Over the summer of 2012, Vermont become the first state in the union to hand over it's official tourism feed to the masses, or in this case, to selected Vermonters who agree to tweet on behalf of the state. There is a form that any intrepid Vermonter can fill out for themselves or to nominate another and the fun part about following this feed is to see and feel Vermont through a different perspective for a week.
My tap on the shoulder arrived disguised as an email from Steve Cook, Deputy Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Tourism with an offer I couldn't refuse: "Congrats you have been selected for @THISISVT. We have accepted your nomination; we see your personality, insight and good humor absolutely representative of Vermont." I was given one week's notice, which was just enough time to start having #hashtag dreams as well as for my other responsibilities and obligations to start piling up. When my time came on Monday morning, February 11, I was ready. Or so I thought. Talk about a wild ride. Well, perhaps a more bucolic and sedate ride (this is Vermont, after all), but to suddenly have thousands of followers and a mission to represent not only Vermont, but my little corner of it, was a thrill. As only the second public educator to have the wheel, I was also the first elementary school teacher, the first librarian, and the first resident from The Mad River Valley. Phew. Talk about representing!
I appreciated the early shout-outs, especially from fellow teacher Amanda Paquette at Hartford School, who shared ways that this feed could generate excitement with students. The boost to my own humble @meg_allison feed was noticeable, but that's not why I did this. To be a part of a grand experiment, why, is there any better thing? Twitter has been transformational for me as an educator, why not so as a Vermonter? Cognizant of the mega-phone that is this feed, I made sure to highlight my favorite local businesses and venues, gave shout-outs to Vermont public school teachers and librarians, and made sure to follow movers and shakers in the educational and library fields.One of the highlights of the gig was having the opportunity to live tweet a jazz fusion show at the Flynn Theater in Burlington. Only the second time the vaulted venue has opened up their balcony, select tweeters gave their two cents, or rather, our #FlynnTweets of the amazing show from The Bad Plus. Dinner beforehand in Burlington with the other tweeters was even better, perhaps. It was so enjoyable to talk Twitter with others who clearly embrace this form of communication. For once, folks weren't rolling their eyes at me. I was with my people.
Reflecting on the past week, I can honestly say that I embraced the @ThisIsVT gig, I engaged, and I had fun pretending to be a tourist in my own life. Life was indeed lived a little larger. I played a little harder, got out a little more, and ate a little better.
Time to go back to reality, little me, myself, and @meg_allison.
Today I was invited by Paul Costello, executive director of the Vermont Council of Rural Development to speak at a conference at the Vermont State House with Senator Patrick Leahy in regards to the announcement that Senator Leahy has secured 1.8 million dollars to expand internet capacity for Vermont businesses, farms, non-profits, and communities in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene.
This is an incredible opportunity for all towns in Vermont to have access to a robust digital infrastructure, like Front Porch Forum, an electronic bulletin board available for communities, so that they will be prepared for emergencies, just like Moretown was in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene. As a librarian, I am heartened to see funds devoted to training internet interns to work in our robust public libraries to help our citizens access technologies vital to thriving in today's world.
What follows is a transcript of my statement. It was an incredible honor to speak with Senator Leahy and representatives from Governor Shumlin and Senator Sanders offices in our gorgeous State Capitol. As some of you may know, a fun fact about Senator Leahy (Senate President Pro-Tempore and third in the Presidential line of succession) is that he is a huge Batman fan and has cameos in three Batman movies. What you may not have known is that Batgirl was a librarian, for Gotham City Public Libraries. I should have worn a cape.
"Moretown is a typical rural Vermont town, defined by her extraordinary landscape of hills and valleys, and peopled with caring, resilient, and proud people. When the rains of TS Irene caused our rivers, The Mad River and the Winooski River to rise and inundate our neighborhoods, when our village had to be evacuated, when our post office, town office, and elementary school filled with flood waters, when our bridges were compromised and roads washed away, we had one thing going for us that some other towns did not – a digital infrastructure and a citizenry who knew how to use digital tools to communicate, to organize, and ultimately, to continue our long-term recovery.
Moretown was the recipient of round two e-Vermont funding that established, among other things, Front Porch Forum, a robust digital network for our residents, digital workshops and training for our residents, computers and wifi access for our town library, and an invaluable partnership with Digital Wish, providing each of our 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and their teachers with netbooks and training for how to learn and teach with them.
Without our own local news station, newspaper, or radio station, typical of so many rural Vermont towns, a platform such as Front Porch Forum proved to be vital when we needed it the most. Moretown only had Front Porch Forum for a few months and it was slowly growing. Town officials were embracing it and posting agendas for upcoming select board meetings, some neighbors told of yard sales and extra eggs from their hens to give away, but many weren't sure of why we had it, or what its purpose was.
