Monthly Archives: July 2020

Assignments, Inquiry Post #2, Inquiry Posts, LIBE 477

Developing and maintaining ICT Skills as a Teacher-Librarian: Inquiry Blog Post #2

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Ways I can continue to develop my skills, pedagogy and professional development.

When it comes to any professional development, I usually go with workshops that are being offered, possibly what colleagues are suggesting or, lately, much of my professional development has been through these courses for the Diploma in Teacher Librarianship.

It is challenging to stay current when you’re not taking courses and it’s fairly easy to fall into stagnant routines. In beginning to think about this topic, I admit that it was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. So, I started with browsing our course reading, didn’t really find what I was looking for and then thought I should look for a video that might encompass some simple thoughts. I came across this video by Anita Brooks-Kirkland:

I was hoping for a video that was a little more current but I like this one because not only does she advocate for TLs being Technology Leaders, she also gives reasons why teaching with technology is intrinsic at this time. The best piece of advice she gives is “…being open and adaptable are perhaps the most important competencies and the reason why there’s never been a better time to be a Teacher Librarian”. I agree with this statement and have always believed that as a teacher in general and more so as a TL, the most important skill is to be flexible because when teachers become too stringent in routines and “stick with what has worked in the past”, that is counterproductive to improving professionally.

In the video she also mentions the article she wrote, “Becoming Teacher Librarian 2.0”, which contains links to blogs about school library programs and blogs about “the wider world of libraries”. Since this is an older article, some of the blogs are out-of-date but others are still current. I actually started getting lost in the “blog world” for a bit and read quite a bit of interesting/fun  view points. Although the video and article are older than I would like, I feel like the advice is still relevant; ideas such as, being engaged in collaborative communities helps us to model collaborative learning that we want our students to achieve and “… If we wait for the book to be written that answers these [technology] questions for us, we will be too late”. We won’t know all of the answers until we try suggested techniques.

Strategies, tools, resources and networks I can implement to maintain my explorations and development.

Colleagues:

What has been helpful in the past to help me with developing my skills, pedagogy and professional development has been colleagues throughout the district.

In beginning as a TL, it was the other TLs in my school district that were, and still are, my mentors. In our monthly meetings, everyone shares what activities they have been working on in their LLCs and any new initiatives they have heard about. In addition, TLs will email each other to ask for advice or book recommendations and we have taken to calling the group “The Great Brain”.

Our District Teacher Librarian is especially good at introducing new techniques, technologies and resources and then offering professional development workshops. For example, before my maternity leave (a year and a half ago), we had a pro-d workshop on various coding resources. We set up stations to explore technologies such as spheros, bee bots and code-a-pillar, amoung others. Our District Teacher Librarian is a great resource in general; I feel like I can ask her for help in almost anything and she has at least a suggestion.

In addition, for a while we had a District Technology Specialist that made rounds to all of the schools to introduce new technologies and helpful tools. It was really great when he visited my school and I jumped at any opportunity for him to help me out. I find you really need to reach out to those people initially so that they know you are interested in learning more because they don’t really know unless you make the connection. In addition, in situations like this, it is best to prove that you can be flexible or these people might not feel comfortable “popping in”. Once I made the initial contact, making it known that I was really interested in learning more, he would always come to me first to show off new tools. Unfortunately, the position did not continue, like so many of those do, but I will definitely take advantage of those kinds of experts in the future. In addition, even though he has gone back to being a classroom teacher, now that I have that contact, I’m sure I can ask him any questions that I have even if he is no longer in that specific position.

Exploring and experimenting:

I think that part of developing my own skills back in own library environment is trying out new strategies that I have heard of. In the exploration, as I find out what is working and what’s not, I conduct further research to improve the strategy or tweak it so it works for me and my school environment. This also relates to what Brook-Kirkland argues; you can’t wait for the technique to be perfect in order to try it, there may not always be a book outlining an exact way to carry out a technology lesson. I flush out which teachers in the school want to collaborate and try some new strategies, technologies or units. This is the best way to figure out if it is an effective, worthwhile strategy to share with other teachers.

Government resources:

A good resource to regularly check is the Province of British Columbia website. Government resources in general should be reviewed because it aligns educational expectations throughout our province and country and it has to stay current.  At this point in time the Digital Literacy Framework is a useful tool. I like the examples of suggested learning activities to promote digital literacy for different grade levels. In the grade 3-5 suggestions, there are a few I would like to try that would be quite simple to implement. Such as, “Produce a media-rich digital story about a significant local event based on first-person interviews. (C, T, RI, CI)”. I like how this idea is cross-curricular.

School Library Journal:

It seems like any time I type a question concerning the library into a search engine, the answer is provided by the School Library Journal. Oftentimes there is an article that answers my question and offers specific strategies. In addition, it provides more useful resources including links to blogs. It also has up-to-date news stories so TLs can see the current focus items. There are even articles and blogs that focus on professional development. Of course, a big focus for everyone these days is “Pandemic Resources”. This article/blog post, “AASL resources to address the challenges (and expressing your professional voice in reopening)”, I found within the SLJ helps with concerns that I have in returning as a TL after a year-and-a-half absence. I have the experience of teaching as a classroom teacher implementing pandemic safety guidelines but it will be much different as a TL.

