edition 19 - immersion

School holidays are a blessing and a curse - am busier at work and have kids at home - which is normally ok but they have been quite sick and have spent most of the morning acting as a peace keeper and almost no time on uni but at least i don't have to worry about lunches and school hours!
Am drowning in information - well not exactly but have been reading an awful lot and am trying to link and weave in a lot of ideas from earlier materials into assignment 2. Have read some interesting articles about professional standards - am interested in the tension surrounding standard and accompanying performance assessment and ...

"the potential shortfalls associated with standards frameworks that regulate teachers’ work in ways that reduce their autonomy, or that assume that assessment of teachers’ work will necessarily lead to improved teaching and thus improved learning outcomes for students " (Mayer.D et. al. 2005, p. 163)

not that this is what i should be thinking about.... back to work and concentrating on clear writing and explicit answers to assignment questions.

Mayer, D., Mitchell, J., Macdonald, D and Bell, R. (2005) Professional standards for teachers: a case study of professional learning in Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33( 2), pp. 159–179

edition 18 - for later

had an interesting thought that i'd like to explore later.....need to finish assignment 1st ..
What are the inherent ideas/assumption about IL that each of the info skills models make? Is their underlying assumption that IL is systematic information behaviour and that this can be acquired through following a certain set of steps???

edition 17 - Der glumph

So .... as i was undergoing the collection phase of Kuhlthau's ISP for assignment 2, part A (Feeling a clearer sense of direction and confidence where my Thoughts were: defining, extending, and supporting the focus and my Actions were: selecting information relevant to the focused perspective of the topic and making detailed notes) I began to read the NSW DET, Information skills in the school book and i wish i had had the sense to look at it for the previous assignment – it even outlines the ways the executive, grade and faculty groups, individual teachers, parents and community not to mention the TL and library can integrate the teaching of information skills across the school – they’re talking about an ILSC (without naming it as such) and the ways to achieve it!!!.

"Where the teacher librarian plays an active role in the integration of information skills into the curriculum, library skills lessons or programs become obsolete, and the full range of information skills are taught in context instead" (NSW DET, 2007, p.16).

Here is the link if you’d like to read it

http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/teachingideas/isp/docs/infoskills.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (2009) Information Search Process in Bates, M and Maack, M (Eds.) The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Availabe at: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/docs/ELIS%203E.pdf

NSW Department of Education and Training (2007) Information Skills in the school: The information Process (ISP) available at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/index.html

edition 16 - collaboration

Before getting to collaboration ....assignment 1.... although i did well, i wasn't entirely happy, and have been reading and digesting all the various forum discussions - and after looking carefully at my assignment again, i know now that i should have been more explicit about the TL role and strategies used to overcome the obstacle. Although i discussed strategies, they were more an academic reflection and probably should have been more practical and yes, fewer resources and reading and more focus on this area would have helped! Note to self for next assignment.

But to collaboration, ... the benefits for Ts and TLs, not to mention students are undeniable, but Todd (2008) pointed out a few things that i have thought for a while - namely that a lack of time is a major challenge, that collaborative teaching practice (CTP) is tested by the day-to-day pressures of school, and recognition of expertise is not enough to encourage collaboration and CTP has to be motivated by student outcomes not by a desire to increase the profile and perception of the library. It's also interesting that Todd concludes this CTP required meeting out of hours and a strong desire and commitment on the part of those involved - which i guess again leads back to the idea that flexible scheduling would be necessary to successfully create an ILSC or even to increase opportunities for collaboration.
CTP - hard - yes, beneficial - yes, practical - ?? depends on the school, willingness of those involved and the time and scheduling available, worthy - yes!

Todd, R. J. (2008).The dynamics of classroom teacher and teacher librarian instructional collaboration Scan, 27(2), 19-28

edition 15 - assignment 1 and collaborative practice

today i got back assignment 1 and while i achieved my aim in terms of marks i feel slightly disappointed - mostly because the criticisms of the assignment would not have been there if i hadn't had to cut out so much - although i was praised for my wide reading and knowledge i came away with a sneaking suspicion that it was unnecessary and may have been better not to complicate things by reading so much. In my previous masters (also by coursework) essays were 5000 words and brought together the semesters efforts and although i understand the rationale, in some ways i feel frustrated that this is not the case here. The last assignment somehow doesn't seem as rigorous as the first - and i feel as though i wish that parts A and B had made up assignment 1 and part C and assignment 1 the final submission for the semester.
Oh well perhaps this is in part a product of the fact that there was no way i could get through all the readings before the first assignment was due - and in following the timetable for readings we were only to begin reading topic 5 the day the assignment was due and there was some materials in that which added to my understanding of an ILSC and the place of collaboration within it.

