Online information searching: Elementary students and cognitively appropriate practices

February 21, 2010 by · No Comments · ICT Skills, Journal Type Entries, teaching

“I don’t know what to put here.” The second grade student stared at her computer screen and pointed to her African animal worksheet, where the fill-in-the-blanks were still blank. The screen displayed mostly small text, many links, and a large animated ad. I asked her what information she sought, and she again pointed to the worksheet. I read the questions–you can guess what they asked: Where in Africa does your animal live? Describe its habitat. What does your animal eat? Who are its enemies? How does it move? Describe what it looks like.” To show results of the information search, students had to type a report in Word, using the facts about their animal. Typical questions coming from students on this step of the project: “How do I start? What do I type? How do you make a capital J? How can I  get the typing to go on the next line? Everything I typed is gone–where is it? How can I get the title in the middle?”

The children had a list of links provided by their computer teacher (who is in his first year of teaching). Due to his inexperience, the websites he chose to satisfy the requirements of the teacher-assigned project were developmentally inappropriate for second graders. That child had clicked on an embedded link, taking her to a page that offered no relevant information. Additionally, the second graders had had no prior instruction in the basics of word processing and were expected to produce a typed report.  I happened to be in the lab helping the computer teacher, as the teacher was not present due to a parent conference; the teachers are encouraged to attend with their classes, but do not always. It takes two adults to manage 18 children in a lab.

As chair of our 1-12 instructional technology and department, my responsibilities this year have me dividing time between our lower (elementary) and upper (high school)  campuses. We are in the first year of a faculty technology initiative and I work with our lower school teachers to help them use technology for their personal productivity and to integrate it in their subject areas. I continue my collaborations with high school teachers as the librarian, in addition to any other tech integration they need. Yes, it sounds as if we are 10-15 years behind, but that isn’t really the case.

I have had the pleasure of collaborating and team teaching with 5th, 3rd, and 2nd grade social studies. I have also observed several “research” projects in the lab and library. Through these collaborations and observations, I reaffirmed what I know about information problem-solving in the elementary grades from when I was an elementary teacher-librarian eleven years ago:

  1. Elementary-age children need a lot of practice in extracting information from print sources (on-shelf encyclopedias; age-appropriate nonfiction books; and possibly, simply-written, printed webpages) before they strike off on their own to use pages online–even those pages that educators bookmark for them.
  2. Teachers, and ultimately their students, will be better-served if they collaborate with their teacher-librarian when developing projects that require students to search for information. The teacher-librarian knows age-appropriate resources and can teach much-needed information skills at point of need, including the entire Big6 process, or simply reinforce basic skills such as keyword/related words or trash-n-treasure note taking.
  3. The first webpages children should use for information finding should be from World Book, Britannica, or other elementary online encyclopedias. They have fairly large text, no ads, very few links, and are simply organized. If young elementary students use webpages, they should have few words and no embedded links. Ads should be minimal or not present at all.
  4. If young students are struggling, it is OK to point them to the exact section or passage that contains the needed information, either in print or online.
  5. Inexperienced teachers should not be expected to know sources and practices that are cognitively appropriate for each age. They need guidance from an experienced educator.
  6. It takes more than one educator to plan for, teach, and monitor a group of students who are using online sources for information gathering.
  7. Finally, educators should strive to make the information gathering process worthwhile by asking children to go beyond the information found in sources when they show their results. Children should add value to the experience by adding original ideas or using the information in a higher-level manner, such as weaving the facts into a fictional story or making decisions about the topic based on the information gathered. Stay away from what Mike Eisenberg calls “sugar-coated” products (an igloo made from sugar cubes!).

What else would you add to this list?

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Collaboration is really open source teaching

February 13, 2010 by · No Comments · General Info, ICT Skills, Journal Type Entries, teaching

In Clay Shirky’s “Here comes everybody,” he discusses the creation and development of Linux that “helped propel the idea of collaboratively created (or ‘open source’) software into the world” (p. 240). I immediately made the connection to collaborations in our schools. When teachers and librarians, as well as any other educator on the campus, collaborate in planning a unit of instruction, they are adding specialized expertise and experience (specific source code) to the project. The benefit the students who engage in rich learning experiences resulting from the collaboration.