Some ways educators and professionals are connecting and sharing their learning.

As I started searching, I realize that I already know many places that provide connections for shared learning with other educators and professionals.

BCTLA:

A really useful local resource is the BCTLA. Through the website, there are so many facets that can be constantly used to maintain professional development as a TL. There is even a professional development section of the website in addition to other helpful aspects such as a Twitter feed with other TLs sharing (I even saw a tweet from our professor!). Like I have already said, since I was teaching grade 4/5 from January until June, I feel a bit out-of-the-loop concerning LCC procedures for COVID-19, I found the article BCTLA COVID LLC Re-Opening especially helpful.
One thing I have been putting off but know I should do is to Become A Member. I was procrastinating about this because until now, I was not completely secure in my TL position but I am now so it is a goal of mine for the fall.

LM_Net:

A resource that was introduced to me through another library course is LM_Net. LM_Net stands for Library Media Network which is a listserv for School Librarians to ask questions and share information. In the course where I heard of this, the professor suggested that we subscribe to the “Digest” email which is more a summary of the main posts/questions and then it limits the number of emails. If you are interested in one of the topics, you can click on that post to read more in order to help or see what other TLs are suggesting.

A Facebook group that was mentioned in an LM_Net post, The School Librarian’s Workshop, which I added to my Facebook just recently, is serving to be quite interesting and handy. I tend to be more of a Facebook than a Twitter user, so I see those posts more often. Other TLs are asking questions and opinions on many topics and the responses are helpful to me as well. In the past few days, there has been good book recommendations for specific topics and needs.  There are even book suggestions for books that are new to me that I am going to investigate.

LibGuides:

LibGuides Community This site, like others I have already mentioned, has many options to explore topics of interest and see what other professionals are doing. What I like about this site is that other librarians at all levels of education have contributed to curated collections on specific topics.

LibraryThing:

I subscribe to LibraryThing, which I also found through another class and it’s free to become a member. Again, so many useful aspects to this site that it can be a bit overwhelming. I don’t remember where or when I heard about this site but I haven’t really had the chance to explore it too much until now. There are options to subscribe to blogs and there is a “Talk” section. Once you log-on, you can make your own lists, like a personal mini-catalog, for book and blogs. In the “discover” list, I clicked on “books” and explored the “early reviewers”which seems very interesting. Apparently, you can sign up to review books but you have to get in at the right time. I did look through the list of July books and it appears to have a good selection for different age groups.

What I can do to maintain connections and networks, to further develop my knowledge, experience and skills.

Once I have completed my library courses, it might be more challenging to maintain the level of professional development techniques that I have been obtaining. In addition, I have so many ideas that I want to try that I have learned through these courses that I intend to try, which might take a while.

Maintaining connections with individuals from the wider TL community, such as the contacts I have made through the UBC courses, will be helpful to have individuals I can ask opinions of. I can do this by keeping the connections made through Twitter and checking in on what others are doing.

In addition, subscribing to more Library Blogs or email newsletters that provide notifications when there is something new helps remind me to take a closer look every once in a while. For example, a blog that I found that I liked the set-up of for possibly my own LLC blog is this one: https://annacrosland.edublogs.org/. I also like the kinds of activities she features.

The trick for me will be to actually remember to continuously check these sites to see what is new. I will have more time to do this once I have finished my courses!

Conclusions:

Up until now, I have felt like the less experienced individual so I could passively pick and choose the professional development that was relevant to me. From this point on, I know as a TL, I am in a Leadership position and I will need to be the one who advocates for which professional development staff should carry out. Therefore, to stay current, I will need to stay connected to a wider community.

References:

BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association. (2020). Retrieved 25 July 2020, from https://bctla.ca/

Brooks Kirkland, A. (2007). Becoming Teacher-Librarian 2.0. Partnership: The Canadian Journal Of Library And Information Practice And Research, 2(1). doi: 10.21083/partnership.v2i1.280

Crosland, A. (2020). annacrosland.edublogs. Retrieved 29 July 2020, from https://annacrosland.edublogs.org/

Digital Literacy – Province of British Columbia. (2020). Retrieved 25 July 2020, from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/teaching-tools/digital-literacy

Fearful Soul. (2020). Facebook Cover Photos [Image]. Retrieved from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/39/50/7b395072c468efcff1f7df439709d4f5.jpg

LibGuides Community. (2020). Retrieved 29 July 2020, from https://community.libguides.com/

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online. (2020). Retrieved 29 July 2020, from https://www.librarything.com/home

LM_NET (Library Media Network). (2020). Retrieved 25 July 2020, from http://www.lm-net.info/

Teacher-Librarian 2.0: The TL as Technology Leader. (2015). [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ble-dbvEerg

 

 

Assignments, Inquiry Posts, LIBE 477

Creating a Reading Culture: Inquiry Blog post #1

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How is reading culture fostered in my school?

I feel like many aspects of creating a reading culture are small everyday items such as making an inviting space where students want to read as well as making books visible and interesting through displays and bulletin boards. It is also through library times in talking about books freely  where students can witness an adult’s enthusiasm for books. The shelving of books in my Library Learning Commons (LLC) has been adapted to ease access and browsing for students through categorizing and genrefying. I’ve also given older students responsibilities in the library so they take ownership and pride in the space and books. I’ve tried book recommendations in several forms. Additionally, students give me book recommendations, I follow-through and get the book. Also, for the older students, I have made library passes so book exchanges can be done when they need or they can come to the library to work or read quietly if there is space available. There is a lot that I already do, big and small, through the LLC, but there is always more that I want to do whether it’s in the back of my mind or something I have not heard of yet.

