Once more into the fray

In two short weeks I will be heading back for what might may very well be my final year in the teaching profession. It's a odd feeling. Here are some random things I've been stockpiling in delicious.

Last week Slate Magazine published an article titled "How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous." I tweeted about it saying that I had always thought I loved the thrill of the search because I was a librarian. The quick-witted Nancy Alibrandi replied, "Yes! What we thought was a mad search for information all these years turns out to be a mad search for dopamine! : )"

Maybe we can turn that to our advantage with students. If searching is such as addiction they should lap up the search challenges we give them to hone their skills for finding good information. There are some useful search tools and ideas posted on the Web in the Classroom wiki.

If you are helping teachers with blogs or wikis this year, here's a useful post from Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age:
Blogging?? Wiki?? What?? It includes rubrics for assessing student blogs, sample permission documents, and addresses copyright issues. This post is a veritable gold mine of ideas for using blogs and wikis in the classroom and includes many links to useful resources.

Another tool your teachers may want to learn more about is Skype. in her Teacher Et cetera blog, Ms. Ward has assembled a stellar collection of resources with links to ideas for using Skype in the classroom, getting started, resources, and ways to find other teachers and projects using Skype. Be sure to read the comments for more good resources.

Learn-gasm provides a list of 100 Incredibly Inspiring Blog Posts for Educators. There's bound to be something here to inspire your colleagues as they head back into the classroom.

makeuseof.com offers 4 Great Ways To Keep Track Of Your Expanding Book Collection. I've have been trying out Shelfari and have found it to be very useful. These tools could be used to highlight books in a your library collection or as a tool for book clubs. School Library Journal has an article on YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults teen session with some great recommedations and feedback from teens.

There you go. If you have resources to recommend as we head back into our libraries and classrooms please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!

Good enough?

David Warlick posed an interesting question in his 2 cents worth blog A Conversation about Wikipedia "What happens if it’s wrong?" He was considering the validity of using Wikipedia as a source.

When a class comes in to the library to do research I always spend time at the beginning reviewing resources with them. Yesterday with a Gr. 11 class I looked at a Google search for material on the Great Depression. The first hit was Wikipedia. When I asked the students what they thought about this source a torrent of opinions came flooding out. There were two valid comments:
- anyone can edit it
- it’s good for keywords

After some discussion they concluded that the Wikipedia article would be good to use as a starting point as long as it wasn’t their only source.

We went on to look at the rest of the Google hits and discussed which ones might be worth a closer look based on their URLs. AND we looked at the print resources the library had to offer.

Kids don’t want to fail. When they are given choice and an opportunity to learn why certain sources are better than others they listen. They start to become more discerning users of information.

In my job as a teacher librarian I ask myself the “Is this information good enough?” question all the time. Is the activity, or skill the student is practicing more important than the validity of the actual data they are using? When I think about it we are always dealing with misinformation. One only has to look at the number of times studies in the health field contradict each other. Coffee is bad for us. Coffee is good for us.

In addition, everything we read has come through two or more filters. First the writer gives us his or her perception of events. Then, as readers, we bring our own interpretations to what we read.

The real question should be "Are we giving our students the skills to become discerning, ethical users of information?" Is what we are teaching them good enough?