SLAV Connects is a blog by the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV), formerly named Bright Ideas when a collaboration between SLAV and the State Library of Victoria (SLV). Its aim is to share news from the Association and to encourage teacher librarians, librarians, school library staff, educators and all interested persons to actively engage with the school libraries, to share tools and experiences; to network on a global scale; and to embrace dynamic teaching and learning opportunities.
In this guest post Heath Graham (Project Officer for the Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria) introduces resources and webinars for the Global Education project.
The Global Education Project is an AusAid-funded initiative, designed to encourage teachers to take a global perspective in the classroom across all learning areas. The Global Education website features teaching activities, videos, image galleries and other resources. Resources cover a range of Global issues including Water & Sanitation.
The Victorian branch of the Global Education Project is hosting a series of webinars on range of global education topics. The first session covers Primary level resources on the topic of water, to coincide with the International Year of Water Cooperation. The second session gives a general introduction and overview of the global learning emphases and their application in the Primary classroom.
Webinar details:
Global Education And The International Year Of Water Cooperation
These sessions are hosted in Blackboard Collaborate. If you have not used Blackboard before, DEECD have set up a Virtual Conference Centre to help you get started:
Rhondda Powling was part of a group, including staff from the State Library of Victoria, who presented at SLAV ‘s ‘Be in control: participate in the new age of school libraries’ on the value of personal learning networks, workflows and online tools. This guest post reflects on her presentation exploring content curation. You can find Rhondda’s blog here.
I was asked to speak about ‘Content Curation’ at a recent SLAV conference. You could say a lot about curation but I was asked to do two short sessions about ten minutes long. What to include in this brief session and what to leave out was a conundrum. I wanted the topic of curation to make sense. I tried to focus my thoughts on what I believe curation means to me. Why is it important to my learning, how do I use it with colleagues and students and why should I? So this is my experience of curation.
The phrases ‘content curation’ and ‘digital curation’ are buzz words in the online world, especially in my library networks. Although curation tools are many and varied, the approach I take when running sessions for teachers at my school is that when used properly, these tools enhance professional learning.
The AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers includes a section on Professional Engagement. The first paragraph under this is ‘Teachers model effective learning’. They identify their own learning needs and analyse, evaluate and expand their professional learning, both with colleagues and individually. One of the ways to demonstrate this kind of learning is through professional reading. It is easy to keep a record of professional reading and evidence of learning and sharing if you become a good content curator. Content curation also covers the collegial aspect.
Content or digital curation is not simply collecting links. Many teacher librarians, myself included, have been collecting links (for example: school topics, research) for years. So:
it’s not really a creating process as such but rather a process of sorting, arranging and then further publishing about information that already exists in the online or digital world
it is a process of first finding digital content that might be useful then sorting the results into the best and most relevant links, value adding with annotations and then sharing them in meaningful (organized) ways.
Good curators identify and define their topics or subjects at the outset. They then select what to keep whilst providing some context and annotation. Good curators make sure they correctly credit the sources as they offer their networks appropriate and easy access to their curated sources.
How to begin curating
Focused filtering and selection is a very important aspect of effective curation. Try to be as clear as possible about what you want. There are many ways to locate good content especially if you use social media. There are also many tools for curating. See my Google doc for some suggestions These are tools I use or others that I have seen. Some I do not use myself but they are recommended by other colleagues. Another post about curation tools that is worth looking at is 55 Content Curation Tools To Discover & Share Digital Content, which includes an annotated list, from the TeachThought blog.
Robin Good is an expert when it comes to the topic of content curation. He has extensive knowledge of the practices and tools and his comprehensive map of content curation tools and skills is divided into key categories. There are over 250 tools in this collection, so be prepared and take it slowly.
