LIBE 463 61A: Assignment #3 - Selection and Weeding Project and Report

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Theen Moy

My third assignment - the Selection and Weeding Project and Report - is linked below!

LIBE 463 61A: Assignment #2 - Collection Evaluation Report

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Matthew Wedeking

My second assignment, the collection evaluation report - is linked below!

LIBE 463 61A: Assignment #1 - Community Analysis and Report

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of jessamyn west

My first assignment, the community analysis and report - is linked below!

LIBE 477B: Vision of the Future - Final Course Reflection

For my final project, I was inspired by the multimedia technology use by both our instructor as well as some of my classmates. Rather than do a video, I thought I would try my hand at producing a podcast instead. Podcasting is a very versatile medium, easily shared, and a bit of a challenge; that is, getting my point across with only sound! It has been really great to be able to try this out while tackling my topic, which is something partly made possible by the inquiry-based learning we engaged in as part of this course. It's also a great chance to share something - just like Will Richardson discusses in our course reading "Why School?" (2012). Creating content to share with the wider education community is something completely new for me, so consider this a first!

I had a lot of fun producing this podcast. I have done one or two on other topics years in the past, so it was quite interesting giving it another try. I personally listen to quite a few podcasts, one of my favourites being the "Stuff You Should Know Podcast", which served as part of my inspiration for this one.

My episode ended up being just under 15 minutes, which was longer than I was expecting, but rather short compared to contemporaries of the medium. I think podcasting lends itself well to educational topics and longer-form discussions because it's something you can listen to while doing something else, such as while commuting or while out for a walk. I intentionally wrote it as if it was the start of a bigger production, hence the "episode zero" title, and I may add on more episodes some time in the future. For now, though, it stands as a piece for teacher-librarians, teachers, and even students to enjoy.



Works Cited:

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

LIBE 477B: Vision of the Future - "Second Thought" Podcast

For my final "vision of the future" assignment, I decided I would try my hand at producing a short podcast to discuss my topic, Citation and plagiarism in K-12 classrooms. This leans a little more in the direction of "learning for the 21st century", although I also see many overlaps with teacher-librarianship - The TL is in the unique position to discuss information and digital literacy as part of their library program. I thought this would be a good format for sharing out to other educators, so if you have any take-aways from my little production, feel free to share it out!

I have split the podcast into four general sections:

• Why cite?
• Perspectives on Plagiarism
• What about Teachers?
• Teaching Tools

The goal with this artifact is to give other teachers an introductory look at approaching plagiarism in the classroom, and I encourage early engagement with the concept. We discuss how elementary school students should be able to have a good understanding of citing their work in some capacity that they can further refine at the Secondary level.

Here it is below:



Thank you for listening! I will include all the links and citations (including the fantastic intro/outro music by RoccoW) in the description below.



Links and Works Cited

My Haiku deck presentation (Scroll down for image citations)
https://haikudeck.com/p/ocxo1k8j8w

Music: "SuperBluesBros Banana Blitz" by RoccoW
From the Free Music Archive
CC BY NC

Mitchell, S. (2007). Penguins and Plagiarism: Stemming the Tide of Plagiarism in Elementary School. Library Media Connection, 25(7), 47.

Link: http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ762396&login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site

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

Starr, L. (2002). Put an End to Plagiarism in Your Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr390.shtml

Vicinus, Martha & Eisner, Caroline. Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. Project MUSE, p 195-207
Link: https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/chapter/145068

Zigunovas, P. (2017) Why do students plagiarize? A cultural perspective. Retrieved from https://elearnmagazine.com/why-do-students-plagiarize/

LIBE 477B: Developing World Libraries / Mobile devices

One of the takeaways from my exploration of mobile devices for education being implemented in economically developing nations is to not take the technology lightly. It seems there are careful ways to get technology into the hands of students in these nations without resorting to a universal approach. Keengwe notes that “technology tools and applications that are familiar in developed nations may pose unique challenges in developing countries, so ‘one size fits all’ or ‘one technology for all contexts’ does not practically work.” (2014). Keengwe also discusses the different context for these mobile technologies depending on where you look, with schools in Africa and schools in Finland showing very different contexts (2014).

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Justin Parmelee

I think much if this relates directly to potentially transforming the library. Depending on the school, I imagine a library may be limited, mixed-us, or potentially non-existent. Richardson’s suggestion to “rethink assessment” comes into play here once again: “Stop asking questions that can be answered by a Google search” (2014) - this is a sentiment that I believe may be amplified by a developing nation school receiving access to mobile technologies for the first time; their teachers will want to address this head on.

It also opens up a host of challenges that we increasingly face as Teacher-Librarians in the modern school system. Discussions surrounding digital literacy, information literacy, fair use, plagiarism, and internet safety are all suddenly on the table with new access to these technologies, perhaps even amplified by the unfamiliarity and novelty of the mobile technology.



Works Cited

Keengwe, J. (12/01/2014). Mobile learning and integration of mobile technologies in education Springer.

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

Parmelee, J. (Photographer). (2010). Glowing Keyboard [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/7GucS3

LIBE 477B: Supporting Teachers’ ICT Curriculum and Pedagogy: On-going Professional Development

This question of professional development and library support is an ongoing conversation in Surrey school district. This year in particular, there has been a roll-out of several brand new ADST materials sent to all schools in the district, and in many cases it has fallen on the Teacher-Librarian to manage these resources.

There have been some initiatives to help teachers become more confident with these tools, including several opportunities for after school workshops and pro-D put on by our district helping teachers. Even beyond the scope of my own school, I have been active in contributing to these workshops as an “expert” (their words not mine!) to answer questions and demonstrate the tool.

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of thepigs

I mentioned this in our weekly chats, but two of the big takeaways I have learned from working with these new materials from a pro-d perspective are:

• The students will help you discover how to use them! 
• Beyond the basics, students are almost always keen to jump in and start exploring right away, and they can help you figure out options or techniques that you didn’t even know existed. I know when using Bloxels for the first time, I was very open about not quite knowing how certain features worked at the time, and asked the students to let me know if they figured it out so we could share with the class.

• Exploratory time is massively helpful to my own pro-d with new technology tools.
• Taking the resource home or spending some time exploring and working with it is a very good way to become more familiar with how it works. Back to the same example of Bloxels, it is an intimidating app to start using, but spending the time “playing” in the app was a great way for me to become a lot more familiar with it and teach my colleagues how to use it.

Bloxels video tutorials
http://kids.bloxelsbuilder.com/all-tutorials

Sample lesson (Other lessons need an education account)
http://www.bloxelsbuilder.com/choose-your-own-adventure



Works Cited

thepigs (Photographer). (2012). analogue pixels [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/q1zRnu