Current programs that foster a culture of reading at my school:

Several of the programs utilized at my school are actually District-wide. We have a very active group of Teacher-Librarians who meet every month to make sure that our LLCs are fairly aligned in what is offered and promoted; we share good books that we have found and organize activities.

D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) is a District-wide initiative from the BCTLA. We do this in October and it is a day that we try to involve a larger community, inviting parents to come at the end of the day to read with their children. In the past few years, I have tried to plan this as a bit of an event, having a P.J. day and during D.E.A.R. students can read with students from other classes throughout the school; we put mats out in the gym and the library is fully available. It is a fun time and I like how it gets students mingling with others in a positive way. This year, I have been thinking how it can be adjusted; it could still be P.J. day but we cannot invite parents and students will have to stay in their own classes. Maybe I can read to the entire school on the P.A. or over Zoom or a similar program?

All of the school in our district also celebrate Family literacy week. We try to do activities that fit with the yearly theme. One of the most successful events has been the school-wide games day. We put out mats in the gym and have a different game on each mat. Teachers sign-up throughout the day with a buddy class and students play board games for 30 minutes. It is a really good community-building activity and it’s great to see the older students helping the younger ones.

Battle of the Books is another event sponsored by our District Teacher Librarians. It is for grades 3-5 and there is a selection of 5 books for each grade level. For each grade level, students make teams, read all of the novels, make a team poster, cheer and costume. Teams “battle” by answering recall questions from the selected books. We have a school battle (all student from the school in each grade level), zone battle (teams from 3 different schools that won the school battle) and then a district battle with winners of the zone battles. Each year, the Teacher Librarians discuss if this is something we want to continue as the questions do not require “higher-level” thinking and possibly the competitive aspect turn some students off but we keep doing it. I think it will continue because it encourages students to read high quality books that they may not normally choose and gets some of the “competitive types” to read more when they normally wouldn’t. As well, it is good for students to go to other schools and interact with students from those schools.

Each year the library also hosts a Scholastic Book Fair. This is an event that students look forward to and remember. It gets them excited to read new books, especially when there’s a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid or something like that. I try to make it quite an event by having a raffle, following the yearly theme by decorating the library and dressing up. I show the Book Fair trailers at library times the week before to expose the students to new books that they may not be familiar with. All students come for a browsing time before anybody can buy anything so they all feel like they have an equal chance. I usually have the Book Fair during student-led conference days so that parents can come with their children throughout the day.

For the past two years we have also had a school-wide read-a-thon. The most successful year we tried to make it a really big deal! We had a kick-off assembly where we challenged the students to read a certain number of minutes collectively and if they met the goal the Principle and Vice Principle would dye their hair pink. Throughout the month students were given a paper log to add to a beaver dam we had displayed in the hallway each time the read 100 minutes. By the end of the month, the logs were spilling out of the bulletin board and on the wall down the hallway. Needless to say, the students met their goal and got to witness the pink hair dying. It was pretty exciting!The next year, we tried again but the promotion was lacking so it was like it didn’t even happen. This past spring, another teacher did her own read-a-thon where she added dog bones to a bowl on her class website for students to see. I could also add something like this to a Library Learning Commons blog.

In addition to the larger activities and events, I try to constantly promote literature, books and reading to students. I find if books are “featured”, students tend to choose them more. An idea I got from a professional development workshop from another attendee was “Mo-vember” where Mo Willems books are featured. I read a different book Mo book for each library time and although we have many of his books, I could barely keep them in the library. I noticed my own daughter (who attends the same school) who was in grade 1 at the time, started reading more independently because of it. Once the month was over, the circulation of these books went down as well. For this coming year, I would like to come up with more ideas like this one to feature different kinds of books or authors.

New tools, strategies and resources to encourage and support a school-wide reading program

Author visits:

I know this is not necessarily a “new tool, strategy or resource” per se but I would really like to have more author visits in some shape or form. Just one time since becoming a TL, I have organized an author visit. It was fun because we studied the book before the author visit so that all students were familiar with the book. I would like to organize more author visits but I’m not sure the best avenue to take. I heard that it is best to ask authors to visit when there is some sort of conference close by. Since I live on Vancouver Island, it has been suggested to try to ask presenters from the Vancouver Island Children’s Bookfest.  Even if I could have a virtual author visit it would be cool. I heard of Authors Who Skype for free and have looked at the website in the past and at the time I found it very overwhelming because of all the authors listed with many I had not heard of before. In my search this time I found this site https://www.smore.com/1mzu1-authors-who-skype-free. I think this will come in handy because this person has already made a list of her favourites. I followed the link for Kate Messner because I thought I recognized the name and I do know her books, yippee! (Side note, some of you may be disappointed in me as a TL for not connecting her name with her books right away but I’ve always been bad at remembering author’s names, I remember book titles like crazy but for some reason the author’s names don’t always stick! This is something I need to get better at!).
This might be a good year to try to organize more virtual author visits. I am always up for more suggestions about how to do this if anyone knows more resources for virtual author visits, or if you have organized any before, how did it go?

