Group Design Project

8/6/2019 Group Design Project

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Web 2.0 in the Library Media Centre

Running Head: WEB 2.0 IN THE LIBRARY MEDIA CENTRE

Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Library Media Centre

Michelle Rinker, Barbara Heard, Philip Salembier, and

Brian Farrell

University of British Columbia

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Key Frameworks

School communities have traditionally been seen as a collection of individual and

sometimes isolated classrooms where the learning is teacher-driven and focuses on the

individual student’s ability and disposition (Scardamalia & Bereiter 1994). This type of

learning environment according to Scardamalia & Bereiter (1994) prevents the

development of expert-like learners. They instead propose the idea of developing a

knowledge building community that involves the whole school as a learning

community. These views are supported by constructivist and social constructive learning

theories (Henri 2005). James Henri (2005) supports the development of this type of

learning environment, which he refers to as an information literate school community.

He believes the library media centre needs to take a leadership role by providing both a

physical space and cyberspace where students, staff and administrators can come together

to share resources, ideas, collaborate effectively and develop knowledge-building skills.

Through the use of emerging web 2.0 technologies, students are able to become partners

in knowledge-building by generating new understandings and contributing to a socially

constructed body of knowledge. They are at the centre of the knowledge-creating process

(Scardamalia & Bereiter 1994).

For the information literate school community to become a reality, it is important

for shared values to become embedded in practice (Thomas, Kellogg and Erickson

2001). There is a need for teacher librarians to become strong role models and leaders.

Developing an innovative and collaborative online component to the library media centre

sends a positive message to the learning community and encourages interaction on new

and exciting levels.

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Intentions and Positions

School library media centres play a pivotal role as a knowledge hub in their

respective school communities. In addition to assisting students in the development of

effective inquiry-based research skills, school libraries are responsible for fostering a love

of reading, and should develop literary connections for students. This design project

seeks to extend the school-based library media centre to an online environment and

enable teachers and students to make a personal contribution to a socially constructed

body of knowledge. The predominant technologies being used in this design project are a

series of web 2.0 tools including a blog, wiki and a social bookmarking tool. All of these

technologies facilitate social knowledge building amongst teachers and students and

provide a constructivist learning environment. These tools provide an opportunity to

engage students in inquiry-based learning and are collaborative by design (Engstrom,

2005, p. 12).

Our aim is not to replace or duplicate information that is currently readily

available online, but rather to direct students and teachers to information that is most

beneficial to them and their unique learning goals. Students will compile and edit wikis

to build and expand existing knowledge of information literacy skills, share strategies and

knowledge to be successful in specific courses or projects, pursue shared interests in

reading, and other student driven areas of interest. Relevant resources and links will be

compiled into an accessible social bookmarking tool using del.icio.us, with an aim of

offering teachers links that are factual, unbiased, and scholarly in nature. Research has

clearly shown that students are more motivated and will feel more confident in their

abilities if they are an active participant in designing and directing their learning (Valenza

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2006). Our blogs and wikis will enable students to be active drivers of content and

discovery, with teacher librarians acting as guides, filters, and moderators of discussion

and idea sharing.

We also hope to engage classroom teachers and administrators as part of a

knowledge-building school-wide community through the use of these dynamic social

networking technologies. The teacher librarian plays a critical role in professional

development, especially with regard to literacy, new literacies and information

technologies. The library, particularly in large, highly departmentalized secondary

schools, is the one place where both faculty and students meet physically to do research

for their courses, pursue their interests, read for pleasure and sometimes, simply relax for

a few minutes. We intend our digital presence to serve as a virtual extension of these

positive, scholarly and social interactions available to students and faculty 24/7,

whenever need or inspiration strikes.

Key Concepts and ContextsTargeted Learners

Recently, a great deal of attention has been paid to the unique set of

characteristics that today's learner possesses in contrast to generations from the past.

