Information literacy and Nam Le

I’ve just completed a podcast for my students on some aspects of information literacy in schools. One of the issues facing TLs and teachers has been the proliferation of literacies in recent years. So how do you distinguish, for example, information literacy, digital literacy and visual literacy? Should you distinguish them or are digital literacy and visual literacy components of information literacy. There is no agreement on this. One Digital Literacy site (and there are many) defines digital literacy partly as ‘the use of computers to retrieve, assess, store, produce,  present and exchange information’ but is this not also a possible definition of one aspect of information literacy? I think that the key aspect here is not to restrict ourselves to definitions of different kinds of literacy, but to see how they might overlap. So ask your self – how does media literacy relate to information literacy, and vice versa? Consider it your homework for tonight.

I’m reading an astonishing book of short stories at the moment. The Boat by Nam Le contains a range of stories which will grip you with a sense of high tension. You will also be fascinated by the range of characters and by how much you find out about characters in a relatively short period of time. There is so much depth in these stories that sometimes I have come away thinking that I’ve read a whole novel and not a short story – although many of the stories are not short in the sense of being only a few pages long. If you think you don’t read short stories, then try this book and prepare to be amazed. Seldom have I read a book that lives up to the lavish praise of the reviews quoted.

Concept maps and snowdrops

I’m writing up some research about students using concept maps in schools and how many students value their concept maps when doing assignments. With encouragement, students can be taught to make extensive use of their concept map (or mind map) i.e. not just to identify keywords for information retrieval but to help students think about how they might structure an essay or report. Concept maps can also be used to help students understand concepts and many science teachers, for example, find them helpful. If you want to increase your knowledge about concept maps then I would point you to a study by Novak and Canas. It’s fairly long but you can dip into it and gain some very good insights into how you might use concept maps with your students in the classroom or in the library.

The snowdrops have been out for a while now here in Dunbar and they are lasting longer this year because of the cold weather. There is always a great display of snowdrops at the local farm of Pitcox. The photo below shows the snowdrops in the garden of the ‘big house’ i.e. where the farm owner stays. Snowdrops, my web research tells me have the Latin name Galanthus Rivalis meaning a milk white flower resembling snow, but should not be brought indoors as this is bad luck – like putting new shoes on the table, I suppose.

Snowdrops at Pitcox

Teacher tap and spring tide

Doing some web searching for a new book, I came across a useful site that may or may not be familiar to you. Teacher Tap is a portal which contains ideas and resources for teachers and TLs – although the site actually says ‘educators and librarians’ as if we weren’t educators! – who want to use ICT for learning and teaching in schools. As an aside, the site also talks of ‘teaching and learning’ – I always tell my students, TLs and SLs that ‘learning’ should always come first, as that’s the key point of schools. One of the sections on this site which is certainly worth looking at is the Effective Web Assignments  page which has many good links. Check it out and book mark it.

The full moon has just passed 2 days ago, so we have had some very high tides (photo below)  here in Dunbar  with big waves slamming against the harbour wall and leaping way into the air. ‘Spring tides’ of course do not just happen in Spring – into which we have supposedly arrived, it being March, but it’s to be -3 tonight – but arrive just after the full moon. A Spring tide is a high tide and the highest occur nearest the 2 equinoxes in the year. So it’s not seasonal, with ‘Spring’ meaning to jump up. The opposite is a neap tide which is a calm tide. Nothing of course to do with the Scottish word ‘neep’ meaning a turnip or swede. When someone does something stupid or forgetful (e.g. like me driving to the shops and walking home), they are described as having ‘a neep for a heid” (i.e. head and pronounced heed).

Spring tide

School Library Media Research and James Lee Burke

Continuing the list of journals relevant to TLs around the world, the key research journal for teacher librarianship is School Library Media Research. This is a refereed journal which ranks high amongst all library and information science journals. As the articles are researched based, they may give the appearance of being ‘heavy’, but as practitioners, TLs can gain useful insights into topical issues by dipping into these articles. A good approach is to read the abstract and the conclusion for an overview and the follow up the rest of the article if you’re interested. There is a wide range of topics from ICT to information literacy to school libraries and student achievement to standards for school libraries. Check it out.