I have found that the best way to choose a curation tool is to be as clear as possible about what you want then spend some time looking for the tool/s that best suit your needs. That means, as you begin, have a ‘play’ with different tools and evaluate them critically. Some tools offer more advanced filtering search options than others. Some are more visual. Of course, as with everything in the digital world, things may change and what works for a while may alter its perspective and/or no longer continue to meet your needs.
I use around five main tools that allow me to find information and links. I actively search for information on specific topics and follow a number of people and groups using social media who have similar interests to me. These include my Diigo groups, Scoop.it and Paper.li authors via gmail notifications and summaries. I usually get daily, but sometimes weekly, summaries sent to me.
I do not regard Twitter as a curation tool but I find it very useful (via groups and hashtags) to locate possibly useful content. If I don’t have time to read it fully, I use Diigo’s “read later” option to help me filter out what I want to annotate and keep. Twitter is also one of the ways I inform others in my networks about possible sources that may also be of interest to them. Pinterest and Scoop.it are both curation tools that I use often and they make it easy to share to other social media platforms.
When I first began I looked at what others were doing. Here are a selection of people I follow:
I think it is important that the task of curating becomes a regular one, part of the daily routine. Beth’s suggestion about timing is a good one. I try to go through my lists most days. If, after a week I haven’t got to suggested sites, I usually delete the suggested lists, as new ones keep coming in.
My time was up. This was as far I got with my coverage of the topic. There is more I could discuss especially how it might be used to assist student learning.
I left the group with a second graphic that offers a good visual about the process of curating.
by cambodia4kidsorg
And these videos about why it’s important to curate.
A key talking point of the speech was Gove bemoaning the way “proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture.” Gove gave the example of an activity aimed at Year 11 students that asked them to create a picture book about the rise of Adolf Hitler in the style of Roger Hargreaves’ iconic Mr Men books.
History teacher Russel Tarr, who is the creator of the particular activity, responded to Gove’s claims. Tarr outlined the way the ‘Mr Men’ activity is used as a revision and consolidation task. Tarr’s response is well worth reading as it explains the methodology behind the task and student reactions to the activity.
Whatever your feelings about the task itself, the incident highlights the impact of technology on the professional practice of educators. In publishing the lesson Russel Tarr has not only shared a resource that may be useful to other educators, but he has also been drawn into a debate about the value of the particular lesson. I don’t think that is what Michael Gove intended when he made the point in his speech, but Tarr’s transparent approach to curriciulum design and his willingness to not only share but to also explain his rationale sets a great example for all educators.
Too often it is easy to feel protective or even defensive of our work and practice. I know when I first began teaching I would have been terrified of another teacher coming in and watching one of my classes. I’d make the most of resources created by others, but not want to share what I had developed. Often this comes from an irrational belief that we are not good enough, or that we need to be in the profession for a long time before we can share with other professionals. But however tempted we are to cover up the classroom windows or keep our resources to ourselves, it’s important to put our work out there.
This also applies to sharing online. Being able to publish our work opens us up to a whole range of other educators who not only can benefit from what we have done, but also help us to reflect on the efficacy of the tasks we create. For many people it might not feel natural to put this online. It can take a while for some to become active in online communities, and that’s okay too. But as we become more comfortable with those in our learning network we can become more willing to share. It’s challenging for some, but the benefits far outweigh the perceived drawbacks.
Even in the case of Russel Tarr, whose lesson plan became national news, we can see that a potentially negative experience can also be made into a positive. Tarr mentions that in a week that was ‘the strangest of [his] professional career’ he also received plenty of support from his colleagues and fellow professionals online. His blog response indicates that not only will he continue to share his work, but also continue to reflect upon his own professional practice. It’s an attitude to be commended.
Whenever we are faced with learning new skills or new methods we tend to focus on the tools. However, when we shift our focus from the tools to what can be done with them, real transformation occurs. Mastery and success become possible; it’s the same whether you are learning to paint with oils or teach research skills at a 1:1 netbook/iPad/BYOD school.
