Classroom teacher Bill Ferriter won’t need much introduction if you’re a middle grades educator with some geeky, edtech edges. His blog The Tempered Radical, which lives on the Teacher Leaders Network website, is widely followed by such folks. But if you visit the blog, you’ll find that Bill is no “The Webtools Rule!” kind of guy. He’s all about application and engaged learning. In addition to his digitally savvy Teaching the iGeneration, he’s the author of several books on professional learning communities and school-level leadership in the post-industrial age.

Bill is also an outspoken critic of misguided education policy, a frequent topic at the Radical. A former North Carolina regional teacher of the year, Bill has been a columnist for ASCD’s Educational Leadership magazine and for the National Staff Development Council (now Learning Forward), which selected his co-authored Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: The First Year as its 2010 Book of the Year.

I got to know Bill well in the early days of the Teacher Leaders Network, where he was an important and insightful voice during TLN’s evolution into a national leadership community. I was co-author on his first nationally published article back in 2004. Earlier this summer, we had a chance to catch up — predictably in a virtual way. As always, what he had to say was refreshingly frank.

1. When I first met you, back in 2003, you were a mild-mannered middle school teacher in Cary, NC. Now you’re the published author of four books, an internationally known Radical blogger, a speaker and workshop leader on PLC and digital integration topics… and still a sixth grade teacher. What’s up with all that?

I think there are two answers to your question, John. The glass half-full response is that I’m completely jazzed to have the opportunities that I do to shape thinking around our profession. With the help of folks like MiddleWeb and The Center for Teaching Quality — two organizations that have worked systematically to tap into the wisdom and knowledge of practicing classroom teachers — I’ve seen my thinking amplified again and again over the years.

That’s cool, isn’t it?

I’m FINALLY able to make a meaningful difference on the teaching profession — which has been a goal of mine for long, long time. Digital spaces for publishing — paired with a bunch of champions who have encouraged me to start sharing what I know in those spaces — have given me a voice that I never knew I had. That’s a lesson that EVERY teacher needs to learn. We CAN be powerful change agents as long as we’re willing to use new opportunities to elbow our way into the important conversations happening online.

We CAN be powerful change agents if we are willing to elbow our way into the important conversations happening online.

The glass half-empty response is the important rest of the story, though. I spend hours and hours and hours hunched over a computer every week — away from my wife AND my 2 year old daughter — churning out content for my blog, churning out content for my next book, and churning out content for my next professional development date simply because I can’t afford to pay my bills on the salary that I make as a full-time classroom teacher.

I have 19 years of experience. I have a Master’s degree AND National Board Certification — which carries a 12% salary supplement here in North Carolina — and I still struggle to provide the basics for my family. The tradeoff: I HAVE to churn out engaging content. I HAVE to find people who are willing to hire me for professional development. I HAVE to find another book to write or another presentation to give — even if that means working 30+ part time hours every week and breaking my daughter’s heart because I can’t ever play dress-up or go to the park with her.

That’s wrong, John. No wonder we can’t keep accomplished teachers in the classroom.

2. We love to read The Tempered Radical, a blog you manage like a maestro. What are three of your favorite posts ever, and why?

Talk about a tough question. Writing is such a deeply personal act of reflection for me that all of my blog posts have changed who I am as a thinker and as a classroom teacher in some way. Here’s three, though, that still resonate with me:

The Monster You’ve Created
Testing is ruining our schools. Plain and simple. It’s stripping the joy out of teaching AND learning. It’s forcing educators to walk a moral tightrope, wrestling with doing what we know is right for our students and what we know will drive numbers on end-of-grade exams. The pressure and tension between those two competing positions can be crushing to teachers who care. This post shows just how intense that pressure can be.

Lathered Brilliance, Superman Underoos and Social Media Spaces
Nothing has changed the way I teach more over the past few years than having the opportunity to network with other teachers in social media spaces. My digital peers are constantly pushing me to reconsider what good instruction looks like, and that’s cool. Just as important, nothing has changed the way I learn more than having the opportunity to network with other teachers in social media spaces. This post — which starts in the shower one morning before heading off to school — is a tangible example of how social media spaces can make learners more efficient. That’s a lesson that everyone — teachers AND students AND administrators — need to learn.

