for all to see. I also worry about the children growing up now, who have no sense of what to share and what not to share.



On a pragmatic front, I just read in the newspaper about an employer who was disturbed by inappropriate photos on an employee's Facebook page, beside her resume listing his company as her employer. He, somewhat understandably I thought, was concerned about how this juxtaposition might reflect on his business.



We need to be thoughtful and careful about just how we present ourselves on line. Sometimes less really is better.

Thing 40 – Mashup the Web

I found, when I looked at this list, that I had already played with a few of these sites. Here’s what I did:

I had somehow managed to miss Pandora and last.fm. So now I have signed up for each site and the mashup as well. I have found some new artists that I hadn’t heard of before. It is an easier site to enjoy than one that I had found before, called Live Plasma, which also makes music recommendations, but without the sound. Clearly this is much more fun. I’ve created two different “stations” and look forward to pleasant listening.

I had already begun to try Bkkeepr to keep track of what I read. I read voluminously, but often have only minimal retention of specifics. I am hoping that I can get a sense of what and how much I read this way. So far the biggest problem has been that I have already got a backlog of books I have finished and haven’t put into the list yet.

Wheel of Lunch is a hoot. The next time my family can’t make a decision, I think I will have to pull this one out. Lunchbox was also a nice option.

I had also already found the Walkable site. I found it interesting where they placed my house on the concept—75 out of 100—when I find it much more so. The distance the site considers walkable is under a half a mile, which is clearly shorter than people should be willing to walk. They also excluded sites that I would have included: for example, my local food coop isn’t listed as a grocery store. It is fun, though, if you are going to be visiting someplace else, because you could actually decide whether or not you would need to rent a car based on some of the information.

Thing 39--Digital Storytelling

I decided I wanted to do something a bit more archival, so I scanned some photographs of my great-grandparents and my grandmother. My relationship to family history has always resided in stories and photographs, since only one of my grandparents was alive when I was born, and he died when I was three months old. Here is a link to my Voice thread : My Grandmother Agnes. It should be the same as the screen above.

I found this relatively easy to use. I dealt with all my photos through a scanner and Microsoft photo editor before I uploaded them to Flickr.

I could imagine using this approach for student project of various sorts. It works enough like Powerpoint that it would probably be more intuitive for them than for me. I also think it would be a lovely way to create and share information for people to document their family histories.



I also tried to create a scrapbook on Smilebox. While I liked some of the features, I was frustrated that I was unable to change the shape of the photo slots on a premade page. It forced me to rearrange the photos differently than I wanted to. Still here is an example of one of the pages I made using the same photos as I uses for my voice thread set.

Thing 38--Screencasting

I used Screentoaster to create a video that explains to teachers at my school how to use the media wiki that I created for teachers and students. While it wasn't difficult to figure out, I had a number of problems with glitches and, ahem, user error. I think I have finally gotten the bugs worked out, and with any luck it will work. I lost 4 previous versions of the video, some of which were longer and much more substantial, so this represents a mere shadow of its former self. It did not succeed in its upload to YouTube, and unfortunately I have yet to figure out where in Screentoaster I can try to do so again. (If you already have this figured out, drop me a note.) Nothing, however, prepared me for the incredible amounts of time that it took to try to download a zipped version of this to my network, nor for how long it took to try (unsuccessfully) to upload it to YouTube. We're talking over an hour in each case for a video that is only 4 minutes long. Is there some obvious thing I am missing in this process to make it shorter?
Here is the link: Using the TTSP Media Wiki.

I obviously chose to create a screencast of something that I plan to use already, to test it to see if that works reasonably well with my peers. As I work fewer and fewer days due to budget cutbacks, I want to make sure that what I do create gets used. I suspect that this feature is one of the most useful ones for me, given that it will make it easier for me to provide instruction to people when I am not able to work with them one-on-one.

Thing 37--Photo Tales

British Columbia Vacation 2008,
originally uploaded by librarylady90.

Here is the mosaic version of some of the same photos that I used in the animoto video in the post below. While it isn't very difficult to do, I was disappointed at the limited music available to use for the video.

I can see ways that I could use this feature both for student projects and for promotional materials for my school and my library. One could also do an interesting video or poster montage of book covers to promote something Banned Books week.

I used Flickr mosaic and animoto.

Thing 37-Photo Tales

Thing 36--Comic Relief

I’ve tried or run into a number of these generators over the time since the original 23 things. I found that Wordle was actually an interesting way to give people a visual way to understand the school library curriculum. Here is the Wordle version of my 7th and 8th grade curriculum:

I find that people can then “see” which ideas are stressed, since the cloud automatically enlarges the words based on frequency.

