Learning Partners

Building Professional Partnerships and Pedagogy

Professional development has entered the 21st century via web 2.0 tools and networks and in response, individual educators are digitally re-mixing their learning to include global perspectives.  Educators are learning, experiencing, sharing, and growing in several different communities and as they do so, they bring their new found knowledge back to their own school environment.  However, sometimes at no fault of their own, educators become isolated in their school community and are unable to share their skills with colleagues.  A Teacher-Librarian (or any other teacher for that matter) can take on a lead role in terms of professional development within a school to help negate some of these underlying issues that pertain to sharing new skills and resources by providing a variety of different avenues for peers to develop their own skills through collaboration.

Image courtesy of Sullivan Heights Learning Partners

Collaboration is extremely important to me.  I would not be as successful as I have been without the generosity and support of several educators within my past school community.  While an educational member of Sullivan Heights Secondary, I was exposed to a great form of collaboration called Learning Partners.  A portion of Learning Partner's mission includes the following:

"We believe that supporting teachers as they strive to integrate innovative instructional and assessment practices, directly impacts student learning and achievement." (Sullivan Heights Learning Partners)

Learning Partners is a department that spearheads collaboration, inquiry, and resource-based teaching by providing teachers, whether new or experienced, with the motivation and support to explore information and communication technology related to specific curriculum and pedagogy.  Specifically, Learning Partners provides a support system by encouraging collegial collaboration through release time, inservice, and workshops such as "Teacher Drop-In Day" which involves "hosts" and "visitors" to observe a variety of different teaching practices within the school.  Associated with Learning Partners includes the following hashtags: #sullilearns and #learningpartners.  These hashtags are used in conjunction with twitter to connect educators and inform them of practices.  Sarah Garr of Sullivan Heights Secondary explains how to take Learning Partners to the next level in her blog Writing My Way Into Understanding.

Image courtesy of EdTech Magazine

In addition to Learning Partners, Pinterest is another good source of collaboration for organizing an online professional development hub within a school community.  "Boards" can be created for specific resources or categories making the information easy to locate for educators.  Once found, a teacher can "pin" the information to their boards saving it for later reference!  Edudemic provides an easy to follow guide equipped with an infographic to fully explain how and why Pinterest is a good tool to use when seeking to support teachers ICT development.  Edudemic has also published a library specific guide to using Pinterest.  The following are some local examples of Pinterest being used by librarians in the Surrey School District.

1. Sullivan Heights Secondary Learning Commons

2.  Elgin Park Secondary Learning Commons

As you can see, these librarians have done an excellent job of organizing their content for "pinners" to include innovative titles with reliable resources for both students and staff alike.

Image courtesy of Educators Technology

Using web 2.0 technologies to inform your own education practice as a teacher has enabled educators to tap into engaging networks like never before.  However, if these learnings are not shared, we are doing our students an injustice.  By sharing these resources with colleagues and promoting ICT skills through a variety of mediums such as Learning Partners, Pinterest, YouTube channels, iTunes U-Courses, school hashtags, and inservice, our educational community grows for the better.  

Bibliography

1. Learning Partners- Facilitating Peer-Mentoring, Collaboration and Teacher Inquiry: Learning Partners: Facilitating Peer-Mentoring, Collaboration and Teacher Inquiry #LearningPartners. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2015, from http://sullilearningpartners.blogspot.ca/2014/04/building-culture-of-collaboration.html

2. Garr, S. (n.d.). Writing My Way Into Understanding. Retrieved February 20, 2015, from http://teachergarr.blogspot.ca

3. The Teacher’s Guide To Pinterest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2015, from http://www.edudemic.com/guides/the-teachers-guide-to-pinterest/

4. 20 Ways Libraries Are Using Pinterest Right Now. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2015, from http://www.edudemic.com/20-ways-libraries-are-using-pinterest-right-now/

5. Sullivan Heights Learning Commons (shshhrh). (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2015, from https://www.pinterest.com/shshhrh/

