Learner considerations: Who is this project for and why?

The audience for my project, identifying French websites for early primary students, is French immersion students in Maternelle (K) and grades 1 and 2.  These students are just starting to learn French and also to read and write.  The students have a variety of experiences with communication technology; some have played on cell phones, ipads and/or computers prior to attending school. 

These young students: (Morrison 2010)

·         are energetic and cannot sit still for a long time;
·         are learning to control their emotions and social interactions
·         have an active imagination,
·         are often confident and eager to be involved,
·         want to be helpful and cooperative,
·         are solitary and independent workers at the same time,
·         like to talk.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, the teachers would like to have opportunities in their “computer time”, or on classroom computers, to not only promote technology skills, but also French language learning.  I found a couple of research articles that support the use of computers and computer games for young students learning a second language.  McCarrick and Li (2007) reviewed a number of studies and concluded that “computers may not enhance gains in language development, (but) computers do provide an environment in which children use a large amount of language.”  Turgut and Irgin (2009) found that when the language is contextualized in video games, which provides settings and situations, players increase vocabulary use and have opportunities to practice vocabulary repetitively.  The following video (Early Childhood videos 2013) shows how the computer can provide repetition and take concrete concepts and make them more abstract.  In this video we see that computer work is more valuable for a student when the teacher is nearby to help with student’s questions.

Computer activities for this age group should be quite short, due to their attention spans.  The activities should provide context to help the students create meaning of the vocabulary, which brain research, has shown helps students learn and retain information (Characteristics of young learners 2009). Computer learning may appeal to students with different learning styles of types of intelligence (Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences).  Using a computer to learn will provide students with another activity to engage and play with second language, reinforcing learning. 

The identification of computer programs will support teachers since teachers are already busy with planning classroom activities.  Having a selected, curated links on the school website will minimize time spent teaching students how to locate learning games.  These links will also be available to the students at home providing repetition and enhancing language and other concept learning.

References:

Characteristics of Young Learners.  2009.  Pearson Education.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205535488.pdf

Early Childhood Videos.  Jan 30, 2013.  Introducing Technology to Young Children.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ylsrxof48 (imbedded)

McCarrick, Katy and Xiaoming Li.  2006.  Buried treasure: the impact of computer use on young children’s social, cognitive, language development and motivation.  AACE Journal, 15(1) 73-79.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/25814/0000377.pdf?sequence=1

Morrison, G. S. 2008.  What are Kindergarten Children Like? From: Fundamentals of Early Childhood Education. Pearson Education. p 237-238.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.education.com/reference/article/what-kindergarten-children-are-like/

SRI International.  2014.  EduSpeak® Speech Recognition Toolkit.  Image retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.sri.com/engage/products-solutions/eduspeak-speech-recognition-toolkit

Turgut, Yildiz and Pelin Irgin.  2009.  Young learners’ language learning via computer games.  Prodedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 1.  760-764.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.gsedu.cn/tupianshangchuanmulu/zhongmeiwangluoyuyan/language%20learning%20via%20computer%20games.pdf

Project to compliment my vision of teacher-librarianship

A large part of my job involves identifying and promoting French language resources that support exploration and learning appropriate for an elementary school.  This includes both physical resources but increasingly online resources and programs that can be used to promote French language learning and engage students in learning.  I still anticipate that a large part of my job will be managing physical resources, especially in an elementary school where being able to see and pick up a book allows a child to identify areas that might be interesting to them.  I don’t think this part of the job will disappear. Another part of the management of physical resources that will become busier is lending digital cameras, video cameras, laptops, and other technology devices which will allow students to create and utilize digital media.  However, I think it is becoming increasingly important to be able to connect teachers and students to reputable online French language resources. I foresee, identifying and promoting online resources becoming a larger part of my job.  I think by considering what the teachers and students want to access, my focus is on “all the things we librarians bring to the mission of our institutions”... rather than “worrying about the future of the library” (T Scott. 2012).  By providing services that help the teachers and students in my school, I create a future for my library.

 

To contribute to this goal one of the things I would like to do is curate educational French websites for students in the K-2 grade level. I identified curating websites as important task in my original post for this course (Beaudry 2014).  I have a couple of teachers in my school plus a third teacher in another French immersion school in my School District interested in K-1 student websites.  These teachers would like to have opportunities in their “computer time” to not only promote technology skills, but also French language learning.  So my topic is aggregation and curation of French language digital sources for young primary students.  Aggregation, curation and reference are basic library “functions that will probably continue to be needed, even in a digital world where all content is electronic.  … In fact … these functions are more critical than ever.” (Coffman 2013)

I plan to seek out online digital resources through my teachers, members of my Personal Learning Network (PLN) and web searches.  I will evaluate any identified resources, since curation includes the evaluation of resources before sharing. I will compare website content to the PLO's for these primary grades.  I will consider language ability of these immersion students.   For websites that meet these initial criteria, I will then share them with my small group of interested teachers to collect their opinions on website appropriateness.  If there is time I will see what the students think of the sites. The final set of selected websites would then either be purchased and/or linked on our Learning Commons webpage (insert link) with clickable links to make it easy for students to access them.

I have some experience already purchasing licenses for online French language resources.  I bought my staff a year’s subscription to a teacher resources website "Le jardin de Vicky”.  Purchases of online sites show a “library investing in learning environments … by purchasing the ability for (a teacher) to provide the experience she wants her students to have.” (Mathews 2013)

My final project will either be a database of the links that I can have our school website developer add to the school webpage, or I myself will add these to the school webpage.  The school webpage has recently been moved to Weebly.  The advantage of our school webpage is that it is easily available by other students in our District and beyond.  Therefore the final project will be shared with my larger teacher-librarian community.  The database will include rationale of why a site was selected or rejected, annual costs, hyperlink, subject area and grade level (K-2 range).  The database can also be published on this blog for the larger teacher-librarian community.

In the future, if these sites are received positively I will consider curating other French language resources for elementary grades.  As said by a UBC librarian “What will distinguish libraries in the future is not what we electronically license, but what we have in our collections that we make available to the world,” (Bates, 2012)  

References:
LeFurgy, Bill.  Oct 12, 2014.  Digital preservation: a role for public libraries.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://agogified.com/tag/libraries. (image)

Beaudry, Leisbet.  Jan. 12, 2014.  Personal Interests and Issues in Educational Technology.  http://beaudrylibrary.blogspot.ca/2014/01/personal-interests-and-issues-in.html

Bates, Andrew, 2014.  Turning a Page: the changing role of the university library.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://ubyssey.ca/features/turning-a-page-the-changing-role-of-the-university-library/

Coffman, Steve.  Jan/Feb 2013.  So now what?: The future for librarians.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://www.infotoday.com/OnlineSearcher/Articles/Features/So-Now-What-The-Future-for-Librarians-86856.shtml

le jardin de Vicky, 2005-2011. http://jardindevicky.ca/

Mathews, Brian.  2013.  Curating learning experiences: a future role for librarians?.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/09/05/curating-learning-experiences-a-future-role-for-librarians/

Scott, Tl 2012.  Comment on blog post “The future of libraries is”.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://librarian.newjackalmanac.ca/2012/11/the-future-of-libraries-is.html

Teach Thought Staff. 2013.  8 ways the librarian of the future will keep themselves busy.  Retrieved March 9, 2014 from http://www.teachthought.com/literacy-2/8-ways-the-librarian-of-the-future-will-keep-themselves-busy/ (image)

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

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