This One’s for You, Dad
Probably my biggest fan over the past several years has been my Dad. Even as he fought his way through chemo treatments for lung cancer, he read everything I wrote. When I lost him this spring, it was hard to imagine a world where he wouldn’t be watching and thinking along with me, so I wrote this post as a tribute to him. The real magic, though, happened in the days and weeks that followed: dozens of digital friends — readers of my blog and members of my Twitter network — stopped by to let me know that they were thinking about me. That’s another important lesson for teacher bloggers to learn: Our digital homes and spaces are living, breathing communities filled with people who care about us. How cool is that?

Our digital homes and spaces are living, breathing communities filled with people who care about us. How cool is that?

3. One of the strands in the Radical that caught our eye was a digital scuffle between you and a group of librarians. You pushed them and they pushed back pretty hard. What’s your beef with librarians all about – and how would you respond to The Daring Librarian, who argues in this MiddleWeb interview that the best defense for librarians interested in protecting their position is to “be Damn good at their jobs”?

My beef with librarians has always been a simple one: FAR too many librarians believe that they are the ONLY people in a building who know anything about media literacy and teaching kids how to read with wise eyes and enthusiasm. It tends to come across in comments like this one that a librarian left on my blog a few years back:

How are kids to learn to read for the love of reading if they have no library, no library books, and no library media specialist to guide them through the world of literature? Schools are not considering their best resources – the teacher librarian – in helping teachers switch kids onto reading.

Do you see how hard those kinds of comments can be to swallow for people like me? I’ve spent the better part of my 19-year career as a language arts teacher. Not only do I think I do a pretty good job turning kids on to reading, I’m the one who is held accountable for that work in a way that media specialists can’t possibly understand because they aren’t working in tested positions. No one asks about what the media specialists did and/or didn’t do when reading scores go down. That blame — whether it’s fair or not — rests squarely on the shoulders of classroom teachers.

No one asks about what the media specialists did or didn’t do when reading scores go down.

So if the conversation about librarians is centered around who the REAL media expert is — a thread advanced by many library advocates whenever their positions are in jeopardy because of budget cuts — I think media specialists are starting an argument that they just can’t win. Not only are the kinds of specialized skills that librarians once possessed becoming less valuable as information is more readily available to both teachers and students, the “us-versus-them-ness” of the attitudes that I see expressed as librarians fight for their positions is a real turn-off to classroom teachers. And we are the folks who SHOULD be allies and advocates for media specialists.

My response to Gwyneth is as simple as my beef with her peers: Please encourage librarians to recognize that being “damn good at your jobs” HAS to include recognizing that classroom teachers play a pretty important role in introducing kids to reading, too. Advocate for your work. Stand up for your position. Defend the contributions that you make to schools. But do it in a way that acknowledges that teachers are your peers in the process if you want me to stand next to you in the fight to protect the future of libraries in our schools.

4. Lots of teachers we know have it in the back of their minds (and sometimes closer to the front) to write a book. You’ve done it, several times, with a full time teaching load, a new baby, a busy blog — the works. How does that happen? Give us the Top Five Things Busy Teachers Need to Know about Writing a Book.

1) Know that publishers WANT your work. One of the first barriers that teachers who want to be authors need to hurdle is recognizing that publishers REALLY DO want to hear what full-time classroom teachers have to say. We’ve been inadvertently taught over the course of our careers to believe that books are written by experts, not teachers. The fact of the matter is that most publishers understand that classroom teachers ARE the experts. If you’re willing to put the time into writing a book — especially a book that shares practical teaching strategies — publishers will line up to see what you have to offer.

2) Start blogging NOW. When people look at my work, they often ask, “How do you find the time to blog AND write books?” What they don’t realize is that much of the content that ends up in my book STARTED as a post on my blog. In fact, if you read through the Ed Tech and PLC posts on my blog, you’d probably get a really good sense for what you’d see in any of my books. Granted, the work in my books is far more organized and polished than the work on my blog, but there are clear parallels between the two spaces.