6. Elgin Learning Commons (epslibrary). (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2015, from https://www.pinterest.com/epslibrary/

Education Without Borders

Image courtesy of Ask a Tech Teacher

Cultivating a Personal Learning Network with Twitter

21st century learning has revolutionized professional development for educators with the emergence of web 2.0 technologies.  With continuous access to over 3 billion internet users (InternetLiveStats) it has never been easier to curate a community of extended learning through a variety of different mediums or networks.  Tied by passion and interests, personal learning networks (PLNs) are immediate, interactive sources of knowledge that use the power of connectivism to inform users. However, the initial stage of generating a PLN can be somewhat overwhelming to users due to the vast amount of tools available such as YouTube, Google+, and Delicious.  Not knowing where to start or how to start is a problem for many educators, as it was for me.  Through this inquiry, I want to specifically look at maximizing the potential of Twitter in cultivating a PLN.  Originally seen as a social networking site, Twitter has taken the realm of education by storm. The following YouTube video briefly delves into the global benefits Twitter has for educators.

Personally, I just started to use Twitter properly.  As the image below adequately depicts, I was originally in 'denial' of it's benefits.  But through a little exploring, I have come to see the potential of Twitter to provide powerful professional development. That being said, Twitter is still a world in which I don't fully understand.  With constant updates, re-tweets, favourites, and hashtags, it can be incredibly difficult to sift through all the information Twitter provides.  Not to mention determining what information is important and what information isn't.  So although I entered the 'curiosity' stage of my development as a Twitter user, prior to this inquiry I was at a loss regarding how to effectively use the network.

Image courtesy of Rich Kiker

As mentioned previously, sifting through Twitter to find the right information can be time consuming.  However, Twitter provides an interface function called 'Lists'.  Lists allow a user to organize their followers into categories that separate personal interests from educational interests in the form of hashtags or followers.  This feature makes it easier for a user to cultivate their PLN according to certain areas of passion without having unnecessary information popping up.

Image courtesy of Ed Tech Review

In addition to lists, Twitter has a multitude of functions that many users are unacquainted to.  However, The Twitterholic's Ultimate Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter by Sue Waters provides a multitude of information on how to dramatically increase the benefits of Twitter for educational purposes.  Waters effectively breaks down Twitter into more manageable pieces detailing basic information as well as more complex processes.  I was particularly interested in Waters segment on Twitter clients. I never considered that I would need other web 2.0 tools to help run a certain application before.  For instance, during previous Tweets I noticed that the URL I was providing was particularly long compared to many other users.  After some searching, I discovered Bitly, a tool for shortening URL links.  The power of Bitly is important when you consider that Twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet!  In addition to Bitly, I became informed of other organizational applications such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite. Through these mediums, a user can schedule, organize, and filter content with Twitter.  It's a matter of personal preference between the two clients however TweetDeck vs. Hootsuite- The Essential Guide may be of use when deciding between the two.  At this stage of my PLN, I'm still exploring my options and have yet to come to a definitive decision on which client I prefer to use.

While I've only begun to get my feet wet when it comes to Twitter, I feel slightly more confident as a user by implementing many of these tools and strategies.  I will continue to grow my PLN and work hard at incorporating new information technologies to improve my experience and learning.

Bibliography

1.  100 Ways To Use Twitter In Education, By Degree Of Difficulty. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.edudemic.com/100-ways-to-use-twitter-in-education-by-degree-of-difficulty/

2.  TweetDeck Versus Hootsuite - The Essential Guide - RazorSocial. (2015, February 2). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.razorsocial.com/tweetdeck-versus-hootsuite-essential-guide/

3.  The Twitteraholic’s Ultimate Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.theedublogger.com/2012/02/13/the-updated-twitteraholics-guide-to-tweets-hashtags-and-all-things-twitter/#before

4.  Twitter Usage Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics

The Stairway to Reading

Courtesy of Estes Park News

Inquiry Blog Post #1: Fostering Reading Cultures in Schools

As our education system has embarked on the 21st century, learning has focused itself on incorporating new forms of literacy to increase student's educational opportunities and to develop proficiency with web 2.0 tools and technology.  Traditional literacy has in some cases, become undervalued in the flashy wake of media literacy, digital literacy, and network literacy.  Therefore fostering a reading culture within a school can be an uphill battle for many educators, but the Learning Commons can be a valuable tool in the fight to help ignite the desire for recreational reading in students.