I haven’t used the Read poster yet (lack of good photos) but plan to in the future. I played some with the BGPatterns and made a new background for my twitter page—check it out! The Tartan generator seems to have a virus attached—beware! I had already made an Obama me, as you can see.





Not surprisingly I have already found the documentation sites, given I am a school librarian. We teach the kids to use these in 5th and 6th grades, on the theory that they can then choose whichever format a teacher asks them to use.

I haven’t really used the comic generating sites before, but I think I could see a potential use for them as part of a class exercise. How about having a language arts class make a graphic version of a story for an assignment?

When I do find fun generators, I generally play with them and put an example in my blog.




Here is a library cartoon that I enjoyed:

by floridasue2 Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

And here is one I made:

by librarylady90 Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

I can't seem to get this to a readable size (at least at my bifocal stage of life), but if you click on the by-line under the cartoon, it'll take you to the site where it is larger and readable.

Thing 35--Books 2.0

I have the fortune to work in a school where children love to read and love books. That being said, however, they also love technology and gaming. They will ALWAYS choose to begin their research projects on line, and only on line if not encouraged to look elsewhere. I find myself increasingly conflicted about this concept, because I'm not always sure that we--teachers and librarians--should require them to go to print sources. I'm not trying to be sacreligious here, but I think our goal should be a different one. I think we should demand that students read deeply and thoughtfully, regardless of where they find their material. Right now, I believe most people do not read deeply when they read on line. I think we tend to skim over info rather than stop and think about it. With books, because there are fewer bells and whistles to distract us, we are more likely to contemplate the ideas, to pause, to consider what we are reading.

I'm trying to explore this idea personally by tackling a large reading project on line--I have begun to read Don Quixote through DailyLit. I'm getting two installments a day so far, although I may have to expand it if I hope to finish the book in the next year. I am finding it tricky to read in this fashion. I generally dive deeply into books, often reading them in big spurts. To have what seems to me to be tiny pieces show up in my Rss Feed on a daily basis is strange. I do find that I have to work to read, not skim; my brain is trained to skim whenever I am reading on line. So before I become a crusader for getting children to read more deeply on line, I decided I need to train myself. I'll keep you posted on this endeavor. I will say, though, that for me a regular book is still preferable--it's more transportable and doesn't ever need power once it's printed.

Here are some of the sites I explored and my reactions to them:

I set up a LibraryThing account during the original 23 things. I want to catalogue my whole personal collection, but have put that out there as a summer project. (My husband sees this as self-preservation should I ever have to convince an insurance adjuster that I really did own this many books...) I haven't played with it as much as I would like, but the site has a number of interesting features that made it fun.

As I noted, I am trying DailyLit. Since I do not have a cell phone with any bells or whistles (I had to be dragged into having any cell phone), I am reading my installments on my computer. Of course, being a geeking academic type, I chose a book the size of a whale, so I may eventually give up and read it the old fashioned way.

I looked at both Book Lamp and What Should I read next? in the next section. Book Lamp seemed severely limited in the types and numbers of books it had available to choose and recommend. I had my husband try What Should I read next, and he thought the site made some good recommendations based on his knowledge of their suggestions. I might try this with students if they are looking in genres I am less versed in.

Overbooked in the next section was interesting, but somewhat difficult to use for me. Maybe I just like browsing shelves too much to find a site like this one to be useful. I could see using it to help others find books though.

Booksprouts appeared to be a good choice for someone who doesn't have an active, local group of friends to discuss books with. It might be a fun way to share with someone out of town as well. I thought I could organize some of my friends from college and grad school to play this way. When I have time....

I love the idea of books being recorded and available easily. I plan to pass these sites along to our special needs coordinator so that she knows how to help students who need audiobooks find them.

My school has its own version of book swapping, so I am somewhat less interested in this idea. But I love the idea of releasing books into the wild through BookCrossing. My neighborhood seems to be a hotbed of released books, so I may have to get in on the action.

BookBrowse was interesting but I still prefer the NYTIMES book review.

I had already found the International Children's Digital Library to look for Hebrew books for my school. I liked Lookybook and regret its passing. I liked the PDFs of Tonight's Bedtime Story and thought that it would be great for parents who travel to be able to read to their kids long distance. Plus, for small schools with no money (do we detect a theme?), it is a fabulous resource for traditional fairy tales.

I had already used a book app on my Facebook account. I find it clunky with too many different things I have to click to get it to show up on my page. Sigh.

