Dr. Annette Lamb is one of NCCE’s favorite presenters, and for good reason. Her no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is style is informative and riveting for her audiences. Annette always has something for everyone. If you haven’t been to one of her sessions, do yourself a favor and take them all in this time around.

Annette has been an elementary library media specialist, computer teacher, and professor of education. She is currently a Visiting Professor at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) teaching online graduate courses for librarians and educators. As president of Lamb Learning Group, she also writes, speaks, and conducts professional development workshops, presentations, and keynotes throughout North America focusing on ways to more effectively integrate technology into the classroom. Her popular website, Eduscapes.com, includes a wide range of award-winning, free resources for educators including 42explore, Teacher Tap, Literature Ladders, Activate, Naturescapes, and Multimedia Seeds.

NCCE News asked Annette for a short email interview to discuss a few issues, and to whet our readers’ appetite for the conference. Enjoy her responses to the questions below, and be sure to be in the front row for her presentations in Spokane at NCCE Conference 2004!

I see TIME as the biggest challenge. Parents, teachers, and students face demands from every direction and these pressures all collide. We'll never have more than 24 hours in a day, so we've got to figure out ways to balance the demands of standards with the need to nurture happy, healthy, enthusiastic children and young adults who love learning.

There are many students who come to school, but don't understand the value of education. They see school as a place to meet their friends rather than a place of learning. It's our job to help them see the bigger picture. School is more than classes and papers, it's about making informed decisions, collaborating with others, and becoming a life-long learner. The media specialist is the one person in the school who can bring all these ideas together.

I think many library media information professionals are going through an identity crisis related to "place." What if no one comes to the library and checks out books? This concern has even reached technology coordinators. What if there are no wires or computer labs? What if everyone has their own portable technology? It's important that we ask these questions. For decades, David Loertscher has talked about moving away from the idea that a school library is just a warehouse of materials. Instead, he's tried to help librarians focus on their collaborative, curriculum development role.

Rather than a place with books and computers, think of your library as a place for both independent and collaborative learning. It's a place where both local and remote resources can be accessed, but more importantly it's a place to ask questions, seek answers, discuss issues, and create communications. There will always be a need for this type of place. Although many print formats may slowly disappear over time, there will also be a need for a skilled information professional who can collaborate with teachers and facilitate student learning.

Rooms and buildings aren't obsolete. However like a church or temple, a school or library is much more than a place. It's the people, ideas, and synergy that make a learning environment.

Does it matter if students know where the library is located? It depends. It's more important that they know where to find the information, resources, and expertise to advance their experiences and learning. Hopefully, these are the types of services being offered by their school library!

The characteristics of a good teacher haven't changed. Good teachers must be clear, organized, flexible, and enthusiastic. They must be able to lead, guide, collaborate, and facilitate. However exemplary teachers also know that technology can help them develop a learner-centered environment that meets the individual needs of students. The knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to effective infusion of information and technology are critical for today's teachers. The key for is combining effective personal and professional characteristics with quality information and technology tools and resources.

Teachers have a difficult job regardless of the technology. Many teachers go through the motions of using technology, but don't really view it as an essential element of their curriculum. I'd like to get rid of the "expectation" of technology integration. In other words, the pressures of infusing technology have turned off many teachers. I'd like to replace this with an emphasis on creating effective, efficient, and appealing technology-rich learning environments. In other words, sometimes the best teaching or learning tool is a book, a microscope, or a frog. However, collaborating through email with children in Japan, revising short stories in a word processor, accessing photographs through the American Memories website at the Library of Congress, and videotaping oral histories are great assignments that would be impossible without technology. These activities may be easier or more complicated than traditional resources and approaches, but the question should be whether they're the best way to help children and young adults learn.

I'll be doing two workshops and three concurrent sessions this spring. I'm focusing on the importance of meeting the individual needs of students and designing meaningful learning experiences that will really help students become information fluent. Since most schools now have a good base of technology and technology integration experiences, it's time to really examine what works, what's a waste of time, and how to best make good technology infusion decisions that will have a lasting, positive impact on teaching and learning.

