This is my professional page which discusses educational pedagogy as well as zooms in on contemporary library learning commons praxis. For my school library blog go to http://ardentlibarian.blogspot.ca/
Well, that's a good question and the answer is through a variety of perspectives and sources. I've listed the beginning of a few links for you (brainstormed with friends, family and colleagues).
Please suggest others.
While I invite you to add to the educational dialog below in the page reply area, please go forth with respect for diverse opinions. NOTE - this particular blog page is hosted by my professional blog site - "The Ardent Librarian" and not my school elementary blog.
Together we can make a difference.
Immediate Players
BCPSEA - British Columbia Public School Employer's Association BCTF
Post
#4 Four - What I learned from the Course - Blog post to The Ardent Librarian (my
“professional” blog)
I
delved into modules one to six for this course, and though I would have loved
to have covered more module themes, even within the six I chose, I did not
cover every reading despite putting hours into enjoying numerous articles and
sources - I bet you all can relate. Thanks Karen for the abundance of
reading and learning opportunities. I chose to share my post four in blog
format: the blog I created for the Web 2.0 course I took with Aaron Mueller
(Fall, 2013, I highly recommended it to any and all). Within the blog
context, “we” are not limited to the UBC Connect login and have the potential
to dialog with a larger audience (nevertheless, my “Ardent Librarian” blog is
just a pin prick in the blogging options and I don’t consistently update it at
this time [unlike my school library blog [http://parkviewelementarylibrary.blogspot.ca/]).
But “we” can return to it (the themes, resources, and dialog) with ease
compared to having the discussion held within UBC parameters and vanishing once
the course ends. Plus give me some creative formatting UBC Connect - ugh!
And
so my LLED 459 Trends and Issues in Literacy Instruction learning summation.
I must preface that my contextual reading and learning lens was filtered
through my teacher-librarian role; thus, my responses will reflect this
viewpoint. Short and sweet - not.
Within
the six themes I explored, technology wove its way through everything.
Technology in our learning and everyday experiences is obviously here to
stay and, right or wrong, gaining importance. InModule
One, “Taking Stock of Literacy Today,” the CORE
Education’s Ten Trends 2014information
sourceI found to be a dense but compelling journey. Technology
was/is a large theme throughout CORE’s discussion.
As a
teacher-librarian in a fish-bowl type position, knowing about educational
trends is very important. Thus, the “CORE Education’s Ten Trends 2014”
offers a New Zealand and possibly a world opinion of current changes and
possible future movement of education. I invite you to click and explore.
Despite the circular enter-at-any-point graphic portal, I would suggest
starting with the center “Ten Trends 2014 Overview” (5:09) by Derek Wenmoth, CORE e-learning
research and development person.
Overall, the CORE New
Zealand group organized their trends into five main headings - cultural,
technology, structural, economic, and process - and then expanded these ideas
further by looking at two trends for each of these five main themes. Cultural
looks at Living in the Digital now, and Learner Agency; Technology looks
at the singularity and Learning Analytics. Structural looks at the
trends of learner orientation and networked organizations. Process looks
at educational gamification and new approaches to assessment, and so on.
See below diagram.
Overall, CORE discusses the huge changes in
technology and how traditional structural buildings and organizations, the
process of how we get things done, economic, and cultural factors (the inner
core of the circle) are all being changed by technology. The themes that
knowledge no longer comes from traditional places and experts and no longer is
being disseminated to passive learners was the focus. Contemporary
knowledge consumers (who have access to on-demand technology) can get
information from a variety of sources and not only consume it when and where
they want, but also have begun creating, defining, and redefining information (similar
to Cope and Kalantzis’ theorizing of multiliteracies and designing and
redesigning information, module three, multiliteracies). Derek
Wenmoth and CORE writers aim to add to this portal as the year unfolds.
They have begun to flesh out the “Cultural” sub theme and the two trends
- learner agency (Feb., 2014) and living in the digital now (March, 2014).
Learner agency is the
development of one’s ability for independent thought and action. To me
“agency” parallels late 90’s, early 2000 global citizenry, with the new
additions of the buzzwords self regulation and personal initiative.
The new breed of learner, thus, is encouraged or rather unleashed from
his or her [traditional teacher/educational] constraints to be active consumers
and creators (similar to “designers” and “redesigners,” Cope and Kalantzis),
and further encouraged and/or trained to be self evaluators (self assessment).
