Resourcing the contemporary curriculum.

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians places great emphasis on the work of education to be realistic and responsive to new local, regional and global demands (MEETYA, 2008).  This emphasis is at the heart of Brisbane Catholic Education’s Learning and Teaching Framework (site accessible only to Brisbane Catholic Education Employees).

“As a Catholic Christian community, we educate all to live the gospel of Jesus Christ as successful, creative and confident, active and informed learners; empowered to shape and enrich our world.”

Learning and Teaching Framework,

Brisbane Catholic Education, 2012

The Religious Education Curriculum continues to deepen the call of educators to be responsive to the contemporary demands of education so to;

“…form students who are challenged to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and who are literate in the Catholic and broader Christian tradition so that they might participate critically and authentically in faith contexts and wider society.”

Religious Education Archdiocese of Brisbane,

Brisbane Catholic Education, 2013

The classroom teacher of Religious Education must draw on these contextual understandings to access, curate, engage, innovate and collaborate to resource both Religious Education and the Religious Life of the School so students learning experiences are rich, dynamic, engaging and contemporary.

ACCESS

ResourceLink is Brisbane Catholic Education’s contemporary resourcing and information centre, providing staff from Brisbane Catholic Education and Religious Institute schools, the Brisbane Catholic Education Office and other Archdiocesan groups with access to a diverse range of high quality resources to support their work.

Our work is driven by the need to ensure that our physical resources such as DVDs, print texts, puppets, posters, Indigenous Australian realia, interactive kits, music scores, music CDs, prayer and spirituality kits and religious realia as well as our online resources such as eBooks and Audio books (only available to Brisbane Catholic Education staff and students), curated online content, blog and films are easily accessible and user friendly.

Borrowers can access the ResourceLink library catalogue via the Brisbane Catholic Education public page  or via the Brisbane Catholic Education portal or K-web.  Browsing can be done via multiple ways but first a simple key word search will (in most cases) draw suitable results.

If signed in borrowers can book the resource then and there for a time which is suitable for the planning of learning and teaching within the Religious Education classroom.

Whilst the ResourceLink catalogue is one possible way of accessing high quality resources for Religious Education there are many other sources that can be accessed to locate appropriate resources for learning and teaching:

Some of ResourceLink’s favourites are:

• National Library of Australia

The Trove website states that Trove is an exciting, revolutionary and free search service.  With millions of items, Trove is an unrivalled repository of Australian material.  Trove is for all Australians.  Whether you are tracing your family history, doing professional research, reading for pleasure, teaching or studying.

• AustralianScreen

AustralianScreen is a promotional and educational resource providing worldwide online access to information about the Australian film and television industry and is operated by the National Film and Sound Archive.

• Scootle

Scootle is a repository of quality digital resources to support the Australian Curriculum which can be used directly by students and by teachers to learn, teach and collaborate.

CURATE

The term curator, from its Latin roots means to “take care”.  As educators we often are curating much content, making decisions about the quality and value of resources, text, technology and other learning activities. Sometimes a great resource is located, but when it comes to teach that topic again, it can’t be located again.  With the advent of social bookmarking and other online curation platforms, educators have powerful tools to curate quality digital content.  You can learn more about content curation and online curation strategies and tools at these links.

Kay Oddone (Librarian ResourceLink) and Susanna Di Mauro (Education Officer Information and Systems ResourceLink) promote the idea that anyone can locate resources but it is what an individual does after they locate such a resource that is really exciting.  In their roles with ResourceLink this team of curators work through a specific process to identify and curate quality resources and content.

Firstly it is important to review the resource or content and ask critical questions of it:

1. What is the focus and scope of the learning?
2. Who is the target audience for the resource?
3. Is this resource or content appropriate for our particular context and need?
4. Is this the best type of resource for this context and need?
5. Who is the author or creator and are they a reputable authority?
6. What is the content and is it accurate, current and valuable?
7. How should users access the resource or content in keeping with appropriate protocols?

