Today, I will be giving you some insights on FIVE different journals of librarianship and educational technology that I read. Each article, pulled directly from Sam Houston's Newton Library Resources, gave me some powerful and well-needed information I can use to be the best school librarian in the Houston Area.
One article about internet use the K-12 school. It is titled,
Classroom Blogging: What is the
Role in Science Learning? It shows how just how teachers and educators can successfully use and incorporate blogging in the classroom. Putting students in charge of their own blog page is powerful. Blogging is an excellent way to use the internet besides research. It capitalizes on the student's interests in technology and motivates students to learn. Writing in their blogs encourages critical thinking, self reflection, collaboration, and meta-cognition skills by requiring them to read and think about how they will set up their blog. Their science content and assignments will be seen by teachers, parents, and other students. Since comments can be left, most will be sure their blog is accurate and attractive. This encourages and foster more reading, writing, and tech savvy skills, thus increasing student achievement. Blogging about science, or any other subject, extends the classroom walls. Teachers and parents can witness the academic success and transformation with the new tools in the 21st century. While reading this article, I found this to be true for adult learners as well. This blog has helped me find my voice and is an interesting medium to use instead of the old paper/pencil route or the Word or .PDFs format. So can students blog? Yes!! If I enjoy it, I know students will love it!
The second article focuses on staff development for K-12 educators. It's titled,
Teacher Adoption of Technology this article presents a study of school teachers’ process of adopting technology. It shows how educators attitude towards new technology is dependent upon how much time it takes to learn and master tht skill and how complex it is to use it. When teachers lack of experience using technology in their teaching, it results in the teacher avoiding it. This creates an atmosphere of educators avoiding technology entirely. Simple technology, like the digital camera, websites, and e-books, is quick and easy to use and are being used in the classroom at a more consistent level than the more complicated technology, like the smart boards and wikis. They find that cameras and e-books don't often get abandoned. Not much time is spent learning and practicing. However, when educators have to spend a lot of time learning and planning for use of the technology, much of it, no matter how much money was spent, sits and is never used effectively. Much training and staff development is needed to ensure all teachers have up to date information on the technology. The article also delves into the attitude of the user. Based upon the attitude of the teacher towards new technology, the complexity of the technology , and the type of technology, it depends on whether or not it is used or not. So in my opinion, yes, much staff development is needed to support and train teachers. We want to embrace all types of technology in the classroom so that nothing is left behind or abandoned.
The third article is all about information ethics. The title of the article is, Is it Cheating or Learning the Craft of Writing? Using Turnitin to Help Students Avoid Plagiarism. This paper explores issues around plagiarism and reports on a study of the use of Turnitin in schools. Plagiarism through technology has" become more of an issue in recent years partly through the increase in the availability of the Internet, with has easy availability of essays for purchase." The Web 2.0 tools have opened new opportunities for all of us, and the students have grasped them even more than many of their teachers. It is all about FREE and social! "The availability of information on the Internet also makes it more difficult for educators to identify plagiarism, which was easier when students tended to access just a few significant texts that were well known to staff." When students have access to Turnitin, they can make sure that assignments are not being plagiarize and if they feel that they do need to quote and use the content, to make sure that they cite and give references to the original author. In my opinion,copyright and plagiarism are two ethical issues students need to be taught and explained early while in elementary. So when students do need to refer to an article or website, they will have to know how to do it. If students know that teachers and professors will be using Turnitin, then they will make sure that properly cite the author and title correctly. "Students who had used Turnitin clearly valued its use: It allows me to check for plagiarism so that I know I haven’t copied anyone’s work." I feel that yes, it is a valid and useful tool in information ethics. The article concludes with, "The study found that staff and students largely understood its school's policy and Turnitin’s place within it, and were very supportive of the use of Turnitin in originality checking." My opinion is the software,Turnitin, should be in all high schools so they will be prepared and experienced researchers by the time they attend college. The only thing I wonder about is that while some high school students are searching, using, and modifying information found online to use in their essays or research, are they learning unintendingly? Turnitin may have a positive unanticipated effect on students.