Living in The Digital Now is more or less the digital revolution
that is taking place; the shift from finding information from traditional
places and people to going online to find information from a variety of authors
and not only consuming that information, but storing, synthesizing, and
recreating it: “Where traditionally we might have looked to institutions of
long standing or to well established experts to solve problems for us,
increasingly now we're sourcing information online, we're curating it, we're
finding solutions, we're doing things digitally.” Because of this
process, and the inevitable coming together of knowledge, minds, and people
(often keyed as globalization) this in turn is creating new cultures.
CORE argues that these new cultures have different sets of rules and
principles for being positive contributing members. CORE prescribes
that these new and emerging principles are what educators really need to
assist students with. Goodness, there was so much more covered, but I
will cease the summary of this one complex info. source here.
As I expected, the themes discussed in this ten
trends portal tended to emerge in the other modules. Module
Two, New Technologies in fact expanded on many of the CORE ideas. Boulos
(2006) (Reflections
of a Digital Native) had
me reflecting on my relationship with the tech department, my digital
immigrant status, and my use of technological use and goals. As
educators, I believe we need to confer more with our tech management and find
that mutual respect of monetary and safety criteria potential vs limitations
and then combine those ideas with what actually works with our clients.
My digital immigrant status has me contextually placed as someone
learning about technology (give or take interest) and working at accruing
skills versus the digital native who has been born into the technology
world and seamlessly uses it daily. The latter seems to be at an
advantage if you’re keeping score.
Marc
Perensky(2012) conveniently challenged this
dichotomy, however, and argued that one does not have to fit into either of
these camps, but rather can be digitally wise. He argues one does
not have to be born into the current day tech world to be digitally literate.
Nevertheless, I am suspicious. Prensky looks close to retirement;
it makes sense he would make a label he could fit himself into that offers the
ability to be part of the “in-the-know” technology group. Albeit, tech
savviness still comes down to hours spent in this area, which younger kids, in
my biases, have more disposable free time to put towards that interest.
Nevertheless, it is not impossible to put in those hours and/or gain that
knowledge and skill for the non digital native group.
Prensky is a big advocate for educational based
games (what CORE referred to as gamification). In fact, he is
creating educational games: Games2Train.
While I love Prensky’s aim to engage learners through this creative
means, how often do these games move beyond lower level thinking (recall and
comprehension) to higher levels of thinking (synthesis and evaluation)?
The article “Venturing Into Games” by D. Jonassen et al points out that Prensky
software tends to be quiz-type games and thus lower level thinking on Bloom’s
Taxonomy. Jonassen states:
“For example, Games2Train
(http://www.games2train.com/games) produces a game maker called Pick-it! for
teachers to construct quiz games. The game maker resembles the television quiz
show Jeopardy, allowing game players to select topics and values and
play against others. The degree of meaningfulness of the learning from these
games depends on the nature of the responses that are required. More often than
not, quiz games require only memorization performance. While memorization of
domain content may be important, these games do not readily engage students in
deeper-level, meaningful learning activities (e.g., application and
synthesis).” Source:
(http://www.education.com/reference/article/venturing-into-games/)
Jonassen points out that more complex games
such as Civilization by Sid Meir (http://www.civilization.com/) takes students
to higher levels of thinking through problem solving, analysis, synthesis and
application. Jonassen lists just this one more complex, deeper thinking
game. How many more of these types of games are on the market; are educators
using them? Can the education system afford them? I do not have the answers to these questions yet, but I
intuitively know more educational games are coming.
Has your head begun to spin? The options, the learning curves, the
cost, the efficacy? Within the education context, who makes
decisions of what to buy and use, who helps us learn all of these resources and
apps? In Howard Rheingold’s article (2012) , “Stewards of
Digital Literacies,” he argues teacher-librarians (t-ls) should be
these stewards (Rheingold, Howard. "Stewards of Digital Literacies." Academic
Search Elite. EBSCO, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.).
I find this argument professionally exciting, but also daunting.
While I think the 21st century t-l should be the stewards of digital literacies,
this vast task (and knowledge base) combined with traditional literacies,
school and district initiatives (not always the same goals and dynamic in
nature), and the administrative and clerical duties of running a learning
commons is - goodness - what is the needed meaningful adjective? Formidable.