Basically, my biggest reaction to this Thing is that we educators need to do a better job of modeling and teaching how to read information on the computer. We need to remember that HOW we get the information should be less important that WHAT we do with it.

Thing 34—On-Line Answer Sites

I work at an elementary school, and I have actually encouraged students to try to use some of the better screened sites (eg., WikiAnswers) to find the answers to their research questions. Part of my goal, both as a teacher and a librarian, is to help students learn how to become more self-sufficient in using the available resources and navigating the material that is out there. Also, these sites allow students to phrase questions in the way they think of them--unlike traditional search engines that need quotes, etc. The students like being empowered—I like them being more independent. By teaching them how the sites work, I can get them to see the benefits of not simply resorting to a Google search, since many of them do not have the experience or knowledge to evaluate the answers or material that such a search might result in. I think that people also like the sense of anonymity: if I am worried that my question might seem dumb or embarrassing, then I really don’t want to have to ask it of a live person.

The questions at some of these sites really run the gamut—from a simple plural in another language, to the curious (why are people ticklish), to how to get an extension on their taxes (I’m doing this on April 15), to game cheat codes, to what is meant by the words “economic stimulus.”
I think some of them are library questions, but some of them are either simpler or more complex. I wouldn’t want to ask librarians for help on my taxes—unless they also worked as tax accountants! I’m also not sure I would ask a librarian for cheat codes on a game, unless he or she were an avid gamer. But the other questions are certainly things I would ask. I also think a person could ask a librarian on advice for where to go to FIND the answers to the questions. That is often what I do as a school librarian.

People use these sites for a number of reasons. As I suggested above, most of us prefer to be independent. And somehow, it feels more independent to post a question on line than it does to ask someone more directly. I do think that we as librarians are often in the shadows, until we retrain people to recognize librarians as being not just technically savvy, but perhaps helpful and non-judgmental in recommending potential sources for information. Having some sort of web presence would probably help that. But it can be tricky. Working at a school, I find that the social networking sites where students spend the bulk of their time are places that we as a teaching staff are discouraged from interacting with kids at. (Ugh, an ugly sentence—sorry!) And I really don’t want to be available 24/7 for K through 8 students (or their parents). I’m trying to put together reference wiki pages that can enable greater “self-solving” but that doesn’t mean students will take the advice offered there.

I like the idea of slam the boards. I haven’t participated but think it might be interesting in the summer when I have more available time.

Thing 33 -- Travel 2.0

Generally, the Internet and its various tools has had an effect of leveling the playing field, taking the expertise to the average person. On the other hand, someone like my mother, who has no computer and vehemently doesn’t want one (she’s 80, she deserves a break…), is at a significant disadvantage. Without help, she would end up overcharged and out of the loop in any travel should she try to plan on her own. But I suspect the group of people she is in is smaller than those who are willing to research things on their own or with a librarian’s help.

I also had an experience with the prevalence of Travel 2.0 after my vacation last summer. I had posted some photos on Flickr to share with friends (thanks to the original 23 Things) and got an unsolicited email from an organization that puts together Travel mashups that wanted use one of our photos as part of their site. Since my son took the picture, I gave him the credit. Here's the photo.

Now on the the specifics for this entry.

ARTICLES -- Grossman’s article on Travel 2.0 makes some good points. Right now, I suspect that companies are becoming even more customer-service friendly in order to try to stay in business.

TRAVEL BLOGS AND PODCASTS -- The Window Seat didn’t do much for me. It didn’t have almost anything on the one location that my constituents might be interested in—Israel. The entries seem bland and not particularly helpful. Travel 2.0 Blog also had no tags relating to Israel.

The Lost Girls was entertaining, and if one wanted to go to those particular spots, the entries could be useful.

So rather than keep whining about what I didn’t find on what you listed, I went and searched for myself. Here are few that I found:


Real Travel -- Israel This general website, Real Travel, has a section on the Middle East generally and Israel in particular. It collects entries from people’s blogs about the place and allows you to sort by most popular and most recent. I found the entries thoughtful and potentially useful; they also included numerous photos. It also had links about hotels, restaurants, travel planning, etc.

Travel Blog -- Jerusalem This site is less well organized and harder to figure out how to use. It focuses on current material and doesn’t allow an easy was to sort it.

REVIEW SITES – I first looked at Trip Advisor and found it pretty good. I like that it includes so much, but it didn’t have an easy way to focus in on a particular area. I chose to look at Chicago, since I lived there during college. But the site had no feature (that I could find, at least) that would allow me to narrow to a particular area within the city. I came closest when I searched on something in that area, such as the U of Chicago, which then let me see specifics in that neighborhood. But it didn’t list neighborhoods by name, which would have been nice.