Secondly it is important to discern the best way to curate the resources or content for access by students by asking a range of questions:

• What is the literacy and numeracy levels of the audience?
• Are there any permissions or security needed to access these resources?
• What are the logistical implications for users in accessing these resources?
• How user friendly is the curation tool and is it suitable for the target audience?
• Is the curation approach in keeping with appropriate copyright and creative commons licencing?

After the content is reviewed and the curation platform has been chosen, teachers and students should be able to access diverse resources or content in a variety of ways given the technological and connected environment of learning today.

There are multitudes of curation tools available for use. Here are some of our favourites:

• Pinterest

Pinterest is a really easy to use app, which is very appealing because it is highly visual. Unfortunately recent changes to Pinterest have resulted the need for users to have an account before they can easily view the ‘boards’ or curated items. As account holders must be aged 13 or above, this limits its use with younger students. While it may still be a very useful tool for teachers and older students, we encourage the use of other tools such as Blendspace or Sitehoover for sharing resources with students.

• LibraryThing

Suitable for secondary students and teaching teams. This online tool will catalogue your texts for you.  Users can then add appropriate ‘tags’ for searching reviews or creating book lists.  These can then be shared with students, colleagues, parents or the wider educational community.

• Site Hoover

Suitable for primary students, this online tool collates useful websites in one location and is accessible from any computer.

• Bag the Web

Is suitable for all students. Users can collect, publish, and share curated web content.

• Scoop. It!

Suitable for high school students and educators, users can build engaged audiences through publishing by curation. This is a highly visual tool, with the capacity to add detailed reflections on each ‘scooped’ item.

• Pearl Trees

Suitable for all students to access. Users can organise, explore and share online content by creating content ‘pearls’, which can be displayed in a mindmap style.

Please note that many social media and curation tools require users to be aged 13 and above before creating their own accounts. For younger students, it is suggested that the teacher creates a class account which is co-curated by students, or teachers share their curated lists with students.

 

ENGAGE

A question that we often ask at ResourceLink is how might a resource be used as a way of unpacking multiple ideas or learning within a classroom.  There are so many great texts, resources, DVDs, online content or web tools available that we are often spoilt for choice.  Given this, the old adage “that less is more is something to hold on to.”  Often one resource can open up different learning pathways.  Taking for example Shaun Tan’s picture book The Lost Thing*, secondary or primary teachers can use this picture book as a starting point for study in Religious Education, English, History or Visual Arts.
* The book and video of which are available for loan to ResourceLink borrowers.

INNOVATE

Some people think that innovation it is outside of their particular experience or skill base.  Everyone can innovate in some way, be it in the manner in which they access or share resources or perhaps through the creation of a resource for learning experiences using mobile technology.

 

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians calls educators to be responsive to the contemporary landscape within which they teach (MEETYA 2008).  Educators are challenged to innovate, not only in the approach taken to resourcing but also the approach taken to technology and pedagogy as well.  Ruben R. Puentedura’s model of Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition or SAMR, whilst focused on mobile technology, provides a lens to approach resourcing. Quality resources not only enhance student learning, can transform it.  Read more about Puentedura’s model and mobile learning here.

How might you innovate the way you resource for learning and teaching?  Firstly go shopping.  Not to buy anything, but to see how retailers or cafes or restaurants are developing spaces and experiences to engage consumers.  Education, it can be argued, is similar to that experience as educators seek to engage students, and encourage ‘buy-in’. Importantly a significant amount of time should be spent understanding the context of the audience.  Firstly, identify the demands of the curriculum, content areas and achievement standards.  What is required? How is this already taking place?  Is there a need to innovate?  If so why?  Armed with this reflection it is then necessary to consider further the context of the class.   Who are the learners?  What are the individual learning needs?  What are the challenges and opportunities within the school in terms of access to technology?  What are the needs of the school community?

