Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø
The Peripheral by William Gibson
In the Woods by Tana French
King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
The Bat by Jo Nesbø
Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram
A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs
Even so, Information Technologies for the School Library Program has been a class that has pushed me to expand my technological boundaries. When I think about information technologies, I am my own worst enemy because (a) I am someone becoming a certified librarian because I love books, not technology, and (b) I have a fantastic ITS partner at my school, which makes it easy for me to say “not my job.”
HOWEVER, I also love learning, and I am passionate about anything that will help my students become lifelong readers! As a result, I tried to approach even topics outside my wheelhouse with an open mind and an attitude of inquiry (and the clear understanding that just because something isn’t my job NOW doesn’t mean it won’t be in the FUTURE).
My key take-away from the semester:
Not in a braggy way but in a “wow, this is fun and I can do this” way! This class reminded me not to get too stuck in my bookish ways but to embrace new ways of learning and growing as a reader!
Specifically, I have learned how easy it is to use a variety of technological tools to build interest in reading, library programming, and the library as space as well as to support the work of my fellow teachers. Whether the tool is an engaging website full of information on the library or a padlet of racial diversity, equity, and inclusion resources, technology enriches the work that I do as a librarian, allowing me to expand the world of reading for more students. So, bring on the technology! I'm ready to learn more together with my fellow librarians, teacher colleagues, ITS, and students!
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds
The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Brass by Xhenet Aliu
Monogamy by Sue Miller
What’s the difference between VR and AR? Zoladz explains:
Virtual Reality strives to completely simulate an immersive sensory experience indistinguishable from the real … often using technologies like headsets that attempt to completely deprive human sensory organs like the eyes from any stimuli outside of that which is artificially generated by the VR technology. Augmented Reality strives to overlay additional layers of useful (e.g. actionable, descriptive, informative, directional) media onto the real without replacing it (as cited in Massis, 2015, p. 796).
While evaluating various options for this blog, here was my experience:
Yes, Minecraft offers
VR/AR options through Minecraft Education!
It just so happens that our school is a Microsoft school (as a well as a
Google school), and we have access to the educational version. Any educator can sign up for an account,
though. In addition, Minecraft offers a
way for students to access AR/VR activities even while learning remotely,
something that is not generally the case (Young, 2020).
I recently signed up for an account at https://education.minecraft.net/, so I am still exploring but an initial look reveals:
I was excited to find the following trailer (Minecraft Education Edition, 2020):
John Lewis was the Representative for most families in our school, and we are always looking for ways to incorporate his “good trouble” advice into our social justice and SEL lessons. This video could spur student discussion during our advisory period as well as provide inspiration to students for their culminating projects for our upcoming school-wide reading of Stamped! Check it out!
References
Aurasma. (2020, September 30). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurasma
Choudhary, S. R. (2020, November 7). Best HP Reveal
alternative in 2020 | Beaconstac. Beaconstac.com. https://blog.beaconstac.com/2020/02/best-hp-reveal-alternative/
cxocARd.com. (2020, February 12). HP Reveal (formerly
Aurasma) alternative. https://blog.beaconstac.com/2020/02/best-hp-reveal-alternative/
Facebook. (n.d.). Compare headsets. Oculus.com. https://www.oculus.com/compare/
Massis, B. (2015). Using virtual and augmented reality in the
library. New Library World, 116(11/12), 796-799. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0054
Maxwell, T. (2020, November 14). Google’s VR field trips
app, Expeditions, is headed to the graveyard. Input. https://www.inputmag.com/tech/google-is-killing-its-expeditions-vr-app-for-going-on-virtual-field-trips#:~:text=Google%20is%20discontinuing%20its%20Expeditions,home%20to%20some%20AR%20experiences.
Metaverse. (n.d.). https://studio.gometa.io/landing
Minecraft Education Edition. (2020, November 13). Good trouble:
Lessons in social justice [Video].