IgoUgo feels like a cleaner, less distractingly busy site. However, it suffers from the problem above, but even more so. When I tried to get neighborhood specific information, I only got various people’s blog type entries. No map, no sites, nothing else.

So my assessment is that these sites are good if you have a car and are willing to drive all over the place, or if you just want to focus on the downtown areas of a city, but are less useful if you want neighborhood specifics. Still, they are a good place to start.

TRAVEL JOURNAL SITES – I went to Vcarious first, and read someone’s journal about travelling to Scotland and the Isle of Skye, since that is a trip I would like to take. I found the entry enjoyable, although I don’t know how much I would trust something like this to help me plan my journeys.

Mapness looks as if it could be interesting, but the one site that came up when I searched Jerusalem appeared to be tracing the travels of someone from the 1300s. Not surprisingly, there was no video posted… I could see this one being fun to do, if not as much to read. But it didn’t have much there at this point.

TRAVEL MASHUPS – Hotspotr would have been a help to one of my friends in the last week, who ended up paying $7 for an hour of internet at her hotel because she couldn’t find any cafés with free wi-fi.

The Travel Mashup awards site was fun. I liked one that had nothing to do with this Thing, called Portwiture, which finds photos on Flickr based on what you post on Twitter about. A lot of fun. I’ve posted mine in this thing.

Woozor was allowed me to get a ten day forecast for the UK, which could be handy if one were planning that trip to Scotland that I discussed above.

I don't think these sites would be of much professional use for me, since I work at a K through 8 School. However, I might use some of them for my own travels.

Thing 32-- GoogleMaps and Mashups continued

Well, the link is a better choice because you can actually see all of the photos I bothered to put in. But I am going to leave in the html one too, just for the visual effect.

Thing 32 -- Google Maps and Mashups

This map traces the walks I did from my childhood home to the schools that I attended. I found photos of each spot on the street level Google maps as well, and put them at each site. It was frustrating because the map kept speeding away from me--reason unknown. It was relatively easy to do the bits and pieces with practice, although I am unclear how effective the map will be in the blog. Each time I tried to paste the html directly into the post, it crashed Internet explorer. (Yes, I know other browsers are friendlier, but I share this computer with my family.) I tried doing it as a gadget, but realized that wouldn't be directly in the post. So I am trying this way (pasted into the post) and we will see what happens. Other frustrations--the descriptions of spots must shift into html, and apostrophes left odd code. So I went back and rewrote to avoid the odd characters popping in. Just in case there are issues with the map, I made the title a hot link to the Google Map site as well.

I think these mashups could be quite useful if you were doing a scavenger hunt, a walking tour or a family gathering. But I really don't see much practical application for me at work. Still, you never know. I'm using other stuff I didn't think I would need either. Isn't that the point of this program? :-)


View Larger Map

Thing 31 -- More Twitter

I personalized my Twitter page by adding my real photo, putting in a personal vacation photo as part of my background, and giving a sense of who I am in my description. I have done mostly observational tweets, with a few urls tossed in. I even got to explain what MToaS was when I abbreviated it. I also am experimenting with using it to get people to read my poetry at las4poems.wordpress.com in a bit of what the car talk guys call “shameless self-promotion.”


I have added a bunch of tweeple who focus on books and technology to follow. I am at best lukewarm about all of the social media sites. I don’t honestly have time to spend looking at all of this stuff. I am happiest getting material in my Reader feeds and judging for myself whether or not the material is interesting or useful. On the other hand, I do feel like if I had a pressing question that needed a quick answer, Twitter would be a great place to go. Right now I am still trying assess what if anything I will use it for. I also added my Senator’s office and the Dalai Lama, because I can.


I usually use the TwitterGadget for iGoogle to view and post to Twitter, because I use iGoogle for my homepage at work. When I am at home, or if I want to do something more extensive, I just go to the Twitter site on my computer. I’m not big on downloading a ton of stuff at work or home, so this seemed like the best choice. Because I already had added a Twitter Feed on my 23 things blog, I added a Twitstamp badge to my poetry blog, just to see if I could. And again, I discovered how much less intuitive Wordpress is than Blogger for adding gadgets. I managed to figure it out, but it took much longer.


I added the Tweet Value rating and Twitter Grading rating to this blog. I will probably remove the value one after a while, because it seems pretty silly to me. For the Grading, I opted for the number of followers, because that seemed a reasonable statistic. I also went to the status generator site, which is amusing, although I didn’t actually post any of its suggestions. Here is a screenshot of my favorite one.