Coined the 'Net generation' (Tapscott 1998) or 'digital natives' (Prensky 2001), students

of today undoubtedly possess a familiarity with technology unlike generations before

them and therefore are demanding an education which will meet their unique needs for

the future. With an innate desire to experiment, explore and collaborate, today's learner

demands a learning environment that enables them to make a personal contribution and

customize their own learning experience (Johnson, 2005). With their social lives outside

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of school already firmly embedded in online social environments, high school students

have a great deal of experience with web 2.0 tools and elementary school students are not

far behind them although they may lack access to some tools due to parental censorship.

Educators can use this familiarity to extend the boundaries of the classroom to

online environments. Through the use of wikis and blogs, teacher librarians can engage

both students and teachers in a dialogue about information issues in the twenty-first

century. In addition to sharing their thoughts and opinions about books, users might

explore such complex issues as censorship, intellectual property, plagiarism, copyright,

piracy and digital citizenship. In this way, the library media centre moves from a

repository of knowledge to a more interactive, knowledge-building community.

This learning environment targets three significant groups of learners in the K-12

setting: elementary students, secondary students and teachers. It is recognized that each

of these groups requires a unique approach to the design of online learning environments

which caters to their particular needs as a learner.

Teachers

In contrast to the digital natives who approach new learning environments in a

spirit of exploration and experimentation, teachers (or 'digital immigrants') vary greatly in

their comfort-level and experience with emerging technologies. The social bookmarking

component of this learning environment provides teachers with two levels of

interactivity, depending upon their individual interests, level of technological expertise

and time constraints. On a more basic level, the Del.icio.us site may be used as a

reference tool with teachers simply utilizing the bookmarks for their own professional

development. The more technologically savvy teacher may choose to become a

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contributor to the site and engage in the construction of this resource. The site provides

step-by-step instructions in hopes that even the more technologically-timid teachers will

venture into the knowledge building process.

Elementary Students

These students are viewed as digital natives having been raised in a digital

environment. They are excited and motivated by using technology however, may lack

reading and writing skills. Several face-to-face lessons on book review writing and how

to make effective comments would be appropriate as support for the reading and writing

skills of these students. Face to face lessons are also needed to teach students how to log

on, post a review and comment on the library blog. Students will be introduced to

blogging in a safe environment where the teacher librarian screens all postings and

comments. Learning Internet safety is an important issue for these young students. They

will be involved in creating blogging rules through class discussions. Students will be

encouraged to post their opinions and ideas for everyone to read. Many elementary

students are familiar with reading emails and using MSN, however, many will not have

experienced seeing their work and opinions on the Internet for everyone to read and

comment about. Class discussions could involve what is feels like (both positive and

negative) to have people make comments about your ideas. Discussion also needs to

involve the idea of responsible blogging and the fact that comments can influence the

ideas of others.

Secondary Students

These students have been exposed to the web and its evolving tools throughout

their lives, and have come to demand a level of instant information and feedback. These

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students have become particularly attached to social networking, and using a blog format

to offer comments and develop conversation will help to foster this sense of

connectedness. Secondary students face many time constraints and competing demands

in their lives, so learning tools need to be intuitive to the digital native and relevant to

their experiences. The 24/7 availability of Internet technologies is also a good fit with the

lives of secondary students whose work, sleep and social patterns (including social

networking via the Internet) often mean school assignments are completed at unusual

times. Reminding students of their responsibilities and the need to respect each other

with their comments and contributions will be important amongst these students, as these

learning environments need to be both comfortable and transparent. At the same time,

teenage students are often underestimated in terms of their desire to be altruistic. In the

wiki assignment that forms part of this project, many students noted in their discussion

entries that they were motivated by the ongoing nature of the wiki. They justified their

edits in terms of their potential use to future students. Teenagers, especially seniors, are

at an interesting place in their psychosocial development. Technologies which tend to

promote, however subtly, values such as altruism can only be of benefit to students,

schools and the community.

Pedagogical Challenges

There are several pedagogical challenges teacher librarians need to be aware of

before launching into cyberspace. Through awareness and being proactive, teacher

librarians can prevent many issues before they arise and can in fact create dynamic

learning situations.

