The Unquiet Librarian

A few months ago, I blogged about the Georgia Archives Digital Vaults, but have you seen the National Archives Digital Vaults?  Many thanks to Sandi Adams for pointing me to this FABULOUS resource! 

What can you do with the resources in The National Archives Digital Vaults?

• Create a movie
• Create a poster
• Search by tag or keyword
• Collect primary source documents and images for a project

For lesson plans and ideas, go to the Educator and Student Resource Page at http://www.archives.gov/nae/education/.  In addition to great resources for teachers and students, teachers can find wonderful guides and handouts to use with students that explain primary sources and analysis worksheets for an array of primary sources, including written documents, photographs, maps, cartoons, sound recordings, posters, and motion pictures. 

Go to http://www.archives.gov/nae/education/tool-box.html to access these materials!

You may also want to read this great blog post by Glenn at the HistoryTech blog at http://historytech.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/digital-vaults-social-networking-for-primary-sources/.

This is a resource that can make history come alive for students!  We would love to collaborate with you as a teacher and develop a project or research unit that incorporates this treasure trove of primary source documents.   Please let me know if you would like to explore ways to incorporate the digital archives into your instruction!

Thanks to my Library 2.0 Ning, I came across this amazing upcoming conference sponsored by Mississippi State University Libraries:  http://blogs.library.msstate.edu/web2summit/?page_id=13.

This is a conference dedicated to integrating Web 2.0 tools seamlessly into your library program and harnessing the power of Web 2.0 to improve your service to your patrons.  You can go to http://library.msstate.edu/mslibrarysummit/2007summit/index.html to view last year’s conference agenda as well as hear podcasts from last year’s session.

Here is a preview of this year’s conference focus:

Mississippi State University Libraries : Mississippi Library 2.0 Summit

What if we had something like this for Georgia librarians?  What about a Georgia Libraries 2.0 Summit for 2008?  Anyone out there interested in exploring and organizing this venture? 

Buffy Hamilton

There is an old cliche that says, “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Over the last year, I have been focused on trees.  Those trees have consisted of web 2.0 tools and how to incorporate those web 2.0 tools into my library program and information literacy instruction.  Those trees have included things like social bookmarking (del.icio.us), RSS, wikis, Google Scholar, Google Books, Pageflakes, podcasts, vodcasts, and blogging (of course!) to name just a few.  The buzzword “Library 2.0″ seems to be on the radar of many school library media specialists these days thanks to pioneers like Joyce Valenza.  As Joyce pointed out in her September 27 blog post, “Shift [has] happened.  Our response is not optional.“   She points out the urgency of librarians recognizing the shifting landscape of our profession,  observing:

I am seeing a huge librarian divide between the 2.0-type library folks and those who are barely 1.0.  I am worried.I am worried about many of the librarians across the state, and in programs like ours in other states.  What happens when the tech coach comes in new to the school?  What happens when the librarian finds him/herself far less trained for integration than the newly trained, newly empowered tech coach?  What happens when a librarian and a library program cannot even demonstrate awareness of the shifts in the information landscape? 

Joyce also included comments from participants in the Classrooms for the Future “Boot Camp”:

My librarian doesn’t get it.  She is only interested in quiet and books.  She doesn’t let the kids work together. She could never create an online pathfinder.  She never told me about Creative Commons or open source. Does she even know about that stuff? My librarian won’t event let the kids use Wikipedia.  Help teachers with 2.0 applications? Are you kidding?  My librarian is afraid of blogs and podcasts and wikis. 

As many of you know, Joyce’s concept of “Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency” is truly visionary—if you haven’t read it, put this article on your “must read” list right NOW.

In two weeks, I am teaching a class about valid or authoritative resources (which is slated to look at traditional sources, web 2.0 tools, and of course, Wikipedia).  We all know that we want our students and patrons to use authoritative sources.  Heavens knows that I have done my share of hand wringing and worrying (quietly and vocally!) as we have tried to convince our students there is another world of information outside the Googlesphere.   Many of us have expressed concern about students perceiving Wikipedia as an authoritative source and their underdeveloped website evaluation skills.

Lately, though, I have been thinking long and hard about what exactly constitutes an authoritative source in our web 2.0 world.  We all know from experience as researchers and school library students about traditional and long revered authoritative sources:  reference books, scholarly journals, research databases.  We know the power of those resources from firsthand experience. Yet I also know from personal experience in the last year that I have found incredible sources of information and a wealth of knowledge through web 2.0 tools like blogs and del.icio.us. 