 

Dr. Lamb's Sessions at NCCE 2004 in Spokane

Ready, Set, What's Missing?
Success through Differentiation and Technology Your students are interested, motivated, and ready to learn. You've got computers, resources, and Internet access. You've even got a lesson that addresses your exact grade level standards. What's missing? Nothing, unless your class is "normal.” In a typical class, each child is unique. Some students won't be able to read the materials you've selected, a few won't find the activities challenging, and others will have difficulty with the concepts because they lack the life experiences of others. Use technology to help you differentiate the learning environment. This session explores ways to use the Internet to locate quality materials to address individual differences. In addition, ten tips are provided for connecting students to the learning environment through technology-rich resources.

The Technology Race: Who Wins, the Tortoise or the Hare?
Explores strategies for creating practical K12 activities that combine the power of technology with active learning and thinking to address standards and meet individual needs. The hare focuses on the technology, while the tortoise concentrates on active learning and thinking. They're both important elements of an engaging learning environment. Which will win the race? This session explores strategies for creating practical K-12 classroom activities that combine the power of popular technology tools and resources with active learning and thinking to address important standards and meet individual needs. From multimedia tools to Internet resources explore ways that you can use technology to help students succeed. The session places particular emphasis on asking the question: what value does technology add to the learning experience? Then it describes a dozen ways technology facilitates learning experiences: How can you use technology to provide... data for comparison, alternative perspectives, another sense, more reading resources, connections with parents, promote reading, global discussions, interesting starting points, quick resources, both critical and creative thinking, both content and information skills, and different ways of thinking? Next, the session discusses how to use technology to facilitate life experiences and promote life-long learning through a combination of content standards, information standards, critical thinking, and creative thinking. Finally, the presenter challenges teachers to find their "tipping Point," specifically identifying those small changes that can make a big difference in teaching and learning with technology.

Enriching Student Minds: Meaningful Learning Experiences through Technology-Rich Information Inquiry
Learning is about choices and challenges. Learn to develop technology-rich, inquiry-based learning experiences. Create mental synergy by combining motivating activities with critical and creative thinking. Are we asking students to solve difficult problems? Are asking them to live fully and think deeply? Choices and challenges are what learning is all about. Technology provides the tools to develop rich inquiry-based, learning experiences. Traditional testing only gets to a small part of the things we learn in school. It doesn't address the talents and insights that are often the most useful aspects of school. In schools we often focus on the "thinking" aspect of the mind. However, human consciousness also involves perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. Without concentrating on these elements also we're missing much of the power of the brain. In addition to thinking, reasoning, and knowledge, our brain also processes opinion, motivation, and desire. By focusing so closely on the rational side, we may be losing the power of synergy. By focusing so hard on critical thinking, we may miss wonderful opportunities for creativity. A balanced curriculum doesn't take more time. Instead, it focuses on both process and product. As students better understand the why's and how's of learning, they are better able to address essential content. Metacognition involves asking students to "think about thinking.” Whether practicing math facts or making high-level decisions, students need to understand the process of thinking. Technology can help and hinder this process. Mindless drill and practice does nothing to help students understand the why's of math. Having access to billions of web pages doesn't help students make good decisions. Technology is only useful if students are information fluent. We need to nurture the bodies and brains of our students. Rather than junk food, our brains need meaningful learning experiences that will promote mental connections, motivate students to go beyond the basics and encourage positive habits of mind. Like our bodies, our brains need variety. Although students might like ice cream for every meal, we know that they need well-balanced meals. This session provides dozens of examples across grade levels and subject areas that address the need to provide choice and challenge as we focus on higher-order thinking. It also highlights an approach to information inquiry that promotes both critical and creative thinking using technology as a tool for questioning, data collection, synthesis, communication, and evaluation.

Avoiding Déjà Vu: A Diet of Technology Trends that Work
Haven't we done this before? Technologies, innovations, standards, and educational strategies... we're constantly bombarded by new and recycled information and opportunities. We can't do everything. Like finding the right diet, we need to make good choices that will have a lasting, positive impact on teaching and learning. Rather than filling up on "junk food" technology, let's make fundamental changes in how we view technology in the learning environment. This session will provide specific strategies for matching the best of traditional approaches with innovations that work.

Web Portals: Rabbit Holes to Grand Gateways
Explore the spectrum of educational portal possibilities and the continuum of portal options such as their focus, flexibility, and fees. From very specific entry points to broad, general interest gateways, portals provide the starting point for millions of web users. This poster session examines the spectrum of possibilities and the continuum of portal options such as their focus, flexibility, and fees. The session also explores the specific needs of students and educators while providing a wealth of practical examples.