I added my name in two places to the Tweeter directory—both as a librarian and as a writer. I found more useful people to follow in the blog post of freetech4teachers.com which included people posting about technology tools in education.


I’m trying Twilert for looking for school library information and middle school language arts materials. I’ll see how it works for a while and post when I have a better sense.


According to the Next Web definitions, I am somewhere around a 3 or 4. I find the quantity of stuff people are posting amazing. I can’t figure out how they get any other work done. And I still don’t love being this linked to a machine. Ok, now I was complaining when the DSL at work went out and we were without computers for most of a day. I couldn’t process books, I couldn’t help teachers find lesson materials, etc. But I did get books shelved, library lessons planned out for the next 5 weeks, and a whole lot of reading of professional materials read. But I do occasionally like to feel fresh air on my face too. And no, I wouldn’t twitter on a cell phone either when walking.


Twitter can be an amazing, real-time tool, but one that often gets overwhelmed by goofiness. One of my friends said that it was just like Facebook status lines, but shared with the whole world. And for most people that is what it is. As seen in Doonesbury comics lately…

Thing 30 -- addendum

Whoo-hoo! I tweaked the delicious cloud font colors by looking at the color numbers from my settings page on blogger and cutting and pasting the codes (minus the #) into the html from delicious in the spots that appeared to be the color codes.

Hey, for you tech folks that might be a no-brainer. But for someone like me, with a degree in English and whose last math class was in 1975, it's a big deal. :-)

Thing 30 -- More RSS and Delicious

I have a link to Google Reader on my iGoogle page, which is my homepage at work. I spend about 10 to 15 minutes each morning skimming through the short versions of posts, and click on the full texts of those that I want to read more fully. I do this every work day, and usually on the weekend too. If I go to Google Reader separately, which I do if there are over 50 feeds, I have the feeds sorted into folders. For example, all the 23 things blogs are in the same folder. It helps somewhat, so that I know what it is I'm looking at. I do not use feeds for ordinary news material--it would just overwhelm me. I keep it--for the most part--professional. (Ok, Mark Bittmann's food blog doesn't count, but...)

I don't really use most of the Delicious bells and whistles. I did take advantage of this "thing" to improve my sorting of tags, tag bundles, etc. I got rid of duplicates, and added a bunch of new tag bundles to make my account more useful. For this "Thing" I added people to my network and tried subscribing to a few tags. But I have a feeling I will just end up with too much. I find most of my sites through all the feeds I subscribe to. But I will give it a try to see if I find new material this way too.

I do like the tag cloud, especially after I tweaked the size. I'm still going to try to tweak the color so that it matches my blog layout better. The new cloud from delicious comes with a button, so I didn't add a separate one.

Thing 29 -- Google Tools

From the first section, I chose to explore Google News. I find it too busy for my taste, but I suspect that is in part because I am an inverterate newspaper reader. I love the feel of the paper in my hands, and I would much rather sit at my kitchen table with paper and breakfast than sit at my computer to read the news. While I can appreciate that many people would prefer to read only the news they are interested in, I find that I read more deeply and in greater variety when I read the print versions. Nonetheless, I thought it wonderful that I could pick a section in a different language, and that I could allow them to create a personal "recommended" set of readings for me. (Although, as one of my colleagues asserts, it begins to feel a bit stalker-ish.)

On the other hand, I love the archive search and timeline feature. I can think of many applications in how I could use such a thing with students doing research on an historical topic. I also found it fun to see how often and when my school showed up in the media.

From the second set of options, I chose to work with Google Pages. I am fairly impressed with this feature, and even explored with a colleague the idea that we might change from the service we currently use for our teachers to a service like this one, since this is free and the other is not. But after working with it for a while, we decided it would not be cost-effective, given that we would have to train teachers in on this site, which is less user-friendly than the one our school currently uses. Still, if we did not have that option, I could easily imagine spending some time to customize this further. I put up a fairly rudimentary version of a class page here: http://sites.google.com/site/ttsplibrary/Home

On a similar note--but not strictly under this thing--I followed some advice I got in response to my forum question on the 23 Things Ning and set up a PBWiki page to start consolidating information for teachers on the topic of technology in our school. (Thanks, Caitlin!) Here is a link to what I have gotten together so far. http://ttspmedia.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

I've also recently shifted to gmail for my home email account. I haven't really played with tags and folders yet, but I do like how the "conversations" keep info together. I just have to get used to it.

