information resources

In every subject at least once come the question of the relevance of the library and the future of books. This week we explore the relevance and future of reference materials and if the internet will make them superfluous in physical formats.

In terms of the library itself everyone in my family borrows regularly from both school and local library so i'm not imagining its demise right away - i think a library is more than books its also a community place! Follow this link to a piece by Zadie Smith on libraries
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/02/north-west-london-blues/

My comments in brief:

Reference sections - I think physical will decline over time especially as encyclopedias like Britannica are available online. I liked the way VERSO (http://learn.quinnipiac.edu/verso/versomain.html) organised their reference section online and although the interface is a little clunky it is a familiar and less daunting way of browsing a reference section - goodness knows sometimes finding the right journal in our CSU library catalogue can be hard even when you know the name of the one you want - try find Access just for fun!.

We also discussed Wikipedia - i admit to using it - but usually only to find out things like what other movies an actor has been in. But agree with the blog sentiment that it's fine as long as you know its not a reliable peer reviewed resource. Having said that I would never use it for academic work!

Dictionaries - there's still merit to physical ones. After all we sometimes need to clarify meanings, pronunciations etc when we are not online.

Atlas - think you need to know why you want to use the Atlas first.... is it to find animal populations, topography, population etc - each different use probably has a more relevant atlas available.. and probably online provides more options that physical formats can

ETL 501 - resource provision

This week kicks off our exploration of information environments. We begin by revisiting teaching and learning - and of course the constructivist approach to learning which appears to be the current dominant educational pedagogy. Key to these conversations is the notion of what is information provision and what constitutes an information resource and the role/s of a T and or TL in its provision and how this relates to information literacy skills.

One of the tasks for this week included thinking about the key types of information a new and inexperienced geography teacher would need to teach a year 7 about rainforests and a source of information for this person. I confess I was so focused on the needs of the teacher and content information needs that I neglected the students needs, because of course one of the key bits of information the teacher would need would be about the students themselves. Given the constant reminders of the need for collaboration one would have to suggest that another more experienced geography teacher with a knowledge of the school would be an excellent source of information. I was reading a report recently that compared the differences in performances of countries on standardised testing (PISA). One interesting point was that in those countries/provinces who are improving (Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore) much more time was allocated to non face-to-face teaching and collaboration, (including in some places providing 2 or 3 mentors for new teachers) than in Australia - which, incidentally, has been dropping at a faster rate than these place are improving!

But back to resources, in another activity we were provided with objectives (based on Blooms taxonomy), questions (based on unit learning needs) and a had to add the relevant resources to the final column. In this I think it's useful to add in another column to identify the appropriate tasks for the question to make resource provision clearer - it also slightly changes the focus of the resource question. For example, (objective) Evaluation (question) Is it reasonable that people pollute our waterways? Defend your answer; By adding a column for an appropriate task/tool, one can focus resources needs. Eg, an appropriate task for this outcome may be a debate, then the question would be what types of resources would students need to effectively conduct a debate, rather than simply what resources will allow the students to answer the question effectively.

In considering resources in light of student learning outcomes, it did also occur to me that the usefulness of resources are sometimes determined by teacher effectiveness and the way in which the resource is utlised - even the best resource can be ineffective if inappropriately or unimaginatively used.

First impressions ETL501

Well, so far this unit seems to be the most well organised yet. There are plenty of resource materials and assignment stuff already and the forums are being made more manageable - albeit requiring more input than i usually provide! The assignments look relevant and have already started thinking about the final one - though have yet to start readings or get onto other stuff so maybe jumping the gun! But here's to a successful unit all round.... ETL501 here I come

new semester upon us

The last semester seems like an age ago. The relief of handing in the final assignment was acute and i really enjoyed the reprieve from uni. Having said that, i found the both assignments really useful. .... as usual i could have done with an extra 1000 words in each of the assignments - so much good stuff had to be cut - but as they say, succinct writing is a skill.

...so is keeping a regular blog! which again shall be an aim this semester.