Rotary talk and Paul Farley poems

The blog has taken a back seat lately but I hope to increase the posting – a blog has to be regularly produced and have a clear purpose, so I’m rethinking that. On Monday, I was the speaker at Dunbar Rotary Club and I talked about improving students’ use of the web. My sister Elaine is the current president of the club and indeed, the first female president. What was interesting was that the audience almost totally expected me to talk about searching the web i.e. they associated use of the web, with searching. My focus was on “reading” images and video. I got the attendees to be my Year 7 class and asked them to discuss what they remembered after seeing some images and then a video. I then stressed that we wanted school students to be critical readers of what they find on the web. It was clear that most of the audience had not taken this kind of critical view themselves when using the web, and many told me that it was a learning experience. My final image (see below) was a kangaroo at Pomingalarna in Wagga Wagga. The audience admired the cuteness of kangaroo and the view of the Australian bush – a very positive photo? Not completely, as the photo also contains some Paterson’s Curse, an invasive weed.

The latest Poetry Book Society Choice is The Dark Film by Paul Farley. It’s a collection with striking imagery, sometimes of everyday objects. For example, in Quality Street, a box of sweets is seen through a child’s eyes. Many of us will remember unwrapping Quality Street sweets, holding the coloured paper in front of our eyes and seeing the effect on our surroundings. Farley’s poem starts with red: ‘The wrapper of a strawberry cream/ unpeels a vivid red to dye/ the evening bloody monochrome’. InThe Airbrake People, a child listens to the sounds of lorries’ air brakes: ‘I’d count the minutes between each hiss:/ all exhalation, nothing but dying fall/ as if the night itself received a puncture’. This is a book of poems to savour – read each one at least twice and then go back the next day and you’ll reveal even more hidden depth.

Kangaroo at Pomingalarna

40 years of school libraries and the Berwick viaduct

Firstly, I should tell you all that this is the final entry for this blog in its present format. I retire from CSU and the academic life tomorrow (31st January 2012). The blog will continue but will not always feature comment on something of an educational nature, which is relevant to TLs and SLs around the world. However, it may still be ‘educational’ in the wider sense of the word. The photographic content will continue. I have been involved with school libraries for 40 years this year and the vast majority of these years has been in the role of educator. Are school libraries as recognisable as they were in the early 1970s? To some extent they are, given that the space they occupy is still about the same in most schools, and that a range of bookshelves is still one of the dominant features. The addition of ICT hardware has changed the look of school libraries in most parts of the world, where schools can afford such equipment. Are teacher librarians or school librarians different? This is an intriguing question. It might be argued that the knowledge base of todays TLs and SLs is different, given the developments in ICT. The language used by today’s TLs and SLs would have been, to a great extent, unrecognisable to those of 40 years ago. On the other hand, the desire to actively contribute to learning and teaching in the school remains the same. Also, over the years, the most effective TLs and SLs have been able to be innovators in their schools, particularly in the areas of information literacy. So the terminology may be different but the mindset may still be the same. The look of school libraries is about to change over the next few years – printed books and journals will disappear for the most part in most school libraries – but the purpose of the school library/learning commons/i-centre/e-centre will remain the same. I’m intending to write soem articles about this in the near future and will expand on these points.

At the weekend, my marathon/half-marathon/10K running wife and I were down at the border town of Berwick to watch a cross country race, in which the runners crossed Spittal Beach before climbing up a ridge, running on track and returning via the same route. One of the features of Berwick – Berwick Upon Tweed to give the town its full name – is the viaduct which was built to enable the railway to cross over the estuary. Known as The Royal Border Bridge, this magnificent piece of engineering an architecture was designed by Robert Stephenson and opened by Queen Victoria in 1850. As the photo below shows, it has certainly stood the test of time, and if you are on the train going north or south through Berwick, you get superb views along the river and the estuary.

Berwick viaduct

E-pathfinders and kangaroos on course

Firstly, apologies for the absence of the blog over the past month, due to a combination of circumstances. I’ll try to rectify this with some additional posts before going back to a weekly addition. My students on the M Ed. Teacher Librarianship course at CSU last session completed an e-pathfinder as part of their studies in the Information Environment subject. Students were asked to construct an e-pathfinder which would be a prototype learning website for their school. The e-pathfinder assignment restricted the students to a particular format, with an introduction to the topic (e.g. water conservation for year 2), keywords and definitions, and information literacy advice. This was followed by a total of only 15 resources, both print and digital which were to be accompanied by a meaningful annotation i.e one which advised students on using the resources and not just a description of the resources content. Students had to use a wiki format or construct a website using a package such as Weebly. The results, from a large class of students, were very positive although inevitably there was a range of quality in the prototype learning websites. My hope is that my students will follow up this assignment with actual use of their sites in their own schools. Examples of the e-pathfinders can be found at a wiki site constructed by one of my top students.

