Learning and Teaching

Richmond District's iTunes U

Implementing an iTunes U presence

Richmond District has an iTunes U channel, and has been thinking about how to populate it with useful and engaging content. I had the pleasure of presenting, with Chris Loat, how we have been making progress in using this avenue for encouraging teacher collaboration and lesson delivery.

Our slideshow is here.

Earlier in the month, we also did an intro session to interested teachers in our district, to find some "early adopters" who would like to help with content creation.

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Don't Quote me on that

Citing with tech tools

http://goo.gl/Z93EY

Along with Arlene Anderson and Jeff Yasinchuk, I was happy to present for one of the BCTLA's Spring Pro-D sessions.

We spoke about some of the tools available for helping students cite the work they use in their research. Our goal was to help teachers "find out how cloud-based citations tools can support critical literacy and create a culture of academic integrity."

I began with a quick over view of some of the issues (http://goo.gl/Z93EY) and then we each took a tool and talked about its features and limitations. I spoke about Bibme and the other two presented EasyBib and NoodleTools.

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Canadian Points of View (CPOV)

This week I'm beginning a series of "brownbag lunch" sessions to promote Canadian Points of View (CPOV) to high school teachers. This resource, which is really a front door to the existing magazine and newspaper database in EBSCO, provides a number of significant Canadian topics supported by an overview essay, point and counterpoint articles as well as collections of Canadian and international articles. Here is a link to my presentation: [LINK].

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Principals' Meeting - Pro-D resources

This past month, I pitched some Pro-D resources to a gathering of principals at a regular monthly meeting. My goal was to talk about custom DRC ordering and to highlight the ASCD ebooks we have available.

1) Since DRC has many DVD and print resources available on a range of topics, my suggestion was that administrators could order up a bin-to-go of materials on a specific topic and have this delivered to their school for their Pro-D committee to review, for their study group to peruse or even to have on hand for a Pro-D day as a "browsable" resource pack. I brought some Leadership resources and signed out a few on the spot.

2) I spent a few moment highlighting the elibrary of ASCD books we currently have via Gale-Cengage. These resources offer a perfect (and free) source of content for school-based study groups. Participants can view individual chapters from a wide range of materials, read them on any number of devices or even print a chapter for tech challenged members. I hope to expand on the series in the future. (There are also a number of recommended ISTE titles as well.)

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CnC Presentation - Learn360

I am beginning a series of presentations to Curriculum coordinators and Consultants on the various electronic resources we have available in the district. (I have done many sessions for schools and specialty groups, but the CnC folks are usually not there, and so miss out on these great extras to support instruction.)

My first presentation was on the Learn360 platform, which we are currently using to deliver some CBC content we subscribe to via ERAC. Here is a link to the "how to" page. The basic login is the same as with any of the databases we use in Richmond. (Each school TL has the building ID and password.) In order to download the clip for off-line viewing, teachers need an additional login ID, also provided by the TL.

Once logged in, teachers can find the CBC content by searching for either "CBC" or "Radio Canada." While there are not many clips at the moment, we hope to increase the number of videos available as time progresses. Some generic material (ie Bullying) is available to all subscribers.

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Ressources numériques en français

It can be hard to find appropriate resources for the Immersion classroom. Material may be too hard (aimed at francophone adults) or too easy (but targeting a very young audience).

Some of the subscription databases and encyclopedias that districts have access to provide excellent materials. There are also a number of freely available sites, but these do require a little digging.

"Venez explorer le monde des ressources numériques disponibles dans la salle de classe branchée. Nous ferons une visite de plusieurs sites utiles:

Abonnement requis: Tumblebooks, Orca Digital, Worldbook, Universalis, Scholastic (français),

Gratuit: Infoquête, 24 heures, et plusieurs autres."

Here are the notes from my presentation: LINK

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WorldBook and EBSCO - some new tricks

While many teachers know about WorldBook and EBSCO (or at least they know the district subscribes to them) there are some great features that may surprise some! I've been presenting at schools and to Resource and ESL specialists, promoting these great resources.

Instant graphing and timeline generating are easy with WorldBook. And both WB and EBSCO will translate and read articles for students who need a little more support.

The images and notes from my presentation are here.

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Lethbridge School District - 21st Century Learning

I recently attended, and presented at a District-wide Pro-D day in Lethbridge (October 2012). The focus was on 21st Century Learning, and the kinds of skills students need to develop.

My talk (the keynote for the conference) addressed the following four main questions:

what exactly are the 21st century skills we keep talking about?
what kind of world are we preparing our students for?
what is the role of inquiry-based learning and technology in all of this?
how does this change how we see our roles as educators?

Here's my slide show

RTLA 2012 - Fall Mini-conference

Once again, DRC hosted the Fall Teacher-Librarian mini conference for the Richmond District teacher-librarians. This successful day began with a look at the Learning Commons concept, and we all had an opportunity to brainstorm about how we could incorporate elements of this exciting direction into our own practice.

Amanda H and Janice N shared with the TLs how they incorporate audio books and student publishing in two well received workshops. Lunch and time at the vendor table (thanks Ren) gave everyone a chance to network, and we ended the day with some Bibliotechnology tips and an overview of the soon-to-be enacted Copyright Modernization Act.

Notes and links from the day can be found here.

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"New and Improved" - Selling your databases

I was asked to speak to VSB teacher-librarians at their September start-up. (Thanks for the invite, Moira!) The goal was to refresh their understanding of what databases we can offer to our teachers and students. Of course, the challenge is always a question of how to present, (and re-present), what may seem like "tired information" that everyone already knows.

In conversation with teachers, I realize that it's a question or readiness. Even if we've talked about databases and online reference multiple times, it will only "click" when the timing is right for that teacher!

My presentation to the VSB TLs focused on how we can bring a "New & Improved" vibe to Worldbook online and EBSCO magazines. (I also mentioned a handful of other resources.)

My slideshow with links is here.

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