For teachers interested in being authors, there’s an important lesson to learn: A blog can give you chances to polish your ideas and get feedback on the kind of content that resonates with an audience.

For teachers interested in being authors, that’s an important lesson to learn: A blog can give you chances to polish your ideas. Just as importantly, you can get feedback on the kind of content that resonates with an audience. When a post takes off for me, I know that it’s probably worth incorporating into the work that I do beyond my blog. Finally, bloggers build their own audiences — which can help to convince a publisher to give you a book contract. When a publisher sees that I have 3,000 followers on my blog and another 7,000 followers in Twitter, they know that I’m doing something right.

3) Don’t expect to get rich quick. The not so sexy side of educational publishing is that a book isn’t going to make you all that much money by itself. After grinding hard to write four books in three years, I probably pull in $8,000 per year in royalties off of book sales — and because sales of individual titles tail off after 3 or 4 years, I’m constantly working on the next book. That means you have to want to write for the sake of writing — you have to see writing as a way to reflect and to improve your own practice — instead of seeing writing as a ticket to financial security.

4). Stick to strategies, not stories. Most teachers that I know who are interested in writing a book want to tell a story of some kind. Maybe it’s the story of how they were drawn to teaching to begin with or the story of helping students to overcome incredible challenges. Maybe it’s the story of how their school is changing lives and communities. And while those kinds of stories are beautiful and energizing to read, they’re also a dime a dozen. More importantly, those stories don’t make up the kind of books that teachers — who are your most important market — are likely to buy. Instead, they want books centered around teaching/learning strategies. Sharing the ins-and-outs of what works with kids is WAY more important than waxing poetic about our profession. If you use some pertinent story-telling to illustrate your strategies, great.

5) Set aside time to write EVERY WEEK. Sometimes teachers who are interested in being authors forget that writing — like golf or cooking or reading or running or parenting — is a skill that improves with practice. That means if you want to write — and more importantly, you want to write efficiently and effectively — you’ve got to do it often. Every Tuesday night, every Friday night, and every Sunday morning, I spend time behind the keyboard writing. I might be posting on my own blog. I might be crafting a draft of a chapter for a book. I might be putting together an article for a magazine or adding comments on the blogs of other educators that I follow — but I’m writing. A lot. That investment of energy matters if you want to craft products that other people want to read.

There’s no way that I’d recommend teaching as a profession anymore — and that breaks my heart.

Bill Ferriter at EduCon, 2011 (photo by Kevin Jarrett)

5. You’ve been known to blog about the decline and fall of the teaching profession. Would you really not recommend teaching to young folks entering college – or university grads looking for something meaningful to do with their lives as they drift through their 20s and 30s?

I think twice before recommending teaching as a profession — and that breaks my heart. I love what I do. I love the connections that I’ve made with kids over the years and knowing that I’ve been important in their lives really DOES matter.

But I’m convinced that #edpolicy makers — the people who govern our work — aren’t interested in creating the kinds of conditions that teachers and students need in order to be successful. They don’t care about what really works in schools. They care about getting reelected — and as a result, they are hell-bent to implement policies that ring true to voters but that have little real chance of changing the work of teachers and schools for the better.

Take merit pay, for example. There’s not a SINGLE bit of proven research that pay for performance works in knowledge-driven professions like education. What’s more, dozens and dozens of pay-for-performance plans have failed in education over the past decade and more. Businesses, economists, and nations with highly rated educational systems are all walking away from pay for performance as a strategy for positive change.

And yet educational policymakers — including the Secretary of Education — introduce or tout new merit pay plans every single year.

At the very least, that’s failed policy. At the worst, it’s complete stupidity. But it’s the reality for classroom teachers today and it’s likely to be the reality for classroom teachers tomorrow. Wrestling with the consequences of bad policies is the part of the job that leaves me the most exhausted — and it’s the reason that most teachers beginning careers in this era never make it beyond 5 years in the classroom.

Wrestling with the consequences of bad policies is the part of the job that leaves me the most exhausted.

Does this make any sense?

