Monthly Archives: February 2014

LIBE 477 – Developing World Libraries

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Mumbai Guy on phone November 2011 -2-5 Closeup

Image from Wiki Commons

When I began exploring library projects in developing nations the majority of my results were organizations raising funds for book purchases or for organizations collecting weeded/discarded books. I understand that many of the books we weed are actually quality books that we have duplicates of. For instance, last year our school library had four copies of “Because of Mr. Terupt” because it had been a previous contender in our Book of the Year contest. Now that the votes were in and a winner selected, circulation had decreased, we really only needed one copy. As these books were up to date and were in great condition, they could potentially have been donated. The encyclopedias I weeded that were from 1992 are another story. If they aren’t good enough for our students, why are they good enough for someone else’s students?

When I dug a little further, I came across Library For All. This organization’s mission is to provide developing nations with the “tools to learn, dream and aspire to lift themselves out of poverty”. (Side note: Can developing nations really lift themselves out of poverty?) The concept that Library For All presents is an interesting one. They are “building a digital library and educational platform, designed for low bandwidth environments”. This library “will be stocked with millions of ebooks, course material and resources from publishers and Open Educational Resources”. The organization also wants the platform to be available on a variety of low cost devices. They say they have overcome many of the disadvantages of traditional book donations. By using their platform, information will be culturally and linguistically relevant and up to date.

Ian Quiellen, in an article he wrote about Library For All, says that this model differs from “just handing out sets of low-cost tablets and laptops” (2013). He says that often with those programs, users struggle to locate free content on the Internet (Quillen, 2013). Library For All will provide the content. I believe Library for All’s model is a great one that has room to grow. Library For All’s content is currently education texts and visuals and is focused on providing this information to teachers and students in a classroom setting. If this model is to be used for developing nation’s libraries, the content must be expanded. There needs to be other contributors to the program (besides Scholastic and Penguin) to ensure a variety of materials.

I think Library For All has a great idea that over time can be adapted to provide developing nations with a library platform that can be used on low bandwidth devices.

Library For All Intro Video from Library For All on Vimeo.

Works Cited

Library For All Intro Video on Vimeo [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/74216200

Quillen, I. (2013, June 18). Library for All: Free Digital Content for Developing Countries | MindShift. Retrieved February 21, 2014, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/library-for-all-free-digital-content-for-developing-countries

 

LIBE 477 – Supporting Teachers

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As a teacher-librarian I not only support students’ learning but I also support teachers’ learning.  Every staff member is at a different place in their learning journey with ICT so it is important to provide a variety of opportunities that will allow each teacher to grow.

Last year, I continually had informal discussions with teachers about tools and resources I was using in hopes I could form a relationship with them that would allow them to see me as a valuable resource.  Often, teachers would come to me for assistance or recommendations for tools to use with their class.  One way I could have furthered this learning would be to host “Lunch and Learn” workshops.

Another way I could help support the professional development of the staff at our school would be to post links to interesting articles, web 2.0 tools or teaching resources on our school’s HUB.

In addition to my two above ideas, I think a wonderful way to support teachers’ ICT development is through collaboration.  Collaboration, working together to teach students, can have a positive effect on both students and teachers.  In true collaboration, I believe the teacher and teacher-librarian learn from each other.  The teacher-librarian can share his/her knowledge of current pedagogy with relation to ICT, knowledge of 21st century skills and knowledge of web 2.0 tools.

I found a video on this website that touches on what a teacher-libriarian offers.  The website also provides links to other ways teacher-librarians can support staff.

Works Cited

Library Resources (2011, February 6). How your teacher librarian can help you #2 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-2q8dK3r8

Teachers Connecting with Teacher Librarians – Information Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2014, from http://www.connect2tls.info

LIBE 477 – PLN

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Personal Learning Network

Network learner

Image from Wiki Commons

For those of you who don’t know PLN stands for personal learning network.  According to Wikipdia, a PLN is “an informal learning network that consists of people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from” (PLN, 2014).  As an educator, having a professional PLN is essential to developing and growing my teaching pedagogy and practice.

