Supporting teachers learning ICT

Supporting teacher with ICT in classrooms requires teacher training, technical infrastructure, supportive peer networks and school administration support (Trucano, M. 2005).  To provide teacher training I realize I need to move beyond talking about potential CT programs teachers can use in their classes, for example “Little book of ICT ideas” to showing teachers the programs being used with students.  Also I need to share why students should use technology for improving their learning, like the twitter post I read by Brett Gruetzmacher.  Since teachers set “learning goals based on what is relevant to their needs and practical for them personally” (BC Min of Educ. 2002), they must see relevance in using ICT tools with their classes or themselves or they will not engage in learning about it.

Two years ago, I attended the BCTLA meeting (2012) and heard a great presentation about using cameras to encourage student literacy.  I felt this was a great fit for a French immersion school where the focus is oral language.  I contacted the presenter and asked if I could share her presentation with my school.  Susan Henderson very generously sent her PowerPoint presentation and I did a short session on one of our Pro-d Days.  This presentation resulted collaboration with a primary teacher to video her class.  We have continued again this year.  Now my collaborating teacher plans to share her videos in her grade group meeting to show how it can work in our school.  I think by seeing the ICT used educationally with young children helped this teacher take on this challenge, and the successful collaboration has helped her spread the success of this ICT tool. 

To encourage teachers to use ICT in their classes, just like sharing Mrs. Hendersons presentation, I don’t have to be able to do it all by myself but can

·         book presenters for our school and District Pro-D;

·         encourage teachers to attend ICT sessions at both local and distance conferences, for example presentations at our upcoming SD57 conference includes: Smartboards in elementary math classrooms and Goodbye Google, better ways to for building learning resources (PGDTA 2014);

·         share posted online presentations;

·         share links to interactive online educational opportunities, for example LearnNow BC webcasts;

·         share links to discussion groups using ICT, for example our inquiry learning group shares ideas through our FirstClass community website; and

·         you-tube tutorials for ICT’s.

 

Then I need to follow up these learning opportunities by providing collaborative time to help teachers use ICT with their classes or in library time. Providing scaffolding (Vygotsky’s theory of proximal development) like we do with all students with new learning.  If I don’t feel proficient or we cannot schedule time, then I can ensure they take advantage of our school’s tech teacher to work collaboratively with them and their classes.  Thirdly, I can help pair up teachers that have experience using the tools, either in my school or in other schools.  I have a great PLN with other TL’s in my School District on FirstClass who would be willing to provide me with teachers that would be good peers for learning about ICT.  I have also recently learned that our School District Learning and Curriculum Program has money for some release time to pair teachers that want to work on developing and sharing skills.  I can encourage teachers to use this funding to develop their skills with ICT.  It is important to “build opportunities for teachers to talk to each other about the skills they are learning”   since |much learning occurs through social interaction” (BC MoE 2002).

Sharing learning and creating supportive peer networks are just part of enabling ICT in classrooms, however teachers also require sufficient access technical infrastructure to use ICT tools with students.  In my school of 390 elementary students there is only one computer lab, and 6 other student computers in the library.  This arrangement limits student computer use to scheduled blocks of computer time, with some access to either early finishers or students who are late on assignments in the library.  Another step I want to take is to be more proactive promoting a mobile computer lab to increase computer access for students using ICT tools.  Proactive steps include collaborating with the Tech teacher in my school; looking for funding sources; and talking with administration. These proactive steps may also involve a conversation with teachers  and administration on where the best place to spend the school technology budget should be, since some teachers want Smartboards.  My preference is for tablets since Smartboards are much more expensive and limit teaching to one location in the classroom.  While tablets are portable and can be “connected to video projectors, digital monitors or internet broadcasts to draw, highlight and interact with whatever is on their screens without the aid of a Smartboard” (Fowlkes 2013).

 References

Anderson, M.  2013. Little book of ICT ideas.  Retrieved Feb 16, 2014 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/50091789/little-book-of-superb-sites

BC Ministy of Education, Standards Department.  2002.  Working with colleagues, a guide for ICT mentors.  Retrieved Feb 16 from https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/applied_skills/support_materials/mentors.pdf

Fowlkes, K. 2013.  Why Tablets will kill Smart Boards in Classrooms.  Retrieved Feb 17, 2014 from http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/why-tablets-will-kill-smart-boards-in-classrooms/d/d-id/1108091?page_number=1

Gruetzmacher, Brett. Jul 6 2013.  What do you want kids to do with technology! Twitter post.