One School, One Book:

https://readtothem.org/programs/one-school-one-book/

A strategy I would like to try is “One School, One Book” where the entire school reads one story and then plans activities that relate to particular aspects of the book. I heard of this strategy at a professional development workshop at the Superconference a couple of years ago and just haven’t had a chance to try it out because it would need school-wide buy-in and preparation. The workshop facilitator who I heard of this strategy from simply gave an outline of what it entails and did not tell me about the website; I didn’t know about the website until writing this blog post and decided to do an internet search! The website doesn’t give quite as much information about the structure of the program (I think they want you to buy the entire program) but I have been thinking about how I would organize it.

For example, I was thinking about using a book like Wonder because it has multiple “off-shoots” of the text. So, intermediate classes might read the full novel and primary classes might read the picture book version We’re All Wonders:

And then if students are still interested in reading more there is also

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts

My library currently has all of these books and multiple copies of the novel. Upon looking at Amazon for images, I also saw a few more books in the Wonder series that we do not have yet.

I’m sure there are other books that would work for this idea, this one came to mind because of the picture book/novel combo and related readings (this was not the original example from the pro-d either, I think it was Harry Potter).

Connected activities could be making book trailers, with iMovie or a green screen app, to share within classes, at an assembly and/or on a library blog! There could also be school-wide activities or stations where students can participate in activities similar to some that happen in the novel such as a Science fair or “nature camp”. The other nice thing about Wonder is that it teaches kindness so there could also be “random acts of kindness” activities or challenges for a determined amount of time.

The interesting part of the website is that it looks like books can be purchased for each child at the school. It may be a bit costly but in discussion in June, some colleagues and I were talking about how the library budget may need to be “reconfigured” this coming year to accommodate changes in school routines. I pointed out that the yearly library budget is allocated to support the needs of the students in that current year, therefore if students are not able to check out print materials as easily as before and online resources will be used more, maybe the library budget should be invested in those. So, if I am re-allocating this year’s library budget away from print materials I would usually buy to keep in the library, maybe there would be enough money to buy a book for every child to have, depending on how much it would cost.

Book Club:

Again, not a new strategy but one I have yet to try is forming a student book club. I know other TLs in my district have book clubs in their LLC but it is mostly in the middle schools.

I feel like students who love to read but may not like the competitive aspects of Battle of the Books would enjoy something like a book club to share their interest with others. Even though I believe students would enjoy a book club, I am tentative to start one because I wonder how much of an investment in time it would be and if it would be popular so I thought I would get a bit of help with ideas. The School Library Journal has this article: How to Run a Successful Kids Book Club  by Heather Booth and it did have some good tips.

Booth suggests to:

  • Start small – a book club can run with a few interested students
  • Find a partner – possibly combine two kinds of clubs? Booth’s example was a Science Book Club.
  • Be an opportunist – if a couple of students are interested in reading the same book, start discussions.
  • Go multimedia – choosing books that also have movies may entice more members.
  • Lead by letting go – let students choose the book and be there to follow-up to encourage more discussion; however, it’s also OK when some students want to come but don’t want to talk.
  • Focus on the end goal – it’s often about more than just the book, it’s also about students finding their voice.

In addition, some of my take-aways from this article are little things like having snacks and games that may connect with the book. Also, if the discussion is slow to start, having a survey or an ice-breaker-type activity may help. Fun follow-up activities like using a green-screen photo-booth may motivate participation as well. So, this coming year, I think I will start some conversations with students that may be interested in starting a book club and see where it takes us. This may also be something that could be carried out as remote learning.

Conclusion:

No matter what, I think that effective programs that foster reading culture need promotion and a way to make it exciting and fun for students.

In my internet exploration, I found this list: 25 Ways to Build Your School’s Reading Culture.  It was reassuring to read this list as I feel that I do all of these and more. In addition, the activities I am considering are also mentioned on the list.

I really love having a busy library where individuals from the entire school community are involved and I’m always interested in finding more ways to do that.

References:

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/365-Days-Wonder-Brownes-Precepts/dp/0553499041/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2EKLVI9GGYRL1&dchild=1&keywords=wonder+book+r.j.+palacio&qid=1595367027&sprefix=wonder+book%2Caps%2C227&sr=8-13

Authors who Skype Free!!. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://www.smore.com/1mzu1-authors-who-skype-free

Barrett, L. (2020). 25 Ways to Build Your School’s Reading Culture – WeAreTeachers. Retrieved 24 July 2020, from https://www.weareteachers.com/build-reading-culture/

BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://bctla.ca/

Booth, H. (2018). How To Run a Successful Kids Book Club. Retrieved 24 July 2020, from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=run-successful-kids-book-club

Kate Messner. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://www.katemessner.com/

Pixabay. (2020). Banner-header-book-shelf-books [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/banner-header-book-shelf-books-1559400/

Read To Them. (2020). Retrieved 21 July 2020, from https://readtothem.org/programs/one-school-one-book/

We’re All Wonders. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=we+are+all+wonders&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Wonder. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=wonder+book+r.j.+palacio&crid=2EKLVI9GGYRL1&sprefix=wonder+book%2Caps%2C227&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-o-p_5_11

Assignment 1, Assignments, LIBE 477

Resource Exploration for Teaching with Digital Technology-Reading Review B

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Introduction:

From the key words I identified from Reading Review A, I felt like the concept that should take priority is Digital Citizenship. Digital Citizenship is the first thing I want to teach students in the fall because students cannot really progress productively with other aspects of digital technology unless they know how to use technology responsibly. I want to find new resources that make learning Digital Citizenship fun and meaningful to students in the hopes that they will understand the importance of it. However, I have such an interest in Inquiry-based teaching and learning I found it difficult not to gravitate towards new inquiry lesson ideas. Therefore, the resources I found are a combination of  Digital Citizenship and Inquiry-based resources.