Bamboo Dirt is an online registry created to help educators make that shift. Its focus is on research tools and the Bamboo Dirt search function is organised around the idea of purpose.
Bamboo Dirt’s home page offers lots of browsing categories based around tasks. Categories include:
visualise data
organise research materials
manage tasks
manage bibliographic information
communicate with colleagues
author an interactive work
build and share collections
Users can also search or browse by keyword, tags, recommended resources, and new resources. Each result has a short description plus information on cost, licensing and platforms.
You can make the site even better by joining and contributing. Registration is free and members can:
add resources
review them
comment/describe how you have used a tool
recommend good resources and those appropriate for beginners
submit tips and tricks to help others understand the value of the tool
This service is an ongoing collaborative effort between Bamboo Partner Institutions (UC Berkeley, UChicago, UW Madison), Bamboo affiliates (University of Alabama, NINES), and individuals dedicated to helping connect people with digital resources. It’s a welcome addition to any educator’s research toolkit.
Librarians at the State Library of Victoria answer complex reference questions for patrons everyday, whether it be onsite, via email or on the phone.
After years of experience with the questions people bring to the collection, reference librarians have developed over forty library guides looking at specific research topics.
For a few years now, the Victorian Personal Learning Network (PLN) course has provided professional development for school library staff and educators. The twelve-week course was presented online by the State Library of Victoria and the School Library Association of Victoria, and hundreds of people have participated in the course over the years.
Through the Personal Learning Network participants can:
Engage in personalised professional development with educators across Victoria and beyond
Build their own personal learning network through a self-paced online learning system
Connect with hundreds of colleagues who share resources and support their learning
Use the web in innovative ways to enrich their teaching and learning experience.
VicPLN alumni have gone on to create a thriving online community – a PLN in action – which provides support, resources, inspiration and great ideas throughout the year.
2013 sees a slight change in approach for the online courses, in response to feedback from participants and our sense that it’s time to move beyond focus on “shiny new tools”. Following last year’s trial of a short course on research skills and tools, the 2013 program offers a range of shorter courses for people at different stages of their PLN experience:
Personal Learning Network introductory courses are now a more achievable seven units: the first course in this format begins March 12. Course materials focus on concepts and skills and a core set of web tools that we all need in our toolkit
PLNPlus is a four-unit “advanced” PLN experience, based on a more collaborative online learning model – presented for the first time from July 15
The Research Toolkit is a four-unit course focused on research tools and skills, offered this year from 14 October.
Shorter modules are in planning on topics such as digital storytelling.
We’ll keep you posted about course opportunities in the coming months and we’d also love to hear your ideas or feedback on past – or future – PLN courses. Leave us a comment here or tweet us via #VicPLN.
Bookish is a new book recommendation and e-commerce site competing with the likes of Goodreads, Library thing and Amazon. Although some question the effectiveness of these sites, Bookish promises a different experience based on the resources and expertise available to publishers driving the project.
Bookish is a collaboration between a group of major publishers claiming their recommendations engine, with input from real editors, is the best yet. With publishing heavyweights like Penguin, Random House and Scholastic on board, the site has already collected an impressive list of contributors, 400 000 author profiles and 1.2 million books in their catalogue.
At this stage, Bookish is leaving the social aspect of recommendations to established sites like Goodreads although they do link to Facebook. Their focus is editorial content – delivering magazine style essays, articles, news and reviews written by authors and professional editors.
Bookish represents an interesting commercial model for publishers to position themselves as an alternative to community based book recommendation sites. Whether Bookish stays impartial, only time will tell.
In 2010, I read David Warlick’s Gardener’s Approach to Learning: Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network and was inspired to map out my PLN (personal learning network). I’m glad I did because it gave me a different perspective of my learning landscape. I saw how I was connecting with colleagues and professionals, what places were most productive for me, and I was able to identify gaps worth exploring for future growth and weed out connections no longer meeting my needs. Growing my PLN became more purposeful.
