Conversations, Connections and Community Council of Great City Schools Library Media Supervisors Network Conference February , 2007 University of Maryland College 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 21 st 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 ing 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 or IM daily to communicate with friends who live outside their local area.

Todays Student collaborative independent learner online and face-to-face multitaskers visual learners Tools instant messages blogs RSS Feeds Podcasts news alerts wikis s search engines online catalog online image archives digitized journals primary sources collaborative word processing chat

Your Task Collaboratively create a symbol/graphic representing a 21 st century learner 30 minutes Be ready to share with the group; choose one person in your group to present your symbol/graphic

Lunch

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 7

Process In the center of a large piece of white paper, draw the symbol you created to represent the 21 st 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/Edit Comment Contribute Educator Edit Delete Assess Students Colleagues/Department/ Grad Level Teachers Review

Free Wiki Hosting Wikispaces PBWiki

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!