In fact Fullan's (1999) article raised some interesting points about the how the quality of relationships is central to success and these are typified by trust and compassion and how collaborative school (which could read ILSCs) encourage passion while providing support. Thinking about passion and support led me to consider how committed I and other teachers are to the ongoing pursuit of knowledge, experience and development - i know we constantly add new resources and information to what we teach but do we often change the way we teach? Are we as dynamic and responsive as changes in technology and learners require us to be?
I loved the idea of collaborative cultures for complex times and wholeheartedly wish that this my workplace more closely aligned with these ideals.

Fullan, M. (1999). Deep meaning of inside collaboration. In Change forces : the sequel (pp. 31-41). London : Falmer Press.

edition 14 - IL / IF and IL models

Into final assignment time ...
I was merrily traveling along til i read some of the forum posts -I had felt i was on the right path but am no longer as certain - the general confusion has confused me lol.

However, in doing more reading i was struck, as with when researching for assignment 1, how much of the literature we are provided with is from the 1990s and how some of the questions raised then, by people such as Langford still appear pertinent today - which led me to question if we are stuck in the conceptual phase of IL or are we simply refining the ideas of IL/IF and what it means in this period of changing technology. Obviously we have moved to the development of tools and processes as well, part a of the assignment is testament to that, but have these been applied in a consensual manner across schools or indeed across subject areas within schools? And have the application of information process models actually changed teaching practices?

Stripling says that IF is "now accepted in the field as a replacement for IL" but i actually think they are different - IF requires the skills needed for IL and can also encompass multiple other literacy types like visual and digital. However, i guess despite the "fuzziness" of the concept the models are designed to scaffold the process of learning from information - i thought it was interesting that Herrings PLUS model evaluation found that the more able students didn't think it helped them - which i guess indicates that these students have already internalised their own information models which follow the same basic principles (and are probably self-directed learners who don't need that level of scaffolding to complete tasks). It would be an interesting exercise to get students to individually record their own processes before introducing a model - in fact i wish i had done that prior to beginning this so i could see how similar/different my own model is to the professionals - perhaps i could create my own!!

Langford, L. (1999) Information literacy? Seeking clarification. In J. Henri and Bonanno (eds.) The Information literate school community: best practice, pp. 43-54 . Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.

Stripling, B. (2007). Assessing information fluency: gathering evidence of student learning. School library media activities monthly 23(8), 25-29.

Herring, J, Tarter, A. and Naylor, S (2002) An Evaluation of the Use of the PLUS
Model to Develop Pupils' Information Skills in a Secondary School. In School Libraries Worldwide 8 (1) 1-24

edition 13 - blogging, ILSC and TL literature

just a quickie as have to pick up girl 1 from school in 10 mins!
Have been looking at assignment 2 - don't think the marking sheets are as helpful for this one.
Also think that maybe i haven't quite been blogging the learning journey they were expecting - not enough about the course material and too much about my responses to being a student. Perhaps this is one critical reflection for my blog section!
I guess my approach to blogging is quite informal, though i know that some students blogs are quite rigorous and follow the module and forum blogs closely, it just doesn't sit right with the way I'm inclined to write. This is not to say that i haven't been reflecting on my journey, I keep internally referring to some of the reading's I've done and there are a few terms, questions and ideas that recur - has information fluency become the acceptable term now for information literacy? How many principals have heard of an ILSC, why didn't i have a better understanding of the scope of the TL and where/how should that understanding have been communicated to me, and would i still be unaware if i hadn't started this course (very probably) and part of this keeps coming back to modelling of other teachers (after all that's who us beginning teachers look to), the school's pedagogical approaches, philosophies and expectations, teacher training, induction and the cross-over in literature. My subject areas are history, geography, social studies and science (yes it is a funny combination!) but in all the literature i read about teaching in general and subject specific, I don't recall a single article that was either written by a TL or referred to how the library/TL may be utilised in terms of planning or resources. Perhaps the real revolution needs to start at the teacher training level. Though as many of you (and me) have pointed out the potential success of the TL in cases does come down to personality.

anyway, back to the assignment.