Being responsive to this context, you might substitute a DVD for a reader kit or augment a book with an eBook or modify a learning experience that moves from a re-enactment to a re-development and design and redefine the way students are learning by using technology and resources in a way not done before.

 

COLLABORATE

Teaching isn’t done in isolation.  Quality educators are collaborative. Once more the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians challenge educators to develop stronger partnerships (MEETYA 2008).  This is certainly an important part of quality contemporary resourcing.  The value of collaborative partnerships is vital in the delivery of an exciting dynamic learning environment.  Each member of the community has a contribution to make to the dialogue of student achievement within a school – especially the students.

Who might you turn to collaborate with?

• Assistant Principal Religious Education or Religious Education Coordinator.
• Teacher Librarian or School Librarian.
• Colleagues beyond the subject area.
• Students, parents and family members.
• The wider community
  • The local parish
  • Local interest groups
  • Other schools
• The world.

See how other educators are collaborating in a beyond their schools here.  If you are interested in this global collaborative approach to education, learn more from the work of Julie Lindsay at Flat Connections.

 

 

Resourcing contemporary learning and teaching requires a renewed approach. If educators are to work towards the goals as outlined in the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australian then now is the time to take stock, to reimagine and to see how they can access, curate, engage, innovate and collaborate to work towards supporting student achievement within a contemporary context.

“If school systems are to be able to bring more students than ever before to higher levels of accomplishment than ever before, they will need to do some different things and do them in different ways…”

(Levin, 2007, p 230)

Co-Authors:

Susanna di Mauro (Education Officer Information and Systems ResourceLink)

Kay Oddone (Librarian ResourceLink)

Benjamin van Trier (Education Officer ResourceLink)

References:

Brisbane Catholic Education (2011) Learning and Teaching Framework, Brisbane, Brisbane Catholic Education.

Brisbane Catholic Education (2013) Religious Education Archdiocese of Brisbane, Brisbane, Brisbane Catholic Education.

Levin, B. (2008). How to change 5000 schools: a practical and positive approach for leading change at every level. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Education Press.

MCEETYA. (2008). Melbourne declaration on educational goals for young Australians. Melbourne: Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

Resourcing the Australian Curriculum: Building Digital Collections – a review

Members of the ResourceLink team were recently privileged to participate in the Syba Academy and SCIS sponsored seminar ‘Resourcing the Australian Curriculum: Building Digital Collections Conference’.

This seminar was of great interest to us, as ResourceLink has been working hard over the past 18 months to deliver a digital library to all schools in the Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) Archdiocese. This roll-out, which is a product of collaboration with BCE Information Services, Softlink and Overdrive, has been one of the ways we are supporting the provision and modelling of contemporary library services. We have also been focusing on enriching our collection to provide a wide range of both physical and digital resources, including websites, apps, streaming videos and lists of curated sites, and so we were eager to learn more about whether we were taking the right approach, and how to improve our processes and protocols.

We were thrilled when the organisers contacted us, and asked if we would also share our journey in delivering the BCE Digital Library as part of the day, by participating in a panel of speakers sharing their experiences.

Speakers included Lyn Hay, CSU, Pru Mitchell, SCIS, Colleen Foley, NSW DET, David Munnoch, Trinity Grammar School, and Kay Cantwell, ResourceLink.

Building Digital Collections

The day began with a keynote from Lyn Hay Lecturer and Course Coordinator of the Master of Applied Science (Teacher Librarianship), at Charles Sturt University. Lyn’s keynote gave an overview of the value and importance of  building digital collections. She presented an overwhelming array of research and evidence which demonstrated how school libraries,  qualified teacher librarians and rich collections of both physical and digital resources positively impact upon student achievement and improved literacy levels.

