Conversations, Connections and Community

Council of Great City SchoolsLibrary Media Supervisors’ NetworkConference

February 16 -18, 2007University of MarylandCollege Park MD

The World Café

World Café

World Café Conversations are an intentional way to create a living network of conversation around questions that matter

A Café Conversation is a creative process for leading collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge and creating possibilities for action in groups of all sizes

Café History

Sewing circles and "committees of correspondence" helped birth the American Republic

Conversations in cafes and salons spawned the French Revolution

Scandinavian "study circles" created learning societies and stimulated an economic and social renaissance in Northern Europe

World Café Structure Four rounds of discussion starting with the

table you are currently sitting (home table) In 15 minutes you move to another table and

then in another 15 minutes you move to a third table

As you travel to the next table, bring the ideas, themes and questions

Each time one person stays behind and acts as the Table Host

World Café Instructions

Listen with an openness to be influenced by the speaker

Listen for deeper questions, patterns, insights and emerging perspectives

Use the crayons to play, doodle and draw with text, phases, arrows, graphics, etc.

Have fun!

Dialogue: Listen Together and Notice Patterns

Table Host: Your Job

Remind people at your table to jot down key connections, ideas and discoveries and deeper connections as they emerge.

Remain at the table when others leave and welcome travelers from other tables.

Briefly share key insights from prior conversations so others can link and build using key ideas from other table.

What are the characteristics of a 21st century learner?

Begin the dialogue!

Travel to your second table

Travel to your third table

Travel back to your home table

Kids are wired -- 24/7 83% of teens say that the loss of Internet access would have a

negative effect on their schoolwork, and 79% say that no Internet access would affect their personal lives.

43%of students say e-mailing friends or family is their favorite activity, followed by 31% who cite playing games, and 17% who say they enjoy listening to or downloading music.

71% of students say they used the Net for their last big project.

39% of students use e-mail or IM daily to communicate with friends who live outside their local area.

Today’s Student

• collaborative• independent learner• online and face-to-face• multitaskers•visual learners

Tools

instant messagesblogsRSS FeedsPodcastsnews alertswikisemailssearch enginesonline catalogonline image archivesdigitized journalsprimary sourcescollaborative word processing chat

Your Task

Collaboratively create a symbol/graphic representing a 21st century learner

30 minutes Be ready to share with the group;

choose one person in your group to present your symbol/graphic

Lunch

MindMapping

MindMapping Tony Buzan, author and creativity consultant

invented Mind Mapping a powerful graphic technique Mind Mapping is used to

Generate ideas (brain storming, etc.) Design a complex structure (long texts,

hypermedia, large web sites, etc.) Communicate complex ideas Aid learning by explicitly integrating new

and old knowledge

MindMapping

Mind Mapping7

Process

In the center of a large piece of white paper, draw the symbol you created to represent the 21st century student.

Draw 3 branches from the central symbol, like branches on a tree. These are the “challenges.”

Begin branching off into smaller but related topics to explore the “challenges.”

Think fast . . . your mind may work best in 5-7 minute intense periods of thinking.

Keywords are very powerful.

What are the challenges?

Begin the dialogue!Using your MindMaps

Travel to your second table

Travel to your third table

Travel back to your home table

In your groups…

Based on your Café Conversations, agree on three major challenges

Redraw your MindMap if necessary

Break

Add to your Mind Map

What are the strategies?

Begin the dialogue!

Travel to your second table

Travel to your third table

Travel back to your home table

Evening Event

Dinner at 5:00pm Leave for Capital Steps at 6:15

Good Morning!

CGCS Librarians’ Network Wiki

What is a wiki?

“…a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration.” -Wikipedia, 10/15/06

Described as…

Composition system A discussion medium A repository Tool for collaboration

Wikis Allows every user to edit Encourages democratic use of the Web Promotes content composition by non-

technical users Interface is familiar; barriers are minimal Users’ actions on content are instantly

visible Makes creating content and sharing very

easy

Uses of a Wiki

Collaborative knowledge base Personal portfolios Student journaling

How does a Wiki support student learning?

WIKI

Study

reference

Revise/EditComment

Contribute

Educator

EditDelete

Assess

Students

Colleagues/Department/Grad Level Teachers

Review

http://planetmath.org

http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/

Free Wiki Hosting

Wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com

PBWiki http://www.pbwiki.com

Your Task

Choose one or two action steps that you are going to accomplish by August 31, 2007

Write them on a piece of paper Put the paper into the white envelope

in your red folder, address the envelope to yourself

Thank you!