[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“224”] Image from Bytemarks on Flickr[/caption]

Lately I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the Quantified Self movement. The basic idea is that technology has made it increasingly easy to track small changes in our behavior and our lives, and that the data we collect can be used to improve our situation. I wanted to start my very own Quantified Kimberly project, but as I thought about it, I realized that I’ve been practicing one variant or another of the Quantified Self for years.

Here are some of the things I’ve tracked:

• calories consumed
• weight gained or lost
• minutes spent exercising
• miles walked
• reps of various exercises
• blood pressure
• lipids levels
• blood sugar
• thyroid hormone levels
• menstrual cycles
• chores completed
• grades
• books read

Some people think QS has merit just by virtue of the fact that people are paying attention to what they do. But I think its real power lies in reflecting on the data and using it to inspire change and then track the results of that change.

Little Data

Of all the things I’ve tracked, the only ones that I’ve really used systematically or to improve my life are the medical data. I received two endocrine diagnoses (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and polycystic ovary syndrome) largely because of my own efforts to track symptoms and hormone levels. Doctors are impressed by data. So are school administrators and legislators, of course.

It’s easy to feel bad about data collection; sometimes it feels like when we collect data on student achievement we are dehumanizing our students’ experiences and our own teaching. But I wonder if the QS movement has something to teach us about helping students take responsibility for their learning. This doesn’t necessarily mean having them pay attention to their own scores on standardized tests or benchmark assessments. It might mean something simpler and more readily visible.

QS and Formative Assessment

When I was teaching using the Cambridge Latin Course, each textbook unit came with an “I Can” checklist. The checklist put in jargon-free, student-friendly language the objectives for the unit. I would show this checklist to my students at the beginning and end of the unit. I think now that it would have been more effective for me to actually give them the checklist. Were I still in the school now, I think I might use completing the checklist as an exit ticket, and reviewing the checklist as a bellringer. As students walked in the door, I could hand them the checklist. Instead of checking or putting their initials in a box to indicate what they understood, I would have them note the date. I could then quickly review to see which students didn’t feel they had achieved the lesson objective. This would be a quick formative assessment and it would also allow students to see their own learning growing before their eyes.

QS in the 1:1 Environment

I think QS principles and techniques could be especially valuable in the 1:1 environment. I recently attended a Google Apps for Education summit, and I think you could probably use Google Forms and Spreadsheets to help students track their own learning. Many schools now require teachers to make grades available in a system that parents and students can review online, but how often do those particular numbers tell us about mastery or growth?

In the 1:1 environment, students might copy a simple form and spreadsheet that you provide, then fill out the form and be able to periodically review the data. The form might be as simple as one question - for example, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you learn today?” It could also be used, however, to track the relationship between learning and other variables - for example, whether students had gotten enough sleep, or how long it had been since they had eaten. We know these physical needs affect learning. It might be valuable to students to see their own learning in relationship to these concerns.

All of this is me spitballing. As I explore this movement more, I think I will generate more ideas about how it might apply to learning.

The Quantified Kimberly: Sleep

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="259"] SleepBot[/caption]

In the meantime, I’m designing my own QS experiment. In spite of the best thyroid numbers I’ve had in years, my energy has been low lately. I think poor quality sleep is the culprit. So I’m going to install SleepBot on my phone and track my sleep patterns for a week. After that, I’m going to use interventions based on the tips in this Lifehacker article. Follow me on Twitter for daily updates on my progress.

Here’s my schedule:

November 19 - 25 - Gather baseline sleep data; make no changes to sleep habits.

November 26 - December 2 - Intervention 1: Reduce screen time before bed.

December 3: Reflect on Intervention 1 and plan next steps.

What Do You Think?

Is the Quantified Self movement dangerous? Does it have potential for use with students? Are your students self-tracking already? I know self-tracking has been used in behavioral interventions; do you think it would be useful in academic interventions as well?

I think as a school librarian, there are some collaborations that come really easily, like language arts and social studies, while there are others that you have to work really hard to set up. It never occurred to me when I was in the middle schools that I should make an effort to work with the Health/PE teachers. I just didn’t feel like information literacy really fit with their programs. But lately I’ve been examining the North Carolina Essential Standards for Healthful Living, and I found some standards here that make me think I should’ve tried harder.

Because I work in North Carolina, that’s where I’m focusing, but I imagine the standards in other states have something similar.

Beginning with the fourth grade standards, there is a focus on analyzing health information and products. This is a great opportunity to teach critical literacy. You could have students watch clips from infomercials, examine magazine ads, etc. You could have them explore the internet and find conflicting information and try to resolve that information. This focus proceeds all the way through high school, with the objective “Monitor the effects of media and popular culture on normative beliefs that contradict scientific research on health."

