LIBE 467: Post 8

While subscription-based online databases available to students through their school's library tend to be one of the best resources for authoritative content, another praise-worthy--and absolutely free and easily accessible--resource is the Internet Public Library (IPL).

IPL describes itself thusly:

ipl2 is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our Ask an ipl2 Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the ipl2's collections. It is through the efforts of these students and volunteers that the ipl2 continues to thrive to this day.

Similar to Open Access (OA) and Open Journal Systems (OJS) (which I discuss in another blog), the IPL exists as a great first-choice online database for students to refer to when researching. Available by simply visiting the site from any computer (as opposed to perhaps using passwords to log into a school library's fee-based subscription database), the IPL describes itself as featuring "Information You Can Trust" and should be a first-look resource for teachers of all subjects in the secondary education world. My English students are regularly directed to it for information on such topics as author biographies, literature by time period, and schools of literary criticism.

While not meant to take the place of subscription-based online databases offered by such companies as Gale and EBSCO, the IPL does stand out as a reference source that offers a refuge of quality, authoritative information in the midst of the big world wide web of information on the Internet.

LIBE 467: Post 7

I have been intrigued for the last few years by the way in which Wikipedia exists: it is, in many ways, a wonderful example of the inherently organic nature of language. Language changes over time to reflect the times, and that is what is occurring with Wikipedia--that is, really, how Wikipedia is possible: the technology provided by the Internet allows a phenomenon like Wikipedia to exist in the first place. So, in that way, Wikipedia is, for lack of a better phrase, a "neat artifact" of our time. I like to think that in 100 years people will look back and say, "Oh yeah, right: in the 1990's the old Internet was born and one of the things that came out of that was the whole Wikipedia thing...I can't believe that that was ever a 'new' idea. Did you know that before Wikipedia they actually hired people to write articles on encyclopedia topics?"

At the same time--and though I have done some reading in this area for the past 18 months--I still can't totally wrap my brain around the idea that any Wikipedia-esque project is reliable and totally valid: at the end of the day, without a "standard" in place (an expert in charge of a particular topic in the encyclopedia), I have a hard time putting my personal trust in "the collective human brain" as an author that can be trusted (what does this say about my trust in humanity?).

One of the interesting voices writing today regarding the notion of "the collective human brain" (i.e., corporate authorship) is Jaron Lanier, specifically in his book You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, in which he outlines some of the ways in which web 2.0 tools and practices--while, yes, convenient, and while, yes, offering up some neat features and products in the "whiz-bang" realm of slick, candy-coated stylings--actually diminish our capacity for originality and creativity in that web 2.0 users are more prone these days to create a "piece or art" (a new creation) using essentially a templated, pre-programmed slice-and-dice gadget or app rather than creating a thought-out, personalized, original piece of art. He challenges readers to make a digital creation that takes at least 100 times longer to create than is the running time of the end product.

As a reference--and, as many people in class have mentioned, as an initial source of information in the research process--Wikipedia "has its place" within the realm of learning. While I do not think that Wikipedia is necessarily diminishing the creative capacities of its users or creators simply because of the fact that it is a templated, web 2.0 product (was there ever much room for creativity with regards to form when authoring new encyclopedia entries?--the author knows that the entry is going to be printed alongside thousands of other entries, in alphabetical order, with perhaps an illustration), it is certainly very worthwhile to be aware of how form always affects function, how form always affects understanding, and to remain cognizant of this fact when using Wikipedia. Always think to yourself: This information could be presented differently...and as such, how might a different presentation make the meaning or impact different?

LIBE 467: Post 6

Google Lit Trips is a fantastic application of the reference resource that is the atlas...in an online-, web 2.0-friendly format.

This resource is great for a number of reasons:

--It appeals to learners who naturally enjoy the visual aspect of learning that occurs with maps.

--It is accessible to students at any place and at any time (so long as a computer and Internet connection are available).

--It takes the classic resource of the map and applies it within the context of literature (something that I think literature teachers sometimes think would be neat to do, but balk at following through on applying the idea because the educational payoff does not always seem to warrant the (at least perceived) amount of work that might go into preparing materials and lessons for an activity centered around mapping a piece of literature). In doing so, it is a nice example of engaging students in the stuff of "21st Century Learning"--using, building, and sharing work online.