What is open source teaching?
It is what I used to call collaboration. The teacher brings the content area expertise and knowledge about the individual students in her class. The librarian brings a vast range of experience and knowledge in information skills, useful tools, and resources. The technologist knows just which technologies will be effective for students to show their results. All, if experienced educators, bring developmentally appropriate methods for teaching and learning to the planning process. Of course, not all school have the luxury of these positions. But, those available, pool their expertise. The configuration of contributors may likely change as the learning objectives change. The source code is the knowledge and expertise that goes into the collaboration.

Why open source teaching?
The student is the beneficiary of this vast range of knowledge and experience. This open source method of teaching is a win-win for everyone, most of all, the student, but especially the teacher. No longer does the teacher have the responsibility of possessing ALL knowledge, ALL skills, and ALL methodologies that a student needs in one school year. And, why can’t open source extend to student learning also, as in the benefits of group inquiry? That is another conversation.

By the way, I searched “open source teaching” to see if anyone else had the same idea. What I found was a project in which students can connect with experts. Not what I am talking about, but has potential to add another source to the collaboration. I believe that open source teaching (no capital letters) is educators working together in a face-to-face setting to offer their expertise (source code) for the benefit of student learning–a good explanation of what we refer to as collaboration.

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Two camps

February 8, 2010 by · No Comments · ICT Skills, Journal Type Entries, teaching

Recently, I presented a full-day workshop to 65 teacher-librarians and a handful of English Language Arts teachers from the greater Dallas area. The topic was curriculum integration and collaboration between librarians and teachers, specifically focusing on the new English language arts TEKS (state standards). We studied the TEKS as would be taught through collaboration, deconstructed a collaborative unit, and looked at strategies that facilitate collaboration and student engagement, including useful 2,0 tools such as wikis and Google documents and forms.

To my continued disappointment, only a few librarians and teachers were familiar with wikis and Google Docs. Not the first time I have encountered this phenomena. I didn’t even ask who was actively using them, as the few hands up would have decreased even more. I say continued disappointment, because I often get the same response from librarians when I present. A large majority are still in the 1.0 world (or even pre-1.0) in their instructional practices. Now this response is only from those sites who invite me in. I cannot speak for any other sources. Also, the librarians who attend obviously are there to learn about the current practices. But, there are MANY school librarians who are on the cutting edge in the use of 2.0 tools in their professional lives and in integrating in their instruction to facilitate student learning. I know this because I have several PLNs and am involved with these colleagues on a national level. A recent email discussion (I know–it sounds so 1.0!) about the need for our national organization to try to move more teacher-librarians into the use of new media lends me to believe that the lack of new media skills is prevalent in my field. Teacher-librarians are of two camps–those of us who are motivated to try new media and find professional and instructional applications and those who are content with how they have always done things. I know other professions probably have the same dichotomy. Teacher-librarians really need to move into the 21st century in their practices–we have enough trouble keeping our jobs and convincing our Boards and administrators of our importance.

School librarians who are content to read to children, promote literature, and build their print collections will eventually find that they are dispensable, such as the situation in California where school librarians are rare. I am not advocating getting rid of literature appreciation and book collection and check out. However, those practices can be outsourced if that is all the librarian is doing. Those librarians who collaborate with teachers by planning and teaching ICT skills integrated into the content area curriculum, who introduce and support the use of new media for teaching and learning, and who collect and organize quality digital resources for their school community become important members of the teaching faculty and should have a higher chance of being retained during personnel cuts.

To further add to the disappointment, the workshop evaluations had teachers complaining because librarians were in the audience, and librarians complained that teachers were there. Let’s use the opportunity to collaborate instead of fuss at each other’s presence.

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True inquiry in our schools

January 9, 2010 by · No Comments · General Info, ICT Skills, Journal Type Entries, teaching

bookIt has been too long since I have posted. My doctoral studies keep me busy, but that really isn’t a good enough excuse. A group of us are reading the new book Comprehension and collaboration: Inquiry circles in action by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels, Heinemann. Here is my latest post to the TeacherLibrarianNing discussion group:

I finished the book last evening sitting in front of the fireplace with one of my dogs (it is really cold in Austin right now!). She didn’t mind me using her new princess bed for my book rest. MollyFireplace

Since my university studies resume soon, I won’t have time to discuss the book chapter by chapter so I am making some general comments here. With the exception of a lack of quality collaboration with the school librarian (there was one good example), the book effectively operationalizes the kind of quality teaching and learning that many school librarians have been promoting for years–a move away from teacher-directed, out-of-context, yearly research projects to true student inquiry, using the information search process as a way of learning curriculum content and satisfying personal curiosity.

