Sunday, July 18, 2010
CI 553 Reflections - Week 4
Library, Media and Technology Standards for Teachers
I haven't spent much time in my journals addressing the IL/LM standards for teachers and pre-service teachers; rather, I have focused much of my attention on the LM standards for students. As there is no student LM standard for the week, it seems like the perfect time to look more closely at the standards intended for teachers. First, I think that it is a great idea to have standards geared at the development of educators. It gives teachers the same sort of delineated, clear guidelines for their own learning as the student standards outline for the skills that they are teaching. These standards universally address the knowledge and skills of the "information literate pk-12 pre-service teacher."
The pre-service teacher is expected to have the same repertoire of skills as the information literate student, like identifying the task, locating sources, using information and ethically using that information. In addition, the pre-service teacher is expected to be able select and present appropriate information for students, analyze and organize information to encourage appropriate use, articulate the need for information, as well as plan strategies and select to tools to find appropriate information. In essence, the pre-service teacher needs to be able to teach students about information, and select and use appropriate sources.
I think that all of these standards are quite valuable in many subjects. In my English classes, for example, we are constantly doing formal and informal research. Achieving a level of proficiency with the IL/LM standards for pre-service teachers ensures that I am able to guide student learning in such a way that the Montana IL/LM standards for students are being met. That said, there was little attention paid to these standards in my undergraduate training. When I began to teach, teaching formal research, or even just using indexes and databases from our school library, was like initiation by fire: in a word, intimidating. I think that teacher programs would benefit from focusing more on the standards provided for pre-service teachers. As professionals, we would enhance the learning of our students if we were proficient at all the skills clearly outlined in the LM/IL standards.
For me, this class is helping me achieve proficiency with many different research tools: indexes, databases, ready reference, biographical/geographical resources, etc. This will translate nicely to my classroom. For example, the short lesson I designed will clearly introduce my students to some the resources in the library that they otherwise just hear a lecture over. The hands-on aspect of my lesson will ensure that the students actually use the different tools available to them. I hope my unit lesson will further this goal of introducing students to all the information available to them, and help them realize that there really is a plethora of sources out there.
Using Biographical and Geographical Resources
Much of the biographical information that I found was online through the Biography Research Center index at the Mansfield Library. I was impressed by how much information was available and the number of sources that were indexed. I really like how there were tabs for short bios as well: I can see this being very helpful for my students when they are doing quick research. The Literature Resource Center was another tool that I know will be quite helpful for my English classes. I thought it was great how it provided biographical information, criticism, and media info. I think that I will be able to use this in my lesson planning too.
As per the geographical resources, I am quite familiar with both google earth and mapquest, though I don't know exactly how I would tie this into to English classroom. Perhaps we could document the setting of the stories we read, or where the authors live(d). I did find a GREAT resource from Merriam-Webster's Visual Online Dictionary. It has all sorts of great stuff. I spent quite a bit of time looking Geography found under the Earth subject tab. This is just the beginning though - there is all sorts of stuff here. I will definitely show this one to my students, though again, I don't have a specific purpose in mind.
On a side note, all this work with specific indexes and databases makes me wonder precisely what my school subscribes to, especially as I begin to plan lessons for my students. I know that we have Infotrac for students, and I think we have Academic premier but I don't really know what else. Perhaps a history database and another on Native Americans? I will be sure to find out when I go to school in the fall, because I want to know what information my students can access!
Photo Credit: Thanks to Flikr users Brandon Doran for his photo Mechanics' Institute Library and Sifter for his photo Library Parabola; both are available through a Creative Commons License.
Friday, July 2, 2010
We're outta here!
Hope everyone has a happy 4th of July. Eric and I are all packed up and leaving town for our river trip on the Smith! We'll follow it up with camping and tunes at the National Folk Festival in Butte. We'll be back online July 12, with only three weeks until our wedding. We'll hit the books hard, eat lots of veggies, and do some yoga in preparation for the big day. See you soon...Photo Credit: C. Eric Hanson, thanks baby!
