July 2011 – Dare to Care

My online life this summer has taken some amazing turns. I am having a delightful time learning and growing as a creator and contributor. I’ve connected with more people, and I’m collaborating on two big events right now–the Global Read Aloud, which I wrote about last week, and the Reform Symposium Conference, which starts tomorrow. Reform Symposium Conference, or RSCON3, is an online educational conference with hundreds of planners, moderators, and presenters, as well as 8,000+ participants. I’m looking forward to it–a three-day conference of genuine professional development.

Well, I’m a bit nervous about this, but I volunteered to lead a session at RSCON3 about uploading a directory map onto a wiki. It was something I learned to do this summer, and it has some tricky steps.

I decided to make this blog post for a couple reasons.

There are those who may be interested in the subject, but can’t make it at 8:30 a.m. Central Time on Saturday, July 30. (That would also be called UCT-5. I love that we are learning so much geography as we connect and collaborate globally.)
Some participants in my session will need to come back here for more information.
Some of you who read this will decide to attend the Reform Symposium Conference. It’s not too late to sign up, if you are seeing this before July 31.

Anyway, in this post I am not going to explain how to make a map, but I am going to add my slides and a Google Doc, all of which will be helpful if you care to add a map to your webpage.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you will attend my session on Satuday morning. Here is the link to the Elluminate room 42, where my workshop will be held. I will be waiting there with bells on! Here is the schedule for the complete conference.

The session I’ll be leading will mostly talk about making a self-updating map, but BatchGeo.com is another way to make a directory map. It is a very simple process. In this screencast I show you how.

Global Read Aloud

24/Jul/201130/Jul/2011 Denise Krebs8 Comments

The Global Read Aloud Project.

What is it? “One shared read aloud – One global connection” the tagline on the blog reads. Pernille Ripp designed this global project just last year. For 2011 we are going to read Flat Stanley or Tuck Everlasting, depending on the age of the child you’ll be reading to.

I was inspired to write this post when I read both Jee Young Kim’s post and Jen Diaz’s post about the Global Read Aloud. I’m fairly new to connecting and collaborating–it was just last week that I participated in my first chat–and, like Jee, I am looking forward to participating in global projects this year.

Last year I was an infant on Twitter, so I did hear about the Global Read Aloud, and it fascinated me. I was curious, but I didn’t have the gumption to join in.

In less than a year, however, I have joined the Global Read Aloud–I’ll be reading with my 7th grade class–, and I even signed up to help with the planning. I jumped right into the wiki and added a few links and pages, including a participant map.

Learning to make the map and getting the code to work on the wiki was very rewarding. As a result, when Clive Elsmore, @CliveSir, was looking for a couple more presenters to fill in the last of the schedule for RSCON3, I volunteered to show how to add a map to a webpage. But that’s a topic for another post!

I hope you will join us in the Global Read Aloud. If you are hesitant, like I was a year ago, remember what Ms. Frizzle always said, “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy.”

Just say yes! I, and hundreds of others, will help you along the way! Any questions? Just leave them here and I will answer or find someone who can help.

Trying Out Storybird.com

23/Jul/201124/Jul/2011 Denise Krebs4 Comments

Months ago I made a Storybird.com account, and it just sat there, as many of my accounts have done when I first get them. Today, though, Sheri Edwards challenged wordsmiths to use Storybird to tell about what they are reading. I dusted off my account and tried it out.

I have been reading children’s literature with undergrads in a class I’m teaching. My Storybird is about traditional literature.

I Am Traditional Literature on Storybird

What a wonderful program Storybird is! The artwork is beautiful, and it inspires beautiful words. Mine was created by a German and Turkish artist named Oya. The program is easy-to-use and very intuitive.

I also signed up so I could have my whole class involved. I’m looking forward to using it during school with my students. So much potential!

My First Chat

16/Jul/2011 Denise Krebs14 Comments

Last week I entered into my first chat on Twitter. Here’s how it went. Since I’m teaching Children’s Literature right now to undergraduate future teachers, I wanted to add Twitter as part of our curriculum. I made it optional, but I was pleased that each of them was interested. I was looking for a chat that we might participate in together, so I sent out this tweet hoping to hear from librarians or teachers who were discussing children’s literature.