I already bought a copy of the book for the Academic Dean of our 1-12 grade school. For a number of years, I have tactfully expressed concern about the amount of content we feel obligated to cover in a school year for each course, especially in the humanities and sciences. The extensive coverage leaves little time to learn a scope and sequence of important information and communication technology (ICT) skills. While teachers are willing to collaborate with me to integrate ICT skills into their classes, they don’t provide many occasions for those opportunities and also not many days for me to work with their classes. I cram in as much as I can to provide the skills students need for a particular project, but it is never enough. Students do not get the quality and quantity of instruction for the ICT skills because teachers have so much content to cover. In many (most?) cases, students do not get opportunities to discover and explore their interests within the content areas by delving deeply into a topic.

The Academic Dean agreed to read the book in its entirety (I think that this is necessary in order to capture the complete picture and set of strategies). If he thinks it has merit for our school (and he will), then he and I will put together a study group of interested teachers to read it and explore its possibilities for moving our curriculum and methodologies forward.

I am not worried about the lack of representation for genuine librarian/teacher collaboration in the book. I believe that once our teachers begin implementing true inquiry in their classrooms, that they will NEED and WANT my help and assistance –with teaching ICT skills and in identifying a variety of resources, including the premium content available through our subscription databases. I really don’t see how teachers can do everything that the authors suggest in the way of gathering resources or in teaching necessary ICT skills. One of the weakest aspects of the book (other than the librarian connection) was the lack of identification of ICT skills (the mention a few such as evaluation of sources) and strategies for integrating them in the inquiry process. True inquiry cannot happen without teaching students appropriate ICT skills at point of need, and the school librarian is the best partner for that collaboration.

The examples in the book did not, for the most part, mention effective use of participative technology tools. This is another area that I can work with teachers as we plan for inquiry work. Librarians can promote the effective use of Web 2.0 tools in the inquiry process—for teachers and students to communicate and organize information and ideas and for connection among students in and out of the school. Librarians and technologists (if schools have both) can work with students to use appropriate technology tools to show their results and take additional action, and to extend their audience. I hardly see how true inquiry can occur without the full use of Internet resources and tools available on the free and fee-based Web. (Of course, teachers and librarians can use this argument to make a case to provide full access to participative tools to those administrators who wish to restrict access. But, this is a whole other conversation!)

All in all, I was extremely pleased with the book, as it affirms and operationalizes the real learning process that many of us have been promoting for years, and provides many thoughtful and engaging ideas for discussion and action. I do like that in the management chapter, it offers ways for teachers to move into inquiry for some of their curriculum, and does not expect a teacher to abandon what they know and start completely over. This would be the sure way to kill the initiative in our case. It is a convenient package to deliver to those in my school who know that some of what we are doing now may be in need of revision, but are hesitant about how to articulate it and make it happen. And, I’ll be right there to add the ICT and librarian collaboration!

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Schools senselessly block Web 2.0 tools

June 7, 2009 by · 3 Comments · General Info, Journal Type Entries

School librarians have always been on the forefront of identifying, using, and introducing new technology tools into the curriculum and know that the Internet is rich with (mostly) free tools that allow students and teachers to collaborate. A different sort of concern I have is the increase of technology directors and staff blocking access from all students to those Web 2.0 tools that allow for participation and communication with others on the Internet. These tools, to my knowledge, do not fall under the filtering mandate for schools receiving e-rate funds. I understand IT staff and administrators concern about predators, network hacking, and other imagined disastrous effects the media has grossly sensationalized, and I understand administrators trying to protect their students.

In my work with teachers and librarians around Texas and other states, they complain that they cannot use wikis, blogs, Nings, and a host of other tools due to blocking. When I posed this problem to our Texas librarians list, One librarian wrote me… “Blocking does indeed make me crazy. After TLA, I came back fired up and ready to try some of the new ideas I had heard, such as your presentation, Collaboration 2.0, only to find my path blocked at so many points. I have sometimes been able to get things unblocked, but that often takes time and certainly dampens my enthusiasm for trying new ideas.”

Another said “Amen sister!” Ours is so closed we can’t do anything even close to web2.0 or advanced collaboration.” And then another one reads… “You go girl! Thank you for saying what I have been thinking for months. They are probably monitoring this email even as we speak!”
Also, as we introduce these new tools, many teachers are still not too knowledgeable about the read/write web and are not accustomed to their students participating with unknown collaborators or publishing to an unidentified audience. Librarians know that it raises students’ level of concern to have a real, even if unknown, audience. Students have a reason, besides just a grade, to show their best work. But, some teachers are still reluctant to use these new tools.