Many are questioning the need for libraries, as access to information appears ubiquitous. With the answer to every question seemingly a ‘Google’ away, it is a common misconception that libraries and library staff are no longer needed. Hay’s presentation concisely demonstrated why this is untrue, highlighting a wide range of research, including:

• Stephen Krashen on the role of reading in literacy development,
• Francis, Lance, & Lietzau, (2010) on the role of school libraries and their impact on student achievement
• Softlink (2012) on the positive relationship between literacy results and school library resourcing and
• Hughes (2013) on how the ratio of library staff to students has a significant effect on student achievement in reading and writing

The presentation also pointed out how libraries and the provision of digital as well as physical collections provide not only what users need and demand, but also provide equity of access, which are two of the underlying reasons why BCE went ahead with the provision of the Digital Library in a centralised way – to offer equity and access to a wide and balanced collection to complement the schools’ existing physical collections.

Hay also highlighted (literally) the huge number of content descriptions within the Australian Curriculum that are able to be resourced by libraries which offer both physical and digital resources – and that the inclusion of ebooks and audiobooks in any school collection was, in her words, ‘a no-brainer’, simply because of the number of learning opportunities they offered in supporting the introduction of the Australian Curriculum, and in learning areas well beyond English, including History, Science and Geography, as well as General Capabilities and meeting the needs of diverse students.

eBooks and eLending

The session after morning tea was presented by Pru Mitchell and Colleen Foley, and together they focused on eBooks and eLending, and how the provision of a digital collection is vital for 21st century education.  Pru focused on the considerations schools need to make before launching into  digital library provision, while Colleen spoke about links to the curriculum, and reported on the NSW Department of Education trial of a digital library in schools, which they reported on in Ebooks for Leisure and Learning. The report found that students and teachers both reported increased enjoyment in reading, and students believed that using ebooks improved their writing, independent reading and creativity, while teacher librarians noted an improvement in reading comprehension. You can read more in the November 2012 Scan article ‘Ebooks for Leisure and Learning‘ by Colleen Foley.

Both presentations confirmed the processes and protocols BCE has put in place for the delivery of our Digital Library. These strategies included the importance of providing a range of both digital and physical resources to learners, the necessity for those implementing the systems to have a strong and shared understanding of digital rights management and different licensing agreements and to have a plan for providing centralised access to all resources, whether physical or digital, through the institution’s library management system.

BCE is fortunate that strategic planning had already led to all schools within BCE converting to the Oliver Library Management System in the years prior to the delivery of the Digital Library. This has enabled us to deliver access to the ebooks and audiobooks by centrally exporting records into each school’s library catalogue, ensuring that all users across BCE schools have equal access. It also has meant that complex licensing agreements can be managed centrally.

eBooks and eReaders: Panel of Practice

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by KimCarpenter NJ: http://flickr.com/photos/kim_carpenter_nj/7565537700/

The panel of practice session featured David Munnoch, sharing his experiences rolling out a variety of digital resource platforms at his school library at Trinity Grammar School, and my own presentation on our experiences in the delivery of the BCE Digital Library for the Archdiocese. A summary of what I presented is available here.

The afternoon session focused on maximising access to digital resources. Lyn Hay presented a very comprehensive overview on the importance of content curation as a role of the contemporary library, and Pru Mitchell gave participants a rundown on the value of providing a library catalogue to users that provides one point of access for all library resources.

Content Curation

This image at http://www.bethkanter.org/good-curation-vs-bad-curation/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 License.

Content curation is a huge field, and worthy of its own blog post. ResourceLink has been engaging in content curation for some time, using many of the tools Hay discussed, including Pinterest, Storify and of course Diigo. Not just creating lists of links, content curation is the selection of specific online resources, which are value-added to in the form of a contextualised commentary. Examples of ResourceLink’s curation include our Diigo lists to support the Religious Education Curriculum the ResourceLink Pinterest boards and the use of Storify to compile tweets shared at various professional learning events (such as the Storify created for this very seminar!).

