District Technology Day: Questions of Access

The annual District Technology Day began with a plenary of District and student "experts" on teaching and learning supported by technology and was enhanced by a fantastic brunch and many different workshops on blogging, wikis, social media, Wolfram Alpha, video use, digital storytelling, Prezi, and more. 

Epic Wins and Reading ... Teen Features in a Digital World 

Stealing the opening plenary show were Digital Immersion students Ben and Laks.  Ben, a self-admitted internet addict, was a confident speaker who both charmed and worried an auditorium full of teachers; up to 15 hours a day on the internet "absorbing" its truths, he told us confidentially, assuaged his thirst for knowledge; while emerging from a learning experience deep in the net often gave him the feeling of "the epic win," Ben conceded that the social aspects of schooling were important.

Hmm!  I wondered about Googling for The Truth.  I couldn't help comparing this young man's deep fascination with the "epic win" with Csíkszentmihályi's notion of "the flow," the state that takes over during the search for and production of knowledge or creative expression, a journey that takes the seeker into "the zone" or "the groove."   He was ready for inquiry-based learning.

But it was young Laks who shared her view of the important aspects of digital schooling, whose love of books and reading was clearly paramount -- "We should visit libraries more often," she said -- after all, she told us, you can't do anything if you can't read!  I think I know which two Vancouver TLs can take credit for stoking some of her enthusiasm.  Here's one young woman already launched into Inquiry in both the reading and learning contexts.

Mmmm-hmmm!  The mouths of babes were a compelling first dimension to the morning plenary. 

Access: Not Such a Simple Concept

Dr Jordan Tinney spoke about the significance of access in educational contexts being transformed by technology, making the second dimensional connection to what Michele and I were going to talk about; we were going to be "on" today, on the same page, the button, the mark!  

Access -- not such a simple concept, in fact.  I was prepared with the slides and Michele with the activity to share the complexities of access with the group of more than 40 who attended our workshop.  Access begins simply enough as the notion of providing tools and resources to find and work with information in an age where that is expanding exponentially.  The Information Age is characterized by

• rapidly changing tools,
• increasing numbers of resources created by the digitization of text, image, and artefact,
• more demands for users to be critical, creative, communicative, and collaborative consumers of the information,
• evidence of the needs for skills for lifelong learning where citizens are able to apply what they learn to do in the workplace, post-secondary institutions, and life.

Access becomes a far more complex and essential consideration as more technology is delivered into our system.  Resources are no longer simply the textbook; they come in multiple formats, print, digital, and human/expert.   Tools, no longer simply the pen or word-processing packages, are complex, having multiple iterations, purposes, and applications.  Students and their teachers are learners who need support -- in classrooms and in professional development -- for both physical and intellectual access to these; they need support and time to learn to transform information into knowledge, to share and store (or curate, as Stephen Lamb, quoting Maryann Kempthorne, told us) the resources that increasingly they will create as well as consume.   Teachers need support in effectively integrating technology with teaching and learning.

In classrooms that strive to move beyond the textbook, in school libraries, in the hours during and beyond the school day, educators will be seeking to have access even as they work to redress the imbalances that enable some students to have more access than others. The resources, tools, and information found "in the communities" of functionality -- educational, local, global -- are at once universal, national, social, and personal; they need to be equitably distributed, current, accurate, age-appropriate; they need to reflect the wide range of interests, skills, and abilities of our students.  There needs to be freedom to make personal and pedagogical choices amongst resources and tools, to read and learn widely and deeply, to participate in a culture of reading both for pleasure and for information. 

Finally, to optimize the value of tools and resources, the system needs to be able to provide flexible access:

• to a school library as the "hub" of learning, re-designed as the Learning Commons in schools, 
• to the expertise and services of teacher-librarians as learning specialists whose work is to support access in this broadest sense,
• to production facilities that enable new possibilities for products and learning,
• to technology in differentiated instructional and learning configurations,
• to tools, including software and adaptive hardware for special needs students, 
• to real and virtual resources and services, 24/7. 

These were important links to the workshop Michele and I would be doing on the Inquiry-based approach to reading and learning, the Points of Inquiry model which supports teaching and learning for deep understanding and which is enabled by access to the services of TLs as learning specialists as well as to technology tools and all kinds of resources.

But, while the District Technology Day plenary had provided some lovely connections for our workshop around access, the need to be perfectly ready and to begin seamlessly can so easily be disjarred WHEN YOU CAN'T GET ACCESS TO THE WIRELESS INTERNET!  I had spent two hours the day before getting set up.  I have never developed a smooth recovery from the initial disappointment and stress of the bad start you get when things don't work as they should!   Thanks, Michele, for your unflappable enthusiasm and capacity for flexible delivery. 