As I was rereading Joyce’s article on “Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency” last week in preparation for the course I’m teaching, I could not help but start thinking again about how web 2.0 intersects with authoritative sources of information and how they are shaping that concept of “authority.” Other events that have prompted me to revisit my concept of what falls under the umbrella of authoritative sources include: 

• Various blog entries I have read by other librarians and scholars
• E-conversations with colleagues
• Podcasts and vodcasts by other librarians and information literacy gurus
• My own experiences in designing pathfinders for research with our students ( as well as pathfinders I’ve designed for my 11th grades students I teach at our district evening school).

While doing some research on library 2.0 this weekend, I happened upon a blog by newly retired academic librarian Laura Cohen and her entries about social scholarship. What started as a research effort about library 2.0 and additional resources I could share in my class turned into a whole new research endeavor about social scholarship, digital scholarship, and the concept of Authority 3.0. 

In the first blog post I read by Ms. Cohen, this quote from Leigh Dodds, Chief Technology Officer of the scholarly publisher Ingenta, jumped off the screen: 

Web 2.0 makes it easier for anyone to publish information online, and search engines make content more easily findable. But how do users know what information is authoritative? Do they even understand what “authoritative” means? And who defines that something is “authoritative” in the first place?

In scholarly publishing, the peer review process is an indicator of quality. But as content is increasingly mashed-up, syndicated and blogged in many different locations, how do users differentiate between peer reviewed content, and “user generated content”? And is there a natural progression from the creative chaos of Wikipedia, through the “gentle expert oversight” of Citizendium to, ultimately, the closed rigorous approach of double-blind peer review?

You can see Ms. Cohen’s excellent presentation here at Slideshare.

[slideshare id=154749&doc=the-promise-of-authority-in-social-scholarship-1194139645794478-4&w=425]

So what does social scholarship have to do with “Library 2.0″? 

In a word, everything.

Scholar Michael Jensen outlines what he sees as Authority 3.0 that he feels will come to pass in 10-15 years:  a whole new matrix or set of matrices that will influence scholarly authority.  You can read his June 2007 full article here at The Chronicle  of Higher Education, but in short, he feels resources like blogs, wikis, and other web 2.0 tools will change the landscape of authoritative sources.  

Why should we care about these concepts?  What do they have to do with us as school librarians?

First, we have to be able to see this “forest”.  I have been focused on the web 2.0 trees, but it is just in the last few months that I’ve started to see the “forest”—the implications of how these web 2.0 tools ARE shaping the information world and what counts as an authoritative source.  I haven’t even jumped into GALILEO yet to research these ideas, and look at how much knowledge I have already gleaned from blogs of respected scholars and librarians!  Can we not assume the same will be, if not already to some extent, true for our students? 

As Laura Cohen observes in her blog post, “Information Literacy in the Age of Social Scholarship”,

Blogs are also used to discuss matters that never make it into the journal or monographic literature, or even into magazine columns – and therefore their great value. In any case, you’re among the critical mass of individuals who read blogs as an important part of your professional engagement.

What do these web 2.0 tools really mean for our students?  My primary focus has been using these tools to help facilitate information to our students, but now I see my focus must shift to thinking about how these tools will be actual information sources for my students and teaching them how to evaluate them.  Does this mean I abandon my beloved databases and other reliable sources of information, such as books?  No, but I would be putting my head in the sand to ignore the fact that web 2.0 is changing the landscape of scholarship even as I write this blog post. 

In her blog post, “Resistance is Futile“, Laura Cohen discusses an article from Information Week that goes to the very heart of why being Librarian 2.0 is a necessity, not an option:

The article in question is titled “Resistance is Futile Fatal.” Yes, you read that right, strikeout and all. You can read it online. The article states, plainly enough, that “Today’s social networking and digital content sites are shaping IT users’ expectations and experiences for years to come….Businesses must take a longer-term view of these emerging applications and recognize that they’re being driven by forces that are more likely to gain momentum than die out. Rather than fight the inevitable, business technology managers must start exploring ways to leverage the new digital content ecosystem to meet their companies’ objectives.”

Substitute “libraries” for “businesses” and this statement sounds familiar to those of us advocating for changes in the information culture of libraries. And did I see the word “must”? Dare to suggest in the library world that these changes are imperative and you need to duck for cover.