Henderson, Susan.  2013.  Creating Collaborative Projects with Technology Integration. BCTLA conferencehttp://bctf.ca/bctla/conference/2012.html
Kidcode 2. Wordle tutorial. Retrieved Feb 14, 2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL5D9nz5aI .

LearnNow BC.  Retrieved Feb 17, 2014 from http://www.learnnowbc.ca/.

PGDTA. April 2014.  Spring Fling conference.  Retrieved Feb 16, 2014 from  http://springflingconference.weebly.com/ .

Trucano, Michael.  2005. Knowledge Maps: ICTs in Education.  Washington, DC: infoDev / World Bank.  Retrieved Feb 16, 2014 from http://www.infodev.org/articles/teachers-teaching-and-icts

Vgotsky theory of proximal development.  Retrieved Feb 17, 2014 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/constructivism.htm

Buy Martine Latulippe for your French immersion students...

Martine Latulippe has written 2 great series for grade 3-4 beginning French readers.  Marie-P, and Julie.  Marie-P is about a girl who inherits her grandfather's detective hat, coat and magnifying class and solves mysteries!  Julie is a girl who has a great imagination and an Uncle who collects myths and legends from around Québec.  Julie’s imagination helps her find character’s that are similar to those in her Uncle’s stories.  You have to read this series to find out how Julie figures out if the legend has become alive. 

The second set of books that my grade 7 teacher promotes is “Un lourd silence” and “Un fleur de peau”.  These books are not overly long and the vocabulary is good for immersion students, though the content should be taught. These stories deal with what could happen if you were out babysitting and something strange is happening on the computer of the house you are babysitting at.  Find out how the main character and her friends become a team to find a solution.  In my School District the next 2 books “La grande vertige” and “Le cri” which deal with bullying are used in highschool, due to their content.

There are 2 newer series by Martine Latulippe, that I would also consider: Mouk le monstre that I am just starting to read and get student feedback.  So far, I see it as a strong grade 3/grade 4 french immersion series.  Her other new series, Emily Rose is a series for grade 6/7 immersion students.  In this series, Emily Rose learns about famous people including Terri Fox and Rosa Park in relation to her day-to-day life as a teenager.  The series “L'alphabet sure mille pattes” intended for younger students I think has too much vocabulary for French immersion students.

Continued ICT learning

I see my ICT skills and learning continuing on 3 different scales.  On the smaller scale, within my school, I will continue to work closely with the teacher in my school who has a strong technology focus.  M. Waldie recently launched our school  École Lac des Bois  learning commons with many library resources that I had posted on the school library website.  I am supporting his encouragement of using software with students to explore, create, and understand.  Here is a presentation sharing ICT classroom opportunities he is encouraging students to use.  I like this presentation on 2 levels, first I am trying Prezi for the first time with a class, and secondly because it provides lots of other ideas of software to use with students…. like maybe wordle in my poetry unit to encourage similies and metaphors!  Here is a teacher that sees how student ICT skills can solve student problems.  I can see collaborating with M. Waldie to help teachers in my school provide students access to things like homework lists, assignments etc. I am still challenged by embedding these videos/presentations so more learning required.

In my School District, I will be using our First class SD57 TL website for learning from my

 
colleagues.  This is a great site where we share questions and answers, and celebrate new ideas.   I will continue to take advantage of ICT professional development offered by my School District teacher librarians. For example they have scheduled 2 workshops this month on using licensed e-resources of World Book online and Culturegrams, and have booked presentation for our northern School District conference in February.

On a larger scale, I will continue to use Pinterest to capture ideas from other teachers and teacher librarians for library displays, lessons, and resources.  I will continue to look for sources of information on French-immersion resources for teachers and students on the web including blogs, tweets, reviews, etc., and in person.  After the success of my last blog posting I may consider continuing my blog with a French-immersion library resource focus as a way to share my learning. I know will continue to explore topics on the internet that I am teaching.

I know that I am not an early adaptor (Tipping point Malcolm Gladwell) but as new software is developed and becomes mainstream, I will challenge myself to learn about it and how it can be used to enhance student exploring, creating and understanding.  I do enjoy being a lifelong learner!

References

Malcolm Gladwell.  2002.  The Tipping point: how little things can make a big difference.  Little, Brown and Company, New York.  