--It allows for students to recommend a title that they would like to see featured on Google Lit Trips.

While some works lend themselves better to utilizing maps than others, there are some neat exercises that can occur. I use maps when my students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because the novel is centered around a trip down a river, and a visual representation of this movement provides a helpful sort of context that serves to concretize the narrative in the reader's mind. A book like Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer would be another example of a book ready for mapping; it, in fact, displays individual maps throughout the text, but a cohesive, complete map of Chris McCandless's entire journey could assist some students immensely in terms of gaining a clear understanding of plot movement.

LIBE 467: Post 5

As a literature teacher, I love databases. I love the fact that students can have their eyes opened to a whole new world of content and ideas that they never knew existed.

For my senior-level students, the simple act of locating and reading articles from respectable journals relevant to an author, work, or topic that we are studying fills them with the sense of doing "serious work." Students are intoxicated by the idea that they are doing "university-level' work, researching and reading articles from journals (not "magazines") that tend to feature at least a few "dictionary-worthy" words in each piece. In this way, databases provide a quick and easy doorway into the early realms of the world of academia; for students who are keen for this, databases become their best friends. For students to reach this state of "best friendship," there must be some front-loading on the part of the TL or teacher in terms of learning the skills to successfully search, navigate, and locate information--I find that perhaps the biggest impediment to students developing a positive affect with regards to databases is early frustration: if the first few attempts to use databases yield no or little fruit, then--like with many endeavors--the easy reaction is to quit. "Why bother?" ask students, "when I can just keep accessing (albeit suspect) information on the Internet?"

My school subscribes to the following databases:

-World Book Encyclopedia
-Britannica Online
-Thomson Gale suite, including: "Biography in Context," "Gale Virtual Reference," "CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals," and "Global Issues in Context"
-EBSCO

With all these great tools literally at students' fingertips, it bears repeating: TLs and teachers need to spend more time explicitly teaching digital literacy skills to students--help them first experience success, and then watch them continue to experience success.

LIBE 467: Post 4

Classmate Lenora makes an important statement about our goals as TLs when our jobs are becoming more and more complex due to the multitude of media that students use on a regular basis:

“It is still questionable whether students are ‘technically literate’ and other skills such as problem solving/thinking skills may have been neglected.”

At issue here is the notion that students “use computers” all the time, but that a couple of problems tend to arise in the process:

• The computer use that students engage in may be very limited in scope—limited to games, social media, and basic Google searches, for example. When students use computers often but only for a very few repetitive tasks, we might be under the impression that the student is “technically literate”—because we SEE the student engaged in computer use so frequently—but to do so puts forth a very limited definition of “literacy.” One of the dangers of this situation is that teachers may assume that students have a deep and functional understanding of computers in general when that is in fact far from the case; the danger, then, would be that teachers and TLs would neglect to teach students the important technical and technological skills that they need because the teachers and TLs assume the students “already know it.” What we don’t want to do is produce a generation of human beings capable of turning on a computer…and only using Facebook, Skype, World of Warcraft, and a Google search that lands them on Wikipedia for 90% of their queries.

• The type of computer use described above does nothing (or very little) to encourage and develop the critical thinking skills necessary to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information. Such skills are essential when dealing with any mode of literature or information, and likely even more essential today and in the near future as the ways in which students access and interact with information are becoming more varied—the challenges students face today are around how to navigate through and assess the quality of the figurative piles of information available online, and how to successfully evaluate the provenance of each information source. What we don’t want is a generation of human beings who assume that information that is “relevant” according to Google’s standards—a match based on perhaps one facet of a keyword search that crawls the entire Internet—is information that is also valuable, reliable, or marked by wisdom in any way.

LIBE 467: Post 3

For many people, it is difficult to remember a time before Google. I certainly do, but most of my students do not; all of their memories of computers, at least, are fairly inextricably tangled up with the notion of Google. These students are from a generation that has grown up with a powerful tool that—because they have never experienced computers without it—they struggle to accurately gauge: how “powerful” is Google? How “dangerous” or “tricky” is Google? These questions are difficult to answer when the user has no reference point by which to compare: Google is powerful compared to what? Google is dangerous or tricky...why? How could surfing the web be either of those? While this powerful tool is an obviously valuable and central part of our culture, part of the process of inheriting Google as a culture is recognizing and reacting to the pitfalls that accompany it. For every pro in life, there is always a con. For high school aged students today, Google is not unlike a young carpenter first picking up a powerful electric drill: the machine is incredibly useful—strong, efficient—but without the appropriate safety training and without ever having used a screwdriver, the young carpenter could easily damage his working materials or injure himself.