If you’re currently in a school, I encourage you to talk to your health and PE teachers about how you can work together beyond just pulling books about the rules of certain sports (all that I really did for those teachers, I’m sad to say). This is a great opportunity to ask kids to think critically. It is incredibly relevant to their daily lives and will continue to be so as they become adults. Just figuring out what’s the healthiest food to eat requires us to use these skills daily.

If you collaborate with your health/PE teacher in this way, I would love to hear about it. Comment here or email me: kimberly at kimberlyhirsh dot com.

A few months ago, just for fun, I typed in “are the new vampires” in my Google search box, just to see what popped up. I found a stunning array of possibilities, including zombies, ghosts, and robots. But my favorite of all the suggestions was that mermaids are the new vampires. I’ve been obsessed with mermaids since I saw Splash more than 25 years ago; I sang “Part of Your World” in a mermaid costume at a high school chorus concert, insisting that boys carry me on stage since mermaids can’t walk. My home office is decorated around a mermaid theme, and this very website featured a mermaid in the header until yesterday. (See her in the picture on the right? My mom made her for me.)

A friend from high school recently connected me with the mermaiding community, where I learned about Raina the Halifax Mermaid’s book, “Fishy” Business: How to Be a Mermaid. Raina includes a list of recommended mermaid fiction, but even more useful, she provides the URL for this Goodreads list of the Best Mermaid Books.

As I’ve watched my former school library and classroom teacher colleagues chat about their summer plans on Facebook, I’ve occasionally had a twinge of longing for the times before I was a twelve-month university employee. That said, I wouldn’t trade my excellent job and full-time employment for anything, so I’m looking for ways to capture the feel of a summer vacation that match my current schedule. I think reading a giant stack of mermaid books (especially on my upcoming beach vacation) is a great way to get the job done.

So stay tuned for reports on mermaid reads. What are you going to read this summer?

The Poetry Friday roundup is over at The Poem Farm today. Our host, Amy, shares a poem about diving. I myself have been thinking a lot about swimming lately, and researching the Total Immersion method and my own options for pool membership. So I thought I’d look for a swim-related poem myself.

NPR obliged me with the beautiful “Swim Your Own Race” by Mbali Vilakazi. I’m just going to share some lines from the opening. Head over to NPR to read the whole poem.

Beneath the surface tension of shattered bones, dreams and splintered muscles things broken and those that may never be replaced.

Pulling the weight of it, you do not tread the water wounded and in retreat

By the determined strokes of fate you swim your own race

My husband has a cat that he generously shares with me. Or perhaps it would be better to say the cat has him.

We confuse people because we regularly call him “The Kitty,” but his name is actually Laertes.

I explain this by saying that “The Kitty” is the name that the family use daily, but “Laertes” is his name that’s particular, peculiar, and more dignified. Of course, we’ll never know his deep and inscrutable singular name.

The Naming of Cats

by T. S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey — All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter — But all of them sensible everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkstrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum — Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there’s still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover — But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

A post from a friend on Facebook that linked to a blatantly incorrect article about new reading requirements in the Common Core prompted me to create this graphic.

I learned just today about The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative. This initiative, sponsored by the Association of Educational Publishers and Creative Commons, aims to develop a common metadata framework for describing learning resources on the web. At LEARN NC, we have applied domain-specific metadata to our learning resources for years. Our resources are aligned to curricular objectives and searchable by grade level and subject area, among other characteristics. I would say we’re ahead of the curve on this one.

But I didn’t learn about LMRI until today. I consider myself fairly tapped into what’s happening in libraries, especially in school libraries, and I feel like this should have been on my radar before. When I explored the LRMI site I found that while they have solicited input from teachers and school librarians, the connection between this work and the work of school librarians, which seems so obvious to me, is not present in their framework.

I fault no one involved with the LMRI for this. To myself and other trained school librarians, the notion that making educational resources more discoverable would affect our work perhaps more than that of anyone else in a school might be obvious. But so many people don’t know what we do, that I’m not surprised or even chagrined that we have to make the connection ourselves.

But we have to make the connection. We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. We can’t sit around waiting for others to invite us to these conversations about open educational resources and how to make them easy to find and to use. It is our job to make this happen and we have to go out there and do it.

While I’m not situated in a K-12 school, I consider myself to be the librarian of a vast digital professional collection, and I think the LMRI, if adoption is widespread, will necessarily influence my work and how my colleagues and I ensure the findability and usability of LEARN NC’s resources. I’m going to keep a close eye on this initiative, and I would encourage all librarians, but especially those in school and academic libraries, to pay attention to it as well - and to look for opportunities to add our voices to the conversation.