Thing 28 -- Personalize Your Homepage

Because I had created an iGoogle page with the original 23 Things class, I chose to do more with that homepage. I chose it initially because I had begun to use Google Reader, so it seemed a logical fit. Now that I have changed my Internet provider at home, I have also started using gmail for my home account.

As part of this Thing, I added back my Yahoo mail account to the front page. I also added a Twitter gadget, a gadget to link to the MToaS wiki, a tab with Library materials, and a few more news and education gadgets. Because that felt a bit too "plug and play," I decided I would try to create a new theme for my home page. That took a bit more effort, since Google was not particularly clear what size or shape of photo would work. My effort isn't particularly spectacular, but it uses a photo from my vacation last year, so I like it. (It doesn't seem to be available to be shared, although I thought I gave that permission. It's called "Mountain Sunshine," if it ever shows up.)

I would have to say that I like having Twitter there, as well as Reader and the email accounts. I also find that the education gadgets often point me to things useful for my school. Many of the other gadgets and widgets seem too much for play and not so much for work.

I really want to explore how I can use these items as part of my library or for school services. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Some of the reading (the end of the Metz article) got more technical than I am, so I am still unsure how I can make this work.

Thing 27 -- Twitter Me This

Well, I had set up the Twitter account last year when I was working on the original 23 Things, but nobody I worked with or knew had heard of it. Nor were they interested in the minutiae of my life, not that I felt like sharing it either.

This year, I have discovered that many more people know about it (duh...) and I am more comfortable in having an "on-line" presence. Originally I was quite concerned about attracting oddball attention. Now, I think I worry more about getting no attention at all. Gee, I think I made it into the Cyber Age! My Twitter user name is LibraryLady90, and I did manage to add the widget to my blog as well.

I guess I would have to say that while I don't love it, I don't really hate it either. I'm actually more interested in seeing what the institutional users (L of C, SLJ, etc.) do with it than I am in writing about myself. As for my using it as part of my library, I'm not sure the school I work at has any need for it. I could see this being useful at the college level, maybe even high school, but I think as a K to 8 school, we don't have much need for this. At least not yet! ;-)

I am, however, going to try to post regularly (maybe once or so a day), just so that I can get the feel for it.

Obama me

This site was just too fun not to share. You can upload a photo of yourself and make an Obama poster.

The site is: http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/

Here is my photo

Thing 25-- Continued

I decided I wanted to play around with blogging in a different way. I set up a blog on Wordpress (http://las4poems.wordpress.com/ to focus on my poetry. Let me just say—I really understand why we were encouraged to try Blogger as newbies. I like the cleaner look of the Wordpress layout and the fact that I could customize it, but it was much less intuitive to navigate and more difficult to figure out what I was doing.

I also played with creating a Simpsons-style avatar. I think it worked okay, but I like the flexibility of the Yahoo ones better.

So my goal now is to use this blog to focus on Librarian and teacher type things, and to use http://las4poems.wordpress.com/ to focus on my poetry. Gee, are we shocked that a librarian would want to separate and categorize things?

Thing 26 -- More Things on a Stick

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick Ning last year in Round 1. I tried posting a question, but didn’t get any contributions or commentary. This time around, I took down the old question and reframed it as a new question as a discussion. I also created a “School Librarian – Media Center” group, so that I could find local teacher-librarians. I did join a group in the initial round called “Teacher Librarian Ning” that had some useful information and discussions. I thought I would try to do the same thing within our own little group.

I also left a comment for a metro area school librarian because I went to her school’s media website and liked how it was organized.

I would love to be able to use this forum for getting and sharing ideas from other people who work in a school. However, given that no one commented on my discussion for a year, I’m not sure how practical that might be.

More Things on a Stick--Thing 25

I watched the videos and decided that while some of these things were fun and playful, they didn't really fit the way I was trying to go with my blog. I already was using Sitemeter from last time, so I decided to add a Cluster Map to get a similar feature for myself that didn't require me to go the Sitemeter's site. I also added the feature to allow people to easily add my blog to their feeds. Finally, based on a comment by the blog 23@40, I decided to change my feed profile to only a short version, so that people would have to click through to see the actual changes that I have made.

I spent less time on this in part because I have seen most of Google Gadgets since I use iGoogle for my home page at work. And, as I noted above, most of the gadgets seem playful, not useful, for what I am doing.

Rust Belt Blues

I wrote this poem a number of years ago, after a visit to my hometown in Pennsylvania. Given the state of the economy right now, and the fact that I saw a national news story about a town across the river from where I grew up, I thought it appropriate to the times.