CI 553 Reflections - Week 3
Using Indexes and Search Engines & the LM Standards
As I worked through the self-check questions for this week I was amazed to find myself searching (and finding!) information in ways that I had never used before. Sure, I've used a few indexes before like Infotrac and ERIC, but I had no idea the sheer volume of the indexes that were available to me online thr
ough the UM library. I found myself scouring the lists just looking at all the indexes available and thinking about how MUCH information that I was able to access. It was funny that when I actually started researching for my SCQs, I used the databases that I was most familiar with. I think there is a level of comfort that we all have with research, and often we tend to go to sources that we are familiar with. That is precisely what I did - I used ERIC and Infotrac almost exclusively in my searches, except when there were explicit directions to do otherwise. Upon reflection, I see that this is exactly what my students do when they research, and why they stick so close to Wikipedia and Google - it is challenging for us to go out of our comfort zone.
Something else I found extremely powerful was the subject searches. Though I knew this was an option, I never explored it prior to the the assignment for this week. It was marvelous to discover how easy it was to find good, relevant information. This it a tool that I will definitely take back to the classroom with me. In fact, I may put together something very similar to the SCQs as an assignment for my own students so they, too, can learn how valuable and easy it is to search indexes using subject titles.
Learning how to search and use indexes, as well as using the Boolean tools, is directly applicable to Library Media standard 2 - "Students will locate sources, use information and present findings." As I consider this, and the Big6 set of skills, it occurs to me that one GIANT research project at the end of the year is not a very good way to teach students how to be good researchers who are information literate. Better would be to teach these skills slowly, throughout the year, using a variety of smaller projects. Perhaps there could be some culmination at the end, though at this point I'm not sure exactly what it will look like. It bears further thought...
Using the library with my students...
A good deal of chapter 6 in the text was devoted to ways of orienting students to their library media centers. I appreciated the idea of scavenger hunts that were designed to help orient students to the library, and like the examples provided. This is something that happens with the freshman during their library orientation in the fall, but it occurs to me that by the time my students are juniors, there are many who have forgotten where and how to research in the library. My juniors, too, would benefit from a reintroduction to the library, especially if I require more research from them over the course of a the year. I will need to speak to our librarian and see if she would be willing to collaborate with me on some sort of reintroduction to the library for my students, though I know that she would be more than willing to do this.
My scavenger hunt would include indexes and subject searches, a review of Boolean terms, and the use of meta-search engines (although I don't tend to like these as well as just using Google). Perhaps my libraria can also suggest some other ideas that would be relevant to juniors.
Engaging ethically with information and technology...
I loved the ideas presented in chapter 7, especially those about note-taking in the digital, where students are taught to copy and paste selectively, highlighting relevant information, as well as taking the citation information. I thought figure 7.2 was especially relevant, and plan to present and use a template similar to this when teaching students to research in the digital era. Of course, this brings up the ever present problem of plagiarism, especially when it is so easy for students to just take other people's work. For this, I find that turnitin.com is quite helpful, and encourages students to do their own work. In the beginning, I frame plagiarism as a learning opportunity rather than a blaming/cheating situation. Once they find out that they can't get away with it, they stop trying to steal other people's words and ideas, plus, they get better at thinking for themselves. It's not as if they are penalized; I simply won't accept work that is not their own.
Until they can turn in their own work, they get a zero; once they give me something they have written, I assess based on the provided rubric.
Interestingly, chapter 8 discusses plagiarism and LPP projects in depth. Figure 8 - 2 is a great graphic representation of 21st century literacy, and I will definitely come back to this one again. (I am actually marking these places in the text so I can find them easily in the fall!) It is important to remember that there are many ways to show literacy. I think that teachers often fall into ruts of doing the same things over and over again. This graphic reminds us to switch it up.
Photo Credits: These images are available through a Creative Commons License. Thanks to Flickr users gaspi*yg for Craning for a Book and docman for Istanbul, Color Illustration. I appreciate the use of their images.
