Guided Inquiry 1: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Introduction

Intimidating, isn't it, when you delve into the great unknown. Information retrieval can seem like a huge, mysterious monolith when you don't feel skilled in that area. Like the far-from-welcoming industry that Sam (the character in the film clip above) enters, the world of information may appear to be unfriendly, imposing, and bewildering. As Sam ends up taking an elevator that doesn't quite stop on the right floor, learners may feel that they are taking (or being led down) the wrong path. Information retrieval might look like a place without clear directional signs where at first you wander seemingly aimlessly, searching for something that makes sense and will help you in your quest. Suddenly something catches your eye, maybe a flash of colour, motion and sound like the flurry of businessmen Sam spies and then is swept up in. You ride along with the whirlwind, then suddenly find you have arrived, as Sam does; unfortunately, you're not quite sure where you are. Was this where you needed to go? Did Sam want to arrive at a closet-sized office that looks like a dead end?

Hopefully that is not the impression you have about Guided Inquiry or information retrieval. Remember, Guided Inquiry is a process, not an end. Therefore, the retrieval stage of the inquiry is also a process that does not end with a pre-determined answer, but a search that may result in differing consequences for each student. Although it may have seemed in the past that in the retrieval phase of inquiry students simply located information, research shows that learners are often constructing meaning during their search. Kuhlthau has asserted that information retrieval is a “process in which a person is actively constructing a new understanding from the information encountered”. The concept of haphazardly amassing a large body of information and then sifting through it and trying to make sense afterwards is not a useful plan. The personalized nature of a guided inquiry also means that each student will have their own feelings, ways of thinking about retrieving information, their own information retrieval plan, and their own reflection on the process.

Essential question:

What are some of the ways the role of a teacher-librarian or teacher change or grow within the context of the information retrieval stage of guided inquiry learning?


References:

Kuhlthau, Carol C. (1999) "Accommodating the User's Information Search Process: challenges for Information retrieval System Designers." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 25, no 3, 1999. Available from: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/kuhlthau.html

Guided Inquiry 2: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Prep For Retrieving

photo by D'arcy Norman

One of the main concepts of Guided Inquiry is that learning should be authentic and not isolated pieces devoid of student relevancy. Kuhlthau et al have stressed that in Guided Inquiry, students "locate, evaluate and use information while learning the content of the subject area" (94). That learning in context will likely include building information technology skills in the search stage, but that does not mean that students should not be prepared to make the most of their information retrieval time. Focus on Inquiry suggests that:

Students will be more successful in inquiry when teachers provide, in the context of classroom activities, opportunities for students to:
- refine and develop a list of search terms, keywords and subject headings prior to searching
- use online library catalogues to locate materials in school and public libraries
- use the Online Reference Centre (www.LearnAlberta.ca)to locate information
- use full-text databases (e.g., SIRS, eLibrary)
- use indexes to locate print, nonprint and electronic information
-learn how to efficiently use the Internet to locate information
develop and practise interview questions and techniques (FOI)

In my practice I have found that introducing all of these skills at once is counter-productive. For example, I once worked with a teacher-librarian who had created a little booklet in order for students to be introduced to/review the kinds of skills listed above. Although this was a grade 10 course, many students struggled with numerous aspects of the booklet. The teacher-librarian and I should have planned better. Kuhlthau has addressed the shift in teachers and librarians:

"They are especially careful not to give too much too soon and to assist in pacing the use of resources by suggesting strategies for exploring information to form a focus for research. Librarians planning instructional sessions describe being more cautious about offering one-shot sessions where students are expected to learn everything at once. Instead they are accommodating the user's constructive process by giving a series of instructional sessions spread over a period of time aimed at different tasks in the stages of the ISP. Once aware of the ISP, teachers also change the way they design assignments to give more time for exploring and formulating. They are acknowledging the learning process and finding new ways to access and evaluate the construction process of students."

Focus on Inquiry states that students will learn to: "understand that successful retrieving depends on preplanning" (57), but I do not think that we gave learners enough direction in that area. The skills were being taught for a specific purpose, so we tried to make the learning relevant to the subject at hand. We also tried to increase engagement by allowing students to choose their topics, but many of them they did not have enough prior knowledge to make their search fruitful. Students also did not have enough time to explore and to reflect upon their learning. We were rushing students through each lesson/skill without sufficent time and guidance.

In short, it was a learning experience for me. I wish I could have referred to Cecile McVittie's Planning: the foundation of Guided Inquiry beforehand. The next time I teach these skills, I will not devote one week of classes to important researching strategies and skills. If possible, I will devote proper time to each aspect prior to beginning guided inquiry, so that we can do a review before a more encompassing bout of information retrieval is begun. If we cannot do that before beginning guided inquiry, I will ensure that students are given sufficient time in the information retrieval stage of the inquiry.


References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Kuhlthau, Carol C. (1999) "Accommodating the User's Information Search Process: challenges for Information retrieval System Designers." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 25, no 3, 1999. Available from: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/kuhlthau.html

Guided Inquiry 3: Teaching Retrieving

photo by JP Puerta

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're a teacher-librarian and are an expert on information retrieval. If we look at a short list of what educators need to facilititate for students in the information search phase of guided inquiry, you can see that the job may look intense. Focus on Inquiry tells us that during and in the context of an inquiry-based learning activity, the teacher provides students with opportunities to:

• understand that the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking
•create a search strategy (e.g., information pathfinder)
• explore a variety of print, nonprint and electronic sources
• access resources within the school and beyond
• communicate with experts, both locally and beyond
• record bibliographic information for print sources, including title, author, date, page numbers, publisher and place of publication
• record bibliographic information for nonprint (multimedia) sources, including title, author, date, running time and/or number of images, producer and/or distributor, location of producer/production company
• record bibliographic information for electronic sources, including title, author, date, URL and date retrieved
• use a variety of grade-appropriate strategies for recording and organizing bibliographic information, such as index cards, recording templates, word processing programs or software tools.

Whew! Quite a big list to begin with, isn't it? I'll discuss some resources for these essential tasks further down in this post. First I want to address the essential question, "How does the role of the teacher-librarian change or grow in the context of guided inquiry learning?"

Information retrieval in and of itself is teacher-librarian's stock-in-trade, but Kuhlthau has argued that in guided learning, a constructivist point of view and a belief in zones of intervention lead to a substantial expansion of educational duties.

T]here is a need for redefining the roles associated with information provision in the workplace. These participants call for a more interactive, collaborative role for the library information professional. The collaborative role may require the librarian to enter into a partnership with the user to accomplish the information seeking task. In this partnership the librarian may advise on resources and process whereas the user brings knowledge of content and context. The aspects of information seeking and use that these users seems to need help with were in the ongoing thinking process related to interpreting and connecting the disparate pieces of information gathered in order to provide value-added information. This is new territory for the librarian whose traditional role of providing access to references and sources relevant to a general topic has stopped short of the process of making meaning.