A poem by Shannon Murrells-Allaway
“Stewards of Digital Literacy”
A breath.
Take stock.
Forge through.
A task
inspiring respect,
impressively large,
powerful, and intense
Resoundingly beautiful …
Yesssssssssss - Bring It On.
But
please dear leaders,
open our learning commons
every day of the
school year;
Staff it richly
with professionals;
Train us relentlessly.
Supply us
with
meaningful tools
And resources.
“We” strive to be formidable.
“We” strive to unravel and reknit
Literacy.
----------------------
Someone please break into song!
I now halt the thematic summation of New
Technologies.
Module Three - Multiliteracies
Multiliteracies =’es Literacy on steroids. It is part of each of
the five main themes listed in the CORE Ten Trends: Cultural, Structural,
Economic, Process and Technology. It is the contextual and cultural
knowhow and savviness in all that we do, and with everyone we interact with -
globally. I leave it to Wikipedia to sum up this broadening human
concept. Click and absorb - Multiliteracy.
Module Four - Critical Literacy
While I have a background in semiotics or meaning-making, in
fact a masters from the University of Waterloo, Allen Luke had me learning more
about this concept - awesome. I had to giggle, but my learning and new
synthesis did not come from the course YouTube clip which had me questioning my
background scaffolding about critical literacy and even confused me, but
rather, once again, particularly, from Wikipedia (and from other course
readings too). I have a new respect building for this often credibility
questioned database. Wikipedia describes Luke’s Four Resources Model:
In the early 1990s, Luke and Peter Freebody of Griffith University
introduced the Four Resources Model in literacy education.[5]
This model seeks to reconcile the debates between Whole Language, Phonics, critical literacy and
others. This model postulates that in order to be a fully literate citizen, a
person needs:
1.coding competence (the ability to decode text, i.e.
phonics)
2.semantic competence (the ability to make meaning,
i.e. comprehension)
3.pragmatic competence (every day, functional
literacy, i.e. writing a check, reading the newspaper, filling out a job
application, etc.)
4.critical competence (the ability to critically
select and analyze texts, i.e. avoiding scams, determining reliable sources of
information, etc.)
Luke and Freebody assert that no
one of these resources is sufficient by itself but that each is essential.
Further, the resources are not meant to indicate a sequence of instruction.
Different resources should be present in instruction in varying amounts,
depending upon the needs of the students. Luke has also stated that critical
competence, far from being an upper level topic, can begin to be developed in
year one of education and before. [2]
2 Curriculum
services of Canada. (2007). "Dr. Allan Luke: the new literacies"
webcast. Retrieved from http://www.curriculum.org/secretariat/may31.html In summation, through each of the
course modules I explored, literacy is being defined and redefined. With
Luke, the umbrella definition includes four competences: coding (decoding
text; learning the alphabet at its earliest stages), semantic (meaning-making;
using the alphabet to create words and thus meaning), pragmatic (functional
literacy, utilitarian know-how), and critical (analyzing text for
currency, relevance, authorship, accuracy, and purpose). In Luke’s model,
we start with our preschoolers and primary students, teaching them the building
blocks of literacy. And then we keep building on those skills each year
according to their readiness: culturally, and contextually.
Professionally, this model aligns strongly with me; I see the t-ls as
crucial organizers in standardizing benchmarks from kindergarten to grade 12
regarding these competencies.
Module 5 - Literacy
Jodie Howcroft’s article “The Heart of a
School”captured my attention for this module. She writes for ETFO
Voice the magazine of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario.
In her article she captures the busy day and programming of a modern
teacher-librarian. Howcroft also captures the correlation between
strong library programming and increased literacy. Howcroft
interviews full-time teacher-librarian Sue MacLachlan from Cathy Wever
Elementary School, Hamilton, Ontario.
I connected to this article because my job and
MacLachlan’s are one of the same. Further, it was fascinating to compare
this full-time Ontario, elementary t-l position with my part-time .4 British
Columbia, rural one. So, I didn’t learn anything new, but connected with
a fellow colleague and revisited meaningful literacy research:
1. “School Libraries and Student Achievement in Ontario”
(Howcroft p. 16). 2. “The Crisis in Canada’s School Libraries” by Dr. Ken Haycock.
(Howcroft p. 19).
As stated above, strong library programming tends to increase student
achievement. Open the library full time, staff it with qualified
teacher-librarians (t-ls), increase spending on books and resources, provide
collaborative time between teachers and t-ls, and the following increase:
reading enjoyment, student achievement, and test scores. With this correlation,
the choice to increase funding to libraries should be one of the “Ten Trends,”
but in reality, in many regions across Canada, the opposite is happening.
Module 6 - Reading in
a New Key: Comics, Graphic Novels and E-books
Gene Yang’s Graphic Novels in
the Classroom was the article I chose for Module 6. This graphic novel style
article will be a useful peer, parent, and even student text to define and
exemplify this genre. The resource lists about useful graphic novels for
the classroom/library, as well as the pedagogical approach resource listings
are very useful as some of the manga graphic novels in particular can be
inappropriate for elementary audiences. As a teacher-librarian this article
was more about reaffirming the creative potential of graphic novels, and adding
to my current resource list. It did act as a springboard for finding
other online educational comics such as Scott
Tingley’s informal, comic-format “how-to” resource about chess: The
Chess Comic . Scott aims to teach young and old the
basics of chess and then more advanced skills through the comic medium.
Post responses on his site are very favourable. I predict we will
see many more educational texts - print and digital - in this format. In
fact, World
Book and Weigl
Educational Publishers are two publishers I’m aware of
working with the comic format.
In
closing: And so, just like the seven Prezis I found about LLED 459 summation posts
(huge, complex), it is hard to summarize our learning in just a few words.
Literacy has become and will remain a complex, dynamic concept.
Technology has certainly been a profound force in literacy redefinition.
What was left out in many of the articles is the potential for disparity
with the addition of technology to our literacies. Who has access?
Who does not? And while technological access is becoming less of an
issue as prices come down and infrastructure improves, the disparity of
multiliteracy strength, thesemantic and critical competencies that Luke
discusses may be the telling characteristic of the have and have-not literate
vs illiterate masses.
Addendum: this writing was text-heavy and lacking visuals for a "blog post." Once again, my humbling experience that writing/creating in Web 2.0 mediums add potential for creativity (visual and auditory), but need time - a precious commodity and not always available.
Hmmm, well I'm a Twitter beginner, but so interested in the professional development potential, that I'm pushing myself to learn more and invite you to join me. Thus, April 18th, 2013 Ranchero "Pro-D" here we go... Congrats to you brave participants.
I want to demonstrate 21st Century Teacher-Librarian traits. I want to ease out of the "old system" I'm still partly perpetuating of print book, worksheet driven resources, and a "sage on the stage" lecturer who dispels her fountain of knowledge into relatively passive vessels. Will Richardson describes the old model as "... students work independently ("do your own work" ) and produce that work or content for a limited audience - usually just the teacher giving the grade and perhaps the other students in the class" (150-51). He invites us to redefine how we teach asking us to be connectors, content creators, collaborators, coaches (mentors and motivators rather than owning the information at the front of the classroom), and change agents (154-55). I think many of us have and still exercise those types of pedagogy, but certainly Web 2.0 makes collaboration and creation not only easier, but also far more creative and fun. Nevertheless, I still need to move away from the lecture style more and perhaps use the following:
AND
Flip the Classroom to give the basic instructions and framework for inquiry learning.
Pause. Reflection. What about the power and value of personal connections and school culture gained and accrued from physical interactions. Hmmm. Or is it more likely that it's myself, colleagues and parents that need to trust where Web 2.0 users suggest they could take us: students self-directed, stylizing their differentiated learning either in or away from school? I don't know yet. While convenient, creative and collaborative traits come with Web 2.0 philosophical teaching, my 2012 hunch is that flipping classrooms at Parkview Elementary and many schools will have more success if there is a strong connection and trust with the educator setting it up.
Khan's vision combines self-directed learning with physical attendance at school: "Khan has stated a vision of turning the academy into a charter school: This could be the DNA for a physical school where students spend 20 percent of their day watching videos and doing self-paced exercises and the rest of the day building robots or painting pictures or composing music or whatever.
Oh my.
Pause. Reflect.
What about kids with no computers or poor to no internet access? What about kids with special needs and learning challenges? What about the gifted, bored student who may thrive with these learning options?
So where does the Ardent Librarian start? Specifically, where do I start as a non-enrolling teacher (no assigned warm bodies attached to a marking ledger) wanting to shift into the creative potential of Web 2.0 tools and the pedagogy of collaborative, inquiry-based, process learning?