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Plagiarism

Teacher librarians are frequently tasked with the role of chief academic honesty

(i.e.: plagiarism) enforcement officer, and digital technologies present clear challenges in

this area. However, they also offer fora, in the same cyber-space, for discussions of

academic honesty, copyright, school and district policy regarding same (possibly in

blogs) and assistance in proper citation and style (via wikis, podcasts, and screencasts).

Many of these cyber aids could be student-produced with teacher, or teacher librarian

guidance.

Respectful Behaviour in Online Environment

Another perceived challenge that teachers and students might face in the shift to

an online knowledge building community is that of respectful and appropriate ways of

interacting in these settings. Initial experiences in blogs and wiki environments will

require teaching “digital citizenship” (Ribble & Bailey 2004) to students so that they see

these environments as an extension of the classroom and not the more casual social

environments in which they spend their free time outside of school. Disrespectful

responses and flaming in a school-related blog can create an environment that feels

unsafe to students. In wikis, inadvertent and intentional ‘editing wars’ can challenge

collaborative work groups and make the knowledge building process difficult to manage.

With strong guidance from teachers and peers, it is hoped that students will apply face-to-

face good manners in electronic environments as well. Appropriate digital manners

could, itself, be a topic of ongoing blog or wiki dialogue with the school community.

Evaluation and Online Learning Tools

Teachers frequently express concern about how to evaluate the work students

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produce in social, collaborative environments such as blogs and wikis. This is part of the

shift from seeing knowledge as a body of facts mastered to varying degrees by individual

students and then basing assessment on the extent to which those facts can be

regurgitated. Knobel & Lankshear (2006) refer to these two views as mindsets. They

illustrate "the difference between a focus on intelligence as a quality or possession of

individuals and a focus on collective intelligence; (and) the difference between seeing

expertise and authority as 'located' within individuals and institutions...and seeing them as

distributed, collective and hybrid" (p. 41). Such challenges require some thought to

overcome, however, it is our contention that rubrics may be designed to assist teachers in

assessment of work created using web 2.0 technologies and the act of collaboratively

producing them, and then making them available to students, is in fact a means of

bridging the mindsets for all collaborators.

The school library media centre serves a wide range of students in regards to age

level and ability. Assignments using web technologies have to be designed with

appropriate goals and materials for the developmental level of the students involved. In

some cases it may be preferable to introduce students to a technology using a simplified

interface; however younger students are often adept at using, and unafraid to experiment

with, technological tools. The number, type and depth of edits one might expect from K-

7 students contributing to a wiki on, for example, the cycle of life, would be different

from what would be expected of secondary students contributing to a wiki on viruses.

The general approach in using the wiki technology need not be significantly different;

however the resources, expectations and rubrics would have to align with grade

appropriate learning outcomes. At the same time, younger students clearly benefit from

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early exposure to the technology and practice learning in new digital, collaborative

environments.

Challenges to the use of Interactive Technologies in Schools

Due to the nature of online resources and growing concerns about the safety and

security of minors in cyberspace, federal and provincial laws have been established to

protect students against online predators, identity theft, and other perils by restricting the

use of publicly-accessed web 2.0 environments. In B.C., educators interested in utilizing

collaborative, social learning tools hosted on outside servers are frequently constrained

by FIPPA (the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act). Fortunately many

school districts have established wiki and blog environments within their own firewalls.

Access to these sites is through school portals using a password. Other school districts

have gone so far as to block any content that could have the potential of being a security

or online safety concern, limiting access to some of the most popular web 2.0 sites.

Although this restricts students' access and ability to fully interact with the world wide

web, it does provide a safer web 2.0 experience, and, as educators, we must err on the

side of caution to preserve the safety of our students. Although the school districts

have tried in various ways to protect the students, the reality is that students will be using

web 2.0 tools at home without any firewall protection. It will be important as librarians

to offer help and advice for these students. Younger students need to be made aware of

the possible dangers that they face in their home environment and how to stay

protected. Face to face lessons and class discussions is the most effective way to reach

younger students, while older students can gain access to similar advice when entering

the library portal.