YouTube. https://youtu.be/IJpPmAgmM8I
Young, L. J. (2020, April 7). Get the most from AR/VR
technology without breaking the budget. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=get-the-most-from-ar-vr-technology-without-breaking-budget-library
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya
What Is Poetry?: The Essential Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Michael Rosen
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik LarsonI am fortunate to have a strong partner in my school’s Instructional Technology Specialist (ITS) and incredible support from my district Educational Technology Specialist. They provide exceptional support for student and staff technology needs – from hardware to software - and I am able to focus my energies on supporting the curricular and extracurricular literacy needs and interests of my students and teachers in the library (which is good because that work takes alllllllllllll my time). A side effect of this situation is that the makerspace is not my space but the domain of our ITS. That said, I am always looking for ways to collaborate with and support the work of my fellow teachers, and my ITS is no exception.
 |
| The makerspace is entered from the door on the far left! |
In preparation for the move, over the past year, my ITS and
I have collaborated on acquiring supplies for the anticipated makerspace. I have curated a collection of books to
support my ITS’s learning goals in the makerspace including books on coding,
crafts, and other maker topics. When
visiting a giant annual local consignment sale, I picked up bargain sets of K’Nex and Snap Circuits along
with snapping up graphic novels for my readers.
Thanks to our move, I harbored our donated 3D printer in my bedroom
closet over the summer to keep it safe. In
addition, I served as Treasurer on the PTO Board and assisted her with managing
grant funds and purchasing supplies, so am aware of some of the technology
going into the makerspace, like a CriCut machine.
“Making is an inquiry-driven social activity" (Canino-Fluit,
2014, p. 21) that is engaged in “on the learner’s terms instead of on the
instructor’s terms” (Britton, 2012, para. 7).
Angevine and Weisgrau caution (2015) that makerspaces should focus on
student-directed activities that “is personally meaningful and embodies the
students’ lived experience” (para. 8).
This theme had me visiting the blogsphere for guidance.
Enter the Renovated Learning blog! Check out this engaging blog on all things makerspace here: http://www.renovatedlearning.com/blog/.
Author Diana Rendina is a library media specialist in Tampa,
Florida and the author of two books on makerspaces (Rendina, n.d.). I appreciate her practical approach to
makerspaces, and as someone looking to support my ITS in establishing a new
space in our new building, I particularly appreciate her post on best practices
for student exploration, which you can explore here: http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2019/09/16/open-exploration-part-2/
Since we are at the beginning of establishing our makerspace, I plan to share these helpful best practice ideas about logistics and procedures from Rendina with my ITS:
a.
When will it be open?
b.
What supervision is required (or not)?
c.
Do students need a pass with a specific stated
task?
d. Can student work be saved and, if so, how?
But if thinking about makerspaces while managing a virtual
library experience during a pandemic still makes you, like me, feel a little overwhelmed,
then you should also check out these two posts by Rendina:
http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2015/04/02/defining-makerspaces-part-1/
Remember that your makerspace is YOUR makerspace. It doesn’t have to be high tech or all things
trendy and expensive. It just has to be
what serves the needs of your community.
Whew.
And, if it’s REALLY overwhelming:
http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2020/07/27/you-have-permission-to-not-do-all-the-things/
Know that right now, especially, you have permission to NOT
do all the things. Take a breath! Give yourself space! Sometimes the only thing to be making is a moment
of calm.
Happy making!
References
Angevine, C.,
& Weisgrau, J. (2015, September 24). Situating makerspaces in schools.
Hybrid Pedagogy. https://hybridpedagogy.org/situating-makerspaces-in-schools/
Britton, L.
(2012, October 1). Making space for creation, not just consumption. The Digital Shift. http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/10/public-services/the-makings-of-maker-spaces-part-1-space-for-creation-not-just-consumption/
Canino-Fluit, A.
A. (2014). School library makerspaces. Teacher Librarian, 41(5),
21-27.
Rendina, D.
