Since I'm not a librarian yet, I've done little to "provide ongoing support for digital media including Internet sites, school or library websites, online encyclopedias and reference materials, social networks such as "Facebook", blogs, etc." My Co-op class website at www.coop2011.weebly.com is a beginning step that attempts to link students to additional resources. For example, the government section has a link to CPAC (which 4 of my students reported back on excitedly - really!). There are also links to CBC podcasts, youtube videos and websites. I found that this improved student engagement and a significant number of students (maybe around 2/3 of the class) took advantage of some of these extensions. It was also a great opportunity for students to share their discoveries, a few of which I posted on the site. A major challenge in maintaining that site was to keep it up to date and not to overwhelm kids with too much stuff.
The leverage of doing this kind of thing on a grand scale as a librarian strikes me as enormous. Thinking about it is exciting and daunting and brings to mind the article about Learning Commons. Although I had a few 'yeah, buts' as I read it, I see the need for the revolution they describe and that revolution is full of promise. It's also completely in line with the Ministry's new Education Plan which makes me hopeful that some of the barriers could be overcome. I look forward to discussions about Learning Commons and their implications for library organization.
The question about print based biases got me thinking about how often I've required students doing research to use at least one print book, as if that was somehow a better source. I need to remind myself that the issue is about the quality of the source and the kids ability to evaluate that quality rather than the medium. Jody's comment about print vs. non-print sources does remind me that important information is not available digitally so perhaps my 'book' requirement isn't completely unreasonable. I guess it depends on the type of research.
Hey Stefan,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great start to your blog entries! It is best to keep them short and do them often. In that way you will be more likely to actually do it! Keep up the great writing!
Onward and upward!
Cathy