The video below is interesting because it says that a PLN is “not a thing or a plan” but a “mindset that starts with a question: How do my relationships make me a better teacher?” (Youtube).  Thinking about it in this way makes me expand my idea that a PLN is based on web 2.0 tools to an understanding that my PLN is all around me whether I am online or not.  There are several ways I have already developed a PLN and, after doing some research for this course, several ways I would like to increase my PLN in the future.

Currently, I belong to a Discovery Education Network group on Edmodo.  This group consists of educators from the Surrey School District who attended a 3 session workshop called Den Stars as well as educators from around North America.  In this Edmodo page, we discuss how we are incorporating Discovery Education into our classroom as well as other web 2.0 tools.  In addition to being a Den Star, I often check my Flipboard magazine set up to import tweets from #sd36learn, #sd36LC and #tlchat.  In the future, I would like to not only gain information from these posts but also contribute information to the feeds.

I have had a personal twitter account for sometime but recently set up a professional one. Now I have to start sorting through the people I follow to move them to my professional twitter account.  I see Twitter as a great way to keep informed and connected to those who are taking the same diploma program as me.  We are all working towards a similar goal and can definitely learn from one another.  I am like a hidden twitter user though.  I do not tweet!  One of my goals is to contribute to discussions on Twitter.  Can you have a PLN without really contributing?

In researching PLN, I came across an interesting blog post.  Kate Kingslensmith writes about PLNs and provides an in-depth list of ways to create a PLN.  Take a look at it here.  She also has a link to the stages one experiences when developing a PLN.  I have set up many of the web 2.0 tools Kate has suggested, like Twitter, Delicious and Digg Reader, but feel that I have not used them to their full networking potential.  I know that I have not necessarily been a contributor in the exchange of information.  I have been more like an information taker than giver!  While I don’t see this stage in Kate’s steps of PLN development, maybe as I become more comfortable with the tools, I will understand how I can be a contributor to someone else’s PLN.

As the Youtube video mentioned, not all of my PLN is online. I have created my own network of other kindergarten teachers who I can bounce ideas off of and who I gain new knowledge from.  We do this, sometimes through email, but also in the lunch room or at workshops.

Going forward, I would like to really focus in on using one or two tools to develop my PLN. I think if I narrowed my focus, I would gain a better connection to other educators and have more confidence in asking questions and sharing my experiences and knowledge.

 

Works Cited

Personal learning network. (2014, January 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:57, February 10, 2014, fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Personal_learning_network&oldid=591462441

Klingensmith, K. (2009, May 5).  PLN: Your Personal Learning Network Made Easy | Once a Teacher… Retrieved February 10, 2014 from http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/pln-your-personal-learning-network-made-easy/

LIBE 465 – Journal Reflection #2 FRBR Model

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FRBR Model of Little House on the Prairie

I began making my FRBR model with the work Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  From there I broke the work down into three different expressions; printed book, musical and television show.  This is where I started getting confused.  Was a translation or the audiobook version of the printed text a new expression or a manifestation of the original text?  Was the mini-series television show an expression of the television show or was it a manifestation?  I found a Youtube video describing the FRBR model of Dracula as well as a document on the Library of Congress website that helped to guide my decisions.  I found the FRBR model in the course module to be simplistic and did not match how the Library of Congress describes the FRBR model.  Little House on the Prairie, like Romeo and Juliet, has a screenplay as well as a movie and adaptations of the text.  In the Romeo and Juliet example the screenplay and movie are listed in under the same work.  However, according to the LOC document and the Youtube video, a movie or TV show is considered a new work.  These works (the novel, the movie and the TV shows) could be considered to be part of a “family of works” (Tiellet, 2003, pg. 13).  For this reason, I have changed my FRBR model to represent three different works; one for the novel, one for the musical and one for the TV shows.  When changing my model, I wondered if the TV show model could be further broken down into different works.  I decided to leave it the way it was and focus my attention on the FRBR model for the novel.