That changed in the days and weeks immediately following Tropical Storm Irene.
Within days, interest in Front Porch Forum exploded. Dozens and dozens of residents signed onto FPF as it became the number one way that town officials and neighbors communicated with one another. It became so important that minutes of our daily emergency response meetings posted onto FPF were printed and tacked to the Town Hall and other outlying areas of our town. Moreover, social media was taking off and assisting in helping Moretown’s recovery. Social media use of Twitter and Facebook, and especially the Vermont Response hashtag and the Mad River Valley Hurricane Recovery page were vital in spreading the word - our story - so that we got the support we needed to meet immediate needs, such as mucking out basements, saving family photographs, and coordinating places for families to live but to also coordinate communication with everyone from FEMA officials to neighbors cut off by washed out roads, as the days turned into weeks and into months.
Governor Shumlin asked of us yesterday, in his second Inaugural speech, think about how technology has changed our daily lives. I can’t imagine to think about how Moretown would have recovered from TS Irene without technology.
What we experienced in Moretown after Tropical Storm Irene was the grassroots organization and communication that have always made Vermont strong, enabled and enhanced by strong digital access and connection to high-speed Internet. A FEMA official said, in his 25 years of service with across the country, had never seen a community that had done so much by the time he showed up. We organized volunteers, supplies, and services for our students who started their first weeks of school under tents and on field trips, through our strong digital networks. We fed our volunteers and neighbors, distributed forms and endless paperwork, and gave our thanks and small reasons to celebrate not only face to face, but through our digital networks.
Access to digital tools and the training to know how to use them are no longer additional, or add-ons, to one’s education. They are essential. Our public libraries are in perfect positions to give support and training to our citizens as are our strong public schools are where we can educate students to be critical, collaborative, and communicative consumers of social and digital media, preparing them for an economy that desperately needs these skills.
At Moretown School, our students are learning how to become citizen journalists. They are learning how to post news updates with our school’s Twitter handle. We have 5th and 6th graders creating their own websites. We have students who already have the skills that companies such as Burton Snowboards are looking for as they hire technology savvy, You-tube friendly, social media using employees. I have students that swept a state-widevideo game contest last spring, winning Xboxes and games. All three winning teams from Moretown School were made up of girls.
We are closing the digital divide, not just across income levels, not just across rural and urban communities, but also between boys and girls. Our students are reaping the benefits of being connected in this digital age we inhabit. Whether they Skype with local business owners, such as the Red Hen Bakery or Grow Compost, to ask them about business plans, or receive a tweet back from an author on Twitter, or Skype with Senator Leahy in his office on Capitol Hill, my students – our students - hear something very powerful. You matter. And when they know that they matter, what they think, what they say, and what they do starts to matter to them, too.
Communication. Community. Resiliency. Vermont has those attributes in spades. Strong digital networks will only enhance, engage, and build upon these values, ensuring that we are prepared to weather storms, support each other in times of need, equip our students and citizens with access to digital technologies that will shape their lives for the better, and bounce back even stronger than ever."
One of the biggest arguments for integrating technology into the educational lives of children - and it is a very salient and solid argument - is to provide students with the opportunities to not just consume media, but create it. We want them using their creativity and their talents to make new content. To be contributors. To be engagers.
Reflecting on aspects of my professional life in this very public forum allows me to grow. I didn't realize that anyone else was actually reading until I was utterly honored and shocked, in late November, to get an informal EduBlog nomination, in the "New Blog" category from The Daring Librarian herself. I thought there must have been a typo. In all honesty, Gwyneth Jones was an early and vocal supporter of my blog. She is truly one of the field's Rock Stars, so it was a boost, and a a rather big one, to my morale to get this nod from her. Not only did Gwyneth re-engage me by that nomination, she may not realize it but she's forcing me to pick up the pen again and start writing. Thank you so much, Gwyneth. Time to stop watching the river flow by and get on out there and ride the waves.
The Professional Learning Network (or #PLN for all you Twitter-ites, myself included) I've developed during the last year and a half has been foundational to me. And I don't say that lightly. From brick & mortar colleagues here at The Moretown School to educators and teacher librarians across the country, from authors and illustrators, to book lovers and critics, my PLN is growing and growing and has become an integral network that supports the work that I do, right here in my beautiful, albeit rainy and raw at the moment, Mad River Valley.
All this time keyboarding away, all this screen time consuming your tweets, blog posts, and chats hasn't been for nought. Oh no. It's all swirling around inside me. All of this consumption is helping me formulate my own thoughts on matters, and giving me connections to the books that matter and the pedagogies that help students shine.
If all I ever do is reflect a little bit more, share back a little bit more in depth, and contribute to my professional field by enriching another's practice or perceptions, then this blog will be worth it.