The key points from above for myself are that teacher-librarians are assisting in the "ongoing thinking process", not simply finding resources. From a constructivist perspective, if learners are constructing meaning as they retrieve information, then teacher-librarians are a part of that process. In fact, as we are helping students in their information search, the organization and structure we utilize will have an affect on individual meaning - much more so that if one was to dump some encyclopedias in front of a learner and then walk away. Also, as stated above, Focus on Inquiry states that students need to understand "the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking", and here is where teachers and teacher-librarians obviously need to be more than gatekeepers of media and information.

Focus on Inquiry directly advises educators to structure information searches. For example, at the beginning of the search one suggestion is to use a stations approach and help students to create an information search plan or pathfinder (55). Alice in Infoland has some great information on the use of pathfinders, and Annette Lamb's Eduscapes is a really comprehensive look at pathfinders, subject guides, and thematic resources.

If you need to address basic search skills such as Boolean Operators, here's a quick easy lesson (a 3-minute tutorial is avaliable on YouTube here, and another good one for youngsters is from the Boolify Project):

Boolify Lesson: And, Or, Not

Skimming and scanning is one skill that I have seen a big need for in my practice. Many students simply don't know that they don't need to read whole articles, though they should start learning about it at an early age. Ontario Time Machine has a nice simple page explaining skimming and scanning, and it looks like it would be good for grades 6 or 7 and up.

There are many sites offering quick guides for evaluating both print sources and online sources. Thomson Rivers University offers one for Evaluating Print Sources and another for Evaluating Web Sources that are fairly simple. Although they seem to be aimed at post-secondary students, I think they would be good for grade 8 and up (see below for more web evaluation sources).

But what about Internet searching skills in general? Are educators in general able to guide students in efficient online searching? Lavery has commented on the fact that in his study, teacher candidates frequently missed high quality information that was available on their topics, though they found enough "large amounts of somewhat related information to encourage them in the belief that they are skilled at web searching". In other words, teacher candidates thought that they were much more skilled in this area than they really were. Lavery also goes on to state that "teachers do not need to approach web searching with the expertise of a librarian". Clearly, teacher-librarians need to be leaders in this area.

In my experience, it is best to assume that there are many little details that could benefit students - or almost anyone who is not an research expert or professional. For example, I've watched many students start searching and simply save possible sites/pages under Favorites, which soon becomes a huge, unwieldy list of sites that may be directly, indirectly, or remotely related to their topic or question. Even in secondary school, many learners utilize little organization in their information retrieval process - no slotting information into easy-to-access folders, no bibliography started until the very end of the process, and usually no backing-up of important work. Some students have flash drives, but do not really know how to use them. In short, it may be necesssary for teachers and teacher-librarians to do a great amount of formative assessment, pre-teaching, or reviewing of general searching or computer usage skills before a lengthy guided inquiry is undertaken.

As far as online information retrieval goes, Kuiper, Volman and Terwel have stated that "the task for education may not lie primarily in teaching students Web searching skills, but in showing students the need for learning and practicing specific Web reading skills and Web evaluating skills, as well as a reflective use of these skills". This statement makes perfect sense in light of a constructivist point of view, with learners expected to learn by doing, including thinking critically and reflectively within the process of guided inquiry. But I'm jumping ahead, I'll look at reflection and Web skills in post 5, Thinking About and Reflecting on Retrieving.


Further resources for web evaluation:

http://library.queensu.ca/inforef/tutorials/qcat/evalint.htm

http://21cif.com/tools/evaluate/

http://www.lesliepreddy.com/Inquiry/internet.htm

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html

http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html

References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (1996). The Concept of a Zone of Intervention for Identifying the Role of Intermediaries in the Information Search Process. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, 367-376. Retrieved from http://www.asis.org/annual-96/ElectronicProceedings/kuhlthau.html October 13, 2009.

Kuiper, E., Volman, M., & Terwel, J. (2008). Students' use of Web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating Web information. In Information Research, Vol. 13, No.3. Retrieved from http://informationr.net/ir/13-3/paper351.html on October 12, 2009

Laverty, C. (2008). The “I’m Feeling Lucky Syndrome”: Teacher-Candidates’ Knowledge of Web Searching Strategies. In Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, Vol.3, No.1. Retrieved from http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/329/892 Oct.13, 2009.

Guided Inquiry 4: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Assessing

photo by Jeremiah Owyang

There are many sources for summative assessment at the end of the guided inquiry process, as well as some formative assessment. Focus on Inquiry states:

In the context of classroom activities or an inquiry activity, the
teacher provides opportunities for students to:
• create an information pathfinder (step-by-step plan for
gathering resources); see the sample activity on page 57
• complete a list of sources consulted
• hand in notes, webs, note cards or other note-taking
formats
• write/talk about their retrieval strategy and what worked
and did not work
• write/talk about the sources they found most useful and
why.

Notice that the first three tips do not include final product or presentation and the last two tips are aimed at reflective and metacognitive coals for students (and lead into the next post on Thinking and Reflecting on Retrieving Information); bear in mind that we are addressing assesment for the information retrieval process only at this point.

In Manitoba, the Department of Education, Citizenship and Youth included a chapter on Integrated Learning through Inquiry: A Guided Inquiry Planning Model in Independent Together: Supporting the Multilevel Learning Community. Blackline Masters and Sample Masters have also been provided, which is useful for seeing how some educators work on assessment for integrated inquiries, both formative and summative. See Sample 1 here and Sample 2 here.

Guided Inquiry 5: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Thinking About and Reflecting on Retrieving

photo by karpov the wrecked train

In guided inquiry, it is expected that students will reflect on their learning as they construct meaning. Focus on Inquiry tells readers during the retrieving phase we should teach students to ask questions such as:

• Which resources are most useful?
• Where did I find the most useful resources?
• Will my topic focus still work?

These may seem like simple questions, but they require critical thinking, evaluation, judgment, comparisons, and so on - and they may also lead to a major shift in student process if, for example, an individual determines that the answer to the last question is a resounding "No".

In my practice I have seen a shift for some educators to infuse student reflection into learning processes (moreso in early years, middle years and secondary ELA courses). Greatly open-ended reflection questions often do not elicit useful answers for students or teachers, so how do you narrow down reflective pieces to make them more helpful? Ignacio looked this issue in relation to the information search process:

Instructors must make adjustments as the term progresses and continually be attuned to the learner's development. Teaching requires improvisation and flexibility (Schon, 1983). Strategies also need to be differentiated and tailored to each student's particular needs. Yet the help they received was also personalized through feedback on assignments, in-class coaching, and out-of-class conferencing. User-friendly digital library interfaces are not enough; skilled mediation and intervention will always be necessary.

Conferencing is one way that I have found to be particularly helpful; oral reports about successes, frustrations, and how-I-found-this-information are sometimes more illuminating than written forms can provide. Feedback on assingments and in-class coaching seem like obvious tips, but the point I take from Ignacio is that for reflection to be efficient during the retrieval process, teachers and teacher-librarians must provide the guidance necessary to help them find the right track.