The article about how internet resources can be used to address diversity was one that I found very interesting. It's titled,
A Media Literate Approach to Developing Diversity Education. This article describes a classroom project on "diversity education that required pre-service teachers to use media literacy as a way to cross cultural borders and reach out to an online partner to exchange information and learn about different ways of relating to the world and interpreting cultural phenomena." The project found that through the use of technology, teachers can promote cultural diversity by setting up a worldwide community. Not only can students speak to someone from another country but can also travel to that country by using the internet. Students are able to see thousands of images from hugely diverse cultures-many of young children. Using the internet to promote diversity is a wonderful and easy way for students, young and old, to view other cultures not just in the U.S., but worldwide. Students will noticed how different everyone looks-different skin, eyes, and clothing, but once they reall begin to look closely,see the similarities too. Teachers can ask probing questions to pull that awareness out of them.: Images of people playing, eating, cuddling, crying, and laughing. American children can relate to that. Especially in preschool and kindergarden. This may be the first time children meet others who are "different" from themselves. The article suggests ways you can use technology to help children better understand one another and develop an appreciation for other cultures. " Students in the United States need diversity skills that enable them to function in an increasingly interdependent and varied world. Internet technology provides an untapped resource for assisting children to understand and value diversity." This project described in this article was a way of "creating a meaningful and purposeful opportunity for students to learn how to cross cultural borders by making use of digital tools and resources that are already part of their identities as learners and citizens of a larger community." This ariticle sparked ideas on how I can incoporate those images, sites, pictures, books, and videos to teach students about intolerance and respect for the world's diverse population.
My last article read was all about how librarians can be leaders in technology. Titled,
School Librarians as Technology Integration Leaders: Enablers and Barriers to Leadership Enactment, it was the most informative and useful of all five. The article's main goal was to identify what is enabling school librarians to thrive in the role of technology-integration leader, as well as the barriers they face. "School librarians are expected to accept and fulfill numerous roles in daily practice; one of these roles is that of a leader in the area of technology integration." Since our students are being surrounded and hounded with information in both their academic and personal lives, one of the school librarians main goals is to prepare them for the chanllenges of what lies in their future and ―"develop information skills that will enable them to use technology as an important tool for learning" While we need to keep them ethical, we still want them to be competent as well. What I liked about this article was the graphic organizer Ms. Johnston included: The Zinn’s Framework of Supports and Brriers to Teacher Leadership. It contains four domains on enabling and impeding factors on teacher leadership. While collegial relationships with teachers is cited as one of the main enablers, the top enabler is the principal. "When principals have a positive working relationship with school librarians, principals can serve as advocates and a source of support to promote school librarians as instructional partners; principals can also encourage teachers to collaborate." One barrier librarians face stems from them getting students the access and practice they need to use the technology. But of course the main barrier is, Time. Not having enough time to work with the staff and learn about technologies because of the various tasks for which school librarians are responsible for,―"too much to do and ―not enough time to devote to any one role to be fully involved in accomplishing it." Students cannot be expected to benefit from technology if their teachers are neither familiar nor comfortable with it. "Although teachers are excited about the potential instructional benefits of digital resources and technology, many are overwhelmed, and need assistance and leadership in incorporating the most appropriate technology efficiently and meaningfully for both teaching and learning." Information Literacy Specialist can help alleviate some of that stress by collaborationg with the school's tech. spec. and providing hands on workshops, visuals, and training to teachers so they can become comfortable with the tools and resources available to them online or by their school district during staff development days or weekly staff meetings. In our district, we have weekly PLC meetings, so that would be a perfect time to introduce a quick 15-20 minute lesson on what's new or reteach.
Works Cited
All From SHSU Database Resources:
Aldunate, R., & Nussbaum, M. (2013). Teacher Adoption of Technology. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 519-524.
Graham-Matheson, L., & Starr, S. (2013). Is It Cheating or Learning the Craft of Writing? Using Turnitin to Help Students Avoid Plagiarism. Research in Learning Technology, 21(0), 1-12.
Johnston, M. (2012). School Librarians as Technology Integration Leaders: Enablers and Barriers To Leadership Enactment. School Library Research, 15, (Apr 19,2012), 1-34.
Naiditch, F. (2013). A Media Literate Approach to Developing Diversity Education. The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Journal of Media Literacy Education, 5(1), 337-348.
Sawmiller, A. (2010). Classroom Blogging: What Is The Role In Science Learning?. The Clearing House, 83(2), 44-48.
I am so excited! I just created my first Facebook page about book recommendations by me!!! Here is the link to my Facebook page: