Sorry. I posted my other class's wiki instead of this one. Sorry! Here's the real one. LJ
http://lorijaneswiki.wikispaces.com/Project--Library+Policies+and+Procedures
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Final Assignment--Intellectual Freedom Project on my wiki
Here is my last project on Intellectual Freedom. Hope you like it!
http://lorijaneswiki.wikispaces.com/Project--Intellectional+Freedom
http://lorijaneswiki.wikispaces.com/Project--Intellectional+Freedom
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina
Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina
Assessing if our students are really learning is very important and the authors offer five steps of assessment. The first one is to figure out what we want our students to learn. The second step is to create a means of measuring how well the students have succeeded in learning what we want them to learn. The third step is to determine what assessment tool will work best. This might be a rubric or something as simple as a checklist. The fourth step is to provide the students with a hands-on activity that will show how well they’ve learned what we want them to learn. And the last step is to evaluate how well the students have learned and whether or not we need to make adjustments to our lesson in order for them to learn better. I love this article because it gives concrete examples of how to assess a student’s actual learning in the library. For me personally, examples really help to solidify the concepts. Although I have to say I thought the rubric for the secondary school example could use a little work.
The authors end the article with some words of encouragement and some great assessment resources. They basically concluded that if librarians are going to be an important part of their schools learning and teaching environment, then they must be able to offer real proof that what they are doing works. “Assessing for learning cannot be an afterthought but must be a central part of our mission.” (Harada & Yoshina 2005, 144).
Citations:
Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Assessing Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners. Libraries Unlimited, 2005.
Harada, Violet and Joan M. Yoshima. "Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece in Instruction. School Library Media Activities Monthly 22.7 (2006): Libraries Unlimited. 5 Aug 2009. Web. 7 Jul 2011. <http://schoollibrarymonthly.com/articles/Harada2006v22n7p20.html>.
Monday’s Homework July 11th—AASL and NETS Standards
Monday’s Homework July 11th—AASL and NETS Standards
In what way do the AASL and NETS standards represent a departure from education as you experienced it when you were in high school?
One of the first things I noticed when reading the common beliefs is that they talk about the student taking responsibility for their own learning and assessment in order to become an independent learner. We were asked to do our homework, but there was never any mention of becoming an independent learner. College was the first time that I ever remember having to use citations and I don’t really remember learning much about them except how to cite a book. And of course, the most technologically advanced piece of equipment I used in high school was a pen. I didn’t even get an electric typewriter until I went to college. Learning was not a social thing. You were lectured to in class while you took notes. You then went home and read out of a textbook, studied the notes and then took a written test. The most social thing about it was that I occasionally studied for a test with a friend.
There was not a lot of thinking for yourself, or drawing conclusions, or maked informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations and create new knowledge. Learning was a much more passive thing. You read, you memorized and you took a test and hoped you passed. The only class that I remember getting really excited about learning in high school was my freshman psychology class. It was a new and innovative school and my teacher was an amazing man who talked about hard subjects like abortion and apartheid. I remember some very raw and open discussions that were hard but exciting to me. I felt that my mind had expanded in ways that it never had before. And I don’t remember another class like it until I went to college. If I could see him again, I’d thank him for teaching us in the way that he did. I’m sure it was radical for the time—this was the early seventies. Sharing was not a big part of learning, other than the teacher sharing the information with us. You certainly didn’t assess your own learning. That’s what testing was for!
We're already 11 years into the 21st century. Are we already behind in implementing these standards? Using your own school (or a school you know well) as an example, how would your school measure up. Use specific examples.
I don’t believe that I can say Yes—our entire school system is behind the times because there are school out there that are very much 21st century schools, but as a whole, I would say that probably the majority of schools are still in the traditional 20th century teaching mode. I believe that my school district is and my school is. While the students learn to use technology in the computer class, and they know from their home experiences, the majority of the teachers don’t teach the students how to be responsible digital citizens. I’ve noticed that when the teachers bring the students in to use the computers that they don’t ask them to cite the photographs they use, or even teach them to find the photographs or clip art from the Creative Commons. Other than a few exceptions, most of the teachers have the children write their reports in Word and add a couple of pictures or clip art and then have them print them off. They don’t teach them to use things like Animoto or VoiceThread or even Prezi to do reports.