*************************************

Rust Belt Blues

Train tracks go in, out.
The rusting fortress of a factory
darkens the sky.

In its shadow
The old Italian men in sleeveless T-shirts
and black lace-up oxfords
Collect in metal yard chairs
Behind backyard wire fences,
Drinking Iron City and playing bocce.
Contained within their kitchens
Their aproned wives hum —
stir, simmer, soothe —
Providers of earthly sustenance.
“No one should leave my house hungry.”
But I have left and returned,
Hungry still.

Poking sticks into sidewalk cracks,
Children line the crumbling curbs.
Grubby, grimy, bickering,
They are ready at an instant
To issue or accept the challenge.
Running downhill until
Lungs and legs give out —
They collapse at the curb, resuming their endless vigil.
My body remembers, doubles over,
Sharing that sensation,
Boredom alternating with breathless intensity.

The local gas station describes my life here —
My relationship with this place — STOP-N-GO.
I pay the clerk in the plexiglass box,
A grade school class mate
Who doesn’t even register my credit card name.
His practiced hand avoids all touch,
Drops the card in mine.
We held hands to NASA launches
In the TV room of our old school
Whose windows now stare like haunted eyes.
Shattered and abandoned,
His eyes, too, are vacant.

I hear peripheral echoes,
Shadows upon shadows.
Hometown.





********************************************



Back in the original 23 things, I found a collection of photos of my hometown which I linked to then. Here's a link to the collection:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/theghosttownofnewkensington/

It helps explain things.

Thing 24 -- Updating my blog

I actually have been blogging since I finished the 23 Things on a Stick. I have most recently tried to start moving toward doing some posting of poetry and creative writing. I like feeling like I have a forum in which to write, since I spent my first career trying to teach college students how to write clearly and articulately. Unfortunately, few people have been reading what I have been posting, at least as far as Sitemeter is concerned. ( I am unclear as to whether Sitemeter registers people who read postings through a feed.)

I still read some of the blogs of other people who did the 23 things when I did, and I picked up some others, both professional and recreational. I haven't really been commenting on other people's blogs too often, although I do occasionally comment on some of the professional ones with teacherly responses. I suppose fair is fair--if I want comments, I should make them as well.

I did enjoy giving my blog a facelift. I still want to change the title--eventually. But I changed templates, uploaded a real photo of myself, and changed my avatar's setting and outfit. I also added a blog feed with some of my favorites that I read.

I'm glad to have this opportunity to learn more. If you read this, please consider reading some of the poetry below and giving me feedback--I would welcome it!

Legacies

I wrote this poem about my father's death, and its subsequent impact on me.


**************************************
Legacies

I

I drive like my father.
I never really noticed before
But during my long commute
On the open interstate
I can now see.

My left knee bent, 90 degrees,
Supports my left hand —
Back on the knee,
Fingers curled round the wheel —
My right hand occasionally lends support
But usually rests, gently,
On my right thigh.

The realization shocks me,
Driving into the sun
On the anniversary of his death.
Another brilliant October day.

His legacy revolves around cars.
When the phone call came,
I was painting the new garage.
That cool October day,
Leaves surrounded my feet.
My purple sweatshirt was streaked with
The signs of my marginal competence.
Inside the phone machine blinked,
And I heard my mother’s voice
Apologizing
For telling me of his death
By these mechanical means —
Of the unexpected stalling
Of a life I had never been without.

II

Autumn had always been my favorite.
New plaid skirts and knee socks,
Sharp pencils and smooth paper —
Did I become a teacher from that love?
He calmed my annual fears,
Assuring me that I would do just fine.
The glory of the trees would
Line our river valley
Masking the industrial ruin
In a riot of color.
We’d watch the World Series together,
Especially if the Pirates played.
Baseball linked us
Across our age and gender.

After that call I cried for my loss,
But also for my little boy’s.
He’d never know my gruff, burly dad.
He wouldn’t remember him at all.
So we watch the World Series together,
My son and I.
And every time I look at him,
I see my dad.

The cemetery is an isolated island
On a deer trail
In a sea of corn.
At his funeral,
Yellow leaves floated
In the breeze.

III

I came to dread October.
T.S. Eliot was wrong, I thought.
So many people died in October —
Autumn was cruel, indifferent,
Killing off parents
As if they were no more than the leaves
That could return in spring.
Yet my father’s memory and spirit
Return mysteriously.

