Upcoming conference – School Learning Commons

Posted on July 28, 2014 by SLAV Connects

On Friday, 8 August, the School Library Association of Victoria will host a one day conference on the theme of the ‘Learning Commons’ model of school libraries – The Virtual Learning Commons: Building a Participatory School Learning Community. Great excitement surrounds this conference as key presenters will be school library professionals and champions of the Learning Commons model for school libraries, Dr David Loertscher and Carol Koechlin who are making a rare trip to Australia. During their brief visit, school library professionals will have the opportunity to attend the conference and special workshop days to develop the model more fully according to their own needs.

Dr David Loertscher, Professor at the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University (USA) and Carol Koechlin, staff development leader and instructor for Educational Librarianship courses for York University and University of Toronto (Canada) are synonomous with school library leadership, instruction and information literacy skills development. They are well know for publications such as Ban those Bird Units and a series of books on the Learning Commons model.

Resources to support school libraries as Learning Commons, can be seen on The School Learning Commons Knowledge Building Center website. David and Carol also discuss the concept in detail in their article Climbing to Excellence: Defining characteristics of successful learning commons.

Their publications include: The Virtual Learning Commons | The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win | Building a Learning Commons: A Guide for School Administrators and Learning Leadership Teams but are really too numerous to list fully.

This conference will focus particularly on the Virtual Learning Commons (VLC). As schools move to 1:1 technology and easily accessible online resources, the VLC becomes a valuable tool for teachers and library staff alike in organising resources and guiding instruction. Delegates will be provided with a framework for developing an online resource to support information literacy skills instruction and guided inquiry. This really is a ‘can’t miss’ professional learning opportunity for school library professionals.

Full conference details and registration are available on the SLAV website.

History timelines as visual learning

Posted on July 24, 2014 by SLAV Connects

Timeline.tv is a British educational website focussing mostly of the history of Great Britain but also including Seven Journeys in the American West and an extensive coverage of the history of Smallpox Through Time, 1045BC to 2010. The History of Britain section is divided into categories dealing with lives of the people, rulers and government and the Empire.

This is a content-rich site with a mix of short videos (7-12 minutes) with external links to quality related sites. The videos present historical subjects in a variety of ways with associated primary artifacts, such as drawings, documents and artwork along with contemporary footage of the locations, buildings and historical landmarks. The narrator also makes the link between historical and contemporary times in an easy explanatory tone.

Timeline.tv is easy to negotiate and ideally suited to individual or small group student work. The association between events is assisted by their placement in the timeline across the bottom to the screen. So visually supportive! Students could create their own time lines from the content. This educational resource award winner from 2010 is certainly worth revisiting if it has slipped off your radar, or exploring as a new discovery.

There are many timeline tools. A couple of my favourites are: Time Rime | Timetoast
See also tools mentioned in the previous post Timeline Generators

EdTechCrew podcast says ‘Farewell’

Posted on July 20, 2014 by SLAV Connects

Since their first podcast as the EdTechCrew seven years ago, Tony Richards (@itmadesimple) and Darrel Branson (@ictguy) have opened the eyes of educators to the possibilities of ICT integration into the classroom. I say ‘educators’ and not ‘Victorian educators’ because over the course of the 250 episodes of EdTechCrew, Tony and Darrel have woven together a worldwide network of listeners, collaborators and conversations from the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada as well as Australia-wide and places in between.

Having mentioned them in a recent post on recommended Australian education podcasts, it is now disappointing to report that EdTechCrew Podcast 250 was the farewell presentation from this great team. Darrel and Tony have a chemistry that many would envy in their ability to share news, ideas and discussions in such an easy going manner. Their individual expertise has not been worn as a badge of honour but has been used to build a community of learners who are now better able to bring about the transition to technology integration in the classroom.

Over the past seven years we’ve listened to the rain on the roof of Darrel’s Mildura shed-studio, felt the summer heat and listened to the crickets while hearing of his growing family and his changes of career along the way. Tony has also shared the growth of his family, moved house and been stuck with dodgy internet. He now resides in beautiful Ocean Grove but clocks up numerous air-miles consulting around the country, most recently with the support of his number on trialer, Patrick. In the meantime the weekly podcasts have rarely skipped a beat.

Straddling both the primary and secondary sectors, with no discrimination between Government, Catholic or Independent schools, Tony and Darrel have been an example of what can be achieved through an open approach to education. Distance was no barrier as they used the technology available to create a podcast from their locations at opposite ends of the state.

School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) members are familiar with Tony through his involvement in the Web Elements Engaged Project and presentations at numerous conferences. The EdTechCrew Diigo Group, through which the community have shared recommended resources will remain active.

Thank you Tony (@itmadesimple) and Darrel (@ictguy) and good luck with the activities that are now demanding your closer attention. You’ve left a rich resource of 250 podcasts. I encourage every educator to take time and listen, you’ll learn to much.

