Theme 3 - Reference Materials and Final Thoughts
 |
| picture from memegenerator.net |
I have found this course has covered many topics that I was previously unfamiliar left and leaves me feeling more confident in my knowledge of reference services. I can’t help but notice the underutilization of many hard copy reference materials and the fact that many of these resources are not being replaced by newer material (at least this is true at my particular school but I also get this sense from others in our discussion boards). I believe that a huge reason for this lack of use is a lack of knowledge in how to use these materials. I think a lot of classroom teachers maybe don’t know how much the teacher librarian at their school could help them with teaching their students how to use these resources and how to engage in research and inquiry. These reflections helped to guide my plan to improve reference services which you will see posted here soon.
I have been reflecting on my own context and I am realizing that I should be taking every opportunity to work with our teacher librarian who took back her position that I was covering until Christmas. She has two mornings a week that are fully open for collaboration and I haven’t taken advantage of it which is so silly considering how much we are discussing this here. But my problem lies with the group of boys I am working with every day. This is a group who are not ready for learning in their own classes and spend time with me learning in other ways that they really need (more play based learning, building executive functioning skills, building up a frustration tolerance, etc). There have been topics they have shown interest in but quickly move on just as I start to continue to foster this interest. This course has me reflecting a lot on how I can engage these boys in a research/inquiry type exploration to learn basic research with the help of our teacher librarians reference services. My goal for this last school term is to engage them in an inquiry/research type exploration and use the reference services to move them forward to become more information literate.
Another general reflection I had was about how I typically find resources to use with students. I am sure I have used unapproved resources in the past without realizing it. My fellow Owl group member Karla commented on my Assignment 2 blog post and was asking about the approval of certain apps. I found this ERAC link that may give us more information about this topic. But when I tried to search for apps on the K-12 Evaluated Resource Collection I couldn’t seem to find any apps in my search. Maybe someone else knows how to find approved apps. I am all ears!
The most useful way to continue learning about reference services in an elementary library is to see it in action. As I continue to network with my fellow TL’s in this district the reference services at their libraries are much more of an interest to me now. I would also benefit from becoming more comfortable in my knowledge and use of the many online reference resources provided by our district. The module in this course have allowed me to investigate these resources a bit but it would be useful to play around and explore so that I can help others use these resources as well.
The lessons in this last theme have been much more specific and I have found that some are really applicable to elementary level reference services and others not so much. Here are some reflections and takeaways from the last third of our course.
The Deep Web
This quote from Bergman’s article, White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value, was extremely fitting when diving into the deep web topic:
“Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean.” (Bergman, 2001).
I had never heard of the term ‘deep web’ or ‘invisible web’ which seemed to be common in our discussion group. All aspects of this topic were new to me. This module got me thinking about the internet in general and how I go about searching for something when I am in need. Without fail I use google every single time. Or if I don’t use google I am using my go to sites for teaching ideas and inspiration which are helpful in a time crunch (pinterest, teachers pay teachers, etc). When I think about it, the process of planning and finding resources or teaching ideas can feel overwhelming (especially with the million and one other things going on) so teachers are creatures of habit and use shortcuts when possible. I am sure this is why I wasn’t aware the deep web existed, oblivious in my happy google search bubble.
It was interesting to read about about search engines in the Lesson 8 notes and it got me thinking about how we need to teach children how to decide what key words might be best to use when engaging in an internet search. I had never really thought before about how if students aren’t taught this ‘key word’ skill, they would end up typing full sentences or questions into search engines and spend a lot more time on the search then necessary.
Indexes and Databases
I was interested to see a BCTLA listserv and thought that might a useful resource to be introduced to. But I noticed there hasn’t been very many recent posts. It had me thinking … Is this a dying resource? Or is twitter more useful?
I would like to do more searching on my own of kid friendly search sites that I have seen on our elementary library portal like https://www.alarms.org/kidrex/ or https://www.kiddle.co/.
In the Lesson 9 notes we read “Katz notes that researchers and librarians must understand the content in indexes to understand what index is going to yield the articles needed to solve an information need.” This quote stuck with me as I can see this is a gap of mine. I really didn’t have the knowledge of these kinds of online resources and I need to do some learning and exploring in order to provide stellar reference services in the future.
Doing an exploration of the EBSCO and Gale webpages was overwhelming in terms of what they offer and how many databases are available through them. The Gale webpage has 130 types of databases in their catalog! The elementary school section of EBSCO obviously caught my eye and I was curious to know more about the e-books and audiobooks section. Specifically I am wondering how useful the audio book packages are.
The AudioFile Presents: Diverse Books Collection caught my eye as one of the titles listed in the description is a book I have recently seen some wonderful lessons based on. It would be wonderful to use an audio book subscription to create a listening corner in the library where students could look at hard copies of the books while listening. I clicked on this link to and found that there are so many interesting books where you can listen to a preview. This would be more related to reference service interviews but I thought it would be really neat to do book talks by listening to some of these audio previews as a class before library book exchange. The teens and kids page looks like this:
As I did some exploring of databases collections I keep going back to how this can be used in elementary schools. My school in particular has extremely low level readers who i know would not be able to access the majority of the content on these databases. How do we get low readers to access these online articles and resources? My initial thought would be teachers need to work with these students 1-1 to help by reading to them, or do we pair them up with a stronger reader and they can work together. Any other ideas? I find it very useful that database bundles are paid for and organized by the district as I think it would be an overwhelming task to decide what to buy for just your school. There are so many resources out there. It would be interesting to know on a school by school basis how often these databases are used.