Since first engaging with students in projects that involve any online work whatsoever, it immediately became clear to me the challenges associated with becoming information literate. Since these first student-technology encounters years ago, it has increasingly become evident to me that one of the most pressing issues we face as teachers—and, at the risk of hyperbole—and as a society. Literacy has always been important and has always caused clear divides between those who are literate and those who are not—benefiting, of course, those with deft literacy skills. Nothing has changed in this regard, except that now literacy is even more important: it is more important because the types of information and the sources we receive our information from are so multi-faceted: books, newspapers, magazines, radio, the Internet, via any number of handheld gadgets. People today must be literate in a vast number of different types of media and modes of communicating. Being able to wisely analyze, synthesize, and critique a multitude of information sources—determining how and where to use them and whether they are valid—is a skill that is becoming consistently more vital. (This reality strongly suggests that the need for wise and engaged TLs and language teachers, ready to move information literacy education more toward the center of their curricula, are now more important and needed than ever [it turns out that computers are not, after all, eliminating the need for human teachers and librarians!]. However, this is another conversation to be had at another time.) As such, I continue to see how increasingly important information literacy is for me in my role as a language teacher, a future TL, and how important it is in the lives of my students.

Classmate Hilary Montroy hits on some of the central challenges faced by teachers and TLs when guiding students towards achieving information literacy:

It is so important to teach students how to use whatever databases are available, and yes, students are very reluctant to use them. One of the comments I get from students when asked why they are choosing to search using Google only is that it is easier, and when prompted further, it's because they don't get the answer right away when on a database. The latter may be true, but if taught how to use them effectively, they will get the info they need, it just takes a little more work and time, and students today want answers quickly and easily.

The comments by Hilary’s students shed light on the fact that relativity is important: when mostly only Google has been used by students, of course it is “easier” to use than a database. Learning a new skill or doing a new task is always more difficult at the beginning. Without much experience using other databases, the desire to break away from what is known and familiar is difficult to muster. Further, it could be that many students today have been allowed to use sources found using solely a Google search engine. Google as a means to finding information is fine, of course, but there are databases available to students that provide wholly trustworthy and valid information, and these databases should be more often used. In this way, teachers should move toward creating research projects that accept only sources found via a database—and this should be repeated enough times so that students become proficient at using these databases (too often information literacy is seen as a “skill” to be “checked off the list” after a single assignment is completed that focuses on such skills).

On page 11 of Reference Skills, Riedling presents the nine information literacy standards for student learning taken from AASL ande ACET 8. “Information Literacy” Standard 2 notes that “the student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.” Hilary’s students’ comment that it is simply “easier” to Google indicates that such students are not thinking critically or competently. Further, the “Social Responsibility” Standard 8 states that the information literate student “practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology.” It could be argued that using Google simply because it is “easier,” as Hilary’s students state, is itself an unethical use of information; one of the hallmarks of ethical behavior often has to do with acting in a manner that is in fact not the easiest choice—being ethical is rarely thought of as doing what is easiest.

One of the next steps for me—an ongoing step, really—is to continue to seek out conversation with people experienced with teaching and promoting information literacy, and to seek out quality resources to help facilitate the process. In previous TL Diploma courses, I have come across a few resources—checklists or rubrics—that are first steps toward establishing classroom-ready, usable criteria for assessing students’ information literacy journey. However, I often feel that there must be better resources out there that I have not yet seen, or that I myself need to focus on creating such resources.

LIBE 467: Post 2

I have always known the importance of research projects and, to accompany them, research processes. Such projects do a number of things that we know are valuable for students:
• Personalize learning (student choice regarding topics and resources)
• Engage students with multiple perspectives
• Focus learning on inquiry-based models of education
• Engage students with multiple forms of media and technology (encouraging aspects of many of the hallmarks of “21st Century Learning”—for example, quick student publishing, student interaction online, use of multiple types of technologies)

We know intuitively as teachers (and as former students who experienced some wonderful research projects along the way from kindergarten throughout our graduate school experiences) that research projects are valuable for a number of reasons.