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InterActivities

This design project provides an online learning environment which utilizes three

(3) emerging technologies that are becoming increasingly familiar to today's learner. The

tools are accessed via links on a library portal webpage which is hosted on the UBC

server located at http://educ.ubc.ca/courses/etec510/2008/team5/

Elementary School Blogs

An elementary blog space was created using WordPress, which is a free blog site

for educational use. The blog is entered through the main library web page. Students are

provided with an on-line space where they can publish their book reviews, read and

comment on the book reviews of their peers. It is hoped in the future to extend this space

to publish original work.

Affordances

• Accessible from outside the classroom boundaries both in space and time

• Views and ideas are available to a wider audience. Feedback isn’t just from the teacher

or from classmates but from the entire school community

• Questions can be asked to clarify opinions and ideas, which deepens learning

• Quality of review is increased due to the public nature of the blog space

• Parents can become directly involved with their child’s learning

• It is exciting and therefore motivating to view your work on-line

• Students are able to think about ideas and have time to make sure they are happy with

their response before publishing

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http://educ.ubc.ca/courses/etec510/2008/team5/






• Teacher librarian becomes familiar with the reading trends of the school community

Possible Challenges

• Blogging etiquette may be violated

• Student Internet safety

• Maintaining enthusiasm and motivation to blog

• Time consuming for teacher librarian to monitor all entries and comments

• Parent and teacher objections to using web 2.0 tools with elementary students

• Low level reading and writing skills

Verification of the Elementary Blog

The elementary blog component of the library portal would be verified by the:

• Quality and quantity of the blog entries

• Type of comments made in response to entries

• Circulation of books recommended in the blog

Book reviews can be compared with the book reviews students have previously

produced. The quality of a review is easily assessed using a rubric. The quantity of the

book reviews is also easily compared with the amount students were doing in the past

(many classes have reading journals which include book reviews). The quality of

comments can be measured using a rubric. I would be concerned that providing a grade

to postings would severely limit postings and change the tone of the blog. However,

several face-to-face lessons could provide scaffolding on how to write a book review and

the types of comments people find most helpful. Posting on the blog is currently not part

of an assignment. Providing class time to comment and write reviews would greatly

increase participation.

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Safety Measures

Due to the vulnerability of elementary school students, several face-to-face

lessons were used to discuss Internet safety both within school walls and at home.

Students wrote a list of etiquette rules which were posted on classroom walls and on a

page in the blog. Students use their initials only on their posts. As this is a small school,

most students know who the person is but this information is not available to strangers.

Although one of the major affordances of a blog is its links to blog spaces of like-minded

bloggers (Halavais, 2005) it was considered too risky to link with other blogs as it is

impossible to monitor their content.

High School Blog

Edublogs was chosen as the host for our secondary blog, primarily due to limited

access to other blog sites at the school board where it is being implemented. While the

eventual intent is to have all members of the library community (students, teachers, and

teacher librarians) as contributors, the initial content has been created solely by the

teacher librarian. Students who wish to contribute or comment are required to first be

approved by the site administrator, and rules surrounding privacy and appropriate

behaviour are established on the main introductory page of the blog.

Affordances

• Universal availability - accessible both from home as well as from school network

• Reliable information that is not blocked by school network filtering software

• Interactive discussions become possible among all members of the library community

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• Maintains the school library as a centre of excellence in online resources, encourages

other school use of web 2.0 tools in the classroom

• Constructive criticism and dialogue is encouraged surrounding books, fostering an

increased love of reading

Possible Challenges

• Protecting users' anonymity through use of pseudonyms while maintaining

accountability for posts

• Ease of access - initial registration can be a barrier for some

• Active participation may be difficult to encourage among students when competing

with other demands (formal assignments, clubs and teams, work, etc.)