(n.d.). About Diana. Renovated Learning. http://www.renovatedlearning.com/about-diana/
Rendina, D.
(2020, July 27). You have permission to NOT do ALL the things. Renovated
Learning. http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2020/07/27/you-have-permission-to-not-do-all-the-things/
Rendina, D. (2019,
September 16). Open exploration in a makerspace: Best practices. Renovated
Learning. http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2019/09/16/open-exploration-part-2/
Rendina, D. (2015,
April 2). Defining makerspaces: What the research says. Renovated
Learning. http://www.renovatedlearning.com/2015/04/02/defining-makerspaces-part-1/
Sisters by Daisy Johnson
Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston
Journalism Ethics by Jill KeppelerI confess to struggling with writing this week’s blog entry on cyberbullying because I have such conflicting thoughts about bullying… and I’m pretty sure that some people won’t like them.
I experienced workplace bullying when I was 15. Each of my children has undergone a season of
bullying at the hands of a peer, my son in preschool and my daughter in 7th
grade. My daughter’s experience involved
some limited cyberbullying. I know firsthand
that it is real and that it has real consequences.
What this definition means, however, is that there are a lot
of behaviors that are not nice that are also not bullying. And here is where my thoughts often differ
from the mainstream in supporting popular anti-bullying/cyberbullying
campaigns. I think it is dangerous to
conflate incivility with bullying. Just
because someone is mean to you doesn’t mean they are a bully. They may simply be a person who doesn’t like
you (or doesn’t want to be around you right that moment), for whatever reason
(or no reason) or is in a snit for reasons entirely unrelated to you.
My dislike of this phrase is grounded not only in my belief
that “just be nice” is not a solution to real bullying but also in my belief
that adults should not deny children their agency to navigate and solve
conflicts without adult intervention. If
we jump in with “you can’t say you can’t play” every time children have a
dispute on the playground, no matter how well-intentioned we are, we are denying
children the opportunity to develop critical skills.
In general, I think antibullying campaigns make adults feel
really good, but I see no evidence that antibullying campaigns reduce bullying.
(Even Faucher, Cassidy, and Jackson (2015)
offer no data on what works, just a summary of solutions proposed by participants
in the surveys summarized.) Anecdotally,
I have witnessed no substantial changes in children’s behavior over the time
period from when I was in middle school to now when I work in a middle school
library (and have middle-school-aged children) other than the expanded arena
for bullying created by easy access to technology and ubiquitous social media
that I note above.
This article by Izzy Kalman for Psychology Today
pretty much sums up my thoughts, and I also connect with these comments byChristopher Emdin, someone I immensely respect and whose book For White
Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and
Urban Education played a key role in my application to graduate school. While awareness is great, punishing
perpetrators and encouraging reporting and bystander action on behalf of the
bullied are ineffective or, worse, counterproductive (Kalman, 2018; Emdin, 2011). (I’ll note that a study in Finland indicated
that bystander intervention training showed some promise (Wolpert, 2016), but
Finland is a much smaller and far more homogeneous country than is the United States
(Central Intelligence Agency, 2020) so it will be interesting to see if the
same results occur here.)
So, do I think we should just throw kids to the bullying/cyberbullying
wolves and let them fend for themselves?
No.
* I think children cannot solve
bullying by themselves.
* I think adults cannot solve
bullying for children (or, frankly, for themselves, given the workplace stats).
What can we do? I really think that the answer lies in a cultural shift, which no antibullying campaign alone is going to solve. To help bringing about that shift, I propose:
References
Central Intelligence
Agency. (2020, October 9). The World Factbook: Europe: Finland. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fi.html
Common Sense Media. (2020). Digital citizenship week. https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship-week
Cyberbullying
Research Center. (n.d.). Cyberbullying videos to use in presentations. https://cyberbullying.org/videos
Elmborg, J. K. (2011).
