Assignment 3: Part 2 Self-Assessment

Even though I joined the course late, one of the wonderful things I have discovered about online discussions (blogging) is that you can participate in conversations that have already happened and can join in and add to the discussions. I feel I have learned a lot through the readings and these discussions with others. I feel that I have participated and added meaningful comments to these discussions and have shown evidence of my learning through my posts on the discussion board, my blog, and assignments. For this course I had many opportunities to use the databases through UBC and I have particularly enjoyed exploring them to conduct my research. I feel this will contribute greatly to my work as a teacher and will help me in facilitating research skills with my students. In my previous self evaluation earlier in the course, I mentioned that I wanted to continue to explore the online resources our school district has purchased. I feel that I have done this very well and have achieved my goal. I am excited to explore our school’s online reference resources even further with students of other ages, such as our big buddy class. I also am excited to share what I have learned with my colleagues on staff and hope to help them explore these resources as well. In this reflection I will briefly summarize the points that I feel have been most important to me in my learning as evidenced in my blog.

What I already knew when I began taking this course:

I knew that the reference materials existed, but thought that most were too challenging for my grade one students to use because of the format and difficult reading level. I knew that some reference materials could be accessed online, but I hadn’t tried them. I mistakenly assumed that the effort required to teach my young students how to log on and use these resources would be immense and I thought my students ultimately would find it too difficult to use making my efforts not worthwhile. I knew that the students enjoy using technology and are motivated by it.

What I have learned:

1.)    I have learned how to navigate my way through all of our online databases and am familiar with all of our print references as well.

I have examined several of our online reference resources in more depth than others but feel confident that I could show students how to navigate through them all. I have explored two of the online databases quite extensively with my students. I feel confident that my students now have the skills needed to access these online reference resources at school and at home. I am also very familiar now with the print reference resources that our school has as well and have recently explored two of the print reference materials with my class as well.

2.)    I have learned that reference materials are not just for older students; younger primary students can use reference resources too.

I have learned many valuable things through this course but this new understanding has opened up a whole new dimension to my teaching. First of all, my assumption that reference materials are too difficult for my students to use was mistaken. I discovered that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought to teach the students how to use these resources and they really enjoyed using them.  There are some print reference materials that my students successfully used as well such as several of our atlases and our World Book Encyclopedia.

3.)    I have learned several fun ways of using reference materials with students.

Through my research and discussions with my peers in this course, I have learned several good ways to use reference resources with my students using both the print and digital formats. Some of these include ways to introduce the Encyclopedia sets we have as well as several fun games to play using the atlases. Through my collaborative work on assignment three I have learned that our online reference materials are an incredible resource and that even my young grade one students can benefit from using these resources. I have also learned some ways for sharing ideas amongst colleagues and helping others to grow and change as they explore new innovations.

4.)    I understand how to evaluate a reference resource for its usefulness and effectiveness.

Our Riedling text has been a great resource for helping me learn how to evaluate reference resources and I have gained a lot of confidence in this area. One of the most surprising revelations for me in this course is learning that Wikipedia has its place as a reference starting point and can be used as long as other authoritative reference materials are also used.

What I still want to learn:

I still need to gain more experience using these reference materials (both online and in print) and time will provide me with this experience. I look forward to continued use of the reference materials with my grade one students. I still need to gain skill in evaluating reference materials but this will happen given time and experience using reference materials. Another goal of mine is to create a website which lists a variety of online reference materials for teachers and students which will be useful throughout the different grades. I have found our discussion threads to be particularly useful for gaining ideas for the great online reference resources that are out there. I have learned of many good resources already and in using these, I am pleased that I can say my website has begun!

Reflection: Discussion about Maps

One of the nice things about this course is learning from others about great resources. I have learned about a new mapping resource that I didn’t know existed. Both Monica and Andrea mentioned the resource the Lonely Planet.  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

I had never used this resource and so it was nice to hear what others had to say about it. Andrea thought it would be a good resource for students to use if they were to map out a trip. Monique thought it might be a good resource to use when students need to create a brochure. I can definitely see the merits of this resource in serving both of these functions.