I believe that we can come up with a positive rationale to use these tools in the curriculum and list of ways these tools can be configured for maximum security for students and the school networks? Too many wonderful chances for collaboration are being wasted because curriculum decisions are often being made by those who are not educators and are scared of losing control. I think if we present a united front with a positively worded rationale, superintendents or other central administrators who have education backgrounds can direct the IT staff to relax the blocking restrictions for those tools we are trying to use. AASL could do us a great service if it would craft a position statement that we could use to give us some words to rationalize the use of web 2.0 tools to our administrators and IT staff. I don’t know what I’d do without my wikis.

What are some ways you have convinced IT staff and your administrators to give access to Web 2.0 tools? Will showing examples alone prove that these tools have positive implications on teaching and learning?

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Using Second Life as a Venue for PD

May 24, 2009 by · No Comments · Journal Type Entries, Presentations, Resources

If you haven’t attended a seminar sponsored by ALA or ISTE on Second Life, then you are missing a valuable opportunity to hear about some timely topics and converse with your colleagues from around the U.S. and the world. In January, I logged into Second Life for the first time so that I could hear Mike Eisenberg. While awkward at first, the venue is amazingly engaging and well worth the learning curve (it isn’t that bad, actually). Since then I have attended two other seminars featuring Joyce Valenza and Will Richardson. Last week, my co-author Marla McGhee and I presented about keeping school libraries relevant in the age of accountability. Since we are fairly unknown, our attendance was sparse compared to the others, but the participants kept the discussion lively and had definite opinions about topics of concern. We discussed the accountability system and the effects it has on school libraries including collaboration and text leveling, the hurdles in integrating the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, developing a culturally competent collection, and the blocking of Web 2.0 tools in schools. While our avatars stood in the same place the entire session, the awkwardness faded as soon as we started. One can control the movements of the avatar, but we are not as experienced as some and chose to concentrate on not messing up and to keep up with the questions on the chat log. I think that in time, one can get proficient. Lisa Perez (aka Elaine Tulip) is so good at managing her avatar AND literally setting the stage for the session AND calming nervous presenters and newly born attendees.

At a party last evening, a skeptical neighbor asked me just what was so special about PD in Second Life that you couldn’t do say, on a video conference. Well, I said… You can

  1. attend quality seminars, most for free, from the comfort of your easy chair in your old shorts and t-shirt.
  2. interact with colleagues from all over the world
  3. meet new people
  4. chat or talk using a microphone
  5. get notecards from the presenters
  6. see accompanying slide show and photos of the presenters
  7. join online supporting organizations
  8. IM private messages
  9. keep a record of the chat log
  10. “see” others in the group

The list goes on and on. If you haven’t been to a seminar in Second Life, put it on your list of things to do next fall when ALA/AASL kicks off their new season of professional development seminars. Give birth to your avatar this summer so you are ready next fall.

Honoring a Great School Library Advocate

March 28, 2009 by · No Comments · General Info, Journal Type Entries, Presentations

\(From left: Elizabeth Polk, Carlyn Gray, Marla McGhee, Jill Stimson, Barbara Jansen)

Dr. Marla W. McGhee should be named as the “Century’s Best Friend and Advocate of School Libraries.” Since 1989 she has learned more about and done more to promote school libraries than probably any other individual. On Thursday night, Elizabeth Polk, Director of Library Services for Austin I.S.D.; Carlyn Gray, Director of Library Services for Round Rock I.S.D., Jill Stimson, Librarian, Hill Elementary, Austin I.S.D.; and Barbara Jansen, Librarian, St. Andrew’s School, Austin, TX, honored Dr. McGhee for her unwaivering support and advocacy of school libraries by submitting her name for the Texas Association of School Librarian’s Administrator of the Year Award. Unfortunately, the Association did not choose her this year. Actually, I nominated her in 1992 and 1993 also. But the four of us know how incredibly deserving she is. Here are a few of the marvelous ways she supports and talks about school libraries:

  • She served as the principal for Live Oak Elementary (I was her librarian), C.D. Fulkes Middle School (Carlyn), and Hill Elementary (Jill) and increased our budgets, help us to acquire new technology and materials, promoted the library media program in the curriculum, and fought for and won a new library for Hill.
  • As a professor at Texas State University, San Marcos, she included the library media program when working with school administrative interns. Over 800 prospective principals and assistant principals learned how a well-supported library media program will engage students in learning and increase scores.
  • As a co-author of The Principal’s Guide to a Powerful Library Media Program (2005, Linworth Books), Marla is frequently requested by state library associations (Texas–5 years, Indiana, Missouri) and school districts to help administrators and librarians collaborate effectively. She and I are working on the second edition of the book to be published Fall 2010. She has also written several articles about effective library media programs.
  • In her position as professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, she offered a session to student teachers on how the school library media program can assist them in their teaching and learning.
  • As Interim Director of Staff Development for Staff Development for Austin I.S.D, Marla speaks at librarian meetings, offering strategies for good communication with their principals. She also promotes the library every chance she gets in administrative meetings.

Should she have won the TASL award? You decide.

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Using Wikis for Collaborating With Teachers

March 21, 2009 by · No Comments · Instructional use of blogs and wikis, Resources

ImageChef Word Mosaic - ImageChef.com

Using wikis in collaboration has added a dynamic dimension to working with teachers. I had not really articulated just how they made a difference until I started planning two presentations I am giving in April at the Texas Library Association and the Missouri Assoication of School Librarians. I like the initial stages of planning a workshop or presentation–the brainstorming of topics, selecting the most relevant ones, then putting those into an outline. Unlike most presentations where I use PowerPoint, I decided that this one would be given using a wiki so I set about finding good images. A nice discovery was the new Word Mosaic tool in Image Chef. Not unlike Wordle, it takes your list of words and crafts them into a shape of your choice. However, it does not create the sizes of words based on the frequency. It simply makes a pleasing picture with your words (see above). I chose black and soft white to match the Glogster collage I chose for the opening page.

The purpose of this post is not the Word Mosaic tool, but the topics I chose to include in my presentation, and the subtopics and supporting details of the outline. It turned out to be a how-to on collaboration and the use of wikis as a tool for it, that results in a one-stop shopping experience for students after the direct instruction is over. Instead of listing the topics and details, the link here will take you through the process, along with supporting evidence. What should I add? Where can I get examples? Collaboration wiki

Idaho Falls 21st Century Skills Conference: Collaboration At Its Best

March 15, 2009 by · No Comments · ICT Skills, Journal Type Entries, teaching

Even though it was 16 degrees outside, participants were hot with effective and innovative ideas for integrating the Big6 and higher level thinking skills into their Idaho science standards. Groups of librarian and science teachers from around the state participated in a 2.5 day seminar: Critical Learning Skills in the 21st Century:Collaborating for Student Success sponsored by the Idaho Commision on Libraries. Julie Walker and Keith Curry Lance started the session Sunday night and Bob Berkowitz took over Monday with the Big6. On Tuesday, he led the group, with me assisting, through a writing session wit the parties collaborating to integrate the state’s databases into the science curriculum using the Big6 as the framework. In the afternoon, I facilitated their sharing session and closure. The dynamics of the teacher/librarian teams brought the best minds together to design units of instruction for middle and high school students. Questions they had to ask themselves as they planned were:

Does this instructional unit:

  • help students master Idaho science standards?
  • promote quality learning experiences?
  • promote knowledge use, creation, and production?
  • promote guided inquiry?
  • incorporates higher order thinking skills?
  • help students build knowledge?
  • move students beyond access & location to construction and assessment?
  • keeps student engaged with ideas?
  • gives students life-long learning intellectual tools?
  • teaches students to be good researchers?
  • help students manage information?

Those are good questions we can ask ourselves when we collaborate with teachers to integrate those 21st century skills and attitudes into their curriculum. And, a high level of engagement in the planning process should transfer to enthusiastic instructional delivery.

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How valuable should we feel?

March 4, 2009 by · No Comments · Journal Type Entries

How often does a high school librarian teach classes as a result of collaborating with teachers? That is my passion, yet I do not feel that I do this enough. I believe that teachers get busy with the daily-ness of their lives and we fall off  their radar. I try to encourage teachers to plan with me, but in the daily-ness of my duties as instructional technology chair of the 1-12 school, that falls off my radar, too. If I am working on people-less activities and checking off items on a to-do list or completing a project, is that valuable work? Somehow, I don’t think so. I know in my head that it is important, but it does not make me feel like I am contributing directly to teaching and learning. So, I am exploring other avenues. Stay tuned…