As I worked through the self-check questions for this week I was amazed to find myself searching (and finding!) information in ways that I had never used before. Sure, I've used a few indexes before like Infotrac and ERIC, but I had no idea the sheer volume of the indexes that were available to me online thr
ough the UM library. I found myself scouring the lists just looking at all the indexes available and thinking about how MUCH information that I was able to access. It was funny that when I actually started researching for my SCQs, I used the databases that I was most familiar with. I think there is a level of comfort that we all have with research, and often we tend to go to sources that we are familiar with. That is precisely what I did - I used ERIC and Infotrac almost exclusively in my searches, except when there were explicit directions to do otherwise. Upon reflection, I see that this is exactly what my students do when they research, and why they stick so close to Wikipedia and Google - it is challenging for us to go out of our comfort zone.Something else I found extremely powerful was the subject searches. Though I knew this was an option, I never explored it prior to the the assignment for this week. It was marvelous to discover how easy it was to find good, relevant information. This it a tool that I will definitely take back to the classroom with me. In fact, I may put together something very similar to the SCQs as an assignment for my own students so they, too, can learn how valuable and easy it is to search indexes using subject titles.
Learning how to search and use indexes, as well as using the Boolean tools, is directly applicable to Library Media standard 2 - "Students will locate sources, use information and present findings." As I consider this, and the Big6 set of skills, it occurs to me that one GIANT research project at the end of the year is not a very good way to teach students how to be good researchers who are information literate. Better would be to teach these skills slowly, throughout the year, using a variety of smaller projects. Perhaps there could be some culmination at the end, though at this point I'm not sure exactly what it will look like. It bears further thought...
Using the library with my students...
A good deal of chapter 6 in the text was devoted to ways of orienting students to their library media centers. I appreciated the idea of scavenger hunts that were designed to help orient students to the library, and like the examples provided. This is something that happens with the freshman during their library orientation in the fall, but it occurs to me that by the time my students are juniors, there are many who have forgotten where and how to research in the library. My juniors, too, would benefit from a reintroduction to the library, especially if I require more research from them over the course of a the year. I will need to speak to our librarian and see if she would be willing to collaborate with me on some sort of reintroduction to the library for my students, though I know that she would be more than willing to do this.
My scavenger hunt would include indexes and subject searches, a review of Boolean terms, and the use of meta-search engines (although I don't tend to like these as well as just using Google). Perhaps my libraria can also suggest some other ideas that would be relevant to juniors.
Engaging ethically with information and technology...
I loved the ideas presented in chapter 7, especially those about note-taking in the digital, where students are taught to copy and paste selectively, highlighting relevant information, as well as taking the citation information. I thought figure 7.2 was especially relevant, and plan to present and use a template similar to this when teaching students to research in the digital era. Of course, this brings up the ever present problem of plagiarism, especially when it is so easy for students to just take other people's work. For this, I find that turnitin.com is quite helpful, and encourages students to do their own work. In the beginning, I frame plagiarism as a learning opportunity rather than a blaming/cheating situation. Once they find out that they can't get away with it, they stop trying to steal other people's words and ideas, plus, they get better at thinking for themselves. It's not as if they are penalized; I simply won't accept work that is not their own.
Until they can turn in their own work, they get a zero; once they give me something they have written, I assess based on the provided rubric.
Interestingly, chapter 8 discusses plagiarism and LPP projects in depth. Figure 8 - 2 is a great graphic representation of 21st century literacy, and I will definitely come back to this one again. (I am actually marking these places in the text so I can find them easily in the fall!) It is important to remember that there are many ways to show literacy. I think that teachers often fall into ruts of doing the same things over and over again. This graphic reminds us to switch it up.
Photo Credits: These images are available through a Creative Commons License. Thanks to Flickr users gaspi*yg for Craning for a Book and docman for Istanbul, Color Illustration. I appreciate the use of their images.
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