Azzopardi, M.  Using ICT to support learning.  Retrieved Feb 10, 2013 from http://prezi.com/ovv7ms-ropfw/inset-using-ict-to-support-learning/

Eriksen, J. Map students’ ICT skills with itslearning Retrieved Feb 10, 2014 from  http://www.itslearning.eu/maps-students-ict-skills-with-itslearning

Sources for reviews of French language resources

 

This is my second year working as a teacher-librarian in a single track French Immersion school.  I have located some good resources for reviews of French language books.  However it is important to recognize that most of these resources are for French language speakers.  In a French immersion school you need books that provide “High-Low” reading, so I scale down the recommendations by a couple of years.  Also I find that books from Québécois(e) writers tend to use vocabulary that is similar to what is being taught in French immersion classrooms; while children’s books from France often use a broader vocabulary.  The broader vocabulary can make the books harder for immersion students to read.  A final piece of advice is to choose primary books that have limited text, since most families with students in French immersion cannot read the primary texts that are “read alouds”. Focus on just buying the most highly recommended read alouds for your teachers.  

My first “go-to” source is Catalogue Nelligan http://nelligan.ville.montreal.qc.ca/search*frc.  The children’s librarian for the La Ville de Québec shared this site with me.  There is usually a book summary (en français), a book review and a book rating. 

	Book rating			Age range (remember to scale!)
5	excellent		M	Preschool and kindergarten
4	very good		E	8 to 9 years
3	good		E+	Primary, 6 to 9 years
2	not recommended		E++	Intermediate, 9 to 12 years
D	to be determined		J+	12 to 15 years
			J	12 to 17 years
			J++	15 to 17 years

 

My second “go-to” site is the Québec Ministry of Education website Livres ouvert http://www.livresouverts.qc.ca/.  This is a site that reviews books by grade level and subject area.  They have a scale for French immersion students too.  Just like any catalogue you can search by topic, title, author, but also by grade level by both first and second language speakers!

Some of my other sources include:

·         Another useful site is Ricochet, http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/sommaire, an independent Swiss website that reviews French language children’s’ literature.  The focus of this non-profit site is to promote reading and media for children.  Often if I cannot find a review on Catalogue Nelligan, I use this site to get an opinion on a book.  The original reviewers had a professional background.  This site is also designed for French as a first language.  Remember Switzerland has 4 official languages; French is just one of them. 

 

·         Lurelu, a Québécoise magazine all about childrens’ literature http://www.lurelu.net/coupsdecoeur.html. This link takes you directly to their “coups de cœur" or favorites.  This is the list I like the best, however I find they select many read aloud books so be careful with this list for an immersion school library.  Some are amazing suggestions for example: automne 2007 Simard, D. La petite rapporteuse de mots which is a lovely story to teach empathy, word choice and grandparents, for grade 3-5 immersion.

 

·         BnF, the National Center of Children’s Literature, of the National Library of France, promotes quality children’s literature. On the site there is a list of 3000 books sorted by category that they recommend for a children’s library http://lajoieparleslivres.bnf.fr/clientBookline/toolkit/p_requests/formulaire.asp?GRILLE=BITOUSAVANCEE%5F0&INSTANCE=JOIE&SYNCHROID=BIB_IDEALE&PORTAL_ID=JPL_BI_Tous.xml; but they do not give an age range for their books.  There are links to organization that give literature prizes for children’s literature http://lajoieparleslivres.bnf.fr./masc/portal.asp?INSTANCE=JOIE&PORTAL_ID=HTML.xml&URL=Integration/JOIE/statique/pages/15_bib_num/151_ressources_docs/ressources_docs_som.htm  and magazines that review children’s literature. (Quentin Blake)

     Critiques Libres is like the website Goodreads where the members provide book reviews.  Here is the link to reviews of children’s books http://www.critiqueslibres.com/i.php/vcat/502.  If you have a favorite French book, see who gives it a good rating on this site and then use these contributors as like-minded book reviewers, whose opinion you can respect.

 

Other sources of recommended children’s books are Awards and Prizes:

     Communication-Jeunesse, a site all about Québécoise and French-Canadian literature for children http://www.communication-jeunesse.qc.ca/selection/nouveautes/index.php. This site has children’s choice awards “Palmarès” by year which is their best list.  They recommend books as well, however they select about half the books submitted to them so use this list with a large “grain of salt”.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre which provides the TD prize for children’s literature in French.  This is a Canadian non-profit organization the promotes reading. http://www.bookcentre.ca/awards/le_prix_td_de_litterature_canadienne_pour_lenfance_et_la_jeunesse

There is also the GG’s (Governor General Awards in Children’s Literature) http://ggbooks.canadacouncil.ca/ http://ggbooks.canadacouncil.ca/ which selects a French children’s book and a French picture book from submitted books.  The criteria are for a “Canadian Voice”, so you may not necessarily want these in your library.