In my province, Manitoba, Integrated Learning through Inquiry: A Guided Planning Model suggests these Considerations for Reflection:

• Debrief the process students used in inquiry, and ask students how they
would do things differently next time.
• List the questions students now have about the topic and discuss how
they differ from the questions that prompted the inquiry.
• Identify questions that students would like to pursue in a new inquiry.
• Discuss the importance of this learning to students’ understanding of the
world.

Blackline Masters associated with the same document also
contains tips on both shared/negotiated reflection as well as student-led reflection (in the Applying Inquiry Stage) as well as directing educators in "facilitating students' reflections on their learning to focus their inquiry plans". A template for Group Inquiry reflections is available from CORE Education, but it could easily be adapted for individual use.

One good source for a daily reflection is Laslie Preddy's site, which contains a useful Daily Reflection template from Big 6.


References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Ignacio, E. (1997). Teaching reflection: information seeking and evaluation in a digital library environment. In Library Trends, Mar 22. Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Teaching+reflection:+information+seeking+and+evaluation+in+a+digital...-a019720301 on October 13, 2009

Guided Inquiry 6: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Gauge Feelings

photo by Casey Serin

Remember the video clip of Sam entering a cold, daunting new environment in the first of these posts? Have you ever displayed the same confused look as Sam as he steps out of the elevator when you were in the midst of research or information retrieval?

Students often feel overwhelmed by what they see as a huge volume of work involved in finding, anlayzing, and synthesizing information. Though Guided Inquiry is intended to be a process which includes educator assistance and intervention during those problematic times, students need to learn that the discomfort connected to working with new information is normal and natural. Kuhlthau has argued that an individual can have a "profound experience of uncertainty in the early stages of the information search process", and that it is necessary to consider "uncertainty as a natural, essential characteristic of information seeking rather than regarding the reduction of uncertainty as the primary objective of information seeking" .

Focus on Inquiry discusses the fact that students "often experience information overload during the Retrieving phase". Why? "[S]tudents’ 'need to know' is often not easily translated into the terminology and structure of the information system, and the information systems—such as the Dewey decimal system,online library catalogues, magazine and newspaper (periodical)indexes, and the World Wide Web—often are not particularly intuitive or user-friendly". We are also told that educators need to:

be alert to the feelings and physical outlets that may characterize information overload — anger, frustration, fatigue, irritability, leg jiggling, lack of focus — and help students to recognize these signs of overload. In addition to helping students understand that it is normal to experience such feelings during the inquiry process, teach students useful coping strategies, such as omission or filtering (ignoring or selecting certain categories of information), generalizing or twigging (broadening or narrowing the topic), or asking for help. Getting a large picture of the topic and its subcategories, by using whole-class or small-group activities, such as concept mapping or deciding what kinds of information might be appropriate for the topic, are helpful strategies for this phase, especially when information overload is, or may be, a problem.

To look at the problem of information a little more deeply and areas where educators can help (zones of intervention), Ignacio has nicely summed up Kuhlthau's 5 C's:

1. Collaborating -- the librarian or peer acts as a collaborator, which also situates the search process in a nonisolating context more typical of real world information seeking tasks.

2. Continuing -- Intervention is a continuous process because information problems are not static.

3. Conversing -- Conversation not only elicits more informed help from the librarian/counselor and feedback from peers but also helps students articulate and understand their information problem and, ultimately, to develop a metacognitive sense of where they are in a process.

4. Charting -- Charting is a system of using visual representations such as conceptual maps to manage and organize large or seemingly vague ideas, to recognize patterns and relationships, and to stimulate a cohesive sense of direction.

5. Composing -- Kuhlthau uses the example of journal writing which, she says, promotes reflection, formulation, and the development of constructs.

So where do teachers and teacher-librarians need to expand their roles in the area of student feelings and the zones of intervention as proposed by Kuhlthau and reiterated by Ignacio? Collaborating with other educators is de rigeur, but collaborating with students may be new to some. Continuing simply means that information problems are ongoing and issues may have to revisited regularly, but that isn't necessarily a big change for educators in the classroom or the library. Conversing in a specific sense to elicit feedback about feelings and reflective meaning may also be new for some. Charting is something I have normally only done in early stages of work, so I myself may have to revisit this "C". Composing, such as journal writing, is again a tool I have used in other manners, not for reflection in information retrieval processes, so again this would be a new use for me (and possibly for some others). How about you?

Guided Inquiry 7: Teaching Retrieving Skills - Conclusion

photo by frerieke

My essential question in my first blog post was:

What are some of the ways the role of a teacher-librarian or teacher change or grow within the context of the information retrieval process of guided inquiry learning?

In the process of creating this presentation, I have found that educators need to:
*become collaborators, not only with other educators, but with students as they use creativity and imagination to construct meaning
*allow sufficient time for exploration, prepare and plan for students to do so much more than a quick search; think of little details in order to sequence teaching searching strategies as well as organizational skills pertaining to searches
*prepare for reflecting pieces along the search process, guide students in metacognitive strategies


My questions for you: what are some of the other key role changes you see for educators embarking on guided inquiry information retrieval processes with students?

What elements of/skills and strategies for retrieving information are are not taught explicitly enough by teachers (or even teacher-librarians!)? Why do you think that is the case?

Winds of Change: Learning for the 21st Century

How will learning for the 21st century look? Here’s a brief introduction/anticipation guide:



To recap, the main elements of my vision are:

Online or distance education will be huge (like the keyboard seen above).

Professional development will be much more individualized and collaborative.

Internet filtering in schools will go the way of the floppy disk.

Libraries and teacher-librarians will lead to major changes in education and technology.


Distance education will take on a great role, with more and more learners using online tools to educate themselves. Universities have been using distance learning for quite some time, many high schools have been offering online learning opportunities, next middle years institutions will begin to see the possibilities for younger learners to work more independently. An educational technology expert in my school division recently indicated he foresees more online and blended learning because it “addresses both the need to differentiate instruction and learning and the cost effectiveness of delivery” (blended learning includes both online and face-to-face instruction).

There is some evidence to support the idea of online learning increasing in our schools. A recent study by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) called K-12 Online Learning indicated that “the total number of K-12 students taking online or blended courses in 2007-08 in the U.S. was estimated at 1,030,000--up from 700,000 in the earlier study--and two-thirds of respondents said they expect their online enrollments will continue to grow.” The report also says that advanced students are benefiting, but so are those who seek extra help or credit recovery, as well as rural students. Perhaps online or blended learning will help close the rural/urban digital divide.

Although the Sloan Consortium study makes note of the fact that reportedly only 21 percent of those enrolled in fully online courses are kindergarten through fifth-grade students, that seems like a big number to me: were you aware that many young students were learning online? A report released by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) last year suggests that a “blended approach combines the best elements of online and face-to-face learning. It is likely to emerge as the predominant model of the future--and to become far more common than either one alone."