She concludes with this observation:

Our profession, as a whole, still hasn’t taken much of this seriously. How routinely do we use social networking to practice our profession? …I’m bringing all this up to make a point: as the information culture changes around us, the pressures for us to make wise use of this culture in our own practice will grow. Is resistance futile, or truly fatal? You tell me.

I have always felt “Library 2.0″ and “Librarian 2.0″ are not passing fads, but instead, concepts that describe how our profession should be and is changing to reflect the world around us and the needs of our users.  While we may struggle with the challenge of keeping up with these dizzying changes, we have to make the effort to do so. 

My research this weekend has truly been a revelation.  While I have heard and read all kinds of articles about web 2.0 and “Library 2.0″, this is the first I’ve really heard of “social scholarship”, “digital scholarship”, and “Authority 3.0″.  Yes, I have been blogging, and yes, I have been using del.icio.us with our students as a pathfinder tool.  Yes, I have experimented with wikis with our students.  I truly thought I was on my way to being a “Librarian 2.0″!

However,  I see now that what I have been doing is not enough.  I share my findings with you to help us all rethink and reenvision the concepts of “authority” and “authoritative research.”  Is it messy?  Yes.  Does the shifting landscape of web 2.0 require us to be open to redefining what we always held to be true?  Yes. 

If you think that perhaps the concept of social scholarship is mere rhetoric, I challenge you to “Google” terms like social scholarship or Authority 3.0.  Once I started digging this weekend, I was astonished at what I found.  As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t even yet had the chance to research these concepts through GALILEO, but stay tuned…I will bookmark anything I find there to http://del.icio.us/theunquietlibrary/social.scholarship.  My  mind is still reeling even as I write this post, and I know I have barely scratched the surface.   Take a look at this person’s “Dissertation 2.0″—a Pageflakes mashup of digital scholarship! Be sure to visit the actual link as my “Kwuot” capture didn’t quite get the “live” version of the screencast).

Pageflakes – Lisa Spiro’s Digital Humanities Research Portal via kwout

Laura Cohen goes on to warn us that, “Authoritative bias is messy. It’s not as clear-cut as peer review vs. popular publishing. Its metrics have yet to be figured out. But the neat little world of beware-of-bias is fast disappearing. Information literacy needs to acknowledge this, and train students to watch for the train coming around the bend.”

Cohen also warns us that we must be open to change and to rethink how we define authority:

Library 2.0: An Academic’s Perspective: Information Literacy in the Age of Social Scholarship via kwout

How do we do this?  Cohen cites these strategies and action steps:

• Make students aware of the emergence of social scholarship.
• Teach students about Authority 3.0 – or whatever you want to call it. Alert them to the expanding world of scholarly communication.
• In conjunction with this, abandon of the notion that there is a clear distinction between traditional peer-reviewed authority and authority derived from social scholarship. To put this another way, introduce the notion that there are emerging metrics of authority that can be derived from social scholarship.
• Use social tools (blogs, wikis, forums, social bookmarking, etc.) as part of the research process in their courses.
• Assign readings from authoritative blogs in the research areas students are asked to explore.
• Practice social scholarship, and show these activities as examples of what’s on the horizon.
• Incorporate this new material in tutorials on their library’s Web site.

I am not advocating we abandon our traditional sources and ideas about authority and authoritative resources.  Instead, I am asking us all to think about if we as individuals and as  a group are being responsive to the needs of our patrons, needs that are rooted in the world around all of us.  We are already fighting to show our legislators that we make a difference;  in some communities, the challenge to show the validity and importance of today’s librarian spills even into the classrooms as we try to bring our teachers, students, and administrators into the world of Learning 2.0 and Library 2.0.   Here is a golden opportunity to seize the moment to lead and become an even more integral part of learning in our schools.

We cannot wait for change to envelop us.  Now is the time for us to be more proactive than ever and to be part of the change, not a mere spectator.

Buffy Hamilton, Ed.S.
Media Specialist, Creekview High School
http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com
http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com  

Whether you are a librarian or a regular classroom teacher, check out this post, “Lifelong Abilities, Behaviors, and Attitudes” by Doug Johnson.  It is a great column and really struck me as it dovetails with some of my comments in my previous post today on my Media 21 blog.

 Take time to read Doug’s post—it is brilliantly thought-provoking.