Resource Discovery and Maximising Access

Pru Mitchell’s presentation about library catalogues was also affirming, as ResourceLink has been working to model contemporary collection development and cataloguing. Pointing to articles from Joyce Valenza and Judy O’Connell, Mitchell outlined how a rich collection of digital and physical resources, well catalogued, enhances user access, as they are more likely to experience success finding quality resources to meet their needs from an OPAC search than from a Google search, where the amount of irrelevant information is so overwhelming. A library catalogue can provide a central point of access to a range of materials, and even across library collections – for example, the ResourceLink library catalogue allows users to search across our own collection and our Digital Library collection, as well as Trove, Scootle and the Film and Sound Archive, from within the same interface.

Thank you Syba Academy and SCIS

Syba Academy and SCIS have put together a fantastic seminar here, which all Teacher Librarians and those involved in resourcing schools should consider attending.  The day had an air of positivity, as Teacher Librarians and those who support resourcing in schools were reminded not only of the key role they play in education, but also of the exciting, challenging and ever expanding world in which they inhabit. Libraries are no longer confined to four walls and rows of shelves – they can be the portal to a wealth of resources, and a place for meeting, learning, exploring, inventing, creating and so much more!

We at ResourceLink have accepted this challenge, and are constantly investigating new ways to support our clients. In an age of ‘infowhelm’, libraries and librarians are best placed to support information management and access, and we use the best tools available to make this possible.

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by LibraryGirlCC

 

6 Ways to Keep Track of Digital Information – A Resolution for 2013

Every day we face new influxes on information – in our email inbox, on our Facebook page, in our Tweetstream, in feeds for blogs that we subscribe to,  in discussion forums, and just the stuff we stumble upon while surfing the internet. As busy people, it is often at precisely the wrong time that we find that fascinating article, or when we are looking for something else that we discover a great resource for the future. Keeping track of all of this digital information is important – we all know how quickly our time is sapped away while searching online. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that are easy to use, and which we can use to manage our digital information, so that we can virtually ‘file’ and share with others the quality articles, resources and media to be easily drawn upon again, or to be read at a later, more suitable time.

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Will Lion

This blog post therefore focuses upon what is becoming known as ‘content curation’.

Traditionally the term curator refers to someone who looked after objects in a museum exhibition. Nowadays, many of us are curators of the knowledge that we find online, using tools to shape and organise this information around themes or topics, gathering together in one place these randomly placed discoveries. However, Beth Kantor, in her excellent primer on content curation hastens to add that being a quality content curator is more than simply aggregating links – content curators, like museum curators, choose the quality pieces connected by a meaningful theme, create a context for presenting them and organise and possibly annotate or extend upon them to them in order to maximise value for others.

Why should teachers and teacher librarians develop their content curation skills?

Content curation has always occurred in schools – resources were always gathered around the topic of teaching, in order to support and extend  student understandings. The difference is that in the past, this consisted of gathering ‘hard’ content – books, posters, newspapers, kits etc (and these were usually gathered together by the teacher librarian, the leading content curator in the school). Nowadays, the teacher librarian and teachers not only have access to these resources, but also to a huge range of digital resources – many of which provide fantastic, engaging learning opportunities for today’s students. In addition, content curation is very central to education – as Beth Kantor states,

Curation is all about helping your audience dive in and make sense of a specific topic, issue, event or news story.  It is about collecting, but it is also about explaining, illustrating, bringing in different points of view and updating the view as it changes. (Kantor, 2012)

It’s a pretty pithy summary of what an educator does on a daily basis.

So what do you need to know about content curation? Here are some tools that you will find useful. You do not need to use all of them. What is evident in many articles is that content curation is often done ‘on the fly’, so use the tools that best fit in with the flow of your day. For example, if you already use Twitter quite a bit, you may prefer to use Storify. If you have multiple year levels to manage, you might find Diigo lists a useful feature. If reading blog posts and other social media in a magazine style layout suits you, you may choose Flipboard for your iPad, or Scoopit.

The best part about content curation is the ability to easily create beautiful looking and interactive resources around topics students and teachers need access to. This is particularly useful if students are researching topics where quality information is difficult to find, or to support students who spend too much time being overwhelmed by the quantity of information and not enough time actually creating their response. Curation tools help to cut through the noise, and promote direct access to quality information.