Online and/or distance learning for and by educators will also be a major force in 21st century learning. One result of this shift is that professional development for educators will become both more individualized and collaborative. As more digital natives join the educational workforce, teaching communities will be swayed to offer more learning options to teachers who are not only web-savvy but also almost instinctively take to web 2.0 applications. When web 3.0 magically appears, educators will be riding the wave, not paddling madly after it or waving from the cold shore.

Jim Vanides reports “interest in online learning has been growing at a rapid pace, especially for professionals who find it inconvenient to attend face-to-face workshops or courses. This is particularly true for educators pursuing in-service professional development, as there is precious little time to be away from their classrooms.” Although those who haven’t taken online courses might not see them as collaborative as learning in bricks-and-mortar spaces, many of us who have done so see the shared opportunities as great.

Vanides writes that “the facilitation of rich and thoughtful discourse between participants becomes my principal endeavor…the freedom to focus on the students, encouraging conversations and questions that lead to better understanding, is in the end what makes teaching so rewarding”.

Other educational technology experts have weighed in on the subject of the collaborative nature of recent technologies, as well as possibilities for individualistic learning. In an article entitled Envisioning thE Future, Mark van ‘tHooft reports that “learning is becoming more personal yet collaborative and networked, portable and situated, ubiquitous and durable”.

Still doubtful of the power of online learning for educators? Vanides concludes that “Online professional development does work….[t]eachers participating in NTEN [National Teacher Enhancement Network]courses give high scores to the value of the experience, and in many cases report that they would not have been able to take such a class if it were face to face. Even teachers who have never participated in a course online before report a high level of satisfaction.”

Although many educators are seeing/will soon see the value of online learning, a bee in the bonnet is the problem of not being able to access many valuable resources at school due to divisional or district filtering policies. I feel strongly that Internet filtering will be all but eliminated in the 21st century. This big move won’t happen all at once. Teachers, teacher-librarians, and administrators will receive unlimited access first. Soon to fall away will be barriers to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and then blocks to sites that include current key filtering words or phrases such as “games”. In the near future, only those sites containing “adult” scenes will be blocked in Canada – those are going to be blocked for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, some students have been blocked from accessing information about breast cancer because of the disallowed word “breast”, according to Matt Villano, so even those blacklisted keywords need to be reviewed. Villano says Julie Walker reported that in Finland, filtering is almost nonexistent - most students and teachers can access the Internet without valuable resources being blocked will-nilly.

Jerry Swiatek has written a thought-provoking blog post on this issue, giving the example of Google Life images being blocked in some parts of North America. How long until we start giving learners freedom to information?

If anyone is to help lead the foray into new technologies for education in the 21st century, teacher-librarians and educational media specialists if all stripes should be at the forefront. Months ago, I blogged about Joyce Valenza’s “Modest Manifesto” for teacher-librarians, and I think that many of the points she made are even more meaningful to me today. Her manifesto includes numerous statements that I want to direct your attention to, and (surprise!) some of them are directly related to my points above:

“Think outside the box about the concept of “collection.” That collection might include: ebooks, audiobooks, open source software, streaming media, flash sticks, digital video cameras, and much more! You lend this stuff.”

“Model respect for intellectual property in a world of shift and change. You encourage and guide documentation for media in all formats and recognize and lead students and teachers to the growing number of copyright-friendly or copy left portals. You understand Creative Commons licensing and you are spreading this gospel. Example of tool: Copyright Friendly Resources Pathfinder:”

“Organize the Web for learners. You have the skills to create a blog or website or wiki to pull together resources to meet the information needs of your learning community. That presence reflects your personal voice. It includes your advice as well as your links. You make learning an engaging and colorful hybrid experience. You intervene in the research process online while respecting young people’s need for independence.”

“Know this is only the beginning of social networking. Students will get to their MySpace accounts through proxy servers despite any efforts to block them. You plan educationally meaningful ways to incorporate student excitement (and your own) for social networking.”

“Seek out a professional learning network using social networking tools.”

“Continue to consider and revise your own 20/20 vision. Do you look ahead for what is coming down the road? Are you scanning the landscape? As the information and communication landscapes continue to shift, do you know where you are going? Do you plan for change? Not for yourself, not just for the library, but for the building, for your learners. Are you really leading? What does the information professional look like today? Ten years from today? If you do not develop strong vision, your vision will be usurped by the visions of others. You will not be able to lead from the center.”

What’s in the future for 21st century learning? As Valenza says, we need to plan for change and develop our vision. What’s your vision?

Professional Development, Educational Technology and Getting to the Deep End

Photo by Curtis Palmer

Have you ever heard a fellow teacher groan at the mention of an upcoming professional development seminar? I have - many, many times. I think for many teachers, a different approach to professional development is needed. When it comes to educational technology and PD, wouldn’t it make sense to try to get ahead of the curve, so that we are not reacting or responding way after the fact? There is already a sense, for some, that as digital immigrants we are like a huge flock of educators sitting on the edge of the water whole our digital native students are splashing happily away.

So what are we doing? Looking for waterwings? Still trying to find the most flattering swimwear? Or are we almost ready to start leading more swim classes?

Professional development for integrating technology is an absolute necessity if we believe that education can be improved greatly by embracing the positive learning aspects of web 2.0. In my last blog, I wrote about how many teachers have not been able to get out of the shallow end for numerous reasons. Christine R has also written some thought-provoking words about problematic PD, identifying 4 different areas of concern:

-Out of Date Professional Development
-Lack of time to play and plan
-Lack of collaboration
-Lack of differentiated PD

What are some of the roads to improving ed tech PD?

Last year I blogged about how using blogs for/as PD may be one way to individualize and move toward more relevant educator learning. But in a wider sense, what kind of general changes in approach could lead to more constructive PD?

I’ve been thinking about various professional development opportunities I have been involved in over the years. From cavernous rooms with one speaker to smaller spaces with many presenters, most of us have had experiences with occasionally informative gatherings, and downright irrelevant moments. But what about those PD opportunities where you heard some good ideas and suggestions, but weren’t able to continue one-on-one discussions about making the ideas reality in your school? Without time to revisit the PD concepts and create workable versions that fit the situation for you and your colleagues, you may have moved on and put it on the backburner. The problem of “Lack of collaboration” as defined by Christine R above is one I’ve seen many times. How can we fix it?

Camilla Gagliolo wrote a brief-but-good article entitled Help Teachers Mentor One Another, in which she states:

“Powerful learning takes place when teachers teach other teachers in a peer-to-peer network. The creation of a cadre of teacher leaders serving as peer coaches will help power up the professional learning community and provide differentiated professional development offerings.”