Discussion Reflection: Databases

It seems to be that from the posts made on the discussion board, the online databases are an underused resource. Perhaps this is because they are relatively new? Teresa indicated that she contacted a dozen teachers from her school to get the password for her school's online resources and none were able to produce this for her. I know my own kids have not been given the passwords from their own school district. I have recently helped my own kids use the online resources from the public library.

Our school district pays for our online resources and I asked our TL if her budget has been reduced because of this and she said that it hasn't. So that is a bonus! We just need to get more people using these fantastic resources!

Reflection: The End of Encyclopedia Britannica in Print and The Use of Wikipedia

Anne shared a newspaper article with us from the New York Times, (March 15) saying that after 244 years in print, Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer be published in print form. To see the article go to:  http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

In this article it says that sales peaked in 1990 and has been on a downward decline since. What a tremendous drop in print sales since 1990 - from 120, 000 to 8,000!

We have a 2012 World Book Encyclopedia set sitting on our library shelves (that was given to us by the public library!). If World Book follows suit then I am wondering if I am looking at an historic moment - the last time a current print Encyclopedia set will be sitting on a library shelf?

There is lots of nostalgia in this for many of us - numerous hours spent exploring the world through this resource. I suppose the new generation will one day look back and fondly recall numerous hours spent exploring the world through their ipad. The times are simply changing!

 Meagan, had the following comment to make regarding Wikipedia and I agreed with it wholeheartedly:

"After reading the articles I agree that Wikipedia is a good place to start for research. I think they key to its use by students for reference information is proper education. When it comes to developing their information skills, they need to be aware of its accuracy and reliability, as well as using other reference sources to verify their gathered information. "

I stated in the discussion thread that kids are gathering information from everywhere (as they should be) and giving them the tools and knowledge about how to evaluate their sources is extremely important. If we don't give these skills, they make assume that all information is true. We used to say just because it was in print it doesn't mean it's true. The same can be said for all information no matter where it comes from, print, digital, or otherwise.

Harjeet mentioned on the discussion board that her social studies students think that Wikipedia is the "be all and end all". She said, "We as TLs need to become more comfortable with using wikipedia and teaching students the right way of using it by comparing it to other sources when doing research." I agree that we need to be more comfortable with Wikipedia and teaching students the right way to use it.

I found the articles about Wikipedia really transformative. These articles are ones I have shared with other teachers so that rather than fight it they can help their students to approach sources such as Wikipedia in a more balanced way.

Wikipedia articles:  http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar06/berinstein.shtml
 http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/211833555

Reflection on Assignment 3: Using the CBAM Approach

I found this assignment to be a challenging one, although a very worthwhile one. I partnered up with the TL at my school for this assignment and since I still have so much to learn, I was the person who underwent a change and she was my mentor. This was a tremendously useful project for me and I have benefited immensely from working collaboratively with our TL. She is a wealth of information and it was wonderful that I could benefit from her years of experience. The process was a time consuming one, and it took a lot of time not only spent in discussions with my TL but personally exploring with this new innovation myself. To understand the CBAM approach a little better, I also did a bit more reading through the UBC library databases. Anderson said that, “Change is a process, not an event” and this is comforting to remember. (Anderson, 1997)  I will continue to learn more as I explore further with this new learning innovation. I hope that in the spring I can turn the tables and share my new knowledge with my grade one colleagues and help scaffold their learning in this new innovation.

Anderson, S. E. (1997). Understanding teacher change: Revisiting the Concerns Based Adoption Model. Curriculum Inquiry. p. 331.

Lesson 12 Reflection: How familiar are you with your school district, school and department budget processes? Knowing where the money is and it is allocated are the first steps to making sure that you get your share.