Resource 1:

International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education
Editors: Joke Voogt, Gerald Knezek. Springer International Handbooks on Education, Volume 20 2008

This is a very information-rich document that could be a little overwhelming upon the first look as just the Table of Contents is 21 pages long. I chose to look at this document from the course resources because the title seemed more specific to what I thought I was looking for. At first, I was looking for ideas for teaching Digital Citizenship but found I was more drawn to the sections that related to inquiry.

The sections of this document that I found most useful gave suggested lesson ideas, websites and teaching documents that I feel I could use right away with students of my target age level (grades 4/5, ages 8-10). The following sections of the document are where I focused:

3.2 Interactive Learning Environments: Review of an Old Construct with a New Critical Twist (p. 231)
Mark Brown 

In this section, Brown explains “Mind Tools for Inquiry” as ways to teach students skills needed to perform successful individual inquiry. I agree that most students are missing the background knowledge, skills and digital literacy necessary to be productive on-line learners.  Therefore,  I constantly seek simple lesson ideas for students to start practicing the fundamental inquiry skills. For example, “The use of mind tools for inquiry might involve students conducting critical internet-based investigations” (p. 243).  I like the suggestions that students “… could use the Web to research a genuine problem or controversial issue and then publish their findings for a wider audience” (p. 243). By doing some searching online, students practice digital literacy in that “Conflicting information from a variety of sources will require students to determine which ones are not only factual, but also trustworthy. Thus, the emphasis is on knowing as opposed to the acquisition of factual knowledge” (p. 243). This relates to Richardson’s point about how school should be changing in that students should be taught how to properly find information from trustworthy sources. I find this to be one of the biggest challenges in students conducting internet research because they usually just choose the first result instead of looking at the title and source of the information to see which one really suits their needs.

3.3 Online Learning Communities in K-12 Settings (p. 249)  
Seng Chee Tan, Lay Hoon Seah, Jennifer Yeo, and David Hung 

At first I wanted to look at this section for “Comparison of the Four Online Learning Communities” (p. 258) but the most useful part of this sections ended up being the suggestion of The Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) (p. 257). Tan et. al. describe WISE as “a free online environment, where grade 5–12 students can log on to participate in inquiry projects jointly developed by classroom teachers, technologists, natural scientists, and pedagogical researchers” (p. 257). Right away, I liked that it is geared towards my focus age-range so it makes me hopeful that it will be a usable website. In addition, some features of the website are explained:

“1. Cognitive dimension “ It aims to make thinking visible, make science accessible, help students learn from each other, and promote lifelong learning” (p. 257).

“2. Social dimension: Discussion tools such as online asynchronous discussions allow students to interact and learn from each other” (p. 258).

“3. Technological support and infrastructure: In addition to the tools to support social interaction, other tools include Inquiry Map, a step wise procedural guide that serves to scaffold independent students’ inquiry and learning”(p. 258).

The description makes it sound like it would be a useful site that I could use with students so I will review it separately as another resource.

3.5 COMPUTER CONTEXTS FOR SUPPORTING METACOGNITIVE LEARNING  (281). Xiaodong Lin  Florence R. Sullivan

In scanning the document looking for a different section, this graphic caught my eye:

In this graphic, it has many of the same “Steps of Inquiry” that I am familiar with so I read up a bit more on Inquiry Island (http://www.thinkertools.org/Pages/sciwise.html) (White and Frederiksen, 2005). It is explained as “…a science-learning environment that also utilizes a number of design elements to enhance metacognitive understanding including process prompts, model prompts, and collaboration. Inquiry Island is a multiagent environment featuring software advisors related to tasks involved with inquiry, general cognitive, metacognitive, and social aspects of science learning and systems development issues (see Figure 1). (p. 288). This seems like it might be a good way to reinforce the importance of the steps to inquiry and how inquiry is a process that should be followed and skipping steps may result in disappointing results. I did go to look at this site thinking that it might be another good resource but in my explorations of the site it was not obvious how Inquiry Island might work and many of the links that seemed interesting did not work. I still think the graphic is cool and would possibly use it as another visual for students to understand the inquiry process. Maybe by making the steps to inquiry into more of a “journey” students would understand to “follow the path” and avoid skipping to the end.

6.2 Framing IT Use to Enhance Educational Impact on a School-Wide Basis (p. 555).
Peter Twining

What I appreciate about this section is the suggested assessments for ICT because I have found it difficult to concretely assess student learning in this area. I can especially see myself using the “Achievement frameworks” which “… provide a means of ‘measuring’ the quality of learning with ICT” (p. 557). Figure 2 below gives a good idea of simple skills to look for when students use digital technologies.