Libraries as the spaces between us: Recognizing and valuing the third space. Reference & User Services Quarterly,
50(4), 338-50. https://doi.org/10.5860.rusq.50n4.338
Emdin, C. (2011,
December 18). 5 reasons why current anti-bullying initiatives don’t work. HuffPost.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/5-reasons-why-antibullyin_b_1017810
Faucher, C.,
Cassidy, W., and Jackson, M. (2015). From the sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the
acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in K-12, higher education, and the
workplace. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 3(6), 111-125.
DOI:10.11114/jets.v3i5.1033
Garlinghouse, R.
(2020, October 5). Being nice to people of color doesn’t mean you’re
anti-racist. ScaryMommy. https://www.scarymommy.com/being-nice-people-of-color-doesnt-mean-anti-racist/
Kalman, I. (2018,
October 24). If your anti-bullying program isn’t working, here’s why. Psychology
Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resilience-bullying/201810/if-your-anti-bullying-program-isnt-working-heres-why
National Association for Media Literacy Education. (2020). Media Literacy Week 2020. https://medialiteracyweek.us/
Orech, J. (2012).
How it’s done: Incorporating digital citizenship into your everyday curriculum.
Tech & Learning, 33(1), 16-18.
Wolpert, S.
(2016, February 3). Successful anti-bullying campaign identified by UCLA.
University of California. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/successful-anti-bullying-program-found-ucla
One thing virtual learning has taught us is that there are so
many great online tools to use! As we
have shifted from an in-school environment in which we rely heavily on uniform,
district-provided devices that all use the same operating systems and browsers to
a remote-learning environment in which students may be on different types of
devices with diverse operating systems and browsers, I have noticed the
importance of using tools that are device agnostic, that is, that work on any device
(Moorefield-Lang, 2014).
I know that many of us are looking for ways to encourage class response while virtual. I recommend checking out AnswerGarden at https://answergarden.ch/. AnswerGarden is a polling application that works on multiple devices and platforms (Moorefield-Lang, 2014). AnswerGarden lets you create word clouds with students, with the most popular answers in larger font (AnswerGarden, n.d.). It provides a quick, easy way to check in with students to activate prior knowledge, assess learning as you go along, and get feedback at the end of a lesson. You can check out a sample on the AnswerGarden website: https://answergarden.ch/demonstration/.
The AnswerGarden website is easy to navigate, and creating a poll is as simple as clicking the + on the top right menu on the home page:
… and following the easy instructions:
As always, remote learning is on my mind. How do we best serve ALL students when school happens in a virtual environment? Remote learning certainly poses challenges for all of our students, but it’s important to keep in mind that our students with different learning needs – those who require accommodations in the classroom – face the same challenges remotely that they do virtually. Are there web tools that we can effectively use as assistive devices to bridge both any existing learning gaps as well as to avoid creating a digital divide based upon the need for accommodations?
Because I am in the library, I spend a lot of time thinking about accessibility tools for reading. We have many resources to assist students with different needs, including e-books with dyslexic-accessible fonts and audiobooks that serve a wide range of student reading needs. I recently realized that a tool we already use can also help students in a variety of ways:
I already love using Flipgrid to engage students with video
exchanges and book reviews, and, as Copeland (2011) notes, the best assistive
technologies are ones that serve ALL students, not just those with different
abilities. I’m sure that many of you
have used Flipgrid to allow students to have conversations or respond to prompts
by recording short videos. If you haven’t,
you really should check out these tutorials by our Education Technology
Specialist, Jen Hall:
Turns out, Flipgrid is thinking about our students with
learning differences, too! Check out
this entry on The Flipgrid Blog (Maddy, 2020), which has a number of helpful tutorials
included, and this quick YouTube video (Flipgrid, 2020).
Here are a few ideas for ways to use this app to enhance accessibility:
Using Flipgrid in this way ties in with principles of Universal Design for Learning by allowing students to represent content, demonstrate mastery, and engage with content in different ways (Spina, 2017).
Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out to me or to Jen Hall. Flipgrid also has a YouTube channel with helpful tutorial videos. Check it out!