• Registration and monitoring process add to teacher librarian's workload

Verification of the Secondary Blog

• Informal feedback has been actively solicited and received offline from members of the

library community

• Rate of new registrations and posts by community members will in part determine

success

Social Bookmarking

The social bookmarking component of this learning environment is specifically

designed as a collaborative resource for teachers. In contrast to a more traditional model

where the librarian was solely responsible for collecting quality resources on behalf of

teachers, social bookmarking provides a constructivist learning opportunity for teachers

to work collaboratively and contribute to a growing database of quality web resources

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that can be shared amongst the entire faculty or school district. Teachers may choose

their own level of participation either by simply accessing the site and making use of the

list of resources or by becoming an active contributor and adding their own favourite

websites to the list.

Affordances

This educational environment contains the following features:

• The site will be available from any computer at any time and so teachers can use the

resource both at home and at school

•An informational portal is provided before the users access the del.icio.us site. This

portal is a website with several linking pages designed to provide information about

social bookmarking and use of the resource.

• Teachers are provided with separate links depending upon their chosen level of

participation.

• For those wishing to become contributors, a set of instructions is provided as to how to

log in to the site and add their own favourite web resources to the shared database.

• A glossary of the terms used in del.icio.us is provided of terms including

"recommended and popular tags, bundle and notes"

• A pre-established organizational hierarchy with bundle names/subject headings already

in place. In this way, a framework will be established in advance to provide structure

and to guide the collaborative effort.

• Users are asked to work within the existing bundle names. If it seems that a significant

bundle is not available, they are free to create a new bundle.

• Users will be able to create their own tags, encouraging a natural folksonomy to

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develop

Possible Challenges

• The very nature of folksonomy will create a certain amount of disorganization as users

familiarize themselves with the tool.

• There will be a certain amount of 'housekeeping' that will need to be done on the part

of the teacher librarian as the resource is being built. As teachers add new tags,

unbundled tags will need to be categorized and added to bundles

• Some participants might not take the time to add notes to their entries and so some of

the resources may not have the same added value as others

Verifications of the Social Bookmarking Component

The social bookmarking component of this educational environment would be

verified by the amount of use that teachers make of it. Assessing whether or not they

were successfully able to access the website, install the del.icio.us buttons on their

browser and make contributions to the list would indicate whether or not the design was

effective. In addition, success of the resource will be verified by the length of time that

the resource is actively used at the school. It is hoped that over the course of months or

even years, the resource will continue to grow as a collective professional development

tool for the entire faculty.

Secondary School Wiki

A secondary level wiki was created using Wikispaces, which is one of many free

wiki sites. The debate wiki provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their

learning in the English 11 debating unit, gain familiarity with the wiki environment, and

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apply their knowledge and insights to a project that will continue beyond the classroom to

the benefit of future students. As with all pilot projects, the debate wiki has worked well

in some respects and has also suggested some areas in which further instruction and fine-

tuning would be beneficial. From the perspective of the school library, we are

encouraged by the level of student and teacher interest in the use of this Web 2.0 tool

which bridges and further connects the library and the classroom using the Internet.

There is great potential for similar student-generated wikis stemming from co-operative

library and classroom units and projects in the sciences (biology, physics), social studies,

languages, art and even foods, to name a few.

Affordances

• Accessible 24/7 to students and staff (although initially, only those granted access to

the private wiki space).

• Potentially available to a wide group of learners.

• Provides an authentic audience of peers to which students demonstrate their learning.

• Students peer edit and revise, improving each others’ work.

• Constantly evolving and improving: a resource that will never be outdated as it will

adapt to changes in curriculum, learners, teachers and the instructional environment.

• Utilizes Web 2.0, an environment in which digital native secondary students are

comfortable and motivated to participate.

• Classroom teachers and teacher librarians can assess effectiveness of their

collaborative efforts by the quality and quantity of student participation in the wiki.

Challenges

• Privacy legislation and safety concerns vs. benefits of wider (public) access.

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• Plagiarism and academic honesty (although the wiki also presents another opportunity

to teach proper citation and discuss why it is important).

• Wiki entries are more complex to assess than traditional assignments.

• Potential for wiki vandalism, or competitive edits.