Presently in our school, the TL has told me that she receives about 20% of the learning resources budget to purchase learning resources for our school. This funding must be spent on learning resources such as books and may not be spent on other things such as library supplies, furniture, or computers. To supplement this funding, our TL holds an annual Scholastic Book Fair. This brings in approximately an additional $2000 in funding that in addition to spending it on resources, it can be spent on technology, furniture, or other special projects. These resources must be spent keeping the needs of the learners of our school in mind. The amount that the libraries are given varies from school to school in our district and 20% is used as a guide but principals are the ones who determine how much money the library will receive and so they can choose to increase or decrease this amount as they see fit. I have heard that it is wise to keep a wish list of resources you wish to order in case extra funding is all of a sudden provided to the TL. This will help in proving that there is a need for funding and will help in advocating for more funding in the future.

Discussion 10: Periodicals: EBSCO is Awesome!

I really like EBSCO and have found lots of useful information using it. I like the way you can select only the journals you want to peruse and leave out ones you don’t wish to look at. I always use the advanced search options so that I can select only the type of information I need. For example, I can ask for search results which are only in full text, and are online, and are scholarly articles. I can also eliminate things that I don’t want to appear in my search as well and that helps save time because I don’t have sift through a whole bunch of search results that I don’t want.  I find the citations given for search results informative and help me to decide which articles I want to read in the full text form. Usually you can select either a PDF version or an HTML version. There is also a brief index on the left side called “inside this work” which links to the different sections of longer articles.  On the right side is a tool bar which has links for emailing the article, storing the article in a folder that you create, printing the article, bookmarking the article, and linking the article. But my favourite tool of all is the citation button. I love that you can just click a button and it will create the citation for you in the style you want. That is so convenient! Another handy tool is the “Find Similar Results” button. Sometimes I find it takes a while to find the exact topic that I am looking for and so once I do, I can click on this button to find more results like this one. For example I searched for the article “Can We Make Peace with Wikipedia?” By Chris Harris and then clicked on “more like this” and it brought up three closely related articles. This is a great tool but sometimes I still find the results are quite varied and not similar at all to what I am looking! I think this is one “smart” tool that is not so smart! 

I wish the subject searches could be improved to allow for more unique search terms that are defined by the user because sometimes it is difficult to know what the correct search term is (especially when exploring an unfamiliar topic). When I am not entering in the correct search term my subject searches don’t provide me with as many good results that I would hope for. I am so used to performing Google searches using keywords which provide lots of good results and it would be nice to have that in library searches too. Using the correct search term can take a bit of skill and not using the correct search term makes searches not as effectively as they could be. For example, I entered the keywords “library research skills elementary school” in the database called Education Research Complete just to see what would happen. The first result that came back was very related to my search but the second hit was “Exploring the Media Literacy of Taiwanese Elementary School Students.” However, having said all this, using the advanced search options brings up better results.

I love using this UBC library resource and I will miss it when I have completed my diploma. I wonder if there is a way to keep your library card active after your degree. I am definitely going to find out!

Lesson 10 Hot Topic: A Fantastic Online Bibliograhpy Resource for TL's

A good website that I have found that I would turn frequently to if I were a TL is Carol Hurst's Literature Site. http://www.carolhurst.com/index.html

This site contains a collection of book reviews and teaching ideas to go along with the books. Sections of the site are arranged by title, author, and grade level. There is also a section that recommends books according to the curriculum area you have entered. This would be handy when a teacher comes to the TL to ask for a book about "Families" or "Greek Mythology". A quick peek at this website will help you provide a good starting point.There is a section for parents as well and you can subscribe to the digital newsletter.

I really like the design of this website. It contains an Expanded Table of Contents which makes it easy to know what kind of information is contained in this website. Finding the information is really easy as well.

My only concern is that while the copyright shows that it is current to 2012, I have noticed that the last update appears to be in July of 2011. There are so many great resources on this site and it would be a shame to let it fall out of date! I hope that new titles keep being added to it.

Lesson 9 Hot Topic: Atlases - What Would I Purchase Now?

This week we were asked to think about which atlas we would purchase now if we could. I really love looking at print atlases because they are so nice to browse and by flipping through the pages it helps to put all the pieces of the world together. Online maps are great for looking at details and zooming out to look at the big picture as well but I also love a print atlas for allowing me to mentally put it all together.