Today Ruth and I introduced our 11th Jazz Age Research Pathfinder to Ms. Pickart’s 11th Honors American Literature/Composition classes.  Of course, we always want to create effective pathfinders for all our students, but I felt the impetus to do with this group. 

Why?  Of all the students at CRHS, our juniors are the ones I feel we have impacted the least.  We mainly saw them in English classes last year, and that was it.  We have seen them even less this year as juniors when the trend should be the opposite as they should be doing more research and more rigorous coursework.  Let’s also not forget they are now less than two years from being college freshmen!  I was so troubled by the lack of progress I saw with information literacy skills during 2006-07 that  I even raised this concern about this group in my end of the year report last May. 

However, this post is not about that challenge.  Instead, I wanted to briefly blog about how students reacted to our introduction to our Creekview HS Library del.icio.us account and how we integrated it into our pathfinder.   Because the honors juniors seemed to be so resistant to our research databases as sophomores and because we have not seen them using them this academic year, I wanted to be sure to try and bookmark some “goodies” from our GALE databases into our del.icio.us pathfinder for this project as did Ruth.  Sometimes if you can lead the horse to water, he will indeed drink!     I found with that our del.icio.us bookmarks to JSTOR and GALE articles (those are the only databases I can do direct article links for right now) seemed to be a great entry point for our honors sophomores in December, so I thought it would prudent to try this approach with our honors juniors.

While many students tuned out the mini-lessons on the pathfinder in the 5th period class, one student actually wanted to create a del.icio.us account from that class, so I showed him how, and then I showed him how to add our “network” to his so that he could get to our del.icio.us account more easily.  He seemed really excited about having his own account and tapping into it; I also showed him how he could do infomarks with the GALE articles at his request!  Yeah!

The 7th period class seemed more receptive to the mini-lesson, and many of them seemed very impressed by what del.icio.us can do.  They asked some good questions about this service, and I noticed many of them right away to our del.icio.us links, including the ones to specific searches and articles we had bookmarked in our account.  Yes!  I decided to add two additional links to our pathfinder this afternoon:  one is to the “about” page from del.icio.us, and the other links to the “getting started and creating your account” page. 

IfI have any time tomorrow, I will try to create a little quizlet or survey (Quibblo?) they can do quickly to get feedback on how helpful del.icio.us was to them.   Stay tuned!

In a nutshell, Ruth and I had a “moment” this week that honestly caused us to scratch our heads and then consider banging our heads against the wall (thankfully, our wise clerk, Tammy, talked us out of that!). 

Many of you, especially in the 7-12 secondary school scene, will relate to the frustration we felt this week:  the struggle to get all teachers on board with your library program and to “buy” into the great services and resources your program has to offer.  Ruth and I wrote to Joyce Valenza, one of the most forward thinking media specialists out there in Library2.0 Land.  She graciously offered to help us brainstorm with our community of school librarians by writing a post about our plight (and I suspect, the plight of many.) 

We are not afraid to ask for help because we care fiercely about our library program and nurturing it so that we as librarians and a library program truly make a difference in our learning community at our school.   Many may say, “Well, you know that is how it is in high school.”  Well, I don’t care how it HAS been—Ruth and I care about how it COULD be and SHOULD be!

Yes, we definitely have a positive impact on many students and teachers, but Ruth and I know we have the potential to do more.  With a faculty that has increased by over 50 members this year, we are finding we are having difficulty getting as many teachers from all subject areas into our media center this academic year.  We are especially troubled that seasoned teachers as well as rookie teachers are sending their students to the world wide web instead of working with us to develop pathfinders and utilizing library resources first. 

We provide hands on instruction and incorporate balanced resources–books, our virtual books, databases, quality websites; teachers and students seem pleased when we work with them on a research project.  Yet many teachers do not seem interested in our offers of help or fall back into the “send’m to the web” habit after working with us (and seeming very pleased with what we have done!).  Many teachers comment with amazement that they have never had librarians do what we do for them, so effort is definitely not the issue here. 

We are baffled.  I think this challenge goes beyond the frequent explanation that teachers are under pressure to teach in a manner that is geared toward standardized test prep and being sure to “cover” material, a pedagogy that leaves little room for project based learning and inquiry.  We are a Max Thompson “Learning Focused School”—should research, questioning, and inquiry not be vital parts of the way teachers teach and students learn?  While high school has always suffered from the “Lone Ranger” syndrome, neither Ruth nor I have experienced this problem to the degree we are this year.