I’m not in the classrooms except to deliver papers occasionally, but I don’t see much collaboration except in the science classrooms where the students work together to create catapults as part of one of their units. And I was horrified by the teaching style of the home economics teachers. (I know it’s not called that now, but I can’t remember what it is called.) Her idea of teaching them about child development was to show them a movie made back in the seventies. She turns out the light, turns on the video and sits at her desk and hollers at the students while they talk to each other throughout the very boring and out of date movie. That isn’t teaching—that’s babysitting.
I realize that it is hard for teachers nowadays. They have a lot of expectations placed on them especially with all the standardized testing, but there has to be a way to inspire them to talk and work with the students more and not talk at the students. But it also means more responsibility for the students and the parents and unfortunately, sometimes neither care. Or the parents care, but they’re too busy working and paying the bills to help their children.
In the NETS, it says that students are supposed to be able to collaborate, even from a distance. Our school doesn’t have a library Web site, so there is no way for the students to retrieve any information from the library databases or to collaborate with teachers and other students outside of the school. This will change if I have any say in the matter! Some of the other bigger school districts are not as behind as ours. But, I don’t think there is any excuse for a small school district not to have the same advantages as the larger school districts. With some many free Web sites and tools available online, there is no excuse for not providing your students with the tools they need to succeed in the 21st century. Administrators, teachers and librarians have to work together to create this open communication and collaborative learning environment. It can be done but all parties have to be committed to making it work.
Works Cited:
“ALA | AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.” American Association of School Librarians. 27 May 2011. Web. 11 Jul 2011. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/standards.cfm
“NETS Student Standards 2007.” ISTE: Interenational Society for Technology in Education 2007. 27 May 2011. Web. 11 Jul 2011.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Five Blogs for July 8th
Five Blogs for July 8th
Rumors of “Its” Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated by David Warlick
By “Its” David Warlick is referring to books. He is a bit worried about future students and their ability to focus on longer stories or really dig deeper into complex issues. He says that he’s seen some research projects that support his concerns. But, he loves to read and usually has at least one printed book and one audiobook going at all times.
He has not always loved reading. He’s not a great reader—it’s work for him and so he didn’t do much of it when he was young. He got most of his information from television. It wasn’t until he went to college that he discovered the joy of reading. He credits some friends and teachers with introducing him to some great writers like: Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut and Herman Hesse to name just a few. Reading a good book is still work for him, but he says that it’s worth it because he learns so much and grows as a person because of it.
When his wife mentioned wanting a way to keep track of what she was reading and that she wanted to be able to write her own reviews, Warlick sat down and introduced his wife to his favorite site, Library Thing. While searching the site, he ran across a page called Zeitgeist. This page lists the largest personal Library Thing libraries—that is patron libraries. They also list the patrons who have the largest personal reviews. Seeing the number of readers, books cataloged and reviews written, Warlick feels very confident that books will be around (in one form or another) for a long time to come.
Citation:
Warlick, David. “Rumors of “Its” Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated.” 2 Cents Worth 23 Jun 2011. Web. 7 Jul 2011. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
The People Who Want to Get Rid of Tenure & Say Teacher Experience Isn’t that Important Should Read This by Larry Ferlazzo
In this blog, Larry Ferlazzo talks about an interview between Gary Klein, a thirty-year expert in decision-making, and The Edge (I’m guessing it’s a magazine, but not sure). Even though he was talking about his research with firefighters, Larry equates it to teachers. “That became part of our model — the question of how people with experience build up a repertoire of patterns so that they can immediately identify, classify, and categorize situations, and have a rapid impulse about what to do.” He said that in the case of fires, a senior firefighter would instinctively know whether or not to put out the fire, or to protect the buildings on either side. This instinct comes only with experience.
I imagine that it takes years of experience to totally understand how all students learn, how to interact with different types of students, how to handle bad situations and how to anticipate problems before they arise. Ferlazzo says Klein’s research directly relates to the fact that teachers make .7 decisions every minute. He says that teachers can’t push insights onto their students or explain the insights—they help them gain the experience they need to arrive at the insights on their own. So, yes, experience is important—it does matter.
Ferlazzo Larry. “The People Who Want to Get Rid of Tenure & Say Teacher Experience Isn’t that Important Should Read This.” Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day . . . 8 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
Celebrating the Power of Open by Joyce Valenza
There’s a downloadable PDF book called The Power of Open that Joyce Valenza says everyone who is involved in any form of Creative Commons should read. Did you know that there are over 400 million Creative Commons licensed works available on the Internet? These are everything from songs, clip art, photographs, research papers and so much more. “Creative Commons created the legal and technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and data by individuals, organizations and governments.” And lots of people have taken advantage of this sharing culture.
This book shares the stories of all different kinds of creators who have all profited from the communal sharing of the Creative Commons. Teachers and librarians need to be teaching students about the Creative Commons and about digital citizenship. If we want to keep this wonderful collaboration community, then it is up to us to make sure our students are not violating the copyright laws and are respecting the many and varied creators who are willing to share their work in the Creative Commons.
As Valenza says, “As we look ahead, the field of openness is approaching a critical mass of adoption that could result in sharing becoming a default standard for the many works that were previously made available only under the all-rights-reserved framework. Even more exciting is the potential increase in global welfare from the use of Creative Commons’ tools and the increasing relevance of openness to the discourse of culture, education and innovation policy.”
Valenza, Joyce. “Celebrating the “Power of Open” ”. Neverending Search. 4 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
SJ/SLJ eBooks Summit—October 12, 2011 by spolanka
Last year, the Library Journal and School Library Journal hosted a virtual summit on ebooks called EBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point. More than 2,000 librarians discussed ebooks and how they are changing our libraries. This year the one-day event will bring all different types of librarians together, along with publishers, vendors and other experts to talk about ebook collections, marketing the ebooks, transitioning from books to ebooks and much more. You can register on this blog for the virtual summit but you must be a member of Library Journal or School Library Journal to do so.
(Because this was so short, I also included another ebook blog.)
World eBook Fair—6.5 Million eBooks Available Through August 4th by spolanka
The World eBook Fair company is offering free access to 6.5 million ebooks from July 4th through August 4th! The collection includes science books, reference books, all different kinds of reading materials and even music. Two other collaborators, Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive will be contributing some selections including music, movies and more. You can join the World Public Library for $8.95 a year. “Members can download a selection of about 2,000,000 PDF eBooks.”
Spolanka. “World eBook Fair—6.5 Million eBooks Available Through August 4th.” No Shelf Required. 5 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
eBooks Top School Library Focus at ALA Annual by Wendy Stephens
At the ALA convention in New Orleans, librarians were excitedly? anxiously? discussing eBooks and their relationship to libraries. Questions were asked about the role of ebooks in recreational reading, and the “possibilities for annotations and markup in a digital environment.” Anxiety was expressed over choosing the wrong technology and about what happened in Kansas. (The state librarian dissolved her contract with the company that supplied her library ebooks saying that her library bought the ebooks instead of licensing them. So now, some ebook vendors are changing the way they do business with new pay-per-access models. This will change the way librarians budget their resources. “And everyone was tryng to figure out how we were going to leverage Pottermore for our readers.” Not sure what that means, but I was fascinated to see the Pottermore free Web site that offers online experiences that revolve around the reading of the Harry Potter books. It looks very cool. The Web site will be open in October but you can go ahead and enter your email so you’ll be ready to go in October.
Back to the topic at hand—the author of this article says that each library is different and each librarian will have to decide what to do with ebooks. She believes that there are limitations to only going with one format like the school that chose to get rid of all their books. But she says that it was a great experience and she was excited that for once the librarians were leading the discussion not following it.
Stephens, Wendy. “eBooks Top School Library Focus at ALA Annual.” The Ultimate Classroom Library: Your School Media Center AASL Blog. 28 Jun 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
School Library Web Presence Webinar by Buffy Hamilton, et al.
School Library Web Presence Webinar by Buffy Hamilton, et al.
I thoroughly enjoyed this webinar. I thought each of the participants had some great ideas and it was interesting to see what they were using as their library Web pages. I agreed with one of the participants who said that we have to be a Public Relations person and promote our own Web sites. I loved the idea of using social media sites like Facebook to promote your library’s presence. I never thought of using Facebook or Twitter that way. I also love the idea of creating a wiki or blog for parents or other colleagues.
All the different tools and sites that were mentioned were interesting. I knew most of them but there were a few I didn’t know and I’m eager to find out more about them. I’ve used Google Docs with one of my classes, but I had a little trouble with it and found it a little frustrating at times. I think it was just me!
At first I found the online chat on the left distracting, but there was some good information there. I loved the discussion about what all was blocked and one of the webinar presenters mentioned that they should do a webinar on how to not take “no” for an answer. I really wish they would. Another presenter stated that they should not worry about what was blocked but focus on what wasn’t.