As I was building my FRBR models, I had several thoughts going through my mind including that this process was far too complicated and that no teacher-librarian would ever have time to do this.  I prefer Rob Styles’ method of looking at the FRBR model.  He questions the use of the terms work, expression and manifestation (Styles, 2009).  He also compares two FRBR models; one in which the movie is an expression of the novel and one in which the movie is considered a new work.  He points out that when the movie is an expression it implies that the “movie is somehow a lesser creative work than the original novel” but when it is its own work the model has failed to show the relationship between the movie and novel (Styles, 2009).   This shows the complexity of the FRBR model.

I think the use of the FRBR levels makes sense when searching through the collection.  It allows the user to identify which expression they are looking at, i.e. is it a translation?  It also allows users to identify what format the work is in and if the library has the item.  It is interesting to note that the LOC document said “less than 20% of all the records in the OCLC database have more than a single manifestation” (Tillet, 2003, 14). From what I understand a print version and ebook are different manifestations of the same expression.  Will the number of records rise as more ebooks and online versions of material rise?  How will this change the way that the FRBR is used in cataloguing?  If libraries begin to catalog websites how will the FRBR model work?

 

This was the FRBR model I came up with before reading the LOC article and watching the Youtube video.

This was the model I came up with after reading the LOC article and watching the Youtube movie. Note: I have separated the works.

This is the model of the two new works when I separated them from the novel model.

 

 

Works Cited

Bram Stoker’s Dracula in FRBR terms [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0vKCFsXPE

Styles, R. (2009, November 11). Bringing FRBR Down to Earth… | I _Really_ Don’t Know [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://dynamicorange.com/2009/11/11/bringing-frbr-down-to-earth/

Tillet, B. B. (April 2003). The FBRR Model [Abstract] (Conference). Retrieved from Library of Congress website: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/frbreng.pdf

LIBE 477 – Fostering a Reading Culture in School

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Giving Choice

I had an interesting conversation about reading in elementary school with my husband, who doesn’t see himself as a reader but will read articles on the web for hours. He will read biographies of musicians and health books on vacation.  Daily, he reads discussion boards for topics relevant to him and he listens to podcasts to and from work.  I was asking him how school and his teachers could have helped develop his love of reading.  His answer was “They couldn’t do anything.”  “I just didn’t want to read.  I liked reading during silent reading because I could read Goosebumps but after school there was so much else to do. Why would I want to read?”  If you ask my husband now if he likes to read, he will say not really.

This conversation made me think about how educators help to develop students’ concept of being a reader.  Many teachers send home slips of paper saying “Read x number of books and get a checkmark on the poster. Read x amount and get a prize.”  While, I don’t agree with giving prizes for reading this idea of reading books is making our students who read other things think they aren’t readers.  I’ve been in libraries that enforce the “one fiction minimum policy” for students and have been in classrooms where students must read a book during silent reading.  Isn’t reading a magazine, a newspaper, an atlas or a non-fiction book still reading?

Kid Reading The Onion
Image is from Creative Commons.

I think that one of the best ways to foster a reading culture is to open up our concept of reading.  We need to give students choice.  Students thrive when given choice (it can be a closed choice!).   Clark says that in order for students to become lifelong readers they must develop an “unconscious delight” for reading (2011, 7).  She says that if readers “are left alone to discover that reading is pleasure, not a chore, they move on to other authors and other genres without our intervention” (2011, 7).   “By narrowly defining what is considered “allowable reading, “ educators and parents basically have stymied the essential stage in literary appreciation – Unconscious Enjoyment – in a child’s journey toward becoming a lifelong, avid reader” (2011, 8).  Clark’s opinions resonate with me.  Give children choice and they will develop their interests and passions.  They will find what they enjoy reading and this will help to develop a culture of reading in school.

In my class this looks like children reading just-right books, non-fiction books (usually skipping around the book), pictures in books, books we have read together, books they have created, books from home and big books.  They are reading words around the room (poems, names, colours etc.), books on the computer, magazines, menus and cards.  They are trying to read anything and everything.

Here is a video I watched in LIBE 441. Faye Brownlie speaks to the importance of choice in reading. The discussion about choice starts at 17 minutes.

