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

LIBE447B: Developing your own ICT Skills and Pedagogy

Ongoing Skills development and Pedagogy are important aspects of being an educator. There are many ways to do this, but one way that has been helping me this school year are various professional networks of other teachers.

This year, I have been a part of the Surrey Schools mentorship program for both new and new-to-role teachers in the librarian cohort. This is a slightly different mentoring style that involves 2-3 mentors and several mentees, rather than one-on-one. This relationship has been very helpful in my first year as a teacher librarian, both for lesson and layout ideas as well as having a support network to bounce ideas off of and see what others are doing. If you are part of Surrey School District, I highly recommend the program.To find out more, please check the link below.

https://mentor36.com/

I am also part of a large email thread of all the teacher librarians in the district, which functions like a message board. Everyone has an account on the basis of needing it for work, which is both good and bad; it risks cluttering email inboxes and messages getting skipped. I am wondering if a different medium might be more efficient for the same functionality, but for what it is I think it works well for asking a question or starting a short discussion. As a new TL, this has been great for a quick question or resource share.

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of jon satrom

One challenge area for me is becoming more active on broader professional networks such as twitter, if nothing else but to follow and contribute. I see the value in these networks but I sometimes find it difficult to properly engage and feel like I am contributing.

Another area I hope to improve upon is sharing and putting my work out there in a general sense. As Richardson notes in Why School?, “We can raise the teaching profession by sharing what works, taking the best of what we do and hanging it on the virtual wall” (2012). It’s so great to see lessons and other materials shared by other teachers, so it only makes sense to do the same.

Earlier this year, I shared a full lesson centered around the book Faraway Fox by Jolene Thompson that incorporates core competencies and a STEM activity. We put it up on the book of the year website (see last post), although when those areas update for next year it will likely change. Here it is again if you are looking for a lesson to try:

Works Cited

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

Satrom, J. (Photographer). (2011). Reconnecting... [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/aWNi6e

LIBE 447B: Fostering Reading Cultures in Schools

There are a number of initiatives that we have been doing in our library learning commons, some being carried over from the previous school year before I arrived in this position. In this post I will share a few of them along with potential changes we could make here and there.

We have an “EZ reading” category present in the library, and I have had some reluctance about continuing with that system. I find that it could be potentially embarrassing for students reading at a slightly lower level if they find themselves needing to go to the “EZ” section to find a book. I also do not want students to feel “restricted” to just this section. The issue I have been facing with this is the labeling - all books in the section are tagged with the EZ classification sticker along the spine, and making broad changes is not an easy task.

I am very supportive of free book choice in the library. I will often let students take books that are at their interest, but potentially above their reading level. Instead of not allowing students to take the book, I will often recommend a second book to go along with the first.

I think this ties in to the much broader discussion of book leveling. This is a huge topic, but one of the potential downsides is having students feel restricted. In the article “Leveled Text: The Good News and the Bad News”, Brabham notes “some teachers described school or classroom collections of books sorted by reading levels that confine students to browsing and reading in a color-coded or level-designated range" and "such practices deny students the opportunity to develop strategies and motivation to locate and immerse themselves in appealing literature" (2002). In this case, it is not a leveled system in the traditional sense (just an EZ section), but it does offer some of the same drawbacks. I was considering a possible reclassification of this section in the future, but for now it remains as it is.

State Library in Stuttgart, Germany. From Stadtbibliothek, Stuttgart, by J. Urdaneta, 2014, https://flic.kr/p/j4xLvx Copyright 2014 by J. Urdaneta.

In another example of fostering a reading culture, our school participated in the “book of the year” vote for our district this school year. Several books are chosen as nominees by a committee, and students get a chance to vote for their favourite book in the month of May. I think this has been a great way to encourage a reading culture centered around these particular books, and gives students common ground to share and discuss their favourites. New to this year was the narrative nonfiction vote, which incorporated nonfiction titles into the mix. I have the links to the info pages for each vote below (the grade 4-7 fiction page has already been updated to next year, but you can find that below as well. Overall, I think this has been a very successful program, and I hope to continue with it in the future.

Links:
Surrey Schools’ Picture Book of the Year Website:
https://sites.google.com/view/surreyreads

Surrey Schools’ Narrative Nonfiction Book of the Year Website:
https://sites.google.com/view/surreyreadsnonfiction

Surrey Schools’ Book of the Year Website:
https://thessboy.weebly.com/


Works Cited

Brabham, E. G., & Villaume, S. K. (2002). Leveled Text: The Good News and the Bad News. Reading Teacher, 55(5), 438-41.

Urdaneta, J. (Photographer). (2014). Stadtbibliothek, Stuttgart. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/j4xLvx