A Break on the Horizon

News to report this week:

Collaboration in the Library

Last week I told you about the BCTF workshop offered by our Vancouver TLs Janet, Katharine, and Michele. This week I have added their blog into the "Related Bloggers" section of the sidebar. See blog Collaboration in the Library. New TLs, this is worth your time.


UBC Infolit Project

The long-time project in which retired and practicing TLs work with elementary and primary teacher-candidates in the UBC Education program is happening now. Recently Gwen showed UBC instructors and others supporting the students how to integrate the database and electronic resources with their information literacy lessons. This week Michele and I worked with the project, alongside retirees like Sharon, Vi, Bev, Carolynn, and more, to build understandings about inquiry, resource-based learning, and the collaborative capacity of TLs.

The Bookmark

The Winter 2009 issue of The Bookmark is online now. As usual, it is a remarkable piece of work that is drawing attention for its quality and innovative format. Editors and Okanagan TLs Angie MacRitchie and Al Smith are hard-working, active, and fun members of our BCTLA Executive; we are really proud of them both. By the way, rumour has it that some members of the BCTLA Executive are saving to go to Padua for the IASL Conference at the end of the summer; there are similar rumours that more than one Vancouver TL will be there too!

In this issue find articles by Marlene Asselin, Ray Doiron, Jennifer Branch, Diane Oberg, and Margriet Ruurs, as well as the regular contributions of Greg Smith, John Goldsmith, Stew Savard, Carolyn Cutt, and Pat Parker.


The Lieutenant Governor's Literacy Program

Each month, The Honourable Steven Point posts four pictures and invites students, children, and young adults to write stories for the pictures, stories he personally will read. Wouldn't this be a wonderful opportunity for further development with digital storytelling or more of what we saw with Dr Jason Ohler?

Literacy 2.0

The March issue of Educational Leadership features the theme of "Literacy 2.0" and Dr Jason Ohler as the lead contributor with his article "Orchestrating the Media Collage" (EL March 2009). In her introduction to the issue, Marge Scherer summarizes the content as articles that will examine "what this new 2.0 literacy entails; how it differs from, yet relies on, the skills of traditional literacy; which new possibilities and challenges it raises — including how to counsel the multitasking student and how to foster the endangered capacity to read deeply; and finally, where and how literacy 2.0 should fit in K-12 curriculum and instruction."

If you missed the opportunity to hear Jason Ohler, the link to the EL article I sent out would provide an opportunity to read about what we learned and what everyone is talking about. Don't forget that EL is included in the EBSCO database package so you can search for this and other articles.

Many people who attended Technology Day at Magee with Dr Ohler have requested copies of his recent book so we will be looking at taking and placing a bulk order. Information will follow shortly, but you as the TL might want to share your resource expertise -- check who in your school would like to own a copy and where the funds can be found to put one into the school's professional collection. How many copies for your school, then?

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom:
New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity.
2008. Corwin Press.
ISBN: 9781412938501

CWILL and Planning for Author Visits

Mark at Cunningham reminds us that the very best place to find an author or illustrator for school library visits is the website for Canadian Writers and Illustrators BC (CWILLBC). We have so much local and easily accessibly talent here in Vancouver.

• Mark recommends former Vancouver teacher and award-winning children's author Robert Heidbreder for annex and elementary audiences.
  


• I can also recommend my neighbour Glen Huser, by the way, who is a former TL and TL Consultant from Edmonton as well as an GG award-winning author for his book Stitches.
  


• Melanie Jackson, local author and fellow denizen of the VSB here, is nominated for a Chocolate Lily award this year for her book Shadows on the Train.
  


• And don't forget Nancy Hundal, our very own practicing TL and children's author, whose tenth book -- a first chapter book, in fact -- is due in April.
  


• Did you hear Tiffany Poirier from Brock at Winter Tonic this year? If so, you will remember that her first book Q is for Question is due soon too.
  


• And Vi Hughes has another one coming soon too.

Great Resources -

Webspiration and Graphic Novels

Our new membership in the IASL has been worthwhile. The following info comes via IASL-Link's Gerald Brown from Winnipeg and retired consultant for Pembina Margaret Stimson:

• Did you know that the New York Times has added a new best seller list to the collection? It's the New York Times Graphic Books Bestsellers list. Librarian Joshua Carlson believes graphic novels are important for all libraries. Graphic novels have become important in our school library collections but there are still many obstacles to general acceptance this is an important format for engaging young readers. This bestseller list adds support. They are both worthwhile and worthy of recognition.



• Webspiration? It's the public beta version of Inspiration, software created for your use FREE by the same company. "Use Webspiration's diagramming environment to create bubble diagrams, flowcharts, concept maps, process flows and other visual representations that stimulate and reflect your thinking."

