Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for joining me. My goal is to show you my model for a blended virtual & bricks-and-mortar school library. I believe I have the best of both worlds - the daily smiles of students & an astonishingly deep and meaningful world to share with them.
The focus of the workshop is self reflection & application, so create a starting point for yourself by answering the questions before checking out the links to the examples. You may wish to jot down a few notes to add ideas to the ongoing discussions in the "comments" section.
I am inspired by my Coquitlam teacher-librarian friends, Leslie Ikeda, Susan Kilpatrick, Joanne Leblond and Anne Malo, who, through a genuine generosity of spirit, help anyone who walks through their library doors. My virtual library's open access policy reflects this. To me, transparency is advocacy.
In our world that is magically being transformed into a digital commons, we hold the keys to the kingdom. We are the access.
Sincerely, Judith Comfort
photo: monosodium@morguefile
An internet search more closely reflects our actual brain processes than a flat logical plan.
We have the opportunity, and necessity to transform our methods for teaching information literacy.
Information is like iron filings: elemental, common, and formless.That
is, until a magnet passes by and all of a sudden patterns emerge that
reveal the formerly invisible magnetic force...and suddenly the iron
filings have a coherence, a pattern, even a beauty.
We have a creative and evolutionary need to make order out of chaos, or knowledge out of information.
...........................................................................................
Traditionally, we have created lists and hierarchies to organize and create meaning out of raw information. With the invention of the computer our capacity to collect information has expanded a zillion-fold, and computer-stored information is basically unreadable to most of us. Welcome the database interface designers who create ways for the average person to be able to access or "read" computer data.
What is fascinating is that database entry ways are looking increasingly like the Contents and Index pages of books.
Instead of a table of contents, there are
This should not come as a surprise as, we are used to book organizers and our brains are much the same as they were before the invention of the computer. But more than that, their underlying organizational patterns are not unique to us, but flow throughout the natural world.
When a child is thrilled by a line of mystical poetry, what does it matter where the poem was discovered? A leather-bound volume, onscreen, a live performance on a stage, television or youtube. We have succeeded as teacher-librarians when we create bridges between children & geniuses.
photo:jfelias@morguefile
..............................................................................................................................................................................................
HERE IS A "GOOGLE BOOK" THAT CAN BE EMBEDDED RIGHT INTO A LESSON. SCROLL DOWN TO PAGE 183.
...........................................................................................................................
HERE ANOTHER USE OF A DIGITIZED BOOK USED IN A HISTORY ASSIGNMENT.