Basically what I’m saying is that working with kids is nothing short of a remarkable opportunity. It is who I am. It’s what I believe in. I know that it matters more than anything else that I do in my life. But working in today’s public schools can be nothing short of a nightmare because under-informed policymakers continue to make choices that serve their best interests but not the best interests of students or teachers. That’s the way I see it. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs.

Thanks, Bill, for taking the time to share the advice and the honest opinion. We’ll continue to follow your thinking on these and other topics at your always provocative blog The Tempered Radical. 

Lani Ritter Hall is a leading expert in the relatively young field of professional coaching within virtual education spaces and communities. After a 35-year teaching career, including National Board Certification in 2003, Lani retired from her Ohio school system and joined Powerful Learning Practice LLC, where she serves as Director of Connected Coaching and community leader for PLP’s Connected Learner Experience, a year-long program for teachers learning to integrate technology and social media into their professional practice.

Lani has taught in the middle grades in urban, suburban, and independent schools in the U.S and Canada, and she began collaborating with teachers online in the late 1980’s, when she also found ways to connect her students to distant classrooms. She is the co-author, with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, of the recent book The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age (Solution Tree, 2011), and she blogs at Possibilities Abound.

Lani also teaches a popular online course on becoming a Connected Coach. The next class begins in early January 2013. Learn more at the PLP website.

For our “5Q Interview,” Lani talked with Kansas middle school teacher Marsha Ratzel, also a Connected Coach, who wrote about her own shift to connected professional learning in a June 2012 article for MiddleWeb.

_____

Marsha Ratzel: You’re a 35-year veteran teacher, NBCT, online coach and now author. Did you imagine yourself co-writing such a powerhouse book like The Connected Educator? How did this happen?

Lani Ritter Hall: Imagine? Never! Where and how did it begin? A series of serendipitous connections with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach led to our sincere friendship, continued collaboration and always—learning. And then ultimately The Connected Educator.

My journey is a story filled with masterful educators. It’s a story that dramatically illustrates the potential of deep online connections and their capacity to transform lives. And it’s story of some telling; you can learn about the beginnings here.

Sheryl and I had been collaborating for some time when one day, during a Skype conversation, she suggested that we share what we had learned about online communities of practice in the form of a book. I thought she was kidding at first. She wasn’t; she was serious. The very thought of it scared me to death; 65,000 words is a lot of words. Yet there was no way that I could pass up an extraordinary opportunity to learn more, stretch, and grow.

Following Sheryl’s unbounded enthusiasm, I jumped in too but likely not in the way you might imagine. I live in Northeast Ohio and Sheryl in coastal Virginia. So two connected learner leaders, separated geographically by more than 500 miles, availed themselves of technology to collaborate, share insights, and gen­erate ideas. Our use of Skype led to words flowing on Google Docs as each chapter of our book emerged and evolved. The priceless comment feature let us unpack and repack and finally brought us to publication. In the true spirit of connected learning, neither the book nor its ideas touched paper until Solution Tree’s presses began to run.

Marsha: You used the term “connected learner leaders.” Can you talk a bit how “connectedness” has changed learning and leading for you?

Lani: The potential of “connected learning” first hit me in the face in the late 1980s, when I and my students participated in collaborative projects with other classes from Germany, Lithuania, Canada, Australia and Britain via email.

Student writing dramatically improved as did their general interest in learning. One student who had failed English repeatedly remarked when we finished: “This project gave juice to my writing.” My students began to develop a global awareness; they were dumbfounded to learn that in Lithuania, a messy home was considered the sign of a dysfunctional family. When they read accounts of winter from Australian students, in the months when we were approaching summer  in America — and when those accounts arrived from an Australian classroom in the middle of our night — they began to realize how vast and complex the Earth really is.

Fast forward to my own professional connected learning: it’s commonplace for me to collaborate with people who live in my tomorrow! I’ve Skyped at 7 p.m. my local time while John in Australia was drinking his morning orange juice. I’ve risen at 2 a.m. to attend a webinar with an Australian team of educators as their coach. With time and distance blurred, I’ve commiserated with colleagues in the far southwest about the constraints imposed by high-stakes testing and brainstormed strategies to work around, in, and outside the system.