Off my game, I failed to utter a single tweet!  For those of you interested in the site-based Twitter discourse, check it out:  #39edtech.  I have tweeted THANKS ("sent a tweet-out") today to the many TLs who attended Tech Day and who gave workshops:  Michele, Frances, Denise, Fred, and Aaron were presenting.  Thanks also to tech-keen others, like Sylvia, who presented at or attended the Livingstone SmartBoard Academy.  And thanks, Patsy and Audrey at the helm as key organizers of the event which was all very good. 
 
Here's the link to the TL Special Wiki and our Presentation, with the sources and tools: 
 
C21L & Inquiry-based Learning: Start with the Teaching & Learning

Time for Some Professional Reading ...

Did you read Charlie Naylor's 21st Century Learning: Widening the frame of focus and debate: A BCTF research discussion paper yet?   We are thrilled to have the BCTLA Points of Inquiry document both cited and quoted.  And if you are really attentive to details in reading Charlie’s paper, you will recognize the work that Sylvia has been involved in at Livingstone and the citation that includes her name.

In particular, Charlie heralds the ways in which education K-12 is being transformed by technology but cautions us to attend to the ways in which the messages about 21st Century Learning are being shaped.  They are steeped in some old understandings, such as de-schooling, and do not attend to such 21st C educational priorities such as social justice and sustainability or give credit to the many places that change is already under way in our schools. 

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Here are two documents that are must-reads -- certainly the latter is a must-scan -- as your school plans for technology and 21st Century learning:  

• From Ed Leadership this month, an issue entitled "Teaching Screenagers": A technology plan that works.  Guess what, you have to start with the teaching and learning ... then you select the the toys and tools that work best to achieve best practice.  Any plan that is founded on a brand name or a product is doomed to fail.

• The EL article above alludes to the North Carolina IMPACT media and technology integration approach which is fantastic.  It's a huge read at 347 pages but my quick review was that it would be worth spending some time on its important ideas.  In his Introduction to the document, Chairman of the NC State Board of Education Howard N. Lee writes:

We know that school library media and instructional technology programs are the foundation of a 21st Century education. The access to information that these programs afford makes the difference between the textbook-bound classroom of the past and the far-reaching, resource-based curriculum of today and tomorrow. Research tells us that instructional technology, used appropriately, results in higher test scores.  It is remarkably effective in sparking student interest, increasing motivation, and raising self-esteem, thus positively impacting student achievement. Research also tells us that a school library media center that provides up-to-date, accurate, and attractive resources managed by a professional school library media coordinator who collaborates with teachers to augment and enhance classroom instruction also results in increased test scores, especially in reading. IMPACT reflects both the reality of this research and the commitment to assuring that every teacher and student has the academic and personal advantage of access to these high quality programs.

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Feeling a need for some research on reading, literacy, and second language learning?  Thanks, Drs Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson, for the wonderfully deep Eduscapes site and these links on The School Library Media Specialist site to the significant work of Stephen Krashen.

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The 2011 Horizon Report produced annually by the New Media Consortium (That's Larry Johnson again) and Educause has just been released.  Here is one of many discussions of what are the 6 Top Trends in Technology identified in the Report.  



... Some Technology Research ...

Useful tools and resources to review and share:

• I am liking this Comox Valley English teacher Tara Colborne's blog for her Grade 11s.  Share this with colleagues.  And I couldn't agree more about the usefulness of blogging as a tool for reading and writing.  Here's an article from Ed Week:  Tech Tools Boost Literacy.
   
• WebList (create a list of URLs, images, documents, videos at a single web address to share with friends, students, colleagues) which I think has tons of instructional value.  Register to keep your discrete lists available.  Here's a great example:  Copyright-friendly Images

• The E-Book Directory for fine literature from around the world:  see the right-hand sidebar for links to YA and Children's Lit.  

• Online Maps - a definitive list of map sources available online, from the Library at Carleton University, including this one that is the subject of much tweeting this weekend:  Show/MappingWorlds.  You select a subject from the top menu and watch the countries on the map change their size. Instead of land mass, the size of each country will represent the data for that subject --both its share of the total and absolute value.

... and Some Professional Development 

Here's hoping we will see you at:

• District Technology Day Supporting Learning Through Technology on Friday, February 18.  It's at JO (8:30 to 1:30, $15) and will feature several workshops with and for TLs, including Denise doing Prezi, Aaron doing Social Media, Frances doing Blogging with Jacob (secondary science and literacy mentor) and Pawan (primary teacher and former literacy mentor), and Michele and I on Points of Inquiry as the impetus for building the school-wide plan for technology integration with teaching and learning.  Yep, that's right:  Michele is BACK!  Looking forward to seeing you there.
  
  REGISTER NOW: Supporting Learning Through Technology

• Winter Tonic:  All Wrapped Up ... February 22 at Van Tech.  Keynote Dr Eric Myers from SLAIS at UBC will discuss Social Networking.  Cheriee is presenting Book Trailers; Pat, Human Libraries; as usual, expect Adult Reads, and more.  There will be a Q & A panel for new TLs.  If you can`t find the registration form, contact Mark at Cunningham.  Send $40 to Jan at False Creek (includes VTLA membership) - $20 for out-of-district registrants.