Mindmap integration in Google Docs

Posted on July 17, 2014 by SLAV Connects

Many schools, including my own, use Google Apps for Education (GAFE). As such, I was interested to discover the new partnership between one of my favourite mindmapping tools Mindmeister and GAFE. With the new MindMeister add-on, (accessible via the add-on tab within a Google Doc) users can turn any bullet-point list into a MindMeister mindmap and automatically inserts it into their document. The mindmap adopts the exact hierarchical structure used in the list and adds a visually appealing graphic to the document. It’s free and doesn’t require a MindMeister account. The map created is not editable so students need to do the thinking and planning before they convert it to a mindmap. Nothing lost however, as they can always delete and re-do if they need more details. As we are basically visual learners, this is a useful, easily accessible learning support tool. There are many, many online, collaborative mindmapping tools available. A couple of other favourites are:

Bubble .us – ‘Freemium’ model also with full access but limit of 3 maps. Good collaborative interface.
Wisemapping – Free, open source, collaborative and able to be embedded into websites.
iThoughts – very popular IOS tool for iPad and iPhone

Comments and suggestions for other recommended options are welcome.

School libraries as Learning Commons – physical & virtual

Posted on July 11, 2014 by SLAV Connects

In recent years school libraries worldwide have undergone a period of re-evaluating their role and innovating into a new future. The changing nature of both education and resources, accompanied by easy online access to information and 1:1 computing, have all been part of this change.

Next month School Library Assoc of Victoria will welcome to Melbourne two renowned library professionals who have played a significant role in leading the change worldwide, Dr David V Loertscher and Carol Koechlin. David and Carol are library educators well known for information literacy skills development and for providing practical support for rethinking and re-imagining school libraries.

Their work on developing the model of school libraries as Learning Commons, can be seen on The School Learning Commons Knowledge Building Center website. It is discussed in their article Climbing to Excellence: Defining characteristics of successful learning commons. This article is also available in the latest edition of SLAV’s online professional journal Synergy.

To quote David and Carol:

The focus of the transformed traditional library should be on learning in its many manifestations, whether formal or informal, and the word “commons” could reflect a shift from a top-down organisational structure to the flat networked world where the clients, both teachers and students, consider themselves to be in command of knowledge building.

We have proposed that the learning commons serve a unique purpose in the school as a bridge between educational philosophy being practiced and the real world. As such, the learning commons serves school curriculum but also is known as a place for experimenting, playing, making, doing, thinking, collaborating, and growing. A series of Learning Commons books have been produced to support this journey.

Recently they’ve been involved in the development of Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada, 2014 which presents a model for the development and implementation of the school library as a library learning commons, providing educators with a common set of standards of practice for moving forward.

Teacher librarians will be familiar with some of their practical and popular information literacy books published in collaboration with Sandi Swaan:

David and Carol will teach and inspire Australian library professionals at the SLAV Conference, Friday 8 August with a follow-up full day workshop early the next week. See the SLAV website for full details and registration.

Education podcasts with an Australian touch

Posted on July 1, 2014 by SLAV Connects

School holidays are a good time to slow down and catch up on what others are doing in the world of education. Podcasts are an important component of my PLN, they’re easy to access via iTunes and are available for anywhere/anytime listening. The podcasts to which I subscribe are a broad range of international presenters and topics ranging from education to history, literature and contemporary debates (Intelligence Squared being a favourite in this regard). Your personal options are unlimited. Here today, are three specifically Australian education podcasts for your interest.

EdTechCrew
http://www.edtechcrew.net
Australian educators have tuned into the EdTechCrew podcast hosted by educators Darrel Branson (ICTGuy) and Tony Richards (ITMadeSimple) as they’ve discussed all things digital in education since 3 May, 2007. WOW! Such dedication. If this is news to you, don’t miss out any longer, go to their website The Ed Tech Crew Podcast for links to all their podcasts and associated show notes.

The EdTechCrew podcast also has community of supporters who contribute links and ideas through the EdTechCrew Diigo Group.

EdPod
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/edpod/
Presented on ABC Radio National by Antony Funnell, EdPod updates on the first Friday of each month. It is a selection of education stories from early childhood to Year 12 that have aired on Radio National in the previous month. The range of topics are broad as can be seen from this selection for June:

Teachers Education Review
http://terpodcast.com/
Hosted by Cameron Malcher and Corinne Campbell, this fortnightly podcast has a strong focus on educational practice. It presents teachers from primary and secondary schools who explore the implications of educational policies, teaching practices, and international events that impact on teaching and learning in Australian classrooms.
Included in each fortnightly podcast are the topics:

Main feature – discussion and exploration of a relevant topic
AITSL’s teacher feature
Education in the News and Analysis
Off Campus’ with Dan Haesler
Teachers’ Brains Trust – practical ideas and strategies

An interesting conversation on a recent episode was a discussion with Ewan McIntosh from Scotland (and NoTosh.com) about the origin of Teachmeets, the professional learning model that has now spread worldwide. He encourages teachers to join local teachmeets but also to collaborate with teachers in different countries under the ‘teachmeet’ banner. Adopt a teachmeet that’s not your own and create a global connection.

Show notes provide links to conversations and associated resources. I like to download podcasts via iTunes and listen while commuting but you can also access TERPodcast online at Soundcloud. Have a listen.

If you have other Australian education podcasts you would like to share, please let us know via the comments option.

School Library Association of Victoria

Monthly Archives: July 2014