At every time of day and night, I’ve participated in online sessions with experts, authors, and teachers as we sought to understand more fully how to influ­ence the educational policies that affect our children’s futures. In online communities, I’ve developed significant collegial relationships that I cherish. The opportunities to engage in difficult discussions around practice have kept me from sleep. Through networks on Twitter and in blogs, I’ve explored resources (ones I likely would never have discovered on my own) that have profoundly affected my beliefs about teach­ing and learning.

My journey into connected learning has been compelling, sometimes daunting, often exhilarating, yet always fueled by passion. And it’s my firm belief that the diverse group of educators with whom I’ve connected has stretched my thinking and enabled me to move outside of my comfort zone to consider new ideas and remix them to improve my practice.

I’ve embraced the exponential potential that connectedness has to transform learning. I’ve learned far more in my time as a connected learner than in the many years before.

That extends to connected leading too. In the Connected Coaching eCourse I facilitate and in the communities I lead, I’ve connected with accomplished educators from China, Denmark, Norway, and many parts of Canada, Australia, Central America and the United States—all from my home. In Blackboard Collaborate we share virtual drinks– and engage in deep discussions around learning, coaching and transforming education given the affordances of technology. I ask questions, I share my thoughts through audio, images, text and video as we find our way. Adopting perhaps a different perspective on leadership, I see myself there as a co-learner, a curator, a network administrator.

Marsha: Tell me more about Connected Coaching— how do Connected Coaches differ from the school- or system-based coaches that often enter classrooms?

Lani: For Connected Coaches, gone is the need to travel to meetings; gone is the need to obtain building permits; gone is the need for boxes filled with folders of activities, binders filled with observations, plans and reflections. Coaching relationships are no longer nurtured and developed exclusively with people in proximate geographical spaces, or only through face to face interactions.

In Connected Coaching, we use the tools of virtual connection: video, Skype conversations, shared images, collaborative Google Docs, threaded discussions, voices in Voicethread, AudioBoo, and Vocaroo. Connected coaches meet from home, in PJs with a favorite beverage of choice, using Google+ or Blackboard Collaborate. They have opportunities to engage others 24/7, live or asynchronously, irrespective of time or place.

Connected Coaches need a well developed online voice/personality, and the ability to move beyond text to communicate in online spaces. The affordances of technology necessitate new mindsets, new skill sets, and new dispositions for those who coach other practitioners in connected spaces.

We see Connected Coaches as “social artists” who help people think deeply about learning that takes place in shared online spaces. They assist educators in becoming more self-directed, in realizing previously unrecognized potential in themselves to effect systemic change in education.

Coaches as social artists– immersed in collaboration in online spaces– epitomize a coaching approach that is an art, a wayfinding, not prescriptive and surely not from a deficit perspective.

Connected Coaches engage in wayfinding, an architectural term appropriate to the learning that occurs in connected spaces. Pathmarkers guide us in our role as coaches. These markers light the way as coaches facilitate the journey of others toward a more accomplished reflective practice. This journey is as much self-directed as it is collaborative. The objective: to create momentum for purposeful inquiry around a shared goal of self and school improvement.

Connected Coaches are skilled at inquiry, asking good questions. Unlike coaches in other models, Connected Coaches share less information and opinion. Often their efforts focus on helping teams and individuals recognize and appreciate diversity found in connected spaces. As well, they concentrate on the development of relationships that leverage an environment for positive growth and self-directedness. Through this appreciative inquiry/strength-based approach, Connected Coaches understand that as they help members realize their own potential over time, innovation follows.

Marsha: What in the coaching model engenders the types of trust relationships that grow during your course?

Lani: One of the most critical elements of the Connected Coaching model is trust building –growing and nurturing relationships. In face to face spaces, coaches and those they coach often share coffee; they chat about where they’ve taught and lived; they share recent photos from their cell phones of activities and family. From these initial interactions, trust begins to develop. Conversations turn to stories around experiences in the classroom. And only then can the real work of the coach begin. It’s no different in online spaces, especially for coaching from an appreciative inquiry perspective.

Building trust online becomes very intentional—creating opportunities for social interactions is purposeful and ongoing. And it is from these that coaches develop meaningful relationships with those they coach.