Overall, I found this a useful document that I would come back to for directing my professional practice.

Resource 2:

WISE (http://www.wise.berkeley.edu/)

I had high hopes for this site as the International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education explained it as a grade 5-12 resource, it comes from Berkeley and is supported by the National Science Foundation. It is explained as “An Inquiry-based Science Tool” so it would seem to fit with my goals for digital literacy incorporating inquiry-based teaching and learning. Immediately, I was able to register for a free teacher account and start browsing. Upon first glance, I only see units for grades 6 and up so this is a bit disappointing to me; when I registered, there was even an option for Elementary school but maybe Elementary school goes up to grade 7 in many areas. With a teacher account, it seems like there is an option to add a unit to a “class schedule” and in the International Handbook it alluded to the fact that it could be shared with students but it isn’t obvious to me how to do that. In browsing the units, they look good and may have the flexibility to fit with grade 5 curriculum however I think students would need more background knowledge before starting these units. Or, I was thinking the units might be adaptable to fit with Canadian content. In addition, there weren’t as many units to choose from as I thought there would be. There is a “Community built library ” section that  “…contains units that were designed and contributed by WISE community members”(WISE 2020) which is an idea that promotes globalization which I like but again, there were not as many units to choose from as I had hoped .

Overall, this doesn’t seem like an immediately usable resource like I thought it would be. If I were to use it, I would have to do some preparations and adaptations to make it work for my students and situation.

Resource 3:

Common Sense Media for Educators https://www.commonsense.org/education/

Although I looked at some different sites to see if I could find a new site that could be useful, I came back to the Common Sense Media site because it seems to have the most resources that I think students would find the most engaging. With this site as well, I created a free educator account and then could access an assortment of lesson plans in different areas of digital citizenship.

Here are some of the aspects of the site that I like:

  • Variety of lesson plans in many different areas of digital citizenship
  • Grade level choices
  • Interactive activities which include student involvement
  • Engaging age-appropriate videos
  • Options of “quick lessons” and extensions
  • Graphics/slides for visual accompaniment for lessons
  • Acronyms to help students remember important concepts

One lesson I would like to highlight for example is one I found under

Essential Digital Citizenship Lessons for the Coronavirus Pandemic

I was then drawn to the lesson The Power of Words which is supposed to be a grade 3 lesson but it would be useful for grades 4 and 5 as well. Again, there are options for a quick lesson that I find useful because one never knows how much time you will have to teach a lesson as a Teacher Librarian!

Students would find the video engaging although grade 3 students may need some parts read aloud while watching:

This video also introduces that acronym S.T.O.P. that would help students find appropriate ways to deal with online behaviour for themselves and others. This would make sense to students at my school because we also use W.I.T.S. (walk away, ignore, talk it out, seek help) for ways to independently solve in-person conflicts.

There are also interactive activities with accompanying visuals such as this activity that asks students which emoji would fit if “when you walked in, I said to you [in a friendly tone, with a big smile] “Hello!” 

Then students hold up the number of fingers of the corresponding emoji.

I would use this particular lesson first because this is the exact problem I had when I was teaching online; some students think what they say/type is a joke and others take offense and then the situation gets blown out of proportion! As well, I know that situations can get even worse if an individual feels like they are anonymous online and I would hate for any students to get themselves in trouble.

Finally, there seems to be almost an endless assortments of lessons concerning countless aspects of digital citizenship which can be used in succession or stand-alone. I can definitely see myself using this site and lessons in the future.

Resource 4:

Making It Personal: A New Approach to Teaching Digital Citizenship.

 By Alecia Berman-Dry

This periodical discusses using the technique of debate as an approach to teaching digital citizenship for 6th graders. Students come up with different topics or situations relating to digital citizenship and argue their side. For example, “Sixth grader Ryan Martin…argu[ed] that his parents bear no responsibility for his behavior online. Fellow classmate Sophia Kurnot says
that parents should make it their business to manage their children’s online habits, even if it means they have to invade privacy” (p.24). I agree with this author when she states, “As the director of academic technology, I felt that mastering all of the other NETS was not as important as knowing how to use the tools responsibly” (p.24)*. This teacher developed this technique because of the need expressed by parents and the students. By using debate she felt it would ” help
students develop a personal relationship with the issues” (p.24). By making it personal, I think it has more lasting effects on students rather than simply telling students how they should behave. I like how introductory lessons posed thoughtful relevant questions and incorporate actual articles in support. The question example given in the article is “Should a 12-year-old be allowed to have a Facebook page or Instagram account?” (p.24). I think grade 4/5 students would also have strong opinions about questions like this one and enjoy debating. The author expresses that ” Debate allowed us to tap into that desire so students could connect personally with the content” (p.25). As well the author comments that even while focusing on other areas of digital citizenship, teachable moments come up such as a “…student who posted [a] comment admitted that she did not realize what she was doing was cyberbullying, and that allowed us to make a meaningful distinction between the impact insults can have online versus in person” (p. 25). I feel that this is one of the biggest problems that I have encountered with students using social media-like programs where they can interact with others.