I know when I think about PD that I found helpful and continued to use, the times when I learned it on a one-on-one basis come to mind immediately. I felt much more comfortable learning from a colleague that I was friendly with, or even one I was slightly acquainted with, and it makes sense – just as my teaching is more helpful when I know my students, my mentor can skip what he knows I can already do and go right to the essential learning – no need for unnecessary repetition, going off on irrelevant tangents to my learning goals, and so on. Gagliolo goes on to give few suggestions, and here’s one I really like:

“[C]onsider creating a set of laminated “keys” on a key ring containing information on expert mentors/coaches in the learning community. Each key lists the name of an integration tool and the name of the teacher/mentor who is the local expert.”

Cool idea!!!!!! As a teacher who has worked in different schools on terms as short as two weeks to a year for the past three years, I am constantly asking, “Who the local tech guy/gal?”

The idea of creating PD that works for the learner needs to be much more in the forefront of those creating PD opportunities – that’s why I see collaboration and mentorship as offering many more chances for individualization and success. Judi Harris has created a series of articles outlining the need for learner-driven PD under the banner of “One Size Doesn’t Fit All”. In the first article, Harris notes that PD creators need to “know your teacher-students' professional learning needs and preferences”, as well as stating that educators need:

-continued on-site support as they experiment with new tools and techniques in their classrooms to ensure continued and productive use of new tools and ideas.

-30 hours of focused professional development on average to change teachers' professional practice.

In the second article, Harris echoes Gaglio’s suggestion for teacher technology mentoring:

Collaborative learning ETPD also can take the form of mentoring, in which someone knowledgeable in a particular content area or instructional approach works with individuals or small groups of teachers wishing to learn more in the mentor’s area of expertise. Peer coaching, also with either individuals or groups, can similarly occur either face-to-face or online.

And finally, Harris asserts that teacher professional development needs to be teacher-oriented:

“One of the keys to effective ETPD design is to match models to goals and both to participating teachers’ needs, preferences, and characteristics.”

I believe that collaborative learning, especially mentoring, is a great way to help teachers move towards more productive educational technology professional development. I’ll leave the last word to a report from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory:

“A professional development curriculum that helps teachers use technology for discovery learning, developing students' higher-order thinking skills, and communicating ideas is new and demanding and thus cannot be implemented in isolation (Guhlin, 1996). In addition to working in pairs or teams, teachers need access to follow-up discussion and collegial activities, as required of professionals in other fields (Lockwood, 1999). Teachers also need time to discuss technology use with other teachers, whether face to face, through e-mail, or by videoconferencing (David, 1996). A networked computer on every teacher's desk can allow for greater interaction between educators. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) suggests that school districts find creative ways to build teacher networks so that teachers have additional opportunities to discuss the new instructional methods that technology promotes.”

More technology, less support: teaching and learning are not benefitting from the great techno-push

photo by Katie Lips

Educational technology has not improved teaching or learning in general because teachers are not able to explore, experience, and be trained in relevant uses. A great amount of teachers want to help students become technologically literate, but finding the time to work with new technology and incorporate it into meaningful lessons is a huge challenge - and it’s not getting any easier. As Oppenheimer (2003) has noted, “…teacher training takes serious doses of time, money and effort” (p. 306). He has also suggested that “as far as technology is concerned…the panopoly of demands on America’s teaching force is substantial, and rising.” (p.311). I think we can apply that last quote to Canada’s educators as well. In my division, teachers coach and head other school clubs, plan educational trips, work on numerous school committees, incessantly work on keeping up-to-date on resources and teaching methods, and in the last few years have continuously been working on changing assessment practices.

Other educators such as Larry Cuban (2001)have echoed these issues, citing a “lack of time available for teachers to find relevant software, judge its worth, and try out the products in classrooms” and saying that “training in relevant software and applications was seldom offered at the times that they needed them” (p. 97)

Kalkowski has attempted to figure out why teachers have not been able to integrate technology to the desired levels. One of the important findings was that teacher training needs to be more extensive and start earlier – in fact, when teachers are learning their profession.

“It has been shown that teachers teach how they were taught. (Norton & Gonzales, 1998). So, for beginning teachers, the teacher education faculty members must model effective use of technologies in their own classrooms (Cooper & Bull, 1997). Ropp (1999) conducted a longitudinal study during a preservice teacher education course that included hands-on technology training and classroom discussion of technology and found that students made significant improvements in technology proficiency, computer self-efficacy and computer coping strategies from the beginning to the end of the course. When Topp (1996) studied recent teacher graduates, he found that a computer-specific course was essential, especially one on computer integration, but that the technology education pre-service teachers felt they received was inadequate.”


Think about how you were taught to use technology in when you were attaining your education degree. Do you believe it was substantive and focused on integration in the classroom, or was it superficial and ineffective? My Teacher and Technology course involved creating a website, a PowerPoint presentation, and learning about computers themselves. In one of my courses students had the opportunity to create a short film. In essence, teacher candidates received a brief introduction to educational technology. Is that good enough?

One force in education that may have been able to assist teachers in technology integration is teacher-librarians. Unfortunately, education budgets across many parts of North America have not allowed for extensive teacher-librarian or library budgets. Froese-Germain (2001) suggests that the whole system is backward: “Paradoxically, while schools go about acquiring more information and communications technology, teacher librarian positions are being eliminated as a result of funding cutbacks” (p.3).

But is Froese-Germain’s position supported by evidence? Here’s a few more voices on the issue:

“The government, teachers, and the public agree that literacy is essential. Research
evidence supports the value of libraries to improving literacy. However, the drastic
cuts in resources are hitting school libraries particularly hard. Teacher-librarian time
is reduced or eliminated in many schools making library services less available to
students.” British Columbia Teachers’ Federation

“In 2005 Statistics Canada released a study documenting the dramatic decline of school libraries over the years. It found the median expenditure on the physical collection of libraries (including books and magazines) was a mere $2,000. Even more revealing was the finding that few schools had a full-time
teacher-librarian. Those most affected by this sad state of affairs are families unable to supplement their child’s learning with books and other resources in the home.” - Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives

From 2001–02 to 2007–08, the number of library specialist teachers in B.C. schools declined by 21 percent. – Pieta Wooley

So even though there has been a strong, clear push for overworked teachers to use more technology, the support has not been equally strong. There should be more and more teacher-librarians in schools – why isn’t that occurring?

Works Cited

Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.


photo by Kevin Dooley

The great techno-push in our schools is killing people skills

photo by Drew Herron


Instead of improving teaching and learning, greater emphasis on computer technology and Internet use often has the result of weakening students’ social skills and eroding opportunities for the elements of learning some have called the “hidden curriculum”. Yes, it’s true – kids will spend hours upon hours sitting in front of computers without any expressed desire to hear a human voice or have any physical contact. And of course, young people have been spending hours watching television or playing videogames as well, but at least they may be doing so with other people. Computers have the potential to become the most isolating, harmfully addictive devices ever unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

Bernie Froese-Germain (2001) has related some worrying facts about computer-users’ well-being:

“A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that ‘greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants’ communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness” (p.4) Froese-Germain has also noted that Ursula Franklin has recognized “the potential for computers to isolate students and to make learning more individualistic implies that ‘these implicit learning opportunities can no longer be taken for granted.” (p. 4).