I’ve designed the Connected Coaching eCourse to model an appreciative inquiry journey similar to the one coaches take with their teams. Very purposefully, I include trustbuilding activities throughout the course, especially at the beginning. We share images that represent how we are feeling; we create 6-word stories around a set of given images; we share passions (other than teaching); we use audio files to share stories.

At the beginning of each webinar, we participate in brief activities that offer opportunities for each one to share a little about themselves in fun ways. We create a collaborative presentation together. Throughout the course, we engage in appreciative language, we recognize and celebrate each other’s strengths. We’ve (all of us) been amazed and totally delighted at the depth of the relationships developed in such a short time—relationships that continue long after our formal time together in the course ends.

Marsha: You mentioned self-directed and self-directedness? In what ways has that been important in your learning? Is that a key characteristic of connected learners?

Lani: Long before DIY (Do It Yourself) became a household acronym, I was a DIY learner. I was self-directed. I didn’t know it then. I just knew I wanted to learn; with every new interest, I sought out my own opportunities for that learning to happen. In high school, years ago at the height of the Cold War, I decided I wanted to learn Russian. It wasn’t offered in my school, so I signed up for adult education in night school—not for a credit, but because of my interest.

When I began teaching, years of top-down “in-service” days seemed to focus only on procedures, new policies and dealing with stress.

With the belief that my students deserved better, I initiated my own self-directed DIY professional development that was focused primarily on teaching strategies. My tunnel focus during those years was teaching and learning. Only later, following significant reflection, did I attribute the enormous effect of my learning on my classroom practice to DIY — to me as a self directed learner.

With a growing interest in facilitating online learning, I stumbled upon an online course entitled MOOM (Moving out of the Middle) hosted by the Concord Consortium. I then embarked upon an incredibly frightening and exhilarating journey into inquiry learning. That learning experience had a profound impact on me and my practice and intensified my quest as a DIY learner. I was hungry for learning, yearned for opportunities to stretch and grow on topics for which I had a passion.

My successful pursuit of National Board Certification followed. In portfolio entry 4 of the National Board certification process, an entire section was devoted to the “teacher as learner.” The evidence gathered for that entry and the accompanying analysis had to make a clear case that my personal learning had directly affected my classroom instruction and students’ learning. The NBPTS candidacy process challenged me as a learner in many ways I previously could not have imagined. I learned so much more about how I learn. And even at that point in 2003, I didn’t know I was self-directed or that I was a DIYer— I only knew that the more I learned the more I wanted to learn.

DIY learners use technology to become connected to resources, including people, as we search for answers. Now that I’ve been deep into connected learning, my strong sense is that self-directedness and connectedness go hand in hand. Why? Because “connected learners take responsibility for their own professional development. They figure out what they need to learn and then collaborate with others to con­struct the knowledge they need. Instead of waiting for professional learning to be organized and delivered to them, connected learners contribute, interact, share ideas, and reflect.” (The Connected Educator, Nussbaum-Beach & Ritter Hall, 2011, p. 51)

The possibilities for self-directed learning in a connected world are astronomic. And the very best parts, other than the learning, are the relationships we develop with smart, passionate people the world over who join us in DIY learning.

In America’s post-analog, budget-stressed era of public schooling, many teacher librarians are struggling to justify their existence and explain their continued relevance to an audience of skeptical school boards and taxpayers who can barely remember a world without Google.

But Maryland middle school librarian Gwyneth Anne Bronwynne Jones has no problem explaining hers.

The Daring Librarian (you need only check out her blog) told the New York Times last June: “We are not expendable because we are guiding the minds of our students to lead them to become life-long learners, curious searchers and good digital citizens.” It’s one of the most exciting times ever to be a teacher librarian, she said, but “We must shift our language, adding words like attribution, tagging, widget, Creative Commons, transliteracy and authority.”

School librarians must become more like Lady Gaga, the Daring Librarian proposed, and less like the 20th century stereotype in owl-rimmed glasses. “Librarians need to establish a clear, pervasive, vibrant and involved presence in their schools, communities and on the Web.” We asked her five questions.

1. You’re on the board of ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education. In fact, you’ve just been elected to a second term. How did this come about?