What do you think about the LMRI? Is it an exciting development? What pitfalls might be involved? I myself am cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.

The Suburban Strange by Nathan Kotecki. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 2012. Reviewed from ARC from the author. Buy it from IndieBound or Powell’s (affiliate links).

Celia Balaustine is entering her sophomore year of high school, but it’s her first year at Suburban High. She’s all set to spend the year trying to be as invisible as possible, with only her sketchbook for a friend, when fellow artist Regine takes her under her wing and introduces her to a clique called The Rosary. The members of The Rosary are interested in dark alternative culture, including literature, fashion, and music. They pride themselves on being different from the other kids in their school. But as different as her friends are from the rest of their classmates, Celia can’t help but be drawn into the school’s drama as young girls begin to be gravely injured on the eve of their sixteenth birthday. She wants to stop these incidents from happening, as well as protect herself from becoming the curse’s next victim. But can she?

My relationship with the author:

Before I jump into telling you what I loved about this book (and there’s a lot), I need to tell you how it came to my attention. My former supervisor Emily (whose old job I now hold) contacted me and told me that her friend was having his first book released soon and would love to get a big name to be present at his book release party, and she knew I had connections in the YA lit world and thought I might have some suggestions. After some back and forth, Emily and Nathan and I sat down for lunch so he could pick my brain for my expertise as both a kidlit blogger and a school librarian (by training if not position). Over the course of the conversation it came out that we are both seekrit goths, me coming at it more from the fashion angle and him from music, with both of us crossing over into the other interest some. I confessed my lack of education on the music part of things, and he assured me that he could fix that. So, yes, I do have mix CDs that serve as, essentially the soundtrack for this book. Yes, the author treated me to lunch since I am helping him with publicity. Yes, I felt like it would be good if I liked this book.

So know all of that, because I don’t want to deceive you about my relationship with this book.

What I loved:

• Celia's friends in The Rosary are darkly glamorous. They discuss music, art, and literature in ways that some reviews have suggested aren't realistic for teenagers, but as a former high school teacher, I found this eminently believable. Kids are into all sorts of things, and some of them are beautifully pretentious. Mostly they grow into pretentious but self-aware adults, the kind of people I like to spend time with.
• This book has a gay couple in the most stable relationship in the whole book. And it's not a huge deal. They're just a couple, who both happen to be guys. And they're probably two of the most fully-realized characters in a book full of interesting people. They're my favorites.
• The curse has a component whereby girls who are virgins seem to be the only targets. This leads to a lot of frank but not vulgar discussions of sex, its importance, when you should do it and who you should do it with. I think books that model this kind of conversation are far preferable to those that ignore it or make it all gross.
• The members of The Rosary are immensely studious. Yes, they do party at Diaboliques (described in Colleen's review as a fairytale goth club and I can't put it better than that) until three in the morning, but they also encourage Celia to do her homework as soon as she gets home from school.
• There's a romance in here that is a slow burn, which is exactly my kind of thing (both in my own love life and the stories I like to read). There won't be any flailing and crying, "I love you, but also I want you to be my dinner!" here - the obstacles to romance are external reactions to internal circumstances and I kind of love that.
• The decadence of description of the clothes, atmosphere, music, and Celia's emotions. I spent a good chunk of this book being a little sad that I didn't have a tightly-knit group of goth friends to shepherd me through school. (I had a tightly-knit group of diversely-interested friends who were wonderful, but I was one of only two of us you could categorize as goth, and not at all aware of it as a genuine subculture rather than just a cruel label folks gave spooky kids.)
• The quiet menace of the supernatural. You know the whole time that supernatural stuff is going on, but it's not the focus until far into the book.
• The subtle way in which this fits the mold of a classic Gothic novel, going as far back as The Castle of Otranto and Jane Eyre and as recent as Rebecca or even The Thirteenth Tale.

What I'd like to see more of:

• The school setting as a menace itself. This is definitely present here, but I have hopes that it will be even more present in future books in the series. I was lucky enough to hear Nathan speak to a young adult literature class at UNC's School of Information and Library Science (my alma mater!) and he mentioned that the school itself would serve as a unifying thread throughout the series. I hope he explores the relationship of this place with the supernatural mythology he's building more as the series goes on.
• More supplemental materials (appendices, maybe?) consolidating the myriad cultural references. But I'm a librarian, so it's likely I'll do a re-read and pull together literary and musical references (perhaps even create a Spotify playlist) and share that here.