• YSL6:  School Library Advocacy: Evidence and Image / March 4 to 18 / Check for information here.  The list of speakers includes BIG names, like Gary Hartzell, Keith Curry Lance, Stephen Krashen, and Buffy Hamilton. 

The Fresh Breeze from Kelowna's BCTLA Conference

At the BCTLA Kelowna Fresh Conference in October, the new Points of Inquiry framework document was finally launched after three years under development. The new model replaces The Research Quest and offers TLs and classroom teachers a way of planning a course for students through their learning experiences in the school. Not only can teachers use the inquiry-based reading and learning model with content in their classrooms, the framework offers a way of working collaboratively with students, as well as teacher-librarians and school libraries, to create learning opportunities that fuse curriculum learning intentions with inquiry using an array of resources, technology, literacy goals, assessment for learning, and content, developed in a collegial planning experience. TLs are excited about this. For a downloadable copy, poster, and related working materials, including Michele's video accompaniment on technology and sources of information to support inquiry-based teaching and learning, click here (BCTLA website).

Keynote Dr Jamie McKenzie stirred up "the fresh breeze" and helped us look at ourselves. Teachers and teacher-librarians have been too quiet, he said, about all the things that TLs do. "Intellectual disarmament" -- that was what McKenzie called the act of replacing TLs with aides in these times, and he lamented the tendency of our educational policy-makers and leaders to offer simple words and simple solutions to what are really very complex problems.

We live in an age characterized by the "poverty of abundance," like google results; it is an illusion to think of the richness of information when you can't find what you need. You need to know how to use Advanced Search features and Boolean operators and how corporate affiliations influence search findings. We need to push past topical research and our fascination with gadgets.

TLs have many roles: TLs offer professional development, open new landscapes, and are strong teachers of reading. They provide professional support to colleagues about technology integration and new resources; they are reading and assessment experts; they develop curriculum materials; they coach; they act as pilot, navigator, and sage; they are infotech leaders; they have long-standing roles as archivists and curators of information and materials; in their schools and their learning communities, they are weavers, storytellers, magicians, inventors, and politicians.

Read more about the place of school libraries in the new visions for learning on McKenzie's website: FromNowOn

I also attended a workshop with Carlene Walter called Reading 2.0. She is the author of "50 Ways to Love your Library" (it's so good we posted it to the BCTLA website) and one of two Disruptive Innovators (with Donna Desroches) from Saskatchewan:

As we move towards Learning Commons (or "libratories"), we need to help students both "get stuff" and "do stuff." Digital and print resources will co-exist. New technologies -- docu-cameras, flip cameras -- and resources and tools will require our services, as we help our colleagues to navigate Jstor, Wikispaces, Pageflakes, edublogs, Creative Commons, Flickr, Wolframalpha, bibme, Shelfari, youtube, voicethread, diigo, Twitter, SlideShare, Facebook, Skype, bubbl.us, pipl, EverNote, Inspiration, Webspiration, Readability, Instapaper, Glossopedia, Google News, TED Talks, Wall Wisher ... all will need to be mediated for use with teaching and learning, along with all the new terminology. Using the 7 strategies developed by Fountas & Pinnell, Carlene showed how all of these tools can be used to support reading for deep understanding, supporting building prior knowledge, making connections, asking questions, evoking images, determining importance, inferring, and synthesizing. Hmmm! Pretty close to our Points of Inquiry model of Inquiry-based Reading, don't you think! Nice work, Carlene.

Fresh for me was the docu-camera as a daily classroom tool. I so want one. Carlene says they are about $800 to $1000. Have a look at this Educational Technology Network article about Document Cameras in the Classroom.

At the Kelowna Fresh BCTLA Conference, there were tons of "fresh" ideas. That Dr Art Hister was a breath of fresh air all on his own ... and held us all in fits of laughter at 3 pm on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon with jokes and tips on staying in good health. He was the perfect ending to a lovely day. Thanks, Kelowna TLs, for taking us away and restoring our spirits ... and some who ventured thereafter to the wineries were, of course, more restored than others!

The Points of Inquiry

Inquiry-based Reading and Research

After several years of work in both the BCTLA and Vancouver Teacher-librarian Inquiry contexts, TLs Farquharson (Vancouver), Robinson (West Vancouver), Turner (Terrace), Ekdahl (Vancouver), in consultation with Daly (Coquitlam) have landed the new Points of Inquiry model for inquiry in classrooms and school libraries. Many Vancouver TLs are receiving hard copies for review and response at their May Update sessions.

To download a copy and to respond by August 1, click here to go to documents on the BCTLA website.

Look for the official launch at the 2010 KelownaFresh BCTLA Conference (in Kelowna) next October.