Joyce has posted some initial ideas and strategies to help everyone who may be looking for ideas to get their teachers to buy into databases, books, and other great web 2.0 resources.  I am happy to report that we are already doing a good bit of this, but of course, there is always room for improvement. 

Here is what Joyce had to say and where we are with the suggested strategy:

• Joyce says: I am surprised that so many young teachers I meet get through their own pre-service research without ever discovering a database.  Some I meet reveal that they Googled through their undergrad research.  That’s okay, I suppose if they used it to discover quality content.  At the beginning of each school year I am lucky to be granted a full day with new teachers to discuss our research culture, our resources, our expectations.  I suspect our administrators are happy that I can fill a day with this stuff.   So are we!  I honestly cannot fathom how you can go through four years of college without using a research database, but that is another discussion for another day.  I agree, though, that teachers’ lack of experience makes them reluctant to use something they feel they don’t know.  If you don’t come to the library, though, how are you going to learn the database and/or skill?  We as teachers should always be open to learning, especially if it is about something that will make us better teachers  and that will help our students.
• Joyce says:  We have an eighth grade unit on evaluation that we’ve placed in the social studies curriculum.  I present this PowerPoint on evaluating sources (I know, it needs a makeover), and I show a bit of the filmI worked on for Schlessinger Video.  While the Georgia Performance Standards are jam packed with many skills and learning standards, very few tie into information literacy at the 9-12 level.  If more media specialists were included on the committees (state and local level) that write these standards, perhaps we then could have a louder voice in making sure information literacy skills are infused more seamlessly across the curriculum in an authentic and relevant manner.
• Joyce says:  I volunteer to assess students’ preliminary works cited pages for major papers and projects.  This takes some of the work and onus off the classroom teacher and promotes my efforts as an instructional partner.  Students know my expectations are high, that they include use of databases, and they are a little afraid of my scrutiny.   While I truly admire this initiative, there is no way Ruth and I would have time to do this.  We are already up to three lunch periods and 1100 students; our other high schools typically deal with 2000+ students and four lunch periods that last an hour.  Ruth and I already work about an hour extra each day, plus we rarely take a lunch and get no planning period.  However, we do provide intensive NoodleTools instruction and hands on assistance with our students to help students make sure they cite their sources correctly.  We have already had positive feedback this year from our English teachers on our efforts in this area.
Joyce says:  We have to work with teachers to ensure their project rubrics include use of quality sources in general. When it makes sense, the rubrics should include use of relevant databases. I agree 110% on this…..but many teachers do not seem to want help or do not seem interested in our suggestion for incorporating criteria about the use of quality information sources.   How can we help our teachers see as a partner who can assist them in the creation of rubrics or as someone who can be sounding board for creating quality rubrics?
Joyce says:  We need to do better database marketing.  My students did a film for me last year and I did a Voicethread I’d love folks to contribute to.  But having seen many new streaming video strategies I want to make a better one this year.  Imagine if we could create some in the far more clever style of CommonCraft.  I still want to create a LibraryTube for us to share our best video efforts.  Again, I agree 100%.  Ruth and I hope that we can do more creative “marketing” as part of our Media 21 classes we are beginning this year—podcasts, videos, tutorials created with Camtasia, VoiceThreads—we are all for tapping into Web 2.0 tools to better promote our goods!
Joyce says:  We need widgets/gadgets so that teachers and students can pull the databases they most need into their iGoogle pages.  Vendors, are you listening?  AMEN!  For us, though, we have to first get our users to actually create iGoogle pages.  We are amazed at how little our patrons actually use web 2.0 tools we take for granted—del.icou.us, blogs, iGoogle, etc.  I do applaud EBSCOhost and GALE, though, for recently adding RSS feeds for searches.  Again, though, we are finding that few of our teachers or students even know what RSS is—again, part of our mission to educate….we hope to be in a position for 2008-09 to provide training for our patrons that will educate and empower them to the power of Web 2.0!
Joyce says:  We need an affordable federated search (to search across all our online resources–search tools, OPAC, databases).  This federated search should not cost as much as a database itself.  It should not force us to make further budget sacrifices.  It should understand the idiosyncratic nature of the many databases we own.  It should make it easier for teachers and students to discover the beauty of databases.  Another loud AMEN from us!  We also need vendors to deliver on their promises when we purchase a federated search….ahem…..GALE/CENGAGE….are you listening?????
Joyce says:  We need to de-crimilalize use of Google in libraries. Sometimes we act like the research Gestapo in our scrutiny of search behavior.  Google works.  Google rocks. And yes, we can all use it better.  We have made steps on this front by tapping into the power of Google Books and creating our own Google Library account that we incorporate into our pathfinders with the Google Library RSS feed.  We also use Google Scholar to tap into JSTOR and make it more user friendly to our high school students.  We would love to do mini-lessons on how to search Google effectively….but teachers don’t feel they can give up the time for it even though they agree it needs to be taught.  A symptom of the fallout from testing and NCLB.
Joyce says:  We need to do a better job describing our resources.  No teacher (or kid) knows what EBSCO is or what individual databases live it its large suite.  Our pathfinders must bust these tools out of their traps and describe them in teacher- and kid-friendly language.  This is an area that we will work on—the link Joyce has provided will be another tool in our “toolbox” that we use to try to take something so abstract and make it concrete for all of our patrons.