Within a few minutes I received a reply from Greg Pincus:

“Great!” I told him, “I’ll be there.” Or something like that, in a tweet. I didn’t have enough time to forget or get too nervous because it was within the hour. I set the timer on my computer, so I wouldn’t work right through it.

The participants were authors of children’s literature, and the topic was “Why kidlit?” They were celebrating the second anniversary of the #kidlitchats. There were wonderful inspiring messages in 140 characters or less, like:

and

And somewhere in there Jennifer Prescott added this tweet.

That was fun! After the chat I signed up for the drawing, and I was surprised to find out a couple days later that I won, along with two others of her blog followers. How fun is that?

She does this with some regularity, so check out her blog, The Party Pony, for the August giveaway.

Anyway, that was a long introduction to say that I had waited all this time to really get involved in a chat, and it was worth it! The writers were gracious and interactive. I learned some things, hopefully contributed a bit, and won some books for my classroom. All in one hour, sitting in my jammies.

Another great example of 21st century learning and growing that can happen on Twitter!

Stay Awake! Caffeine-Riddled Kids

10/Jul/2011 Denise Krebs10 Comments

Riding by the high school on my bike today, I saw this telling piece of litter and stopped to check it out. Stay Awake Tablets, Alertness Aid with Caffeine.

It made me sad, like it does when I see beer bottles thrown out on the side of the road.

I couldn’t help but wonder.

Who took these caffeine pills?
Was it a young person who felt the need to throw the empty out the car window instead of into a trashcan at home?
Did the person who used the medication follow the recommended dosage? (One capsule, or 200 mg, every 3-4 hours–equal to two cups of coffee or a half gallon of Coke Classic.)
Or did they overdose?

Overdosing on caffeine seems quite acceptable in our society. FDA-approved products like Stay Awake clearly tell the user what are the recommended dosages, and it clearly says children under 12 should not use it.

However, “energy drinks are classified as dietary supplements. That means they aren’t strictly monitored for safety like food and beverages. In fact, the FDA requires very little of the manufacturers of supplements – no research on effectiveness, no verification of safety, and no warning of harm from excessive consumption.” (Emphasis mine.) See “Energy Drinks: Definitely Not Kid Stuff!”

Caffeine is popular to be sure. According to OverCaffeinated.org, “it is the most widely used behaviorally active drug in the world.” Drinking caffeine in a moderate amount through coffee and soda helps prevent overdose. It takes some energy, time, and a large bladder to drink a gallon of pop. However, with an energy drink, you only need to drink one can to get the effects of 7 strong cups of coffee or 14 cans of soda.

We could go on and read about the side effects of caffeine toxicity, but enough right now.

Today when I saw that litter and thought about the possible gateway effect to harder drugs, I couldn’t help but think of the sixth grade student I saw at the bus stop each morning finishing up his breakfast, which always included a Red Bull. Really? It used to be an oddity to see a child who liked a cup of coffee, now they are starting their mornings with the equivalent of SEVEN cups of coffee.

A few years ago there was an outcry about a ridiculous product called KickStart Spark. It was an energy drink, including caffeine and other stimulants, vitamins and minerals, marketed to children ages 4 to 11. As you can imagine, it didn’t stay on the market long.

Now, seven years later, where is the outcry? Kids are still drinking energy drinks and overdosing on caffeine every day.

Please let me know what you think about this. Do you see this as a problem in your community?

Are kids just becoming over-caffeinated like adults?
Are kids under pressure, forced to “Stay Awake” to perform in school and extra-curricular activities?
Are energy drinks a gateway drug? Do they lead to other drugs when caffeine is no longer effective?

Besides the links above, here are two more related articles:
“Is Red Bull A Gateway Drug? Some John Hopkins Experts Say Caffeine Drinks Need Warning Labels”
“Energy Drinks Not for Kids, Pediatricians Warn”