What I need to warn you about: This book is deliberately paced. There was definitely a point at which I thought, "Okay, I see why the Amazon reviewers complained about it being slow." That said, it's all leading somewhere and it's all valuable. If I were doing reader's advisory, I wouldn't hand this to somebody looking for fast-paced action. I would hand it to somebody looking for atmospheric spookiness.

The big climax and resolution of the mystery are not why you want to read this book. They are of course very important to have, but what’s going to keep you interested is the mood and the world-building. Don’t jump in here expecting a typical suspense thriller. If you ran the numbers, I suspect you’d find mystery resolution takes up a very small percentage of pages or words here. But the supernatural element is woven throughout.

My favorite quotes:

"We're a set of small black shiny beads who string around together, finding beauty the rest of the world has overlooked." (p. 5 in the ARC)

“We’re in high school. Of course we’re egocentric,” Ivo replied matter-of-factly. (p. 83 in the ARC)

Who should read it: I would recommend The Suburban Strange to readers who like books with a lot of atmosphere, a little mystery, and a slow but sustained reveal of supernatural elements.

A review roundup happens when I read a book but either didn’t have the time to write a review or read it so long ago that my memory about it isn’t good enough to write a review. I gather links to other reviews in the kidlitosphere and share excerpts from them. These are reviews of books that I know darkly-inclined young people will enjoy. 

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. Carolrhoda Books. 2009. Library copy. Buy it from IndieBound or Powell’s (affiliate links).

In Written in Bone, Sally M. Walker explores what scientists learned from excavating graves in Jamestown and Colonial Maryland. They book examines not only burial practices, but also the evidence these excavations provide about lifestyles in the Colonial era.

Spooky Factor: Any time the pitch for a book begins with, “So, we exhumed some corpses…” your spooky kids are going to be on board. I myself think it’d be fun to read this, then write an essay called, “What I Learned from Dead People.”

On to the reviews!

A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy:

Did you know that sometimes people used their cellars not to store food but as a trash dump? An archaeologist explains, “people lived upstairs and dumped fish parts and pig parts and chamber pot contents and goodness knows what else down there.”

Imagine that. Imagine dumping that refuse in your cellar. Wouldn’t it smell? How healthy would that be? Why would you do that? And then I thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the books where the Ingalls were snowed in for days and days and days. As a grown up rereading the series, I’d wondered, where did they put the trash? Go to the bathroom? Is that why a basement was used as a trash pit? And then… as the chapter reveals… a body was buried in the basement. Treated like garbage. Hidden. Unknown. For hundreds of years, until the secret was revealed. What was it like, to live in that house? To know that body was there?

Stacked:

When I first had heard about this book, I didn't quite know what to expect. I am pleased with this and found myself really fascinated with what archaeologists do with human remains. I think that this book has a huge appeal, both to those interested in history and science, as well as those interested in the all-too-common "something different." Oh, and boys will eat this one up! This is a book about people doing something and it gives boys tools to learn with (I mean, there's also really cool images of skulls and bones, too).

librarian by day:

Colorful pictures and flowing prose explains the process of excavating and studying a grave site, and explains how the details observed and analyzed tells us about life in colonial Virginia and Maryland.

Kirkus:

...profusely illustrated with photos of skulls and skeletons...

In her first #TeachersWrite minilesson, Kate Messner talks about making time to write. This has consistently been a problem for me. I am undisciplined about it, like I’m sure so many others are.

The assignment that goes with the minilesson is this:

Make a writing plan for your summer and for your school year.

Share:

1. What you found that you might be able to cut out of your schedule or cut back on to make time to write.
2. When you’ll be writing each day & for how long. Remember to be realistic. 15 minutes is fine to start.
3. Where you’ll usually write.  This can be different places on different days, depending on your schedule.
4. Who you told about your plans. Remember, sharing your writing plans with the people in your life helps to make them real and reminds your family & friends to give you that space for writing.

So. Planning time.

1. I spend a lot of time just aimlessly browsing online or watching TV. I think I can probably carve out 15 minutes of that time each day for writing, and as I’ve learned from FlyLady, 15 minutes at a time can accomplish a lot after a while.

2. So 15 minutes is for how long. When? I think it makes sense to do it as soon as my husband is out the door and off to work, in the summer. Once I’m back at work, I might take 15 minutes out of my lunch to do it.

3. Where? I have a beautiful home office that is serving as a storage space right now. In addition to spending 15 minutes a day writing, I’ll spend 15 minutes a day getting the office in shape. Once it is, that’s where I’ll write. Until then, I’ll write at our breakfast (and lunch and dinner) table.

4. I haven’t actually told anybody about my plans yet. I guess I’ll chat with my husband about it when he gets home tonight. And maybe my sister. I tell each of them a lot of stuff.

What about you? Are you making time and space to write?