Now here are a few musings I have……..

• The key issue is here expectations….it is not enough the media specialists have the expectation that we will be the heart of learning.  Our teachers, administrators, and students also need to have this expectation.  Perhaps if this can be conveyed more overtly by all of us faculty members, then it will become a reality and not just an empty mantra.
• Perhaps NCATE needs to consider incorporating information literacy as a required course or competency type requirement for undergraduate teachers.  As Joyce alluded, it is astonishing at how lacking our new teachers are in this area (and I am not knocking them—it is just a fact). 
• What if Google Scholar made it more affordable for public school libraries to tie in their databases to Google Scholar the way many college libraries do?  This would go a long way in marketing our products. 
• If library programs can become more integral parts of School Improvement Plans, I think teachers, students, and parents are more likely to see the library importance of media centers in student achievement and lifelong learning.  I would be thrilled if our library program could be incorporated as a vital part of our 2008-09 SIP!

At the end of the day, it is our students who suffer when the library program and resources are not a regular part of their instruction and learning activities in ALL subject areas.  I hope that this post will help us all think about additional strategies we can devise to make our programs more effective and for our programs to truly reach all students!

In the spirit of super librarian Joyce Valenza, I will be rolling out a new learning initiative for our students and our faculty, http://theunquietlibrary23things.edublogs.org.  Our program, which is modeled on the dazzling array of 43/23 Things library sponsored programs across the United States, is designed to help our patrons learn about exciting Web 2.0 technologies and tools that can increase productivity and improve student achievement.  Mrs. Fleet, another super-librarian, will be my partner in this venture as we work to help all of our patrons become lifelong learners!

Of course, the intrinsic thrill of learning is the primary reason for participating in this self-paced program, but we will also be offering prizes to patrons who complete our program.  Stay tuned as we launch our http://theunquietlibrary23things.edublogs.org/program in November 2007!

Buffy Hamilton

Check out this interesting article from The New York Times called “Spreading Out Homework So Even Parents Have Some.”  Damion Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High Schoolin Montclair, New Jersey, requires parents of his ninth grade students to participate in weekly homework assignments that mirror those he gives to his students.   Parents are given identical assignments as their children and asked to respond on a blog set up by Mr. Frye. 

The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. Mr. Frye  decided to help out.

While a few parents have been resistant to the idea, Mr. Frye reports that most have eagerly jumped in and found the experience to be a positive one. 

Tracy Parsons, whose son Danny is the second of her two boys to be a student in Mr. Frye’s class, said that the weekly assignments had changed the way she approached homework with her children.  “In high school, to some degree you have to back off from homework, so they can gain independent learning skills,” Ms. Parsons said. But teenagers, she noted, “leave a lot out. You ask, ‘What’d you do in science?’ and they say, ‘It was fine.’”

While some educators caution against Mr. Frye’s policy of penalizing students’ grades if parents do not do their assigned homework, Mr. Frye reports that only one parent has flat out refused to participate in the three years of assigning parents “homework.”  He states that he is flexible and works with parents who may not have Internet access or who may have challenges dealing with language differences. 

What do you as teachers, students, and administrators think of Mr. Frye’s creative way of involving parents in homework as a means for involving parents to be involved in their children’s education?  The primary suggestion I have is that he have the students blog along with their parents rather than doing all the assignments in the traditional format of paper and pencil.  If students are having the opportunity to blog too, then perhaps more dialogue could be ignited between parents and students.

Let us know what you think!