Although this technique is geared towards using with 6th graders, I think it could be adapted for grade 4/5 students. There are so many skills that students practice with a technique like this aside from critically thinking about digital citizenship such as supporting their opinions with facts and opinion writing techniques. In addition, students are learning how to “disagree agreeably” and take turns speaking, which is a difficult skill to master even for some adults! I can see using this technique as follow-up to lessons such as the ones found on the Common Sense Media site and then having some of these topics as inquiry.

Resource 5:

ISTE STANDARDS FOR STUDENTS

https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

In reading the above article, I noticed it was published by ISTE mostly because there was quite a large “advertisement” at the end of the article. This looked important so I decided to check it out.

*I had to look up what NETS is in order to understand which standards Alecia Berman-Dry was referring to in her article. It stands for National Education Technology Standards; it seems like there are technology standards for students and teachers and it is connected to ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). Surprisingly, this is the first time I have ever heard of any of NETS or ISTE! Maybe it’s because it is based in the U.S.?
The graphic below displays the standards for students.

These standards reminded me of the NTCE 21st Century Literacies that Richardson discusses (p.177) and I feel like they could be connected or possibly by meeting these stardards, students could achieve the literacies.

I’m glad that I decided to look into this site because I feel like it is another good resource. Not only does it give the standards but it also gives ideas for ways students can achieve the competencies. This is yet another resource that could take ages to explore and I plan to look more deeply at it. For each standard, there are lists of resources and ways to understand more about each; it also includes  more information on my personal topics of interest such as Digital Citizenship and Knowledge Constructor.

Conclusions:

These resources incorporate two of my key interests of Digital Citizenship and Inquiry-based teaching and learning. The resources I like the best can be adapted to combine teaching Digital Citizenship with Inquiry-based skills.

It seems like all of the lessons I am finding can be carried out in classrooms if the library is not available for student use in the fall; however, if learning returns online again, some of these lessons might be difficult to distribute or need quite a bit of modification.

Even with a quick glance and by skimming these resources I can see myself using them. In addition, as I have addressed, these resources are information-rich and I feel like they could be explored more extensively and find more useful components.

References:

Apple Images. (2020). ISTE-NETS-students [Image]. Retrieved from http://images.apple.com/education/docs/Apple-ISTE-NETS-Students.pdf

Berman-Dry, A. (2013). Making It Personal: A New Approach to Teaching Digital Citizenship. Learning & Leading with Technology, 41(1), 24–26.

Essential Digital Citizenship Lessons for the Coronavirus Pandemic | Common Sense Education. (2020). Retrieved 16 July 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/essential-digital-citizenship-lessons-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic

Common Sense Media. (2020). The Power of Words [Video]. Retrieved from https://d1pmarobgdhgjx.cloudfront.net/education/PowerOfWords_NewBumper.mp4

Common Sense Media. (2020). Which emoji fits? [Image]. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LC3dpRP6mXBZkB8oe3hGMWkJUhunO9e5gU6g8WlUQsk/edit#slide=id.g3da8846a99_1_0

ISTE Standards for Students | ISTE. (2020). Retrieved 19 July 2020, from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

Needpix.com. (2020). Header, banner, head, display, dummy, board, face, technology, think, human [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.needpix.com/photo/439241/header-banner-head-display-dummy-board-face-technology-think-human

Richardson, W. (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere (Kindle Single) . TED Conferences. Kindle Edition.

ThinkerTools Research Group. (2020). Inquiry Island [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.thinkertools.org/Pages/sciwise.html

Voogt, J., & Knezec, G. (2008). International handbook of information technology in primary and secondary education. Berlin: Springer.

WISE: Web-based Inquiry Science Environment. (2020). Retrieved 19 July 2020, from https://wise.berkeley.edu/

 

 

 

 

Assignments, LIBE 477

So many interests, so little time, where to begin? Reading review A

1 Comment

Introduction, context and background: 

I am the Teacher Librarian at a K-5 English language Elementary school of just over 300 students. The school is located in a semi-rural area south of town with most student coming from a higher socio-economic background. I was the Teacher Librarian from September 2017 until February 2019 at which point I went on maternity leave. In January, I returned to work as a grade 4/5 teacher but will be returning as the Teacher Librarian in the fall. For digital devices at the school, in January we received student devices, which are essentially two class sets of laptops, and dismantled the computer lab. These devices are stored in carts on wheels which make them easy to move to any area of the school where they are needed. In addition, we have 12 iPads that can be used. As a Teacher-Librarian, I believe it is my job to support student learning in multiple ways, with one of the main ways being teaching about and with digital technologies. This is an area of focus for improvement in my professional development and has been since starting as a Teacher Librarian. I have improved and learned a lot but still feel like I have a long way to go. The following are areas of focus in the area of digital technologies that I would still like to work on. 

 

Areas and issues of personal interest: 

  • Digital Literacy and it’s connection to Visual Literacy.
  • Digital Citizenship
  • 24/7 Online Library Learning Commons website or blog.
  • Creating a culture of inquiry-based teaching and learning in the school community.
  • Developing lessons that can be carried out without the use of the library (if it cannot be used in the fall due to the COVID 19 pandemic).
Curricular connections:  https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/5/core

Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies 5

Applied Skills:

  • Use materials, tools and technologies in a safe manner and with an awareness of the safety of others in both physical and digital environments. 

