Collaboration and presentations

You have read about what Berger said about Content Collaboration and what Harris et al said about instructional planning and  technology integration.  What do you think?

Content Collaboration

This week we discussed several ways to foster participation and interest in the class room through content collaboration. We've talked about several of the ways to include students in the classroom in the past. These include: wikis, blogs, diigo, and group spaces. The main objective of these sites is to draw students into a discussion outside the walls of the classroom and create original content. 

In the past I've voiced concerns about how technology can be troublesome in terms of privacy and conduct in the classroom. The current standards set out by the American Association of School Librarians urge librarians to foster collaboration between students and exchange ideas openly. As we progress through the course I've seen several safe ways to help achieve these goals. 

The wiki is a clear contender for safe and effective collaboration. Wikispaces allows teachers to create classroom websites that are monitored by the teacher and updated by the students. Discussion forums can be created and assignments can be posted. These pages can be commented on by students and elaborated on by the entire class. Wikis are incredibly adaptive and interactive. They're able to fit the needs of the classroom. Blogs are more like journaling. They're not as adaptive but can help students find a confident voice.  

Regardless of what fosters collaboration, the point is to foster it at all. Help students create new ideas through collaboration. I'm confident there are safe ways to establish interactive web spaces for students. 

Llennon, . TPACK. 2012. Chart. Wikipedia
CommonsWeb. 27 Oct 2013. <http://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tpack.jpg>CommonsWeb. 27 Oct 2013. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tpack.jpg>. Reproduced
by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org

TPACK

Another topic we discussed this week was TPACK or Technology Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. The diagram to the right shows the basic concept of TPACK which is identifying the various knowledge areas educators must have to competently integrate and teach technology in the classroom.

These three area overlap and contribute to each other to affect the way an educator creates content. Planning around educators knowledge and how to best meet the educational needs of the students. This could mean varying lesson techniques and incorporated different types activities to reach out to different types of learners. I recently went to a training on Digital Literacy and the adult learner. The first half of this training focused on how to reach out to the learners based on the different ways in which they learn best. 

Presentations

The last segment of this week was focused on presentations and how they fit into learning. The powerpoint this week focused on how to set up slides and effective powerpoint creation. I enjoy making powerpoint presentations. I'm currently teaching a series of technology classes at the library I work at and Powerpoint is a major tool I use in these classes. I try to vary the activities and how I teach them but powerpoint gives students a clean way of getting the facts. The powerpoint gave tips on slides including: creating maximum impact with few words, making bulleted lists, and using apt images. 

I think Prezi is a good tool for presentations as well but they have their place. They are better for self guided presentations because they advance naturally. Powerpoint presentations feel more forced and stale but are easy to navigate for beginners. 

Digital Citizenship

You have read about Digital Citizenship.  Do you as the teacher librarian, school library media specialist, whatever your designation, see yourself having a role in educating students in this area?  Can you see yourself as a champion for this type of education?  How do you feel about student education in the area of the 3Cs?

To start I'd like to discuss cyber safety and the role of the librarian. The internet can be an unsafe place for those who don't know its dangers. Children are especially vulnerable to this danger because they don't know what it is that can go wrong or how they are in danger. Of those children, those who are most endanger are the ones who are an at risk population in reality. From the learnings this week I've discovered that a lot of the unwanted solicitation of children is through chat rooms and instant message. Some of the perpetrators are minors themselves.  

The Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies video went over some important information regarding the current state of internet safety. As a librarian our jobs are to be part of a team that teaches children how to safely navigate the internet. Although we're part of a team,  "Parents are the best intervention point for bullying and sexual solicitation" (Palfrey). This means reaching out to parents as well as educators. What we must refuse to do, is nothing at all. If we don't teach them how to prepare for a digital world we're doing them a disservice. We must "...educate our kids so that they can interact with the dangers of the world."(Palfrey)

This brings us to the nine factors of Digital Citizenship. The nine areas hope to ensure that students are able to function in a digital world and there are many ways that librarians can help with this. Hopefully our schools will be brimming with technology that students can explore and implement in their studies. We hope to be in a unique and special position of meeting students when they're on the search for information. We can assist them in their quest and teach them how to be good digital citizens at the same time. I think a good way way to do this would be to approach it in three ways: direct instruction, passive information, and outreach. 