And yet, what amazes me is the number of research-based projects that are NOT happening in high schools. Apart from social studies classrooms, I see very few research projects happening at my school—a secondary school that, according to all external measures (read: The Fraser Report), does well from year to year. One concrete reason for this lack of research-based projects in my high school stems from this specific issue: mandatory Provincial exams (for English classes) and Advanced Placement exams tend to be the ultimate focus of teachers who teach courses where these exams exist, and there is no direct connection between research-based projects and doing well on these exams. When working within a system that publishes a limited amount of qualitative data regarding the “success” of schools or performance of students—student marks and Provincial Exam scores—there is limited incentive for teachers to invest time in research-based projects if the teachers do not see a connection between their efforts and their students’ measurable performance indicators (I discuss some of the complexities of this systemic situation in this blog post).

So then: the above comments serve to illustrate some of the large-scale issues that I see affecting teachers’ engagement with—or lack of engagement with—research-based projects (and, by extension, teachers’ interaction—or lack of interaction—with TLs). As someone interested in general in librarianship, specifically in teacher-librarianship, and as someone who has been taking teacher-librarian courses, I more and more notice how—relative to my colleagues around me—I live in an idealist teacher-librarian bubble. One of the features of this bubble is that I clearly see and understand the importance of the work of TLs and their role in collaborating with colleagues, facilitating research-based and inquiry-based learning, encouraging the application of technology, etc. However, it often seems the case that many teachers are already fully engaged with and entirely busy with their own curriculum, their own demands, and view the efforts of the TL to engage in collaborative work as nothing more than a nuisance. So then, I find myself these days reading and studying about things like research-based projects with a sense of the absurd: will I enter a future job as a TL with idealism, enthusiasm, knowledge, and skills, only to be met by kind but dismissive smiles from colleagues that serve to suggest, “Thank you for the effort, but I am already fully busy—and don’t really have any more time—in my life as a teacher.”

However, despite the niggling notions mentioned above, some of the detail-oriented issues that I have learned about regarding research-based projects have helped sharpen my understanding of how to successfully navigate the details of implementing research-based projects. Some of these understandings have come in the form of confirmation of things I already: specifically, Riedling notes that “students have little knowledge of the information-seeking process, have fragmented understandings of subject knowledge, and...do not understand that their information seeking knowledge depends on content knowledge and vice versa” (10). While I have always intuited these conclusions myself, Riedling was the first to, in the arena of the published book, confirm these intuitions. I also appreciate Riedling’s assertion that, through the scaffolding and teaching of research-based projects, the TL creates “self-directed learners [that] lead themselves to knowledge from that information” (12).

Detail-oriented issues regarding the implementation of research-based projects that I have learned about from colleagues in this course are many. With regards to the details of quality student research, Hilary Montroy suggests this: students design a piece of paper with 16 squares on it, and each square can only contain 3 key words on it from the student’s research. In this way, students do not copy full sentences and are forced to put ideas into their own words. This helps encourage students toward genuine analysis and synthesis of ideas that will lead toward equally genuine understanding and insights—rather than arriving at the end of a research process and staring blankly and worriedly at a pile of information that feels disjointed.

Another valuable tip for promoting the success of research-based projects is to share the basic ideas and benefits of research models with parents. Anica, Hilary, and Chris collectively do a nice job of overviewing the benefits of such an act: with parents aware of the existence of, benefits of, and logistics of research models, we start to bend toward creating a culture that knows about and expects inquiry-based research to be at the heart of—or at least included in—what happens in the lives of students.

With the above collection of large-scale and small-scale ideas around research-based projects swimming in my mind, my next step is to more actively talk to the TL at my school, teachers at my school, and other TLs I know with regards to successfully navigating all the potential pitfalls I have identified. I feel like I need to see some concrete examples of schools that have instituted research models and inquiry-based education at the heart of their curriculum and have had success doing it—how did they do it? What were the big challenges? What have been the benefits?