This video “addresses the forces of change that are causing educators globally to rethink what education for today’s students should involve.”
Students are moving from learning about an historical body of information to becoming life-long learners manipulating information to solve and innovate in inquiry projects.
How do we help them to become capable of managing their own learning and to be learning forever? Information literacy and digital literacy is the key and this is the special role of Teacher Librarians as they team with classroom teachers in the school.
Tag Archives: Information Literacy
Voki presentations – Year 4 students lead the way!
Year 4 have been working together in the IRC for three periods a week for seven weeks – two classes, two teachers, a Special Needs teacher and the Teacher Librarian. They have been learning about The Human Body. Each student selected a special area of interest and created a research question or questions. A wiki was used to share work and information.
As a culmination for their Guided Inquiry research projects the Year 4 students were introduced to Voki as a tool for delivering ‘fun’ presentations to the rest of the class.
They had to select just one of their research questions and fine tune their answer to the word limitations of Voki.
The excitement in the IRC today was unbelievable as they created characters, backgrounds, costumes and voices best suited to the presentation of their research.
Here is one that was produced today:
Google search – less hits, more relevance?
A fascinating article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend. Besides describing how Google operates at its headquarters in California, it tells of where it is aiming to go in the next ten years.
From a collection of information sites to specifically selected, collected and disseminated knowledge….
Googlers are now being urged to understand that turning uncounted trillions of pieces of data into more trillions of pages of retrievable information was a mere baby step in a march towards something much grander and less tangible: the getting and disseminating of knowledge.
It means, effectively, teaching computers to think; to figure out precisely what a user might want to know, find it and then package it up so it can be digested in the shortest possible time and in the most useful possible manner.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/google-world-20111121-1nprr.html#ixzz1ewyPTTn9
QR Codes in the classrom
Brendan Jones recently presented this Slideshare sharing many new ideas of ways to implement QR Codes.
First QR Code in the IRC
Many schools do not allow the use of phones during school hours and our school follows this policy. For a bit of fun this QR Code was displayed today and we are watching for reactions (Our Senior Students are allowed to listen to music during study times in the IRC so do use music storage devices and this of course includes phones for this purpose only.)
Follett Challenge entries are a source of inspiration
The winning entries of this challenge have been published and focus on the work done in school libraries – a great source of ideas and also advocacy for the role of Teacher Librarians in school libraries everywhere.
In Australia, 2012 is the National Year of Reading and I know that in our library we will be working hard to promote literacy in all subject areas with a focus on integrating the library (IRC)and Teacher Librarian in teaching and learning activities across the school (K-12).
View the winning entries here:
Wikipedia: Teaching about its validity as a source in assignments
This clip is for the students we are aware of who rely so heavily on Wikipedia for their source material when doing assignments…. Watch and take note:
Scoop.it! : Student Learning through School Libraries
Lyn Hay, lecturer at Charles Sturt University, curates this new Scoop.it! advocating for the role of Teacher Librarian in school libraries and the impact of their work on learning and literacy.
TED talk by inspirational School Librarian, Dr Joyce Valenza
Dr Joyce Valenza is well known worldwide by Teacher Librarians for her innovative use of technology in schools and her contributions to the development of Web2.0 tools integrated into school research practice. She regularly visits Australia to share at our professional development conferences.
Science Links K-12: Online activities
Make learning fun – search for a science related topic area and complete the related online activities!
Improve your writing skills – free podcasts
The book Writing Tools: 50 essential strategies for every writer by Roy Peter Clark is now available as a series of podcasts through iTunes. It is free! This is a “must listen to” for every student who wants to improve their writing skills – just listen to one every day and try to put it into practice.
National Inquiry into School Libraries
Julia Gillard initiated a House Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in March 2010. This was to address the issue of falling numbers of qualified Teacher Librarians in schools across Australia.
382 submissions were received and after hearings around Australia, the Government has until August 23 to respond to the recommendations.
Please support this Inquiry by being informed of the value of having a trained Teacher Librarian in your school and please write to your local member and ask them to address the issues.
Information about about the issues, the Inquiry and recommendations can be found on these sites:
My School Library: What every parent should know
The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia
ALIA and ASLA’s School Libraries 2011
What a Difference a School Library Makes, by our Australian professional library and school library associations. Leave comments on their Facebook site.
Did you know?
This video clip looks at the “changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.” This impacts us in the environment of education and decisions regarding the degree of inclusion of these technologies has to be made and then implemented.
Are you creative?…. Do you want to share your work or use the creative work of others?
The Bright Ideas Blog published this poster explaining the Creative Commons Licence. It was created by Karlisson Bezzera (Brazil), a blogger who goes under the name of Nerdson. Bezerra manages to explain creative commons in an easy-to-follow comic strip.
Google Wonder Wheel – find your key words and topic ideas
Here is a YouTube clip showing how to use Google Wonder Wheel – use it for initial ideas upon which to build queries as you investigate a topic area.