Direct classroom instruction in the library through a planned curriculum can help give students a basis of knowledge on what it is to use technology in an appropriate way. This means setting aside part of your day with students to instruct them on citizenship topics. This doesn't have to be a lengthy presentation but rather 5 minutes set aside on the topic of piracy or copyright. Passive information should be used to reinforce direct instruction. This could be in the form of handouts or book marks. This is to keep the information fresh even when they are not at the library. The third would be outreach. This means reaching out to other teachers to allow them to teach a mini unit in their classroom. Perhaps teaming up with the technology teacher to create content. It also means reaching out to parents to make them understand the basis of the curriculum and why we're teaching it. This would be my approach to teaching this in the classroom.

Contact, content, conduct, the three C's of digital citizenship. I think an overarching curriculum can address all of these issues while teaching more digital skills. The three C's can help decrease the occurrence of bullying and cyber harassment.  Although the data is still pending on whether this type of bullying is increasing, it's important for students to understand there is a type of decorum and behavior they should display online. 

Overall I think these are important issues for librarians to discuss but with a measured approach they can be addressed easily. We are strapped for time in the library but by teaming up with classroom teachers we might be able to reach more students. 



Palfrey, John, perf. ISTTF: Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies. Perf. Dannah Boyd. The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2009. Film. 17 Oct 2013. <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5032>.

Ribble, Mike. (2008-2009) “Passport to Digital Citizenship”.   Leading and Learning with Technology. 14-17.

School Website Design

Before the readings what did you think a library website should provide, what issues did it need to address, if any?  Did you have an exemplar site that you know about?  Has anything you read this week changed your ideas?  How? How not?

Before reading the materials I thought that school websites should provide several services. The first is that it should provide students a place to access the library catalog easily, both at home and school. Another important attribute would be a page that is a source for research information and guides. This feature would be especially important for secondary education. Additionally, school library website should give students guidance when it comes to copyright and citation.

Added features for a website would be interactive features and book discussions. Make the website both a social and educational meeting place for the library.

I've been researching a few school library websites through my course work and have come across several that I have found both useful and educational. One example would be the Canandaigua Middle School library website.

http://www.canandaiguaschools.org/webpages/mdyroff/index.cfm

I think this site does a good job of combining form and function into one. It offers students many areas to explore, but it doesn't feel heavy or over done. It includes unique options such as: book fair, library statistics, and games.

Some things the readings made me think about this week: using images in website design. I've designed several websites in the past and a few of those used images as links or scroll over images. I can see how this could be a problem for those who are visually impaired. It might also be an issue for mobile users. Often images don't load properly on tablets or phones. This would cause huge problems for those users if the images were links.

I found navigation to be a key issue in building a website. When creating the navigation features of a website you should be thinking of the ease of use. I think a lot of websites assume that people are familiar with how websites work and flow. What I've learned through my coursework is that we should never assume a student or patron knows how to do anything, ever. Make navigation simple! Make if easy and fun! make it self evident and if not make a  way back to the homepage so people don't get to lost.

On my search I found this interesting website:
http://faillab.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/the-ugly-truth-about-library-websites/

This website offers great criticism and advice for school websites. In my opinion, it might not be so bad to ask librarians to take a web design class. It might help libraries become more functional and accessible to their patrons.

Fair Use and Libraries

When we were asked the question "What does the general population think about fair use and copyright?" It left me thinking, 'not much'. From working in libraries and taking library course I have more experience with this than most. I think most high school and college students have to deal with this topic as well but it can often be a second thought.

In general, I assume most people that if you are using something for an educational purpose than it's acceptable. I think this means they also believe they aren't required to cite most work other than those directly quoted.

This website is a great resource for teachers who are interested in using materials at the school but unsure of their copyright restrictions. Copyright and Schools 

Although now that I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure how to cite this...

What I've learned through this lesson is that copyright is not a black and white issue. Fair use isn't either. Teachers should be aware that they are not allowed to just use materials because it's for education. They should check the policies of their school and plan accordingly.