The first time that I parked my car
In that coveted, close spot
At the crowded mall lot,
I thought it chance.
But then it happened again
And again. And again.
Everywhere I went.
Then I knew.
He’d given me his special gift —
His luck at finding
The perfect spot.
So when it happens —
Every time —
I whisper “Thanks, Dad.”

IV

Can the patterns arise?
Move and shift?

After my car pulls into the lot,
I emerge to hear the sound —
Familiar, yet barely —
At the edges of recognition.
The sensations wrap about me —
The chill dense breeze,
Trees dancing to music of their own making,
Brown leaves playing tag —
All part of the acrid tang
Of ripeness and decay.

My head tilts upward,
As if of its own accord.
The darkness of inverted Vs
Perforate the cool blue
Gradually, consistently, persistently
Moving, shifting,
To become the southbound giant.

The geese honk.
I accept the complexities of autumn.

************************************

Inauguration Day at School

Well, if yesterday was inspiring, today was incredible. I have to admit that it is heart-warming and encouraging to see even the difficult students being swept up into enthusiasm and cheers while watching an inauguration and a speech.

Just a desire to riff on the word--inauguration. An augury is a forecasting, a looking toward what the future may bring. (We'll skip the bird entrails part.) So what President Obama is doing, by being "inaugurated," is bringing us forward, predicting and prognosticating, what our future may hold.

So, on this occasion, a quick poem.

TEARS

Glances
Through the crowd
Emotion sweeps through and over.

Barriers crash like a sonic boom
Words ring out,
Ring true.

The fabric of what has been
Full of countless, painful tears
Now rent completely.

In its place,
In the hopeful eyes of multitudes,
Tears of joy.

At School for MLK Day

The school I work at has consciously chosen to be in session on MLK day, so as to teach about and around the topics relevant to human and civil rights.

I am often amazed at our students and their willingness to jump into such activities with enthusiasm and gusto. Today I did some of the normal things with students--lunch, recess, and dismissal duties--but I also helped 6 fourth grade boys put together two lasagnas (of the 14 the group was making) for a women's shelter, watched children talk about human rights and what they are, and listened to them sing songs about freedom and peace in English and in Hebrew.

Some days, the world seems to brim with possibilities. Today was such a day.

Re-Solving to do more

I am once again trying to "solve" my inactivity -- my laziness when it comes to writing -- by making a commitment in public to do better. We'll see how well I do.

This time around I want to put some effort into the various poems I began long ago, to polish them up and put them out there. Constructive commentary is always welcome.


**********************************
Kinship Shows

Kathy and Eleanor sit
daintily
on the sofa.
Their interacting,
polite arguing,
being individuals,
somehow point up the similarities:
beauty shop hair
ironed print dresses
inflections of their voices
shared blindness.

A gentle breeze and the summer heat
encircle them
and the stories I know.

Their Scottish father came to this coal region--
doing the same work he'd always done--
But in America, work echoing
promise and plenty.
Kathy cared for him until he died at 96
in Smithton
a coal and beer town on the Youghigheny,
where she lived a genteel life.
Yet not.

She and a different sister--Agnes--
married brothers, those Stolting boys.
In the 1930s and 40s,
in that rural Pennsylvania backwater,
Kathy's husband Carl and Eleanor's Frank ran a tavern.
But Carl chose
perhaps not only religiously
to be a minister.
From a barman's to a minister's wife--
perhaps that's why she takes so much
in stride.
Till 94 she lived in Smithton
fortified by the brewery's fumes.
But now,
because her blindness scares him,
her son Roy cares for her.
At 98, in Texas,
she is remote
from home and family.

Rooted still in her rural home
Eleanor is surrounded
by fruit trees and family.
Even blind she bakes
pies
cakes
cobblers
as she always has.
The baby in her family at 93,
she spends her days with daughter Doris Ann
and the extensive generations
who all live nearby.
While she traveled with her husband Frank
to remote places in Europe,
she always remained grounded
not far from where she was born
in her spot in the Laurel highlands.
She looks so much like her mother
who died when Eleanor was just a girl.

As they click their teeth
and dispense firmly loving hugs,
I see them
now, but then too,
as the younger women they once were.
I imagine my grandmother Agnes on the couch there too--
a woman I never knew--
between them

in age, appearance, views--
The lovely Robertson girls
still
ready to take their town by storm.

**************************************

I wrote the first draft of this almost ten years ago, so not surprisingly both of these women have since died. This poem is part of a family album of sorts that I have worked at, on and off, over my adulthood. I've decided it is time to resume it and polish it up. I am frustrated, though, that I can't make the tabbing for some of the lines work. But at least the content is there.