Biographies
I have never explicitly used biographies as a resource in the elementary grades that I have taught. Reading this section got me thinking about some explorations that we could do to introduce biographies in elementary school. I came across a few ideas, one was an inquiry based biography research project where students would choose someone they are interested in knowing more about, come up with questions they might like to ask them, and follow through with research on that person. This would work well with older students in intermediate elementary grades. In the primary grades you could read a biography together (in a picture book form?) and learn more about a person the whole class is interested in. An example might be looking at your classes favorite author. I have a mild obsession with Oliver Jeffers and my students always LOVE listening to all of his books throughout the year. He has a few great videos online like the one below that give a nice glimpse into his life and what it is like to be an author. We could even write our own biography for Oliver Jeffers after learning more about him and doing research as a class. On a side note ... I laughed at the third reason for the use of biographies in Riedling’s book … “to locate a possible name for a baby.” (p. 51)
Encyclopedias
Lesson 11 has brought me back to thinking about elementary level encyclopedias which I touched on in my first Assignment. I really do see the value in having some hard copy resources for our younger learners to explore and flip through. But my worry comes back to the cost of print encyclopedias and the fear that if they were purchased and not used what a blow that would be to a library budget. Is it possible to a ‘test run’ with printed kid friendly encyclopedias? We can see the first few pages in an amazon preview but it would be so great to receive one encyclopedia from a set and do a trial run with some students to see what they think. I started to look up some common kid friendly encyclopedias and saw this as the top page on amazon.
I am not surprised to see National Geographic Kids big books here as they are highly engaging for students. I was surprised to see ‘Mistakes That Worked’ as #3 on the best sellers list as the publish date is 1994. Just another interesting note about searching online for resources.
Dictionary and Thesauri
The Guinness World Records Kids could be a fun website for students to explore. This had me thinking about how you could teach a unit on interesting facts that would be information literacy skills in students. They could make their own books of interesting facts based on research they conducted.
“Most of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries take the stance that “almost anything goes” as long as it is popular. For example, did you know that “ASAP” is currently a real word in the dictionary?”(p. 62) This quote from Riedling’s text had me thinking about how it’s strange that there are words we may not even know being used in online slang dictionaries. Maybe we need to be keeping up to date with the lingo our students are using?
Maps and Atlases
“A world atlas that is five years old portrays enough obsolete information to be considered only for historical purposes.” (Riedling, 2013 p. 81) This quote stuck out to me as I was reading about maps and atlases because out of the 10-15 geographical resources we have in our library, every one of them is considered obsolete according to Riedling. In our discussion board I mentioned an exploration I did with students when they discovered the Google Earth app on the ipads. I pulled out many of our atlases, a mapping non-fiction book and a globe to keep out for students to explore but found that students were only interested in the globe and online resources. Looking back now I realize these resources were dated but I also could have done a better job of more formally teaching them about atlases and how to use the hard copy materials. This is a final thought I will leave you with … I have been thinking that students aren’t as interested in hard copy reference materials this whole time but I am starting to realize that maybe it is up to the teachers and teacher-librarians to open students up to these materials and introduce them in a much more explicit way.
References
Audiofile, Discover The World Of Audiobooks. (2019) AudioFile Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/kids-teens/
Bergman, M. (2001). White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value. Journal Of Electronic Publishing, 7(1).
Guinness World Records Ltd. (2019) Guinness World Records Kids. Retrieved from http://kids.guinnessworldrecords.com/
Reports - ERAC. (2016). Retrieved from https://appreport.bcerac.ca/
Penguin Kids. Oliver Jeffers Picture Book Maker. (2014) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-8ydwV45no
Riedling, A., Shake, L., & Houston, C. (2013). Reference Skills for the School Librarian (3rd ed.).
School Audiobook Collections. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.ebscohost.com/ebooks/schools/audiobook-collections
A very detailed and personal reflection on our last theme and all the new awareness you've gained over the last few months. Your connection to your current practice and the support you are providing is useful as we are all interested in seeing applications of our learning and explorations into new strategies for engaging young boys in inquiry would be appreciated by many. Your tour through the key highlights for you and ways you can support their usage and explorations is valuable. A great look back at all your learning!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteA great reflection of reference materials. The National Geographic Kids collection is so popular in my library. We can't keep them on the shelves. Mistakes that worked is also very engaging and although I would not say it is an encyclopedia - it is a great resource to use with students especially in STEM and Makerspace areas.
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your reflection!
I think the part that stuck with me the most, was your thoughts about using the collaboration time available to you with your TL. I am trying to encourage this with my staff as well. I have 3-4 hours a week (most weeks), that I can spend with classroom teachers. While I have been supporting reading groups and lit circles for the most part, I really want to collaborate and team teach on a regular basis. Often I am the one that must approach the classroom teachers to offer my services.
This is an aspect we need to change in the culture of our school. Recently working with a Grade 3 teacher at our school, to introduce technology and reference sources in her class was a very rewarding experience!
Thanks for sharing!
Darryl
Hannah, it was great being a part of your blogging group again. I love reading your reflections. Your experience of working with the group of boys in your class makes me think about all the barriers to collaborative work and research. Yet if the librarian were to approach you about collaboration you would likely say, "Let's give it a try." And if you were not worried about being judged by the librarian because of an unruly or unfocused group you would be even more willing to make the effort (not to say your librarian is judgmental, but I know my own reluctance to share my more difficult classes with other teachers, even to the point of not being willing to take a sick day when I should because I worry that the students won't respond well to someone else). I am learning that teachers have so much on their plates that it must be the librarian who reaches out. Very few teachers have the time and energy to make collaboration happen without being approached.
ReplyDelete