A great deal has been written and said about integrated technology’s ability to help students become more independent learners. But it may be that we are forgetting how increasing technology use alters the classroom in more ways than one, as Heather-jane Robertson (2001) relates:

“Stanford educator Larry Cuban emphasizes what every teacher knows: classrooms are built around relationships, and they aren’t important only to students. ‘The touches, smiles, warmth, and even the frowns, annoyance and anger that pass between teacher and student cement ties that deepen learning and give gratification to teachers.’ Cuban warns that the computer-dominated classrooms dry up this emotional life by unraveling the bonds between teachers and students, and creating false liaisons between students and machine” (p. 35).

As an educator, I feel I must acknowledge that relationships are what students take away from school as much as curricular outcomes. How is integration of technology improving human contact? Why would a student feel that communicating with a person in front of them is important if they can chat online and never have to bother with full sentences, the subtleties of body language, or face-to-face disagreements?

Kevin Whitmore is one educator who has noted that children’s social development had led to the formation of organizations like the Alliance for Childhood, which contends that:

“Those who place their faith in technology to solve the problems of education should look more deeply into the needs of children. The renewal of education requires personal attention to students from good teachers and active p a rents, strongly supported by their communities. It requires commitment to developmentally appropriate education and attention to the full range of children’s real low-tech needs—physical, emotional, and social, as well as cognitive.”

Whitmore goes on to inform that former Education professor Chet Bowers has argued that greater use of computers is leading to “the decline of valuable face-to-face interaction; especially mentoring relationships”.

The central question here is, if students are learning more about computers and computer skills, are they learning less about people and social skills? You may choose to believe that students’ social learning is on the right track today. Some organizations, of course, are working towards more technology skills, without necesarily directly addressing the social needs of learners. One of those groups, 21st Century Skills, or P21, is pushing for more technological know-how, as well as promoting the idea that students can at the same time learn to critically and creatively and work well with others. Sounds good, doesn't it? But a non-profit group of educators has started a group called Common Core that disagrees with the rush for 21st Century Skills, asserting that the direction taken by groups like P21 is squeezing out crucial content, never mind the implicit social learning discussed earlier. It's possible that the great techno-push may have a shoving match on its hands. However, the board of directors for P21 includes members from Intel, Apple, Dell, Adobe, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Is this where we should be getting our direction for education? Is it any wonder that people skills are falling by the wayside in our computer-dominated, corporation-backed educational lobbying system?

Works Cited

Froese-Germain, B. (2001). A critical approach to technology - an anti-technology approach: putting education & technology in context. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.1-11). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Educational technology has not had a major impact on teaching and learning

• 
  Photo by Sarah G
  
  Educational technology should have had a major impact on teaching and learning by now – it has not.
  
  Many educational technology factions have been predicting that computers would transform and revitalize a staid and sedentary form of learning, but unfortunately the great wave of forward movement hasn’t materialized. Sure, kids have learned how to use Google, Wikipedia, and PowerPoint, and they’ve learned what games and instant messaging applications are accessible in their school. But in general, students and teachers still operate in the same manner, and the integration of educational technology has not advanced education to a substantial degree.
  
  Stanford Professor of Education Larry Cuban (2001) studied how schools used technology and reported in Oversold and Underused that:
  
  · “In the schools we studied, we found no clear and substantial evidence of students increasing their academic achievement as a result of using information technologies (p. 133).
  
  · “…the overwhelming majority of teachers employed the technology to sustain existing patterns of teaching, rather than to innovate…Only a tiny percentage of high school and university teachers used the new technologies to accelerate student-centered and project-based teaching practices.” (p. 134).
  
  · “If anything, what we observed and were told by students suggested strongly that occasional to serious use of computers in their classes had marginal or no impact on routine teaching” (p. 97).
  
  · “…teachers lecture, and students listen, read textbooks and complete individual exercises presented in workbooks or photocopies” (p. 96).
  
  Oppenheimer (2003) has argued that when Cuban “studied how schools have been using technology since the 1980’s, that there was no great accompanying improvement in teaching practices” (p. 313). Since computers have been widely introduced in the 1980s and educational technology has steadily increased, we should expect to see an increase in pedagogical advances as well as an increase in student achievement, but these developments are not readily apparent.
  
  What if researchers observed a number of schools and their computer usage in the classroom for a couple of years, gave teachers every available support and supplied lots of training? Well, that was done at least once with the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project, but evidence of improvement was still lacking, according to Heather-jane Robertson (2001):
  
  “After two years of total and unlimited access to technology by carefully selected students, whose parents had chosen the program and whose teachers had unlimited amounts of technical and instructional support, the best that Apple could say about the achievement of ACOT students was that they hadn’t declined”(p. 133).
  
  Baker has also echoed Robertson’s assertion, saying that “data collected provide no clear idea of ACOT success or failure, although data on achievement, writing, and attitude suggest that ACOT participation is not depriving students in any way.”
  
  Therefore, according to data from a highly subsidized pilot on educational technology, no great gains were quantified, although students learning was not lessened. However, other studies have shown us a different picture. According to Kevin Whitmore, a study by Thomas Fuchs & Ludger Woessmann entitled “Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School” tells us:
  
  “For schools and parents who have together invested billions of dollars to give children a learning edge through the latest computer technology, this study brought some sobering news: Too much exposure to computers might spell trouble for the developing mind.
  From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, the researchers at the University of Munich announced that performance in maths and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well.”
  
  Uh oh. Perhaps our push for greater use of educational technology has not improved learning after all.
  
  Works Cited:
  Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold & underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  
  Oppenheimer, T. (2003). The flickering mind: the false promise of technology in the classroom and how learning can be saved. New York: Random House.
  
  Robertson, H.-J.. (2001). But it’s only a tool! Deconstructing the defense. In But it’s only a tool! The politics of technology and education reform (pp.13-42). Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
  
  

Privacy in our public online spaces

photo by Rob Pongsajapan



Is anything private in our online world? Many of us may think that if we don’t physically type in personal information on a website or respond to unsolicited email, we’re safe. But almost everything you do on the Internet is tracked in some way. For example, just by accessing this blog, a little widget on the right side of the page has determined what city you are in. Hello, Bristol! G’day, Sydney! Hey, Vancouver!

Seems harmless? Well, maybe it is. But it’s possible that by hitting my blog, you’ve created one more piece of information about your surfing habits that is added to your digital dossier. In their book Born Digital, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser (2008) suggest that “all the digital information held, in many different hands, about a given person makes up his or her digital dossier” (p. 39). If your digital dossier only contained data about what blogs about educational technology you’ve stumbled upon, maybe you might feel okay about that. But Palfrey and Gasser contend that at “no time in human history has information about a young person – or anyone, for that matter – been more freely and publicly accessible to so many others” (p. 54).

