This Site May Harm Your Computer…or maybe not.

Twitter was all…well…atwitter this morning about a widespread Google problem.  Everything in the search results had a little proviso stating “this site may harm your computer.”   (Oh no!  The Internet is broken!)

Google’s headache this morning looks like a great opportunity for teacher librarians.   Even after the song-and-dance many of us do touting the value of subscription databases and checking the authority of websites, Google is still the source of first and last resort for many students.  It’s so easy, so quick, so sweet… I had some third grade kids in the computer lab who decided to jump away from their approved links and search Google for information on the Ashanti people, because Google just had to be faster than the silly old online encyclopedia.   Result:  a page of links for the American singer Ashanti, and three kids with a dawning appreciation of the fact that faster does not always equal better.

Google is a superb search engine.  However, students need to understand that just because Google admits the existence of a site does not guarantee that site’s authenticity, and furthermore, that the information Google gives about websites–page rankings, security, date, and so on–may be open to question, too.  Older students need to learn about the various ways Google and other search engines can be manipulated*, for various malicious, political, or humorous reasons, in order to falsely promote some web pages to a higher place in the results.

When Google was experiencing its little migraine, I amused myself by snapping a screenshot of the results of a search for “google.com.”  I’m going to share it with young researchers in my district, to remind them of that old saying so valuable to those seeking information:  Question Authority!

*I’m citing a Wikipedia article in a blog post about questioning authority.   I am aware of a little irony here, but you know, when I googled “Spamdexing, ” it was, like, the top result…

It just doesn’t get any better than this

Every now and then I have a day which reminds me of why I wanted to be a librarian in the first place.

I went to the computer lab with a group of first graders to find out about some birds in our part of New York.  They used the wonderful Cornell Lab of Ornithology “All  About Birds” pages to look at pictures, listen to birdsong, and find out the size of the birds.  Then they cut a piece of string the same size as the length of their bird.  That was it–nothing elaborate, but immensely satisfying.  Even the non-readers were able to find information using pictures and sounds, and every one of them began to make discoveries about size.  A swan’s wingspan was wider than one young researcher was tall.   The boy learning about the turkey vulture and the boy researching the hummingbird held their strings next to each other, agog.  One young lady said, as we left the lab, “I want to do that again!”  Music to a librarian’s ears.

The second graders have been learning about mammals, and each adopts one species to study and report on.   The children who discover their species are endangered are almost comically indignant–”There might not be any pandas when I grow up?  How could there not be any pandas when I grow up!”  There are the poignant moments of discovery, too. One boy, discovering that the black howler monkey is endangered, suggested that they be relocated to his dad’s land, where, he assured me, there was plenty of room.  He was bitterly disappointed to discover the difference in climate between western NY and Belize.

Who wouldn’t want to be a librarian?  I get to help the students find the important stories.  Not only the one “you know, the one with the duck?  And it makes noise?” or the one “you read to me in kindergarten and it had a spider and a hippo,” but also the story of how a polar bear cub survives the winter, or the tale of how a volcano erupts, or the story of a Masai child’s day.  Two first graders borrowed copies of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters–honestly, you would think I was giving them money, they were so excited.  There is nothing, nothing, so wonderful as a student’s imagination catching fire.  Oh, and did I mention…I get paid to do this!

Meeting standards with a crayon

photo by chantelle1113 on morguefile.com

This is one of those mornings where two of my favorite things, stories and crafting, came together. I have a professional blog, where I write about tools and projects for teacher-librarians, and a craft blog, where I write about the sewing or knitting or whatever projects have been refreshing my soul. This morning a post on The Crafty Crow reminded me that there’s plenty of literature for young kids that almost effortlessly suggests where young readers should go when the story is over: straight to the art supplies.

The book featured in the Crafty Crow this morning was An Awesome Book, by Dallas Clayton. It’s all about the power of dreams. Click on the link and take a look at the story and illustrations. This would be a lovely book to pair with a biography on Martin Luther King, Jr. Younger kids would be jazzed about drawing a picture about a dream that could change the world: save the polar bears! end pollution! Older kids, who have learned how impossible the dream of ending segregation seemed at the time of King’s immortal speech, would understand even better the poignant message of the book.

I love doing hands-on projects with my young students. Sometimes it’s exhausting trying to fit all the important things into 40 to 60 minutes of time with 4-8 year-olds, especially when classes come back-to-back to the library. Sometimes the next group is standing in the hall while I’m chivying the current group to the door. But some books just cry out for the crayon baskets!

Drawing, papercraft, sewing, and any other craft need not be simply a “sponge” activity to soak up the time until library is over. When properly planned, the humble crayon (or origami square, or needle and piece of felt cloth) helps meet learning standards. When my kindergarten students created “What happens next?” pictures for the story Flotsam, we were actually meeting the NYS standard that calls for students to “listen, speak, read, and write for critical analysis and evaluation,” to “actively engage in the processes that constitute creation and performance in the arts,” and to “respond critically” to works of art. When we sewed quilt squares with second graders, we were meeting ELA, Social Studies, and Art standards, and when my third graders drew life-size penguins, they were meeting Science standards. It’s like a two-for-one coupon deal at the grocery store!

Here are a few books that absolutely require the crayon boxes:

An Awesome Book / Dallas Clayton.  The children can draw their hopeful dream for the future.

Flotsam / by David Wiesner. Have the children draw the picture the mysterious underwater camera takes next. My kindergarten classes did this, and then we made a PhotoStory movie of their art work.

Swimmy / by Leo Lionni. A powerful story about what can be achieved when everybody works together. The kids love drawing their own little fish to add to the group, and watching the “big fish” grow.

Not a Box / by Antoinette Porti.  An absolutely perfect book about thinking outside the box, (ha!) the kids who read this book are immediately inspired to start imaging their own uses for a cardboard box.

Harold and the Purple Crayon / by Crockett Johnson (Would you believe it? Harold is 50 this year!)  A perfect storytime recipe: equal parts Harold, purple crayons, and a huge sheet of paper. Mix well.

There are literally (today’s the day for bad puns, I guess) thousands of children’s books with pictures that naturally suggest art projects, either through the medium of the pictures themselves, or through the subject of the text: origami (Yoko’s Paper Cranes / Rosemary Wells, or Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes / Eleanor Coerr); quilting (Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt / by Lisa Campbell, or anything illustrated by Faith Ringgold); or sewing (Joseph Had a Little Overcoat / by Simms Taback.)

Sometimes what the kids make ends up going home in their hot little hands; sometimes it ends up on the bulletin board, and more and more, it ends up on the web, particularly via VoiceThread (which I’ve written about before, and is currently my favorite medium for sharing what young kids draw, photograph, and record.) In any case, making something is the key to putting the ideas into their heads, and getting back out what their brains have processed. I work with a great art teacher who is willing to collaborate on lessons. We’re currently working on a Europe project in which the kids draw landscapes including accurate representations of famous landmarks they researched with me. Very cool!

Long live the humble crayon.