Applied Technologies:

  • Use familiar tools and technologies to extend their capabilities when completing a task.
  • Choose appropriate technologies to use for specific tasks.
  • Demonstrate a willingness to learn new technologies as needed.

Connection to digital technologies: 

With the introduction of the student devices, we spent time teaching students how to use the devices with their personalized log-ins and how to save their work but we didn’t have the chance to teach digital citizenship. Therefore, because I was teaching grade 4/5 from January until June, I dealt with some instances resulting from these deficits when students were thrust into a digital world. So, I feel like I want to start in the fall, as soon as possible, with Digital Citizenship lessons; these can be done in the classroom or the library and will help in the proper use of digital technologies whatever or where ever that might be! 

In relation to Digital Citizenship, I feel like students need to be taught Digital Literacy. I had noticed it before but it became more obvious during “online remote learning” that although students may use technology and digital devices frequently, their skills are limited to only a few that they use repeatedly. My beliefs were reinforced when reading Will Richardson’s book Why School?, especially the chapter “Our kids are illiterate”. Although I have heard other statements similar to what Richardson says; that future employers  “…cited creativity and ‘managing the growing complexity of the world'” (2012, p. 144) more important that stored facts. However, in reading his book, it is the first time I have seen the “21st century literacies” from the NCTE and the fact  “…that, if we applied those benchmarks, upward of 80 percent of students graduating from private, public, parochial, and home schools were illiterate” (2012, p. 189). The number is both surprising and it’s not considering my recent experience with online learning. It still remains that students need guidance to use digital technologies productively if only in the way of exposure to useful programs, software and apps. Additionally, students need more skills to comprehend and critically analyze what they are reading online. In this vein, I am interested in the connection between Digital Literacy and Visual Literacy and how becoming more visually literate can help students become more digitally literate.

As well, if I have a 24/7 online Library Learning Commons, students can access it at any time, from anywhere. I am hoping to make it interactive with activities and events that might be connected to the library. My biggest challenge here is to find a format that is approved by my district that I also find user friendly. In the past year I have been getting more comfortable with blogging so it might not feel like as much of a hurdle now. 

Finally, before teaching at my current school, I taught at a school that had a very strong culture of inquiry starting in Kindergarten. At my current school, there is almost no inquiry-based teaching and learning. I have been trying to slowly integrate inquiry skill  lessons through the library but now I have a bit of a set-back with my leave so I would like to start again in the fall. I find it to be quite a slow-go in this area but I believe it would be a huge pay-off if there was follow through from year to year. Students can use digital technologies in practicing inquiry skills and then choose an appropriate way of presenting their learning by using various digital tools. In addition, these are lessons that can be carried out in the classroom if need be. Students also need to have digital literacy skills in order to adequately answer their inquiry questions and have more options of  presenting their learning. 

 

Key words: 

  • Inquiry
  • Digital Citizenship
  • Digital Literacy
  • Visual Literacy
  • Online Library Learning Commons
  • Remote learning

 

Context: 

Students are in grades K-5, age ranging from 5 to 10 but I feel like I would focus most of my attention on the grade 4/5 (8-10 year olds) to begin and then work down. The administration at the school are very supportive and are also in line with my beliefs especially about  starting digital citizenship lessons in the fall, we have already had discussions around this topic. The school is of a higher socio-economic standing with a very active PAC so access to technology is not lacking. The student devices and iPads can be used in the Library Learning Commons or the classroom and work with a variety of digital technologies. 

 

Potential lesson and professional resources: 

 Common Sense Media has educational resources with lessons and videos for teaching digital literacy and digital citizenship. https://www.commonsense.org/education/.

 

As a government resource, the Keep Learning site
 https://www.openschool.bc.ca/keeplearning/ offers and Online Safety section https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/erase/online-safety which also have links to videos. 

 

A great resource that I would like to try and follow all the way through is Coding Quest  which uses the Scratch program for students to create their own game as a way to present their learning of a inquiry topic. https://www.thelearningpartnership.ca/programs/coding-quest.

 

These are some professional literature picks that were suggested by our district professional development committee that I am interested in:

 

Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani (grade level K-12)

Inquiry-Based Early Learning Environments: Creating, Supporting, and Collaborating by Susan Stacey (grade level K-3)

Conclusions (for now):

All of these ideas are what I would like to achieve in the next few years but it is mostly a question of what should take the priority at this point. Many of these issues and areas of interest can be interconnected and lead from one into another, so I just need to decide where to start!

References

Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies 5 | Building Student Success – BC’s New Curriculum. (2020). Retrieved 11 July 2020, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/5/core

Free images. (2020). Question mark, answer, solution [Image]. Retrieved from https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1586349

Richardson, W. (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere (Kindle Single) . TED Conferences. Kindle Edition.

Spencer, J. (2020). Launch book cover [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/Launch-Design-Thinking-Creativity-Student/dp/0996989544

Stacey, S. (2020). Inquiry-Based Early Learning Environments: Creating, Supporting, and Collaborating [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078XK3X9X/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Wallpaper Flare. (2020). HD wallpaper:Digital marketing – with copysack – dark version [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.wallpaperflare.com/digital-marketing-with-copyspace-dark-version-business-communication-wallpaper-agmyn