In addition, students should also work on developing their curation skills. Being able to quickly and critically evaluate a range of information sources is a vital research skill, which is of growing importance when considering the huge amount of information accessible.

So here are 6 of the best content curation tools currently available. Check them out, have a play with each of them and decide which ones best suit your information management needs.

1. Storify: Create a story around a topic being discussed on Social Media

Storify allows you to search a range of social media (with Twitter being used most commonly) to create a newspaper style document with tweets, photos or videos that can be saved to read later, or shared among others. Storify is particularly useful if you are following a particular hash tag (for example if you know of a conference going on) and you wish to record all of the tweets posted by participants, but can’t view them all as they are posted. You can nominate to save all tweets with that hash tag, then go back later to read what was said. Here is an example of a Storify which captures a professional conversation which took place on Twitter.  Take a tour of Storify.

2. Diigo – Social bookmarking and more

I have written previously on the power of Diigo for saving, organising and annotating websites, and for making them available to others. Without doubt Diigo is a powerful social bookmarking tool, and a must have in the toolkit for any contemporary teacher.

3. Flipboard – Create a personalised magazine on your iPad

Flipboard allows you to import your blog subscriptions, Twitter account, Facebook account and many other interesting web publications into a unique iPad interface which ‘flips’ like the pages of a magazine. Each page is tiled, and with a tap on the screen, enlarges so that you can read the entire article, still in the magazine style layout. Flipboard is fabulous for when you want to gather together and browse multiple web sources, and allows you to quickly flick through and find particular articles of interest.

4. Scoopit – Curating articles from social media and online sources

Scoopit is a growing curation tool that gives you a number of different ways to collect information. You can connect your social media accounts, scoop items directly from the web as you discover them or draw them from a list of suggested scoops based upon keywords which you nominate.  Without doubt this last feature is a fabulous time-saver, as many interesting articles are provided for you to scoop onto your page without having to go searching for them. You can also rescoop from other members pages. Once you have scooped articles, you can also add your own comments onto them, making this tool particularly powerful for directing students to specific parts of pages or sections of material. To get an idea of how Scoopit could work for you, have a look at Gwyneth Jones’ page, the Daring Library Ed Tech Scoopit.

5. Pearltrees – building visual mind-maps of resources

Pearltrees is a visually beautiful tool, which allows you to store your digital resources as pearls, which are connected together in a mind-map format. It’s simple click and drag interface means it is very simple to organise your pearls into trees. You can also work with others to co-curate on a topic, which is useful if a group of teachers are all working on a similar topic. Another interesting aspect of pearl trees is the ability to scroll through the pages you have ‘pearled’; this makes it easier for younger students to select the weblink that they want. You  can see this feature in the video below:

6. Pinterest – a digital pinboard

Pinterest has grown exponentially since it was launched, and very quick and easy to use.  The open nature of Pinterest means that it is possibly more suited for teachers or older students, as there is no way to limit access to just particular boards. Despite this, many teachers are finding it a very simple way to collect great classroom ideas for later inspiration. The best way to start is to find some pinners who have similar interests to you, and follow their boards. You can repin their pins, as well as add your own pins from pages you like on the internet. Add value by writing a short description so others know what the image links to. To get an idea of how Pinterest works, check out one of my boards on mobile learning.

The most important thing to remember is that these tools are meant to assist the management of the flow of information. Use them as part of your work, not as an additional task which must be done. If it isn’t quick and easy, try something different – the beauty of having so many tools is that there truly is something for everyone!

Make a resolution to choose one content curation tool to manage your information in 2013- and at the end of the year, you will be amazed by how much you have collected!

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by ransomtech

Reference:

Kantor, B. (2012, July 13). NTEN Webinar Reflections and Resources:  The Unanticipated Benefits of Content Curation. Beth’s Blog. Retrieved January 31, 2013, from http://www.bethkanter.org/nten-curation/