I’m reading Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke. The novel is set in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. It’s a crime novel, featuring Lee’s detective Dave Robicheaux, and is a mixture of page turning thriller, morality tale and reflection on the disaster in New Orleans. Burke makes comments on the inadequacies of the US government’s response to Katrina but this is no didactic diatribe, rather a subtle comment on governmental inadequacies. I’ve read James Lee Burke over many years and this is one of his best novels. Strong on plot character and dialogue, it’s much more than what is often wrongly and patronisingly called a crime novel. Give him a try.

School Library Journal Online and St Andrews

Having given a plug for School Library Monthly recently, I thought that I’d be fair and urge those of you interested in school library development, but particularly on the children’s literature side, to have a look at  The School Library Journal . It is best known for its children’s literature articles and particularly its reviews, but there is much more material to be found here including features on information literacy, web 2.0 and curriculum related websites. the journal is based in the USA, so there is a north American focus on most aspects but there is much that TLs around the world can learn from this journal, most of which is available online, but you can subscribe to it if you wish.

A day trip to St Andrews   on Saturday, a cold, crisp but bright and very sunny day in the east of Scotland. The town is famous as the home of golf and for its ancient university  and its wide sweep of beach is best known as the setting for one of the running scenes in the film Chariots of Fire. The photo below is of the castle, a ruin since being destroyed in reformation times in Scotland. Like many other Scottish castles, such as the castle  here in Dunbar, it was built with its back to the sea, so that it was unlikely to be surrounded and so that it could see its enemies approaching. There was a huge swell on the sea on Saturday and made me think of Walcott’s ‘bannered breakers’ referred to in a recent blog.

Podcasts and boudin noir

In the last 2 semesters, I have been providing my students with a weekly podcast on the topic they are studying and in one smaller class, I provided students with a podcast feedback on their assignments. I’m now analysing the responses to a questionnaire for the smaller (20 students) class and the online evaluations for the larger class (150 students). Students responded very well to the podcasts and in particular, enjoyed the personal touch in a distance education environment. The assignment feedback podcasts wer particularly welcomed as students said that they took more notice of the verbal comments (which accompanied detailed written feedback) and were more likely to act on suggested improvements if they received a podcast. Podcasting is reasonably common in schools now but I’m not sure whether assignment feedback is much done. Depending on your class size, it can be time-consuming but it is worth trying. If any of you use podcasts for feedback to students, please let me know.

Out to dinner last night with friends Tam and Sandra. Tam and I went to school together at the age of 5, so we’ve been friends for (you choose a number) years. We went to the Cafe Marlayne and for my first course I had boudin noir and scallops. The faint hearted should probably look away now. Boudin noir is the French equivalent of black pudding and both can be described as blood sausages as dried blood is the main ingredient. In Scotland, black pudding is often part of the traditional breakfast and if you want to try the crispy and less fatty kind, then go for Stornoway black pudding. Alternatively, have it as a starter on baked apple with Cumberland sauce.

School Library Monthly and White Egrets

The journal which used to be called School Library Media Activities Monthly, which doesn’t exactly trip easily off the tongue, has been renamed a much more sensible School Library Monthly. You can subscribe to this journal but most of it appears to be online for free. The journal does contain some articles by leading academics but also has a range of features relating to teacher librarianship which are of a very practical nature e.g. Into the curriculum; Almanacs; and Podcasts. The January 2010 edition has features on assessing learning, guided inquiry and Nudging toward Inquiry – a very practical article looking at ways in which TLs and teachers can encourage students to enhance their information literacy skills. This is one to put on your to-do list and to return to each month.