My brain is still swimming with all of the new data I have in it and after reading Jim Collins' article "Good to Great" (cited in course reading Think you’re a Digital Immigrant? Get Over It!), I'm yearning for a hedgehog idea to present to staff and students.
Collins talks of disciplined thoughts through hedgehog rather than fox ideas. "Picture two animals: a fox and a hedgehog. Which are you? An ancient Greek parable distinguishes between foxes, which know many small things, and hedgehogs, which know one big thing. All good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are hedgehogs. They know how to simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea—the kind of basic principle that unifies, organizes, and guides all decisions." How Am I Going to Get There? While I don't have the clarity for a hedgehog idea yet, I do know I will turn to my colleagues for help formulating a group one. Good old fashioned face-to-face discussion will be appreciated by my colleagues and enjoyed by me, but I also look forward to joining existing internet dialog. Through this course and the (BCTLA) conference I've realized the Web 2.0 and educational best practices discussion has been going on for awhile. Thus, the BCTLA Ning, T-L and educational wikis, Twitter, blogging and RSS will also be my exciting and rewarding communication venues. The next logical step today is goal setting. Thus, below I've revisited and revised my September goals.
Immediate Goals (Image Source: http://goalhabits.com/2011/04/04/should-kids-have-goals/
- building my personal learning network: locally, BC, Canada, and - yummy - the world
- weekly professional reading
- Intermediate Classes: use Edmodo weekly for extended learning, introduce/teach specific information literacy skills: netiquette, Google ninja, Easybib; collaborative invitation to grade 7 teacher re inquiry project for ancient civilizations
- Primary Classes - continue working with Karen Quinton, grade 1/2, to infuse technology into our teaching and collaborate on teaching provincial learning outcomes, as well as district initiatives such as Daily Five, and Reading and Writing Power, and our school goal of Character Education.
- Revise SD83 T-L wiki - it needs jazzing up! I so related to Ben Koning's blog thoughts that his colleague wiki was text heavy and may not engage his readers: "I think my choice of going for a less novel presentation tool [wiki] may work against generating interest. I think what I ended up with was a rather text heavy explanation of my vision. It is a bit of information overload and does require a reader to be pretty jazzed about teacher-librarianship to read the entire resource through. What it needs is a greater variety of media that provide illustrations of what I am envisioning as my role as a 21st century teacher-librarian and provide alternate ways to provide input besides just text." Let's confer Ben!
Short Term Goals - B4 End of June
- Accept David Loertscher's, professor of library and information science at San Jose State University, invitation to explore the Ontario Learning Commons vision and work towards making our BC "Points of Inquiry" more of a live/participatory document.
- develop and maintain the brand new Parkview Library Facebook page
- continue my weekly blog post(s) for the Parkview Library and Ardent Librarian
- learn more about Twitter and eventually start educational, professional development-type tweets
- podcasts of gifted students' writings published in a district compilation & post them on the Parkview Library blog, in my Edmodo classes, and on the district homepage.
- PAC presentations and connections
- Library Management Goals continued
2013-14 School Year Goals
- for now - more of the above!
Which brings me to what I now believe is the biggest question and the one to continually nurture: who is going with me?
Image Source: http://www.naset.org/2380.0.html
Who's going with me? Jim Collins postulates Disciplined people: “Who” before “what” You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you're going, how you're going to get there, and who's going with you.
Most people assume that great bus drivers ... immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where they're going—by setting a new direction or by articulating a fresh corporate vision. In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.
Astute, positive, enthusiastic SD83 district teacher-librarian Geri Davey encourages baby steps. "I start with one person who wants to collaborate with district initiatives &/or information literacy and away we go. People see our successes and then another person wants to try, and another, and another." Geri thank you for creating buses that teachers, and students want to get on and which emulate best practices for the rest of us to learn from. Karen Quinton, Parkview esteemed grade 1/2 teacher, thank you for getting on the bus. And all t-ls may we go forth in the right direction and entice a few more to join us.
In Closing
Yes education is going to, ... no IS transforming. Let's all move in a positive direction with caring intent, deep thinking, astute questioning, and dialog - with the world. Hmmm. The Ardent librarian will be on that world-view bus ... no matter what.