((I know, ISTE, pinch me, right?))

It has been both an honor and a pleasure to serve the members of the ISTE organization as their PK-12 representative. I was nominated by a colleague & SIGMS professional development chair Brenda Anderson and since then have striven to be the voice of the school based educator.

What does a middle grades teacher librarian bring to the ultimate ed-geek organization?

Other than my immense geeky charm and natural immaturity? I mean, you are who you teach, right? Seriously though, my students keep me grounded. I’ve had opportunities to go corporate, non-profit, higher ed, and district level but I really can’t see myself leaving the middle school environment. A few years ago, my district opened a new high school that my middle school kids would matriculate into – and many of my students begged and tried to get me to apply to open that school so I could follow them there…but honestly, I’m just not grown up enough to teach high school. My awesome (read corny and sophomoric) jokes that get laughs here in middle school would probably only get sarcastic eye rolls in high school. I’m SO not an apathetic person – I’m an annoyingly positive but snarky Pollyanna type. I don’t suffer negative or toxic people gladly. If at all.

What are the messages you promote in your work with the ISTE board and its sizeable membership (including big organizations and giant corporations)?

The ISTE board is comprised of many illustrious and impressive professionals including college educators, district directors and administrators, CEOs and corporate luminaries. It’s my privilege to advocate for the PK-12 educator who is working every day “in the trenches” in the school. If they should ever go “off track” and move in a direction that I think would hinder or not serve the majority of our ISTE membership (school-based educators) then that’s when I would spring into action.

I haven’t had to to do that yet because really the ISTE board is comprised of a pretty amazing group of people, and the ISTE staff members in both Eugene, Oregon and DC are AWESOME. But believe me — I’m ready to pounce with the Daring Librarian cape firmly affixed! The messages that I promote in my service to the board and our membership are illustrated here.

Daring Defender of Books, Libraries, & Lifelong Learning! Fearless fighter of filters! Protector of Goofballs & Geeks! Super supporter of digital citizenship, & intellectual curiosity & freedom! Enthusiastic champion of transliteracy, creative commons, open source, & shameless sharing! Committed to being a fierce and positive change agent within my school, community, district, state, nation, world, & the universe!

What!? Was that too grandiose?

2. You were doing infographics before infographics were so cool. What got you on that path?

I’ve always been a visual learner. If I can picture in my mind something like a name, how it’s written, or a painting or photograph, I can recall it and decode it faster and it stays with me longer.  I’m also really good at putting together IKEA furniture.

Do you take credit for the infographic revolution in education?

Absolutely! It was without a doubt all me — I come from the internets and I’ve been doing infographics since 1997! All bow down before my graphic power, Muuwaaa!  Umm, kidding. I dunno — I guess it was because my district got an early license for the software Comic Life and I immediately bonded with it and eagerly showed my teachers how to use it to create engaging graphics and worksheets for their lessons and projects.

Once I started up our Daring Tech Wikispaces in 2006, I found that it was SO much easier to create comic directions with screenshots to help my teachers with day to day technology troubleshooting problems and professional development challenges. I’d discovered I was explaining the same thing over and over. So I figured that if I made a comic tutorial on how to do it and posted it to the wiki, I could just point them in that direction and they could be empowered! — Create it once, share it forever. Here’s an example.

The simple act of how to clean your LCD projector filter can turn a red light to green & save the day! The full graphic that I created in 2009 for cleaning that filter is here.  Another early comic was my Burn Baby Burn graphic, where I showed how my teachers could use their new iBook laptops to burn & backup their data to a CD! My stuff is all Creative Commons so feel free to snag it. Some of it was made before I was putting the CC graphic on the bottom of all my comics, but I’m tellin’ you: if there’s a comic that I ever made that you want, it’s yours! ;-)

What are the best ways for teachers to create and use infographics with students?

That’s a tough one because our district hasn’t purchased Comic Life for our students, just our teacher laptops. But you really don’t need fancy software to make an attractive infographic — basic MS Word can do lots! It’s all about the storyboarding & early planning, grabbing useful screenshots, & keeping the accompanying verbiage to a minimum.