Verification

The secondary wiki would be verified by the:

• Quality and quantity of wiki entries;

• Extent to which wiki entries reflect the learning outcomes of the debate unit;

• Extent to which students are able to incorporate knowledge and information from the

web and other sources beyond that which was directly provided;

• Level of student preparedness for and success in performing debates (it is envisioned

that the debate wiki will become a resource to which students may refer prior to and

during their study of debating).

Contributions to the debate wiki are assessed using a rubric that is provided to

students as part of the assignment (it is posted on the wiki home page). This rubric can

be fine-tuned, as can the introductory lesson, to shape the development of the wiki along

lines that meet curricular goals. For this project, the teacher librarian, who had been

involved with the debate unit from the start, bookended the unit with the debate wiki

assignment. Once students had finished their debates, a class was devoted to a

demonstration of the wiki, and how students may create an account, access and perform

edits along with discussion of the rubric. The class then moved to a computer lab where

students were given time to log in, create wiki accounts and begin experimenting with the

wiki editing tools. The assignment was presented as a bonus activity. At this writing,

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fifty-four of a potential eighty students had participated in the wiki—a fairly high

percentage for a non-required assignment. Monitoring this participation rate would also

tend to act as a form of verification.

Conclusion

Teacher librarians have always been on the front lines of guiding and supporting

the literacy needs of the learning community. As technology has evolved and changed,

teacher librarians have embraced the challenge, this includes today's developing set of

web 2.0 tools. Our goal as information managers is to ensure that we provide the best

and most effective tools to enable our students and colleagues to continue to grow and

adapt to emerging technologies. We also see the inherent benefit of incorporating these

tools into other aspects of our role as literacy leaders, and see how social tools such as

blogging can help to encourage an affection for reading and a facility with emerging

technologies, thus promoting improved literacy rates. This design seeks to bring together

some of the best web 2.0 technologies into a common portal that can then be modified or

adapted to meet individual school needs. And, in providing these tools, instruction in

their use, and access to the technology (computers, printers, and wireless access) required

to use them in the common and welcoming meeting place of the library media centre we

hope to address, albeit in a small way, the issue of digital equity for students who may

not have adequate access to technology at home. We will encourage students to be active

participants in this design both in concept and content, and hope to establish an online

community that is accessible, relevant, and effective in supporting a love of reading and

an understanding of community knowledge building.

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Group Reflection

Comprised of four (4) teacher librarians located in the UK, Ontario and BC, our

design project group was an eclectic mix of professionals working with students at

various grade levels (elementary, middle and high school). Considering the unique needs

of various age ranges of learners has been quite a challenge. Coming from across the

range of grades none of us are familiar with the entire range of learners. However, having

group members at all levels K-12 has provided us with a unique perspective so that we

could better see the challenges that teacher librarians faces at levels other than our own.

In the end, we came away with a better understanding and perhaps appreciation of our

colleagues at other levels.

The focus of the design project evolved over time as we looked more closely at

the needs of the learners at our individual schools. The initial plan was to create a library

media centre portal or web-page which would link students and teachers to various online

resources. This eventually evolved to a more constructivist approach where we

considered various web2.0 tools that would specifically address the needs of the library.

What we came away with were three tools enabling students and teachers to

collaboratively engage in knowledge building as a school community.

Each person in the group took a different web 2.0 tool so the parts of the design

have been quite separated. We found this approach was necessary due to distances, time

zones and varying work/travel schedules. Although each of the components was

completed individually, we did manage to pull them together into a more seamless final

product which we feel flows between tools and creates a cohesive learning environment.

Watching the site materialize has been very exciting. What could have been a very

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isolating activity was not due to having others to show the learning space to, ask

questions, get technical help and feedback. There was always someone to bounce an

idea off.

Barbara's Reflections

Elementary school students (10/11 year olds) were very excited to participate in

the library blog. However, although most commented that they wanted to write, using

their own time did not produce much activity. The students liked the idea that I was

learning about blogs alongside them. Initially, I went into two classrooms and taught the

students how to log onto the blog, make a post and a comment. There were many

instances of the students sending me their review that wasn't finished and I would have to

send it back to draft. This was very time consuming, as was reading all the posts and

comments to allow them through my monitoring. Providing a set of easy to follow

directions saved me much aggravation when students came back to me unable to

remember how to post. I’m not sure they are as digital literate as expected by the various

reading such as Prensky (2001).