You might answer, but surely there are laws against anyone using my personal information unless I have given my express permission. Unfortunately, we increasingly find ourselves in positions that make it seem like the law hasn’t kept up with our lives, as we saw in my last blog about copyright, intellectual property and freedom. Palfrey and Gasser noted the similarities between privacy and copyright in respect to law:

“...traditional legal mechanisms will not work as well as they have previously. A similar shift has occurred in the copyright environment: It’s become so easy to easy to make a copy of a creative work, and social norms are so strong that a chasm has grown between what the law says and what digital natives do” (p. 82).

Clearly there is a massive challenge ahead of us to determine as educators and teacher-librarians how we will assist digital natives to protect their privacy. When students are online in our schools and libraries, is their privacy guaranteed? Not necessarily. Helen Adams has asserted that recent or proposed changes in legislation for four U.S. state legislatures concerning library records show “the majority lack understanding of or support for privacy rights for minors using library media centers”.
Although many computer users know that there are those out there who will try to steal your identity, go phishing, hack into another’s data, or launch harmful viruses, how many people realize that, for example, in Pennsylvania anyone under 18 may have their library use records released to a parent or guardian (if new legislation is passed)? In other words, not only are students in libraries potentially allowing private information to be divulged in their online activities such as using Facebook or mySpace, state or provincial laws may also allow student privacy to be invaded by a family member.

Then again, should libraries and librarians be responsible for how privacy is maintained by computer users who are using Web 2.0 applications, especially social networking applications such as Facebook or MySpace? Isn’t that akin to librarians getting involved with what media people are signing out – in essence, no one’s business? In a blog post entitled “The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Privacy”, Rory Litwin eloquently stated what he sees as the main dilemma:

· The difficulty that I think we have to grapple with in considering the Library 2.0 idea is that libraries and Web 2.0 services are based on serving two very different essential activities, and those activities have an opposite relationship to privacy.
· Web 2.0 websites are, with some exceptions, based primarily on sharing information, but sharing information in a particular way: essentially, they are about seeing and being seen.
· Freedom Foundation and others have raised awareness of privacy issues with respect to a host of internet technologies and practices. Many internet users share these concerns about their privacy in theory, but think little of sharing highly personal information on blogs and social networking sites.

At the moment, social networking sites are blocked in my school division. I have no first-hand knowledge of how the students I work with are controlling (or not controlling) their privacy online as regards these kinds of applications, because they are not allowed to use them in schools. However, if my students are typical Internet surfers, it is likely that they are sharing private information willy-nilly.

As web 2.0 application users, bloggers like you and me have our own privacy issues to contend with. As Doug Johnson has kindly reminded readers, ecommunications are not private and are also not necessarily protected by free speech laws. Johnson quotes thePennsylvania State Education Association Legal Division:

“As a school employee, you must exercise extreme caution when you engage in blogging or other forms of Internet communication. Keep in mind that your First Amendment rights can be limited by virtue of your position as a school employee.”
As students should understand their online behaviour can have consequences, so should we; anything we write can be read not only by friends but also by employers, potential employers, enemies (!), acquaintances, friends of friends, complete strangers…you get the picture. Johnson tells bloggers that we should:

· Write assuming your boss is reading.
· Gripe globally; praise locally.
· Write for edited publications.
· Write out of goodness.

Generally, I would say that these are good ideas for everyone. Maybe students can’t necessarily write for edited publications, but that may be the case for many other bloggers as well.

So what can we do to move towards guarding our own privacy as well as that of our students? A good start is simply becoming more informed. Privacytown is a site created administered by Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs, and I must say it is one of the more informative, well-written sites I have ever seen associated with a government agency. It’s not patronizing or condescending, and it actually contains some humour! (check out this example – “Privacy isn't exactly a recent concept. In fact, you might argue that it is the world's oldest obsession -- well, maybe the second oldest.”)

I don’t think it hurts any of us to learn or be reminded about data mining, the use of cookies, data shadows, and e-mail privacy. Right now, I don’t know the level of understanding my students have concerning these issues; my immediate goal is to become a lot more informed and be prepared to address them when I can in the school setting.

Works Cited:

Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Privacy. In Born Digital (pp. 53-82). New York: Basic Books.


photo by Andrew Magill

© © © © ©


Copyright. Intellectual Property. Intellectual freedom. How many of us think about these issues on a regular basis, or even rarely?

I know some people do. A few years ago I ran across an article I had written which had been copied and posted, unattributed to me, on someone else’s site. I sent an email that said something simple like, “Hey, I noticed you have an article I wrote on your site.” The webmaster wrote back, apologizing, asking which article it was and assuring me that I would be credited properly. In fact, I wasn’t worried about getting credit at all, I was only interested in making a connection with a person who thought enough of my work to post it online. I understand that some people in my shoes may have been hankering for attribution or credit or payment, but I wasn’t. The article was originally published in a magazine that had a limited readership, so I was just stoked that someone had the gumption and ingenuity to prolong the piece’s viewing lifespan and widen readership. It had been published a few years earlier and I had already been paid and received my byline, so if someone could learn or be entertained by it in a new format, more power to the webmaster.

What this incident illustrated to me is that some people placed more importance on crediting others’ work (at least the early years of the World Wide Web) than I did, even when it was my work being copied and pasted. My original article and the magazine it was published in contained little or no opportunity for someone to contact me and request permission for republishing. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward to today, when sharing information, collaborating, and learning in an online setting all offer a myriad of opportunities to steal, plagiarize, copy and paste and generally act irresponsibly (or illegally). Simple guidelines for what constitutes fair use and what is copyright infringement are either not easily accessible or at least not-so-simple for most students or educators.

I have touched in a previous blog on the attitudes and learning habits of digital natives. But today’s computer users and their attitude to copyright and intellectual property deserve a closer examination. David Pogue has related with dismay that according to his very informal research, many digital natives have no compunctions when it comes to downloading music or movies without paying for them. Should it be a surprise that many people today don’t find it necessary to pay for what they find online or worry about attribution or giving credit to others? In fact, the vehemence with which downloaders justify their actions is evident in our wired world, and there are many examples to be found on YouTube. Here’s a short one:



Yet music companies are suing downloaders (and winning!), and anti-piracy ads from the film industry have become ubiquitous. It seems that these real-life instances aren’t affecting peoples’ attitudes about copyright and intellectual property, so the need for direction from educators is clear. Although it may seem that it’s tough to figure out where to begin, Mike Ribble’s Passport to Digital Citizenship could be one place to look at first. The article offers readers a definition of digital citizenship, 9 elements of digital citizenship, and a 4-stage Technology Learning Framework for Teaching Digital Citizenship. One important component of Ribble’s article is that he stresses that because of the disconnect in what is being done in schools and what is done by students in their free time, parents need to be aware of issues within digital citizenship if there is to be some success in helping foster good choices.