Infographics should be more graphic than info, IMHO. This is also a perfect teachable moment for starting the discussion about Creative Commons: what it is, and why you should use it. Because you know, it’s not just a license — it’s a lifestyle!

3. What are 3-4 favorite infographics you’ve created (you and/or your audience)?

My QR Code series has been a favorite: what they are & how to make them. Check these out:

1. QR Codes At-a-Glance

2. How to Create a QR Code in 3 Easy Steps

They both still get a lot of views on Flickr (combined over 18,000! WTHeck!?)

What really tickled me was that a friend of mine in St. Louis saw my QR Code Comic blown up huge poster-sized in an exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center. She took a pic with her camera phone & Tweeted it to me. I ’bout died and went to geeky creative commons heaven! See here and especially here!

Another personal favorite is my Teaching Wikipedia comic to go along with my blog post – Wikipedia Is Not Wicked. That was picked up by the Washington Post which made my Mom super happy!

Can you point to some infographics created by others that you think are especially effective?

Tiffany Whitehead, the Mighty Little Librarian, has tipped the Comic Life kool aid with me and created some amazing infographics! Here’s one she did on Voki, the talking avatar software. Also, my mentor Dr. Joyce Valenza has also created cool comic tutorials! Here’s a great one on writing a thesis statement that she co-authored.

4. OK, give it up. How did you become The Daring Librarian? And how are you hanging onto your job in an era when many middle grades librarians are losing theirs? What do principals need to hear about the role of effective teacher librarians today?

After attending NECC 09 in DC I really wanted to go transparent & brand myself. That’s when I started my professional blog and called it Library Tech Musings — I blogged about the process of branding and asked for suggestions. I really wanted the Animated Librarian but it was taken….I went round and around crowdsourcing other suggestions. But of course, in the end, my Mom (a retired English and gifted and talented teacher) came up with it. The fact that The Daring Librarian is an assonance rhyme just made it giggle-worthy and middle school perfect. Heh heh assonance.

As for how I’m hanging in there with my job — I wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times last summer about how teacher librarians need to stand up, be noticed, and channel their inner rock star. But in the end there is no true safe in the world — the only thing any of us can do is to be damn good at our jobs, be passionate, and digitally adept to change — and ALWAYS make our students our first priority!

5. Publishers must be clamoring for a book from you, just to get your high-profile avatar-logo on the cover! Is there a book in the works? If so, what might we expect? And if not, how come?

You’re kidding right? I tried NoNaWriMo years ago and gave up after 15 days. Though no one seems to believe me when I say this, I’m very lazy! Although my inflated ego would LOVE my avatar on a cover of a book (Oh WHY did you have to say that? So tempting!), unless it’s fiction or education practice philosophy I really believe the days of writing Teacher Tech books have gone. By the time anything is published now, it’s out of date. That’s why I love blogging so much! Instant gratification! So, unless I get inspired to finish the 2 YA novels I’ve outlined in me wee little heid, I’m going to leave the writing to the other Gwyneth Jones of British science fiction fame! I know, quite generous of me, huh? You’re welcome.

I wish I could find a blogging job where I could get paid by the amount of !’s I use when writing about my library and teaching practice. I always feel like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode where she has to take out exclamation marks, because I do use so many. Those and ellipses!

But let’s face it: If you, as a teacher, find that when you write about your middle grades teaching practice, you don’t feel the urge to use an inordinate amount of !!!!!’s, then maybe you need to go re-kindle your passion or get the heck out. Our profession is so precious, our responsibility to our students is so great, that if you don’t have the proper enthusiasm and optimism for it then maybe some serious soul searching needs to happen – STAT!

John, hope what I’ve had to say works for you. As lazy as I am this was a lot of effort on my part. Can I take a nap now?

Yes, yes you can. Challenging work, well done. Slip into your steampunk dreams. And while you’re napping, our readers can peruse another Daring Librarian interview, conducted by our friend M.E. Steele-Pierce (a deputy school supe, no less) for the blog Voices from the Learning Revolution. I notice you have a good bit more to say there about the future of teacher librarians. Daring stuff. Right? Gwyneth Anne?