WebWord and Netbooks, Reviewed

From Online Edition of Costco Connection and high-tech reporter Marc Saltzman: check page 13 of the March/April 2009 edition for his "latest" on the little laptops (called "netbooks") you may be seeing around and for this valuable tool:

• WordWeb: this is a FREE downloadable dictionary and thesaurus that, if you hold down the CTRL key and right-click on any word, activates a pop-up window with the definition, synonyms, antonyms, as well as links to other sites such as Wikipedia. It can be used offline as well. It takes up 7.4 mb and has more than 150 000 root words and 120 000 synonyms. It is available in "Canadian" English.
  
• Of the new Netbooks, Saltzman says they are one of today's hottest tech tools (although I am still thinking I need a video camera like Alan Z's Vado) ... So, for cost-savings, netbooks often use Linux open-source operating systems, as opposed to Windows. The small keyboard is ideal for kids (and the lightweight affordability makes them ideal for geo-caching, I am told). They have small storage capacity and do not have the gaming or video capacity of laptops. But they are perfect for email, word processing, and checking the internet. At under $400 each, might these be the solution to some of our technology needs?

Obama cares about libraries:

"At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. It's an enormous force for good."

Barack Obama, keynote speech

American Library Association Conference, 2005

The New Literacies and Dr Leu

Dr Donald Leu, here at the invitation of the BCLCIRA from the eastern US, had lots to say about ways to integrate the new literacies into English and Language Arts classrooms. Thanks, Meredyth, for the invitation to teacher-librarians who were delighted to find their central leadership and professional development roles in this field acknowledged as significant. Dr Leu is our newest hero.

We learned that reading on the internet is not the same as reading a book and often students who struggle to read print are often more successful at reading online. The internet is a defining technology for reading and literacy; it requires students to learn new literacies and it requires teaching.

Ireland teaches technology integration to prepare a technology-proficient workforce and is now manufacturing most of the world's software. In Finland, all teachers have five week paid release time for professional development to learn about technology in teaching and learning. In Mexico, every home and school has internet access in order that its citizens are prepared for the 21st century. In Japan, every household will have internet sixteen times faster than in the US at a cost of $22 per month. Yet we in Canada and the US have no measures of internet reading and writing, despite evidence that technology has a positive impact on students' literacy abilities. This inaction puts our students at risk.

The internet requires additional reading comprehension skills. Our weakest offline readers are often strong online; they may be slow at reading but the short units of text are more manageable. Often the passages link to more short passages, images, and hypertext definitions. Students need to refine their locating skills. Search engines require inferencing skills and skills for critical evaluation. We need to teach healthy skepticism. We need to broaden students' search repertoires from "the dot/com strategy" and "click/click" to help them assess information for its reliabilities.

Dr Leu offers 10 easy steps to use the internet to change the field of reading instruction --

1. learn from exceptional online teachers; steal good ideas from the pioneers
2. view online videos about new literacies
3. use Starful
4. use Read/Write/Think
5. use Internet Workshop
6. use ePals
7. use reading comprehension strategies including locating, evaluating information
8. help the last become first; make struggling students the experts
9. explore the potential of Wikipedia
10. use internet reciprocal teaching

A really worthwhile evening.
_______________________________

Related Reading, sent by Alan Z, from New York Times, February 16, 2006"

THE FUTURE OF READING
In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update
By Mokoto Rich

"Even as more school librarians teach digital skills, they often becomethe first casualties of budget crunches ...."

Delicious Links

WWW / Working With Wikis

Researchers Build a Wiki at Moberly

This blog is being written today (Thursday afternoon) at-the-scene, live from the school library where I have been invited to help grade 7 students get started on their wiki assignment. They are going to build pages for the whole-class project -- a wiki -- on Ancient Greece. Students will research subtopics in pairs and create a report with images on pages linked to the wiki-assignment page. They have recently been introduced to and are using del.icio.us to collect the best websites for their research. They will use pbwiki to publish their work.

The product is emerging at: Ancient Greece. You will need to click on Sidebar to see the linked student-project pages.

Teacher Ms J is happy to see the students enabled by the technology to use both their creativity and their learning to create new products such as wikis. She appreciates the engagement that such assignments offer her students.

On seeing that the students are happily and fully engaged, that they are easily helping each other venture into the world of wikis, that they don't really need my expertise at all, I have found a computer, opened up this blog, and am about to interview a few of the participants to capture the "feel" of this learning experience.

The teacher is Ms J. She tells me, without hesitation,"This is the future, the new literacy that they will need to develop and understand .... It's great to see them taking steps that will help them in their futures." Ms J has been teaching for three years and is currently doing a master's degree in Language and Literacy Education. She recently took a UBC course, the same one taken by "our Mary," called The New Literacies with Instructor Dr. Marlene Asselin. She loves working with Gwen, the TL, and sees how Gwen is always looking ahead. Clearly Gwen and Ms J are deeply exploring Web 2.0 with their students.

So what do the students think of this learning experience?

• Student Monica finds that it's faster, neater, easier to use, new, and fun to learn this way. It is something you can use on your own and when you're older. She has been here at Moberly since Kindergarten and always likes coming to learn in the library.
  
• Suchjot finds it interesting to learn something new about the internet; it's "portable," she says, "so you can use it anywhere on-the-go." Suchjot thinks it's a much better way to learn because you can add and others can too, and everyone can build it and learn from it. Suchjot's words, colleagues ... can you imagine this!
  