Works Cited

Clark, Ruth C. (2011). Readicide-killing the love of reading in our schools. Knowledge Quest, 39(4), 6.

Spiegel, Eric. “Kid Reading The Onion”. Photograph. Flikr, 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://flic.kr/p/8SorP7>.

“Changing Results for Young Readers: Faye Brownlie, Reading Instruction: Evidence-Based Practice.” YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2014.

LIBE 477 – Reading Review Blog #3

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Research Synopsis

For those new to my blog, this post is my third post for an assignment I am doing for a library course at UBC.  I initially started out wondering how to incorporate technology and digital literacy skills in a play-based kindergarten classroom. Along the way I have narrowed my topic and am now in the process of learning more about digital storytelling in kindergarten.

In my last blog post, I listed 5 resources that I found to be helpful in understanding how to use digital storytelling and why I would want to use digital storytelling in the classroom.  While gathering these resources, I came across many others.  I chose the 5 I did because I wanted a variety of sources.  I have academic papers, magazine articles, a blog, an interview between educators and a news article that all speak towards the idea that digital storytelling helps students develop traditional literacy skills as well as New Literacy skills.

Marsh & Vasquez’s interview “Aligning Instruction to Developmental Needs in Critical and Digital Literacies” has actually made me question my entire notion of “developmentally appropriate practice” (2012).  This reflection could be dedicated to entirely different blog post! However, their interview has also created a foundation to better understand the other resources I have chosen which discuss digital storytelling more specifically!  Marsh & Vasquez suggest that even young children can engage in the practices we generally see with older students who are using web 2.0 tools if these practices are “framed in ways that are meaningful to [students]” (2012, 154).  Marsh says “anything is possible if you stage it in ways that are meaningful to children and embed playfulness and creativity at the centre of pedagogy” (2012, 154).  Vasquez says that we can’t just hear about the latest technology and incorporate it into our classroom (2012, 154).  “We need to be sure we are actually starting from young children’s experiences” and build it into what is going on in our classroom (2012, 154).

In the other resources I have selected, the authors discuss their experiences with digital storytelling in kindergarten.  Candreva (2010) states “digital storytelling provides opportunities to practice and reinforce developing literacies and allows teachers of young children to use instructional technology in transformative ways” (3).  While, I wish this quote said that digital storytelling allows students to use technology in transformative ways, I believe this is what is at the heart of every resource I have found.  A common theme among the resources is that digital storytelling allows students to learn 21st century skills including planning, collaborating, constructing meaning and sharing as well as developing traditional literacy skills such as oral language, fine motor skills and printing with paper and pencil (Candreva 2010 & 2012, Liotti 2010).  Matt Gomez’s blog as well as Liotti & Haggety’s paper (2010) provide many examples of how to incorporate digital storytelling into the classroom as well as a list of web 2.0 tools that can be used to create digital stories.

After reading through all of my resources, I believe that my students could benefit from using digital storytelling.  As Marsh & Vasquez said, I need to “kid-watch” and incorporate this technology into the classroom by starting with the “children’s experiences” (2012, 154).  Currently, the majority of my class is obsessed with princesses and princes.  They use our costumes as royal outfits; they write in their journals about queens and kings; they make crowns in the art centre and they have an elaborate recess game they play.  Perhaps, I could find a meaningful way of using this interest to make a digital story with the class.   Initially, we could create a class story so that students could become comfortable with the tools as well as the process.  As students become more comfortable with this new method for storytelling, I could gradually release control and students could create their own story.  Now, I need to find the time in our already very busy schedule to do this!

 

Citations

Candreva, C. (2012). Digital storytelling in kindergarten: Merging literacy, technology, and multimodality. 72(9), 3230-3230.

Candreva, C. (2010). Paving New Pathways to Literacy in the 21st Century. School Talk , 15(2), 3.

Gomez, M. http://mattbgomez.com/category/digital-storytelling/

Liotti, N., & Haggerty, K. (2010). Falling into Technology. School Talk , 15(2), 4-6.

Marsh, J., & Vasquez, V. (2012). Aligning instruction to developmental needs in critical and digital literacies. Language Arts, 90(2), 151.