I loved the lib guides but I would have loved to have heard more about how to create and edit them. I didn’t really understand where Buffy found the one she clicked on when she created a new one. Suddenly there were a bunch of tabs. Where did they come from? I didn’t really understand it, but I’m going to see if I can find a tutorial on how to use the site. I wonder if the teachers would get more excited about the lib guide site as opposed to the wiki.
I want to go back and watch it again a few times and I want to try and just read all the online chatting to get Web site URLs and other information. I think this would be a good one to view several times at least.
Hamilton, Buffy, et al. "School Library Web Presence Webinar." TL Virtual Cafe.1 Mar. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2010. http://tlvirtualcafe.wikispaces.com/Web_Presence
Teaching in the Learning Commons, July 7, 2011
Teaching in the Learning Commons, July 7, 2011
What is the Future of Teaching? By Josh Cantone
Online classrooms may be the classrooms of tomorrow according to Josh Cantone. He cites a recent study that shows students who had “courses with an online study component” performed better on tests than those students who had direct, in-person instruction. Online students “tested on average in the 59th percentile, compared to the 50th percentile for those who received only classroom instruction . . .”
I’m not sure how much we can read into the study though. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The curriculum was not the same and the online students spent more time online with their teacher than the students did in the classroom setting. Having been through a lot of online classes in this graduate degree program, I believe that the most important aspect of online classes is the collaboration of students with other students and students with the professors. As Cantone says, “Students spending three hours per day in an online environment under the guidance of a great professor are likely . . . going to be better prepared than those spending one hour per week in a classroom with a mediocre one.”
He goes on to say that online instruction probably wouldn’t work well for K-12 because they haven’t learned yet how to continue learning on their own yet. That is the job of the teacher—to equip them for active learning. I personally think it might work with some high school students who have enough discipline to work on their own.
With the constant advancement in tools, online instruction can now offer more active and interactive lessons that include collaboration between peers and professors. This can be used in place of regular classroom instruction or used to enhance regular classroom instruction. Will online classes replace regular classrooms? I don’t think so, especially in the lower grades. It might mean that more and more universities will offer online classes and that a college education might become more affordable for more people. But I believe that teachers and librarians will always be needed to teach children how to become active learners. I do believe that online classes and activities can enhance the learning experience of any student and should be considered as another great tool for teachers. Cantone believes that the only thing that separates the good teachers of today from the teachers of the future is great technological tools.
Catone, Josh. “What Is the Future of Teaching?” Mashable 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 6 Jul 2011. <http://mashable.com/2009/08/31/online-education-teachers/>
It’s Broken; Let’s Fix It: The Traditional Model of School Librarianship by Buffy Hamilton
In this article, she discusses her worry over the fact that so many school districts are cutting back on library media specialists and appointing aides or volunteers to run their libraries. For some reason, people assume that all you have to do is provide information and students will learn. Information literacy needs to be taught, just like reading and writing need to be taught. Cutting resources hurts more than the library, it hurts the entire school.
Hamilton says that we need to throw out the old model of school librarianship and create a new and bolder version. She asks the question, “How much more seamless and authentic would research, content creation and evaluation of information be if school librarians would be embedded in a team of classroom teachers?” With more, not less librarians, working with teams of teachers, think of the dynamic learning that would result. I believe that her Media 21 experiment proves this.
Hamilton’s model would not only provide dynamic learning opportunities but it would also help develop great relationships between teachers, librarians and students. We must cultivate meaningful relationships first before we can lead by example. And we can’t do this with one lone librarian handling every aspect of the library. If we wish to develop real learning communities, something must change—and that means getting everyone involved—teachers, principals, parents, school districts and even the community. It will take all of us to change the direction of education in this country and I believe that librarians need to be at the head of the line, leading the charge.
One blogger brought up an interesting idea that Buffy Hamilton needs to assess and present her findings in ways that everyday people can understand, and then make a plug for expanding the program. I thought that was a great idea. If there is concrete proof that children are learning more and better, then maybe school districts would listen to her model of librarianship. And if not, then maybe the parents will listen and tell the school districts what they want.
Citation:
“It’s Broken; Let’s Fix It: The Traditional Model of School Librarianship.” The Unquiet Librarian 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 27 May 2011. <http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/its-broken-lets-fix-it-the-traditional-model-of-school-librarianship/>.
(I had already written this review as one of my five blog reviews, but I did change it a little. I really liked what I wrote and so, I didn’t redo the whole thing. I will understand if you take some points off, for not rewriting the whole thing. I just didn’t think I could have done it any better.)