Remapping my PLN a couple of years later, gave me further insight; I became aware of how the tools were shaping me, how they were shaping my online relationships and that I was growing from being a consumer towards being a collaborative, creative producer in my network. The activity was inspiring, rewarding and produced concrete evidence of professional growth. The map is a highly visual artefact that can be used in professional development plans and performance review conversations.
If you have never mapped your PLN before you may want to start simply with:
Face-to-face associations – eg. Teaching faculties, school/organisation learning teams, professional organisations you meet with in person.
Online associations – eg. nings, online organisations, Twitter hashtags you follow like #vicpln, groups on social media sites like Facebook
Access/aggregation – places you go to for learning and things you subscribe to eg. blogs, newsletters, curation tools like Diigo
Concentrate on your cohorts and the types of connections you have developed, don’t worry about naming individuals.
Once you are confident mapping your own PLN, why not take it a step further and have your students try mapping theirs? Most young people already have informal networks for learning, especially those involved in online gaming. Mapping then discussing as a group places they go to obtain information could help them to see connections between informal and academic learning. It might also be a great way of introducing them to a broader range of resources and ways that cultivating their PLN can help them achieve at school.
With so much educational content now online for free, many educators are turning to DIY or free-range learning to support their professional development. It’s a great idea, but having limitless information at your fingertips does not equal learning. And simply consuming content does not mean that skills or knowledge will develop.
In this illuminating TED Talk, “Recipe for Free Range Learning”, Maria Anderson takes the audience through conditions and elements vital for successful self-directed learning. Participating in online programs such as the Personal Learning Network can help learners meet many of the conditions Maria speaks about in her TED Talk. You can check out details of the next PLN course here.
This video could also be well worth viewing and discussing with students, perhaps as a springboard for further talks on time management, learning habits or future pathways learning.
While technology is often used for getting work done and staying organised, sometimes the most interesting tools are those that lead us to new ways of doing things. The digital storytelling tool Storify definitely falls into that category.
Storify allows for the creation of stories using a range of different elements. It can grab content such as pictures and video from many websites and also allows for text to be added. Perhaps the element that sets Storify apart is that tweets and public Facebook posts can also be added to a story. These elements are gathered together in a ‘storypad’ and can then be dragged into the story timeline (on the left of the screen). Have a look here for a quick demonstration of how it works. The great thing about Storify is that all content is linked backed to its original source.
Add elements by searching in the storypad and then dragging into the story.
Storify has become a popular tool for recording reactions to news stories and current events because of the ability to add tweets to stories. It is also perfect for summing up professional learning events, like this example here of a recent SLAV conference. As YouTube videos can also be added it’s a nice way to put together a series of tutorial videos or screenshots. In fact, all of the tutorials featured on Bright Ideas are built in this way using Storify. You can follow our Storify account to stay up to date with new tutorials. Storify stories can also be easily embedded into your blog or website and there is an iPad app with a nice interface (though I’d recommend building long stories on your computer as I’ve found the app has crashed on me in the past).
Elements can be imported from a range of sources. You can also search Google or use the link icon to manually add content.
Storify also has applications in the classroom. It could be used to create digital stories with pictures sourced from around the web. It would also be perfect for recounts of events such as excursions; particularly if students are also tweeting during the day or taking pictures and video. The linear nature of the story also lends itself to procedural writing, or it could be a nice way for students to present research projects.
Being able to bring in social media elements also means that Storify could be perfect for issues analysis. Students could link to annotated articles and news stories, but also include analysis of tweets by those involved or those observing. It would also be perfect for media analysis of shows which generate buzz on Twitter, like Q & A or Big Brother (that’s the first time those two shows have been mentioned in the same breath!).
Storify has been around for a little while now and a recent redesign means it is well worth exploring. The editor is great fun to use and the wide range of media that it can import lends itself to a number of exciting possibilities.