Many students got very excited when they had comments made about their posts.

To my surprise it was not just the more able students that posted. I checked with the

various teachers and found that some of the less able students were some of the more

prolific writers. I had several students coming to ask for books that had been reviewed on

the blog!

My greatest surprise was the resistance I came up against from some of the

parents and several teachers. Out of 15 library monitors whom I began this project with,

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only 3 parents (2 of whom came to talk to me) signed their permission forms to

participate and provided an email address so I could invite their child to become a

contributor. I got around this problem by setting up a class email address. I had to take

off the restriction of having an active email account to post a comment. The resistance

was due to concern for student safety.

Directly talking with the students about the blog makes them curious. Providing

class time, not necessarily a mark produces more activity. I believe students need time to

get hooked before they become ardent bloggers.

Working with the group has provided an opportunity to see what takes place in

high schools. It was interesting to see that some of the issues (motivation, time

constrains of both teachers and students) are common across the grades. It was also

interesting to see the differences between school districts (and countries) regarding

polices concerning student safety and how this effects what can and cannot be done using

web 2.0 tools. I am very excited to use this experience as a foundation to build my own

library portal.

Michelle’s Reflections

Designing a social bookmarking resource for teachers was an initiative that I have

been meaning to do for some time and so this design project became an authentic project

which will be useful to me beyond the scope of this course. I look forward to importing

all of the work that I have done in the 510teacher del.icio.us site to a new site for my new

school that I will be starting at in August.

Although I looked at several other social bookmarking options including Diigo

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and CiteULike, in the end it was the established popularity of del.icio.us that made me

stick with it. Since it is more widely-used than the others, the numbers of others who

bookmarked the same cite was higher thereby opening up the possibility of greater

interaction amongst networked users.

It will be a bit of a challenge for me to surrender my authority of the bookmarking

site to a more collaborative, "group-think" approach. People are inevitably going to "mess

with" my carefully chosen bundles, add tags that I would question and even add websites

that perhaps don't measure up to what I personally consider a quality resource. This

folksonomic approach will be of particular challenge to me as a librarian who strives to

maintain a certain level of organization and consistency.

In designing the webpage portal for our learning environment, I used iWeb and

found the process relatively easy. The greatest challenge that I faced in the design itself

was needing to be brief and succinct in my instructions and guidelines on using the

environment. I had my partner walk through the step-by-step process so that I could see it

from a teacher's perspective and things seemed to go smoothly. Granted, he is quite tech-

savvy and so the real experiment will be when teachers with little technological expertise

use the site.

Brian's Reflections

A book blog has long been on my wish-list, as I feel that it can be an excellent

vehicle for starting discussions around literature and generally helps to promote a love of

reading. I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of real-life response that I've

received from this initiative, but wish that it could translate into more contributions

23




online. Students and teachers are quite happy to read the blog, but seem less inclined to

contribute by way of posting their responses online. This is likely partially due to the

cumbersome process of registering all authors, which unfortunately is a necessary evil to

ensure compliance with my school board's and teacher federation's views surrounding

privacy and online safety.

Gaining access to a blog site provided me with a reminder of how cumbersome

and overly restrictive some of my school board's information technology policies can be.

It took several weeks of pleading and convincing to allow access to an effective blog

platform, and access was only given under the condition that all pages be strictly

monitored and controlled. I can understand the school board's liability concerns, but I

feel that often administrators fail to recognize the level of integration that students

already have with many of these sites outside of the school environment. I think our

students are far better served by being taught about the responsible use of tools such as

this blog rather than the carte blanche blocking of any sites that the board feels may be an

issue for one reason or another.

I'm happy to report though that this initiative has already spawned greater

collaboration with classroom teachers, as it has opened up an English teacher to the idea

of using blogs in place of literature circles in her class. This will be a great opportunity

to bring increased relevancy to my library program, and will also provide a chance to sell

some of the work that I have already done on this project.