I have been travelling for almost the last 2 months and the main part of my journey was to work at CSU in Wagga Wagga. One recreational aspect of my stay was a weekly cycle around Pomingalarna reserve, a large plot of land near Wagga Wagga which is a walking/running/mountain biking site for active people. The reserve features a range of wildlife including many birds, as well as snakes and echidnas. There are also 2 tribes (mobs) of kangaroos which live on the reserve and it can be an unnerving experience as you are flat out on your mountain bike on one of the trails, and 3 or 4 kangaroos of different sizes hop across the trail not far in front of you. Next to Pomningalarna is one of Wagga Wagga golf courses. In the evening, the kangaroos are often seen on the golf course and this makes for an unusual site – see picture below.

Kangaroos on golf course

Free ebook on school libraries and bird of paradise

Apologies for the lack of blog entries recently. In my email this week, a link for a new – and free! – ebook on school libraries: School Libraries: What?s Now, What?s Next, What?s Yet to Come. You can download this ebook in a number of formats. There 10 chapters in all with a number of contributors to each chapter. The content of the book covers learners, information literacy, teaching, reading, collection development and professional development. I would say that this is a must-see book for all TLs and SLs around the world. The quality of the contributions is variable and you may not agree with the stances taken by some contributors, but it is certainly worth dipping into from time to time. The foreword begins “The future of school libraries and school librarians hangs in the balance.” – an excellent reason to read part or all of this book.

I first saw the bird of paradise flower in South Africa and they are a spectacular species. I’m in Australia at the moment and these flowers can be seen in many gardens around Wagga Wagga. The flowers (see picture below) resemble a bird with a pointed beak and orange crest and must be one of the most unusual and colourful flowers around. When you first see these flowers, you have to look twice as you might think that you are, in fact, looking at birds and not flowers. The question I ask myself is – would these birds of paradise flourish in Scotland, in early December when I return? Mmm – probably not.

Bird of paradise flower

Digital literacy project and seafood

If you haven’t signed up for the FutureLab Newsletter then you should do so immediately, as it is an excellent way of keeping up to date with a range of ICT issues in education. The latest issue reports on a digital literacy project – with a difference. This project involved students conducting their own research and included them developing their own research questions, undertaking the research, analysing the results and publishing their findings. There are a number of interesting mini projects here and I’m sure that it might be fairly easy for you to replicate this in your own school i.e. by getting your students to pick the issues in which they are interested – and they may well be similar to those in this FutureLab Project. I think that this is an interesting development – and one which we TLs and SLs have been suggesting might be done in the past. It’s called digital literacy – I would include it as part of information literacy, but no matter what terms we use, what’s important is what our students learn.

On holiday in Nice recently, there was an abundance of seafood on offer – in markets and in restaurants, where it can be quite expensive, depending on you budget. I particularly like mussels and clams (see picture below) done in herbs and wine. While the seafood itself tastes nice, it is when you have emptied the shells of the flesh and you are left with a herby/fishy soup, into which you dip some fresh bread, that you really enjoy this dish. It’s also easy to cook this dish -and of course, it’s much, much cheaper to buy some mussels and clams, and cook them with some white wine, a bit of garlic and herbs such as parsley. The BBC has some excellent recipes.

Seafood dish

Teaching synthesis and kittiwakes (yet again)

My colleague Joy McGregor has written a very interesting article in the May-June issue of School Library Monthly, so if you have access to that journal or to a database which will give you access, you should read it. In the article, Joy McGregor discusses a visual approach to teaching synthesis, while admitting that ‘Synthesis is not easy to do, nor is it easy to teach’. The visual approach suggested in the article is a practical one for TLs and teachers, who often face the issue of students not synthesising what they read and expressing it mainly in their own words. In her research, mainly on plagiarism, the author examined year 11 student assignments in an Australian school, and colour coded these assignments, identifying where students had used their own words, or had merely rearranged the words they had read, or (at worst) had simply copied sections of text. Examples can be viewed by TLs in a slide presentation and shown to students, to stimulate discussion of synthesis and plagiarism with senior students. As Joy McGregor points out, discussing these examples with students will not revolutionise their practices overnight, but it is a place to start. Try it.

It’s that time of year again, here in Dunbar as I get my camera out, affix the zoom lens and head off to the harbour to try and capture the perfect photo of kittiwakes with their young chicks. The photos below are probably the sharpest ones I’ve taken but the search for the definitive mother and chicks (at least I think it’s the mother) will go on. Another feature of the photos is the outstanding stonework on which the kittiwakes nest – I think that the sandstone itself is worth photographing. The stones are part of the original wall of Dunbar Castle only part of which remains although it is still an impressive site.