Over the past few months, I have spent lots of time thinking about software and technology applications. How do we use Google Meet or Zoom to lead a class? Is Flipgrid or Marco Polo better for sharing quick videos among class members? What word cloud app will integrate seamlessly with my presentation?
This week, however, to quote the irrepressible Olivia Newton John, I say let’s get physical!
I confess that I don’t spend much time thinking about hardware. In part, this is because most of our hardware
– like our laptops and our Boxlight interactive whiteboards – is selected for
us by district-level technology staff and almost magically (or, uh, after many
calls to tech support) arrives in our classroom and works as planned. In part, this is because, unlike many library
media specialists, physical technology is not in my wheelhouse but in that of my
Instructional Technology Specialist partner, Ms. Powe. The makerspace, which is where a lot of
physical tech seems to enter school libraries, is her domain, not mine.
_______________________________________________
Lucy Santos Green – who happens to be the professor for my class – reminds us in her 2014 article for Knowledge Quest that technology integration is a key role for library media specialists and that “becoming effective technology leaders involves shifting the focus of our efforts from promoting technology tools and usage to supporting teachers in designing technology-enabled experiences” (p. 42). Whether the issue is hardware or software, we need to be able to evaluate and select tools that enhance a student-centered pedagogy.
There are a few proposals for evaluating technology for this purpose:
Of these, I find Kearney, et al.’s (2012) framework to be most instructive due to its consideration of three specific features of student-based learning
over time and space. This framework
encourages technology integration leaders to ask three key questions:
1.
Does the tool give the learner control? (Personalization)
2.
Does the tool provide “real world relevance
and personal meaning to the learner” (p. 9)? (Authenticity)
3.
Does the tool promote sense-making through
dialog? (Collaboration)
______________________________________________
So, to which hardware will I apply this lens? Being in the library and being a fan of books, my mind immediately goes to eReaders. Anyone else have a couple of these laying around?
Not just me, right? It seems eReaders were all the rage a few years ago. Not only did I go through a couple, but in the first half of the decade now ending, a number of bloggers were also looking at eReaders and their usefulness in the classroom:
Jenaca Fredheim even created a Wiki on their use, and the journal TechTrends
published an article. But not long after
this, the excitement over eReaders died down, thanks, I believe, to the introduction
of the Kindle app that can be used on any device and the explosive ubiquity of
multi-purpose tablets and phones-used-as-mini-tablets.
My question becomes: are eReaders obsolete or, under the M-learning framework, do they
hold potential for our learners?
-----
Before I get into the analysis, I’d like to mention cost. Many early comments about eReaders noted cost (Hamilton, 2011; Jonker, 2012; Schugar, Smith, & Schugar, 2013; Watters, 2012), but dedicated eReaders are now fairly inexpensive, with the cost of a Kindle as low as $90 (Amazon.com, 2020). Additionally, I am surely not the only person with unused e-readers gathering dust at home who may be interested in donating them to a school library.
----
Back to the M-learning framework!
1. Personalization:
Schugar, Smith, and Schugar (2013) caution us to ask, “Will the e-reader allow access to content that is different or better suited to the task?” (p. 623), a question well-suited to the M-learning framework’s personalization element I do think that eReaders have the potential to provide a fairly high level of learner control over task-specific content. As Watters (2012) notes when discussing Kindle features that excite learners: “Start with the built-in dictionary and then add highlighting, variable font sizes, text-to-speech, and note-taking capabilities. There’s also a ‘popular highlights’ feature, whereby readers can see the most frequently highlighted passages, and that’s been a great ‘conversation starter’—even among second graders, says Parker—to encourage literary criticism, of sorts” (para. 5). Because eReaders are easily portable (and allow for the portability of far more books at one time than most of us want to carry around in print), they facilitate providing the “just enough, just-in-time, just-for me” sort of learning that Kearney, et al., discuss (2012, p. 9). Jonker (2012), Hamilton (2011), and Watters (2012) all note the value of this type of personalized content in literature reading circles. With costs of eReaders declining, I can envision a student – perhaps a student with limited library access or limited internet access – leaving school for the summer with a charger and an eReader stocked with a curated collection of books, and a librarian not worrying too much if the device doesn’t return.
2. Authenticity:
The M-learning framework asks us to consider whether technology centers learning in real-world practice and relevance for the learner. eReaders, while they may appear to have been rendered outdated by multi-use tablets, do nonetheless provide the opportunity for “rich, contextual tasks” (Kearney, et al., 2012, p. 11) that have “real world relevance” (Kearney, et al., 2012, p. 10). Certainly, reading on a device is a modern task in which many people engage in the “real world” outside of school. As Union, Walker Union, and Green note, our students “have grown up in an era in which computers and digital technologies are ubiquitous in their vernacular speech and skill sets” (p. 71). Having access to a range of curated textual content in a single, portable device can provide learners with the opportunity to practice real-world activities of research, reading, and content curation.
3. Collaboration
Under the M-learning framework, the collaboration aspect considers whether technology supports dialogue and the creation of content by the learner in a community of learners. Does the technology encourage learners to engage in sense-making through conversation? While using an eReader can be a solitary activity, it does promote the ability of learners to engage in community activities, such as the literature circles I note above. With some eReaders, content could be shared among readers in different locations without having to mail printed copies of books. It is less clear whether eReaders provide the sort of networked, learner-generated content creation that Kearney, et al. (2012), envision.
______________________________________________
Where does this analysis leave me?
References
Amazon.com. (2020). Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/b/?node=6669702011&ref=ODS_v2_FS_KINDLE_category
Florida Center for Instructional Technology. (2019). The technology
integration matrix. FCIT. https://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix/
Fredheim, J. (2012, March 4). Using e-readers in the classroom.
http://etec.ctlt.ubc.ca/510wiki/Using_E-Readers_in_the_Classroom
Green, L. S. (2014). Through the looking glass: Examining technology
integration in school librarianship. Knowledge Quest, 43(1), 36-43.
Hamilton, B. J. (2011, August 11). Next steps in the eReader
journey: The Nook Simple Touch. The Unquiet Librarian. https://theunquietlibrarian.com/2011/08/11/next-steps-in-the-ereader-journey-the-nook-simple-touch/
Hughes, J. E. (2020). Replacement, amplification, and
transformation: The R. A. T. model. TechEdges. https://techedges.org/r-a-t-model/
Jonker, T. (2012, February 18). Lending e-readers in the school library
(Part II: Planning). 100 Scope Notes, School Library Journal. http://100scopenotes.com/2012/02/18/lending-e-readers-in-the-school-library-part-ii-planning/
Kearney, M., Schuck, S., Burden, K., & Aubusson, P. (2012).
Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective. Research in Learning
Technology, 20. DOI:10.3402/rlt.v2010.14406
Newton-John, O. (2009, December 24). Physical (official video) [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/vWz9VN40nCA
Schugar, H., Smith, C., & Schugar, J. (n.d.). Teaching with interactive picture e-books in grades K-6. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-interactive-picture-e-books-grades-k-6
Schugar, H.R., Smith, C.A. &
Schugar, J.T. (2013). Teaching with interactive picture e-books in grades K–6.
The Reading Teacher, 66(8), 615-624. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1168
Union, C. D., Walker Union, L.,
& Green, T. (2015). The use of eReaders in the classroom and at home to
help third-grade students improve their reading and English/language arts
standardized test scores. TechTrends, 59(5), 71-81. DOI: 10.1007/s11528-015-0893-3
Watters, A. (2012, February 1). The truth about tablets: Educators
are getting iPads and eReaders into students’ hands – but it’s not easy. The
Digital Shift, School Library Journal. http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/02/ebooks/the-truth-about-tablets-educators-are-getting-ipads-and-ereaders-into-students-hands-but-its-not-easy/