The postman delivered a package the other day, a white jiffy bag, so I had a good idea that it was time for my quarterly surprise as a member of the Poetry Book Society. Opening the package is a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty as you are never sure if you will like the quarterly choice – although very few ever disappoint. The Spring 2010 choice is White Egrets  by the Caribbean poet Derek Walcott, a Nobel prize winner. I’ve only dipped into it so far but Walcott has the great poet’s enviable ease of being concise in words but expansive in meaning e.g. “where bannered breakers toss/ and the palms gust with music that is time’s…” Much more pleasure to come from this.

21st cetury teacher and White Tiger

Are you a 21st century teacher? That’s the question asked in a new Becta resource. The 9 page leaflet gives definitions of 21st century teachers and what they accomplish e.g. ‘make learning exciting and engaging for all learners’. There are also a range of case studies cited – although no links are made here. The booklet covers aspects such as learning and teaching, planning and administration and assessment. This is followed by a detailed checklist to help teachers to improve their teaching. All of this applies to teacher librarians and school librarians. This is a well written and concise guide and well worth dipping into.

I’ve just finished reading The White Tiger which won the Man Booker prize in 2008. It’s certainly different. The narrator tells us that he is an Indian entrepreneur and the book takes the form of messages that he is purportedly sending to the Chinese prime minister who is about to visit India. It’s an amusing and revealing tale about the huge differences in wealth and class in India and it’s also a tale of murder. It’s well plotted and the narrator’s voice is individual and distinct. However, I was left with the feeling that this was quite a light novel. Yes – it won the Man Booker Prize, so eminent critics obviously disagree with me. I would still recommend that you read it.

Four things every student should learn and primroses

From eSchool News this week, an article from Alan November who is known to me mainly as an advocate of teaching students how to be discriminating web users e.g. his well known 1998 article Teaching Zach to think. In the present article, November highlights what he sees as 4 things every student should learn, and adds that not all schools are teaching these 4 things. OK, you cynics out there might argue that he wouldn’t write about things that every school was teaching. His 4 things are: global empathy; social and ethical responsibility on the web; the permanence of information posted online; and critical thinking about the information found online. November refers to the importance of teaching students how to ‘tear apart information on the web’ and I think he’s right. Maybe no great surprises in this article for many TLs. Get your teachers to read it!

Spring has not sprung yet here in the south east of Scotland and the cold winter we’ve had (lots of older people saying ‘It’s nice to have a real winter) continues. I should explain that this means that day temperatures are about 4-5 degrees this week – that may or not be cold for you, depending on where you are in the world. However, the crocuses are out, albeit that they stay closed nearly all the time. What is adding a nice splash of colour to my garden are the primroses in different colours (see photo below) . Primroses mean ‘prime’ or ‘first’ roses as they flower in the winter/early spring. If flowers have characters, maybe these ‘prim’ roses are well behaved and dress conservatively, and maybe ‘wild’ roses cavort about in the dark when we’re not looking. If you can absolutely prove that they don’t, let me know.

Primroses in February

Branding the school library and swans

I was reading an article the other day about how Barack Obama had turned the presidency into a brand and it set me thinking what a school library brand might look like. A brand gives a product an individual identity e.g. a Volkswagen Beetle car or Starbucks coffee shops. The idea is that people can recognise certain qualities from the brand name. So if the brand is the school library, what is the brand? Books, access to the web, the teacher/school librarian, knowledge, information literacy? Branding is alluded to in Valenza and Johnson’s article which is very worth reading as it may make you think about how you would like to brand the library and how you think you might go about persuading your school community to recognise that brand e.g. seing the school library as a virtual as well as a physical space.

Out walking on Sunday last, 3 groups of swans took off from a wee loch at St Abbs Head and conducted a flyover, swaying above the cliffs and down through the valley where the loch provides them with nesting cover. You could hear the wings flapping and the constant calls from each group. Were they discussing what they could see as my wife and I were discussing what we could see? Improbable but not impossible, methinks. The photo below was taken from a distance but if any of you can lipread swans, then let me know what they were saying. 

No blog next week as I’m on leave. Blog back in wb 1st Feb 2010.

Swans at St Abbs Head