Phil’s reflections

The 510 design project was the impetus I needed to move forward with an

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experiment in using Web 2.0 tools, in this case, a wiki, to further connect the school

library media centre and the classroom. After considering several wiki hosting sites, I

chose Wikispaces due to its easy-to-understand interface, full range of editing tools,

discussion page, detailed history page and other features. The site also offers ad-free

pages to K-12 educators after a simple registration process. My next step was to create a

rubric for the students who would contribute. As what one assesses tends to strongly

influence what students produce, I took some time over this and studied several models

for online contributions and assessment. In setting up the skeleton wiki site, I created a

basic home page and short page on print resources, a topic that I covered with students on

their library research days during their debate unit. Both pages included sample outside

links, images, basic formatting and discussion entries. I had wondered about tweaking

the organization or editing the English of the student edits. My project collaborators

talked me out of this and I’m glad they did. Many errors were later corrected by other

student contributors. As well, it was fascinating to see the patterns of, and approaches to,

wiki editing that appeared.

One issue that emerged as needing some fine tuning is that of citation and

attribution of sources. There is a possibility of having a fourth class add to the debate

wiki site this semester and I may pursue that just for the opportunity of teaching some

simple forms of wiki citation and seeing how the students incorporate the information.

Overall, however, I am very pleased with the enthusiasm with which the students, most

of whom said they had not contributed to a wiki before, took to the assignment. I am

encouraged to refine the assignment, attempt to address privacy issues so that the site

may be made more widely accessible, and expand the student-generated wiki concept to

25




other library-classroom collaborative units in a range of subject areas.

Finally, I was very fortunate in my colleagues in this project—especially Michelle

whose post in the design team sign-up forum at the beginning of the course brought this

eclectic group of teacher librarians together. It has been a source of encouragement and

inspiration to me to see that we are all interested in making the best possible use of digital

learning environments both to keep our libraries at the heart of the school learning

community and to provide our students with the kind of 21st century skills we believe

will be necessary to ensure their future success.

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References

Engstrom, M.E., & Jewett, D. (2005). Collaborative Learning the Wiki Way.TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning , 49(6), 12-68.

Gee, J. P. (2002). Millennials and Bobos, Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street: A storyfor our times. In D.E. Alvermann (Ed.) Adolescents and Literacies in a Digital

World . New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 51-67.

Halavis, A. (2005). Weblogs and collective web publishing as learning spaces. in J.

Weiss (Ed.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments.

Dordrecht, NE: Springer.

Henri, James (2005). Understanding the information literate school community.

In James Henri and Marlene Asslin (Eds.) Leadership issues in the informationliterate school community. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 11-26.

Johnson, D. (2005). Working with the net generation. Education World . Retrieved

February 7, 2008 fromhttp://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson002.shtml

Knoebel, C. & Lankshear, M. (2006). New literacies and the challenge of

mindsets. In C. Knoebel & M. Lankshear, New literacies: Everyday practices and

classroom learning (2nd Ed.). New York: Open University Press, 29-62.

Oatman, Eric. (2005). Make way for Wikis: Easy-to-use software that letsstudents collaborate is heading to your school. School Library Journal , Nov.

2005, 52-54.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the horizon, NCB

University Press, 9(5), October 2001. Retrieved February 7, 2008 from

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/

Ribble, M. & Bailey, G.D. (2004). Monitoring Technology Misuse & Abuse. T H E Journal , 32(1), 22-25. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for the knowledge-

building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-288.

Tapscott, D. (1998). Six truisms and corresponding false conclusions. Edcom

Review, 33(1), 38-44. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Thomas, C., W.A. Kellogg and T. Erickson (2001). The knowledge management

puzzle: human and social factors in knowledge management. IBM Systems Journal, 40 (4) , 863-84.

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http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson002.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson002.shtml




Valenza, Joyce Kasman (2006). They might be gurus. Teacher Librarian, 34(1),

18.

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