I agreed with Brenda that the Children's World Atlas looks like a good resource. Another Atlas for middle grades students that looks good is called the National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers. It is not as current (2007) but it does have links in the book to interactive websites for more added information about various countries. These include games and videos. It comes from a reliable publisher. It has good information about types of maps and how to read maps as well. It uses good graphics and would appeal to students.

I also love Google Earth and love how you can zoom in and out to see different perspectives. This reminds me of the book called, Me on the Map by Joan Sweenie where a girl shows herself on a map of her room, and then her house on her street, her street in her town, etc until she is showing a map of the world.

I also came across a fun little game for using atlases while I was browsing the internet. The idea for the game is nothing new but I think the students would have a lot of fun saying, "By George, I think I've found it!" You can check out the game at:

http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/3901.html

Brenda mentioned that she also plays an Amazing Race game with her students when using atlases. This sounds like a great game and I would love to give it a try!

Lesson 9 Discussion: Atlases

I evaluated three online mapping resources (Atlas of Canada, National Geographic, and MapQuest) and one printed atlas (National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers). Out of these four resources, I liked the Atlas of Canada the least. I found the graphics to be rather inferior and the search features to be rather limited. The National Geographic site was better. It had much better graphics as well as a better way of searching. It gave a nice visual overview of countries and I think students would much prefer using the National Geographic map over the Atlas of Canada. MapQuest is the one, of course, that I use all the time and I have spent some time looking at landmarks all over the world.  It is interesting looking at places where I have never been (such as Rome) using the satellite images to see what the area looks like. I think this tool could be very useful in the classroom. For example, if you wanted to see what a delta land formation looks like, you could check out many different ones and compare them using this point of view. If you wanted to see a setting in a book you could check it out using the satellite view. I don’t know much about “lit trips” but this can be done using Google Earth. You can check out Google Lit Trips at http://www.googlelittrips.org/ . You can see more about my comparisons below.

Atlas of Canada - http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/sitemap/index.html

Authority – excellent – Government of Canada

Currency – the map was made from data obtained in 1995 which should as a general rule mean it is historical, however given that I was looking at land cover types, this information does not change as readily as other information might and so this needs to be kept in mind.

Scale – the scale is clearly given.

Indexing – There are tabs at the top of the map which allow for searching for particular pieces of information.

Format – The size of the map is rather small. There are tabs to increase the size but they don’t actually work. This would make it difficult for younger students to use.

It is handy that each map has an abstract that the user can read so that they know what kind of information is contained in the map and how to use it. It also tells how the information was obtained as well as some factual information related to the map.

National Geographic Mapping - http://ess.nrcan.gc.ca/mapcar/index_e.php

Authority – excellent – National Geographic is listed as an authoritative source in the text by Riedling. The source for the data in the map is given.

Currency –  good - The exact date of the date was not evident but it is between 1996 – 1012.

Scale – good – No scale is automatically indicated on the map screen. The scale can be given using a tab button which can be changed between kilometres and miles. The user can click on a location and click on another location to determine the distance between the two points.

Indexing – Good – users can click on subject tabs to search for information.

Format – The map is large and appealing. The way new information is added is very visually appealing. When new information is added to a map it looks like it is done by adding a transparent overlay on top. The transparency of the overlay can be adjusted using a slide rule to make the map more or less visible.

Atlas in Print

Our library has a few atlases and I chose to evaluate the National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers.

Authority – This resource comes from a reputable publisher (National Geographic). 

Scale – The scale is clearly identified.

Currency – This resource was printed in 1998 and so it is considered historical.

Indexing – There is an index at the back of the book to help students locate information. It is brief but appropriate for its target audience.

Format – The maps are very clear and legible. They are very colourful and appealing, especially to the younger audience. The layout of the atlas gives the students a general overview of the important aspects of a variety of different countries. The information is limited but it seems appropriate for a younger audience. Picture symbols are laid over top of the map so that students can see what kinds of plants, animals, land formations, and resources exist in these locations. Major countries are covered, along with a couple of extra pages of information about the countries using facts and photographs.