Kittiwakes at Dunbar harbour

Kittiwake chick at Dunbar harbour

Report on school libraries and an iris

The big happening this week in Australia was the issuing of the report of the Federal Government’s inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians. The report provided a number of recommendations about providing databases to all schools (something which has been urged for some time by TL leaders), a policy statement on digital literacy for teachers and principals; more statistical evidence of the numbers of TLs; reading promotion; school libraries and student achievement; and providing support for school libraries. Some people had high hopes for this report e.g. in relation to the guaranteed provision of teacher librarians in all schools – but this was never likely to happen. The report is potentially useful to the TL profession in Australia but it is also fairly predictable and very general. There appears not to be much forward thinking in the report.

Late spring is when the irises in my garden appear. These tall, elegantly stemmed plants produce exquisite flowers of yellow, white and purple. They sway gently in the wind. Their height gives them a superior manner, reinforced by the fact they do not appear until all the daffodils and tulips have long faded. For a short while, they dominate the garden and attract all the attention. What’s interesting when you go close up to irises – see picture below – is the complexity of the flower, and the raindrops emphasise the sharp colours. Close up, they are more abstract. The only pity is that they don’t last long, so you need to really appreciate them when they bloom.

An iris - close up

ECIS librarians’ conference and Istanbul

Over the weekend, I attended the ECIS Librarians’ conference in Istanbul. Key speakers were Doug Johnson,  Joyce Valenza and Debbie Abilock. Doug Johnson talked about how schools need to adapt their learning environments to the ‘net generation’, Joyce Valenza zipped through a whole range of Web 2.0 tools, in a presentation which featured videos of some of here students. Debbie Abilock brought the conference to a stimulating end by discussing cultural competence in schools.  There was also an interesting paper on information literacy and curriculum mapping by Dianne McKenzie who rightly argued in her school, that digital literacy was a sub-species of information literacy, and not the other way round. My own presentation was on developing learning websites and I was pleased with the turnout, given that there were 5 other presentations at that time.

This was my first visit to Istanbul and I would include a photo, except that I forgot my camera, which can only be explained by characteristic dullness on my part. I only had half a day to see the sights, and as it was a Sunday afternoon, many, many other people had the same idea. I went to the Blue Mosque area which features the mosque itself, a magnificent building. Because of the long queues everywhere – I was twice advised to come back on Monday morning but I was leaving then – I didn’t get inside the Blue Mosque. You can walk through a large square, with magnificent obelisks from the 4th century, to Hagia Sofia which was a church, then a mosque and is now a museum – a spectacular sight. I did manage to visit the New Mosque - it was built in the 17th century – with its dramatic, but not ornate chandeliers, descending from the tiled domes. I’ll be back.

Futurelab and bluebells

The Futurelab website makes a regular appearance on this blog – for very good reasons. It’s an excellent way of keeping up to date with leading edge research and reports of interest to all educators in school. I recommend that you sign up for the newsletter. In my email today, the newsletter features Curriculum Eye (which I’ve mentioned before), an excellent tool which monitors technological innovations in schools; and a report on digital literacy at home and in school, which contains some very interesting results, including discussion of ‘connections and discontinuities’ between what students practice at home and at school.

In this part of Scotland, Spring only gets into full swing once the bluebells appear. At this time of year, fairly dull and sparse woods suddenly sprout leaves on the trees and masses of flowers, and become bluebell woods. Bluebells are pretty and delicate flowers  but can be troublesome in gardens as they spread rapidly. The photo below is of a mass of bluebells which local runners and cyclists pass on one of the many routes round here. In Scotland of course, particularly amongst those of us of a certain age, bluebells are often associated with The Bluebell Polka. So trying playing that to anyone of Scottish descent and ask them not to tap their feet.

Bluebells in the woods

Information literacy and Science Festival

This week, my students are discussing definitions and models of information literacy. My own most recent definition (i.e. my definition of information literacy has changed/developed/matured(?)/been enhanced) is that information literacy can be seen as a critical and reflective ability to exploit the current information environment, and to adapt to new environments; and a practice. There’s a stress here not only on students using information literacy skills, but being practitioners, which implies that they take a reflective and critical view of the skills techniques they use e.g. developing a concept map or formulating questions. I’ll also be getting my students to take a look at Mike Eisenberg’s videos (aka vodcasts) to get them critically evaluating different viewpoints on information literacy.

This week, a visit from my two 11-year-old twin nieces (Jessica and Lucy), up from Wakefield in England for a few days. My brother-in-law Tom and I took them to The Museum of Scotland which is a fascinating visit in itself, but is currently hosting part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. One part was allowing you to look at the brain through 3D glasses. There was a child’s brain, all neat and tidy and tightly packed. The adult’s brain had what looked like wide canyons running through it, so presumably when you are, like me, of a certain age, that’s where the things you can’t remember slip into.