Tell Me What You Teach? By Joyce Valenza
Wow! I had no idea what was happening in the Los Angeles school district to teacher-librarians. It smacks of McCarthyism. I find it ironic that the one thing that librarians have protected for years—the rights of people, including children, to read any and all information—isn’t mentioned in any of the articles. I might have missed it somewhere. And, I know that Joyce was focusing on what librarians teach, but shouldn’t this be what we teach too? Shouldn’t students have to right to learn, to talk about important issues, to say what they believe without being censored? Who will defend these students’ rights if there are no more librarians? I believe that future historians will view these interrogations and all the layoffs of librarians as we do the McCarthy era—a shameful time in our history.
Meanwhile, like you have said before, Professor Pentlin, we better be able to explain why we are needed in the school system and why students can’t learn properly without us and why teachers can’t teach them what we can.
I loved the article about countries without libraries, probably more for sentimental reasons, but there was one issue that the writer brought up that I wonder if it will be proven true or false in a few years—that people who read printed books are able to concentrate more and delve deeper into a book’s meaning than if they read the same book on the Internet. Time will only tell if this is true. The Internet can be a huge distraction but it also has the power to make us question more and search more quickly for answers. I do find myself sometimes skipping around from article to article sometimes and not reading the whole piece, like I do with newspapers. I found reading this article harder because I had to keep clicking into other articles that led me to more articles and before long, I couldn’t remember where I had started out!
I love the poster that Joyce created but I agreed with the one blogger that said she should have said something about cyber bullying and identity theft. I think internet safety should be taught in schools. There is so much more though. With all the technological advances, we need to be teaching our students to be global citizens too, not just digital citizens. We are in the best position to help our students learn about things like prejudice, personal bias, global customs and so much more. What teacher is going to have time to teach all these things if they are having trouble just getting through all the curricular requirements? I think it’s time for librarians to stop whispering and to shout out about what we do and our value to society as a whole.
Valenza, Joyce. “Tell Me, What Do You Teach?” NeverEndingSearch 26 May 2011. Web. 27 May 2011. <http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2011/05/26/if-they-come-for-you-what-will-you-do/>.
Reframing the Library Media Specialist by Allison Zmuda and Violet H. Harada
I found the poll interesting. I wonder if they gave the voters that list of areas or just asked them what they thought were the priorities for the schools. If voters understand the importance of these areas of study, then why do they allow school districts to do away with the one group of people who know how to help their children achieve in these areas? Do you think that the voters don’t understand the role of library media specialist?
What I got from this article is that the library media specialist needs to always be looking at how and what we teach our students and we need to be constantly asking ourselves, “Could I have done this lesson better? Did I help every child achieve success today?” And if the answer is, “No,” then what needs to change? These authors talk about “good business” as being the activities and assessments that help create active student learning. Students tend to do better when the library media specialist knows his or her role, works closely with the teachers and actively works with the students to move them from just reading and memorizing facts or information to delving deeper and helping them understand how this information relates to them personally.
I felt convicted when the authors talked about “bad business” and said, “These activities or assessments require students to collect information or resources in the library media center and then leave. The superficiality of this acquisition is doomed to fail.” This happened some when I was in the library this spring. The kids would come down to the library just as I was headed to the gym to do my locker room duty and they would ask if they could use the computer for research. I knew that some, if not all of them, would Google the information and some would just literally copy the information off the computer, so I hated to leave, but it was also my job to cover the locker room. I was so torn. Most times I didn’t know when they were coming; they would just show up.
I talked with a couple of teachers about letting me know when their students were coming and letting me know what they were researching and that I’d help them find the information, but most of the teachers said that the kids already knew how to research and that it wasn’t necessary. It was discouraging to say the least, but I’m working with the technology teacher this coming year, and we’re committed to teaching the children how to find and cite the information properly and ethically. We’re going to be working on research projects in small groups using different things like wikis and Animoto to create some of our presentations. I am hoping that I will be able to excite them to do more research and to really get creative about presenting their new knowledge to excite other students as well.
I hope to become the excellent learning specialist that these authors are talking about in their article. As to whether or not, the school district will understand that, despite the fact I don’t count heads or give specific children grades, doesn’t mean that I’m not a valuable asset to the school. Improved learning and hopefully improved grades will possibly help them to determine my value.
Zmuda, Allison and Violet H. Harada. “Reframing the Library Media Specialist as a Learning Specialist.” School Library Monthly 8 Apr. 2008. 27 May 2011. Web. 7 Jul 2011.
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