• Harveer adds that it's cool making your own webpage; if you travel you won't have to use (or risk losing) your flashdrive because you have a wiki you can post to. It's interesting to learn new things -- the first time (learning these new and useful tools in the library) is always a privilege, he tells me. He says it's better working with the teacher and the teacher-librarian together because they know a lot of different things and it's always nice to work on the computers.

Thanks, Moberly, for the invitation! You are inspirational.

Linking Delicious Things

In keeping with Wendy C's Hot Reads talk at the February Winter Tonic where several recommended novels and mysteries included recipes, I have been meaning to include some too, yours, not mine. Tillicum-visiting with TL Sharon just before the Break yielded her wonderfully and delicious recipe for chocolate, and it's really easy -- or so she says:

Tiger Butter

3 cups white chocolate dipping wafers
½ cup milk chocolate dipping wafers
2/3 cup smooth or crunchy peanut butter

• Microwave white chocolate wafers slowly until melted (3-4 minutes in one minute intervals).
• Add peanut butter and beat until mixed.
• Spread on waxed paper to 1/8” thickness.
• Microwave milk chocolate until melted (1 minute on high).
• Spoon milk chocolate onto the white chocolate in rows 1-2” apart.
• Drag a knife or tip of a spoon gently across the rows to form the pattern.
• Air dry until hard and cut into 1” squares.

TIP - I had to ask about the chocolate "dipping wafers"; they are about the size of a nickel and are available in the bulk foods section of Save-on Foods. Sharon's Tiger Butters were perfectly peanutty squares of chocolate about the size of AfterFive Mints.

NOTE: Thanks, Barb McB and VP Darren at Tillicum for the invitation to your lovely school, and thanks, Sharon, for the tour and recipe. I am so impressed with this little annex and its lovely large library, Smartboard, lab, and program of technology integration, that I am planning to have the May Update session for Annex TLs here. We can call it "On the Urban Edge" as you will need to plan to travel to the Far Eastern reaches of our city. We are working out a date for this. Can you let me know which day of the week would be best (you can email me)?

Technology-Integration / Linking Readings for Deeper Consideration

Edutopia is a great website for keeping up with technology integration. Underpinned by the awareness that social change is faster-paced than ever before, the George Lucas Foundation envisions a new world of learning, an education system where innovation is the rule, not the exception ... well, you can read this by clicking onto the "about us" page. But there are some great articles to be considered from amongst the Priority Topics. I offer this suggestion as a starter:

Adopt-and-adapt: shaping tech for the classroom by Marc Prensky (or, 21st century schools need 21st century technology). Prensky (2005) posits the notion of "digital immigrants" and "digital natives." Many of us, he would suggest, are the "conservators" of our culture and are resistant to change but resisting today's digital technology "will be truly lethal to our children's education"! He's pretty provocative, is Prensky, and I actually don't agree with him.

Here's what I think: Learning anything new takes time ... something many of us in education don't have a lot of ... and there is heightened anxiety attached to our "adult" learning about technology that needs to be acknowledged. We need not be viewed as "immigrants" but as students on the learning continuum who need to be "scaffolded" across the points of frustration.

Not immigrants, but learners, we are also educators steeped in critical capacities that enable us to offer students the thinking skills as our part of the technology-learning equation where often they are the teachers. Certainly their sense of adventure in the technological learning environment is what leads us on ... but this is not a colonial enterprise; it's a partnership where our relationship to what is being learned has changed. We have not changed who is the expected master or authority for learning and who is the "slave" or obedient recipient of knowledge, but rather we are seeing a flattening of the leadership roles -- a blurring of the boundaries or borders -- in relationship to acquiring and transforming knowledge. We are all required to become lifelong learners. The statement about the importance of being a lifelong learner is not just for our students. We are not "behind" our native students trying to catch up but rather "beside" them bringing different capacities to the collaborative learning experience.

How's that for an analysis? And Ms J and her students are right: every student needs to leave school knowing how to do these things and how to think about them.

You will undoubtedly want to read more from the Edutopia Priority Topics page. Here's Prensky's (Feb 2008) concept of literacy explained. Prensky is a little too techno-bedazzled in his thinking for me, but it's a great place to start in considering your own place and the place of your school library program, as well as district directions for school libraries in relation to these ideas.

Check out the free Edutopia teaching modules too.

Here's a great article: "U.S. educators seek lessons from Scandinavia High-scoring nations on an international exam say success stems from autonomy, project-based learning," by Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News. I thought it advisable not to ask about the recent e-testing! Abstract for the article reads: "A delegation led by the Consortium for School Networking recently toured Scandinavia in search of answers for how students in that region of the world were able to score so high on a recent international test of math and science skills [PISA]. They found that educators in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark all cited autonomy, project-based learning, and nationwide broadband internet access (emphasis mine) as keys to their success."

Thanks, again, Moberly and Tillicum too: you've got us thinking! You are engaged in cutting-edge learning.