One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometimes you don't know what you want because you don't know it exists.
Even though I'm a children's librarian doesn't mean that I love all children's literature unequivocally. Perhaps because I continue to have a strong yen to read adult literature and have read enough children's literature to know that it is not all compelling and engaging, I find myself rather picky in my reading. After all, there is only so much time and so, so many books. If a book fails to capture my attention in the first few chapters, I'm still obliged to slog through to the finish, if only to know how it all ends but also so that I can have a sharper sense of which children I know might be able to appreciate it. Fully aware that we all have our tastes for different flavors of novels, I've been at this job long enough to know that while not every book happens to be my cup of tea, I can usually at least appreciate the author's intent and help it find its way into the right hands.
The difference with One for the Murphy's by Lynda Mullaly Hunt is that she's written a real keeper of a novel, one that I tried to savor as much as possible, until I could no longer pace myself and finished the last 7 or 8 chapters in a mad rush to find out how she was going to have this amazing story end. My favorite genre is contemporary fiction, so my caveat for this review is that my appreciation of realistic fiction knows no bounds. Hunt crafts a story that will draw in almost any reader who picks it up, but will especially appeal to those readers, who like me, crave well-written realistic fiction that takes its readers seriously. By that I mean, please spare us the tidy endings, the happy-ever-after endings, implausible events and superficial details. We want meatiness. We want a box of tissues next to us. Yet we don't want sentimentalism, sappiness, nor silliness. We want characters we can root for, characters we struggle to identify with, and characters we can emphasize with. Hunt chose only the finest ingredients from this mandate and turned out a story about foster care, identity, love, and acceptance that will have you - and your students - talking long after the ending.
Indeed, be someone's hero. If Carley Connors can find her way, then so can we.
If using as a class read-aloud, have The Giving Tree on hand, some Elvis Presley, and a couple of extra Red Sox hats.
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It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
And so begins the bittersweet story of the great silverback gorilla, The One and Only Ivan. Based on the true story of Ivan and his nearly three decades of captivity at a mall in Washington State, this story is an instant classic and one I would like to see in contention for the Newbery Medal.
This special story belongs in the same revered space as Charlotte's Web, weaving together a story of friendship and hope despite unsurmountable odds. Read it whether you are 88 or 8, read it with someone special, read it aloud, read it again. It will affect your heart and humble our human egoism. Though the text and appealing white space on the pages will draw in younger readers, I would be afraid that some pieces of the story would be disturbing for younger children to handle on their own. There are some stark and brutal images, and while I don't suggest shielding children from them, some will need to be shepherded through them. Many will need comforting. Most will be deeply affected. All will never forget Ivan and his friends.
For curriculum tie-ins, learn about the real Ivan, who lived out the rest of his years at Zoo Atlanta (died August 21, 2012. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html...). There is a lot out there on the Internet to engage budding researchers. Dive deeper into Silverback Gorillas. Learn more about zoos and the humane treatment of wild animals. I'm anxious to read Chained, by Lynne Kelly, which would make a perfect companion read in classrooms. Fittingly, it is the story of a baby elephant and a boy who have a friendship greater than any lock, chain, or shackle. For more, please see her webpage: http://lynnekellybooks.com/wordpress/...
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Pa says when you're upset, you just have to look out at the ocean and breathe with the waves. In and out. In and out.
Erin Moulton's second novel is filled with pearls of wisdom, culinary morsels, self-improvement plans, and second chances all wrapped up in the heady promise of a summer vacation along the Maine coast.
Indie Lee Chickory, self-proclaimed fish freak, and her 1 in 30 million Golden Lobster Monty, are the central characters in Moulton's story. This is just the kind of character - and just the kind of book - I imagine a Richard Louv (The Last Child in the Woods) would approve of. Indie is a girl, just out of the 5th grade, who spends a lot of time outside and has the knowledge to back it up. She's a spunky fish face making, star gazing, shooting star wishing kind of kid, though not immune to feelings of self-doubt and impulsiveness. Her journey will interest her young readers. Can she stay true to herself? Do we deserve second-chances? Are shooting stars just the stuff of science .... or magic?
This book is ripe with ideas for projects. Have students learn about a constellation and make a good luck charm of it. Research a superstition. Start an observation journal. Respond to a writing prompt: "What do you wish for?" (p.140) Make a recipe book from foods featured in Tracing Stars: lobster bisque, lemon ginger tea, garlic ginger mussels, clam chowder, and more.
Erin Moulton will be visiting the Mad River Valley on July 28th as part of the Valley Libraries Summer Reading Program. She'll be at the Joslin Library in Waitsfield, VT on the 28th at 2:00. She'll speak about her work, including her debut novel Flutter.
For more about this promising new author, please visit her website - http://www.erinemoulton.com/
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