Many Learning Commons around the world have begun to implement strategies to help foster an appreciation for reading and as a new teacher-librarian, I have tried to follow suit.  When I was a member of the Learning Commons team at Sullivan Heights Secondary, I sought to tap into social media and advocate for the library using web 2.0 technologies such as Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, QR Codes, Infographics, and Twitter.  Using Infographics and QR Codes, I took novels that were being turned into movies and created "Read it before you see it!" posters connected to YouTube trailers via QR Codes and placed them around the library.  Despite my efforts, I don't think it was a huge success.  The format of the Infographics and the graphics themselves were not the best and lead me to believe that the posters weren't 'attractive' enough.  The Learning Commons has seen greater success through Pinterest and Twitter.  As new books are added to the library, they are posted to specific Pinterest boards.  These boards are automatically connected to Twitter and send out Tweets to followers once a book has been added.  This is a great way to keep readers informed but with only 119 followers on Pinterest, and 27 on Twitter in a school of 1400 students, the reach of the Learning Commons could be improved.  Collaborating with other teachers and teacher-librarians via personal learning networks may be the key to helping me establish a 21st century learning commons, or classroom when the time comes!  The following two sites in particular provide great activities, resources, and ideas for supporting a 21st century learning commons as the teacher-librarians do a fabulous job of extending their network to not only their own students and staff, but the rest of the online community.

Courtesy of The Daring Librarian

1.  The Daring Librarian (international source)

2. Elgin Park Secondary's Learning Commons (local source)

While many teachers and teacher-librarians work hard to establish a reading culture within their schools, the approach is from the bottom-up.  As educators, we play a crucial role in the construction of our school culture, and whether we acknowledge it or not, we are role models for our students, but teachers are only one piece of the school puzzle.  Administrative officers also have a powerful influence on students and the ability to create a positive school culture around reading based on the policies they implement and values they place, a top-down approach.  Lord Twedsmuir Secondary School (LTSS) in Surrey is an example of administrative officers taking literacy to another level with what the school calls Sustained Silent Reading (SSR).  SSR provides 20 minutes a day of recreational reading for all students at LTSS.  As far as I know, this has been going on for at least three years and is still being implemented today.  LTSS is proof that if administration is really concerned about literacy, they can do something about it.  The National Library of New Zealand has a great video on how to foster a school reading culture along with specific steps an educator can take in order to promote reading. Their website is very informative and includes many sections related to creating a reading culture such as Boys and Reading, A School-Wide Reading Culture, Reader Friendly Environments, and Reader Friendly Policies.

Courtesy of Smith Public Library

Creating more school-wide initiatives such as SSR can have a dramatic impact on a students level of recreational reading.  When I re-enter the school district in a position, I hope to establish fun activities such as Drop Everything and Read, Bookface, Book Spine Poetry etc that encourage reading.  The School Library Journal has also published a great article called "How to Create a Culture of Reading" that indicates several steps educators, and more specifically, teacher-librarians can take to develop a positive reading culture in their schools. I particularly enjoy when the journal mentions that reading is reading and to not discount magazines, newspapers, and graphic novels as an opportunity to foster the development of a students literacy.

Bibliography

1. The Daring Librarian. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2015, from http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/

2. The Learning Commons @ElginParkSecondary. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2015, from http://elginlearningcommons.com/

3. Creating a reading culture. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2015, from http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/creating-readers/creating-reading-culture

4. How to Create a. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2015, from http://www.slj.com/2013/11/events/ala-conferences/how-to-create-a-culture-of-reading-aasl-2013/#_