And of course aside from downloading music and movies, what are many of those students doing in their free time? Checking out Facebook and MySpace, of course. Annette Lamb’s article Intellectual Freedom for Youth: Social Technology and Social Networks includes some very eloquently stated points. For example, Lamb asserts that social technologies “test the boundaries of intellectual freedom precisely because they provide an open forum for ideas”. It seems like a simple point, but I hadn’t thought of it in that way previously. If we are filtering or blocking social networks in our schools and libraries, are we hindering intellectual freedom? I touched on filtering a few weeks ago on this blog, but Lamb points out that students need to be aware of digital citizenship and copyright as well:

“While social technologies can support the creation of original poetry, music, and scientific data, it also can be a source of negative content, including gossip, violent images, and misinformation. Teens may use adult mediasharing Web sites such as Flickr for photos or YouTube for video. If so, it is essential to help them act responsibly in a social environment not intended for children. Students need to understand how to evaluate Web content, follow copyright laws, and develop effective methods of communication to make optimal use of this environment.” Therefore, if we ignore social networking sites, we may not only be impeding intellectual freedom, but we may be putting student digital citizenship on the backburner.

Also, Helen R. Adams has written about goals for school library media specialists, such as: “Guard against barriers to intellectual freedom, such as age or grade-level restrictions, limitations on access to electronic information, requirements for special permission to use materials and resources, and restricted collections.” If intellectual freedom means that young people should be allowed to access social networks such as Lamb suggests above, then Adams is arguing against filtering. It seems to me we have a long way to go before filtering ends in North American schools.

So what kinds of things can we do to help students learn more about their intellectual freedom and copyright? I think we need to create more resource lists like this one – it helps students find images and sounds that aren’t illegal or morally suspect.
I’m also really excited about the possibilities of Creative Commons, which is described as “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” I’ve been using images from Creative Commons for a while now, and the possibilities for students to find pictures, music, written works, and so on and use them responsibly are great. Now, it’s also time for educators to take the idea even farther and help their students to be a part of that community that shares, guiding learners to upload and make the resource banks even larger and richer.

I, and I suspect many others, also need to learn more about what constitutes fair use. Alisa Burch cites North Carolina State University’s copyright tutorial as telling readers that fair use allows the limited use of copyrighted material without prior permission of the copyright holder if the use is a fair one based on these four factors:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In his article Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad ©?, Doug Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote that few subjects “spark more disagreement and confusion than copyright. As an information professional, I’m often not certain that I have a firm grasp of it.” I’m not an information professional and am only starting to wrap my head around copyright and the issues surrounding it such as fair use and intellectual freedom. In fact, once you start thinking about copyright and the number of mistakes you or your students may have made, inadvertently or otherwise, it’s easy to go too far the other way and handcuff yourself into not taking advantage of the wide world of resources at your fingertips. Johnson gives an intersting anecdote about looking for permission or assuming permission is not given:

“A Singapore educator once told me that in his country, people tend to suffer from NUTS—the No U-Turn Syndrome—and Americans don’t. When no signs are posted at an intersection, Singapore drivers assume U-turns are illegal; United States drivers assume the opposite. He felt that our “assume it’s OK” attitude gives our country a competitive edge.”

Johnson’s anecdote relates to a fear of what’s “not allowed” and connects to the first of four points:
Change the focus of copyright instruction from what’s forbidden to what’s permitted. When there’s doubt, err on the side of the user. Be prepared to answer questions when a law makes little sense, seems inconsequential, is widely ignored, or when breaking it may serve a higher moral purpose. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer.
To me, Johnson’s greatest point is that as educators, we can help change the focus from what’s “forbidden” to what’s “permitted”; we can be positive about what is legally and morally stable, create lists and links to sites that offer attributed use such as Creative Commons, steer learners to free easy-to-use online citation guides like Noodlebib, and encourage dialogue between students on all of the topics above. The Digiteen Global Project looks like a pretty good start for focused authentic learning. The creators say that Digiteen is a “digital citizenship global project…where schools and classrooms from around the world will discuss issues, research and take action to do with being online in the 21st century. The project also has an Digiteen Ning where students and teachers connect, interact, share multimedia and reflect on their experiences throughout the project”. Wow! Sounds like some educators and students are already tackling most of the tough issues surrounding copyright and digital citizenship.

While we’re feeling pretty positive about the possiblities of using Web 2.0 tools such as Digiteen does become more informed better digital citizens, I’ll leave you with a short video clip that made me stop and think. Although the video is funny (and also unfortunately contains some inappropriate language), it is also poking fun at attempts to curb online movie or music piracy. Aside from pointing out the absurdity of how the word “piracy” is used in this context, the video also mirrors how seriously many people feel about the issue. Don’t you think?

Digital Divide(s)

Ever wake up in the morning and think, “Wow! My digital divide really hurts!?!”? Neither have I. Nevertheless, the digital divide may be hurting all of us as an educational community, even though we don’t feel it in an immediate way.

Let’s backtrack a bit: what is the digital divide? The Wikipedia entry on this topic reads thusly:

“The term digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it is the unequal access by some members of society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The digital divide may be classified based on gender, income, and race groups, and by locations.”

Clearly not everyone has access to the same technology. Occasionally, I am still surprised when a young adult tells me that he or she either has no Internet access at home or is still using dial-up. Except for the very young or very old, I think that many of us expect that we are consistently wired (unless we are very young or very old), when the truth is we aren’t all hooked up. My kids have been computer users from a very young age; heck, when they are at their grandfather’s, they’re surfing and playing and learning non-stop. My nine-year-old schools me every once in a while on some computer issue. But he’s also got a grandfather who has inexplicably taught himself at an elderly age to build computers, as well as a father who uses a computer daily for work, entertainment, and professional development. At any rate, my parents have never used computers, and I didn’t get Internet access until I was in my twenties; the generational divide is quite pronounced when comparing my Ma and Pa and my digitally-bedeviled offspring.

But what about others? George Sciadas’s research paper “The Digital Divide in Canada” discusses some of the complex issues surrounding this topic. Sciadas has used statistical analysis to break down some of these issues. However, nothing is as simple as we might want:

“From one year to the next, as more people use the Internet, there are more ‘haves’ and fewer ‘have-nots’. When groups of people are delineated by income (or any other variable), though, each one has its own penetration rate. The divide then becomes a relative concept whose measurement involves comparisons of the ‘haves’ between ‘have-more’ and ‘have-less’ groups.”

At first glance, a reader might think that the digital divide is not a big issue. But when Sciadas looks at income and age in regards to computer usage, we can see that there are actually some pretty big discrepancies. For example, it might not be a surprise that many of those with lower incomes in Canada appear to use computers less, and 15-17 year-olds use the Internet way more than even those aged 30-34. Overall, Sciadas concludes that the “divide is generally closing, but the gap between the highest and the lowest incomes persists.” If that is the case, the digital divide may continue in some form or another for a long time. The Wikipedia entry on digital divide does not dispel this outlook:

“In small towns and rural areas, only 65% of residences accessed the Internet, compared to 76% in urban areas. The digital divide still exists between the rich and the poor; 91% of people making more than $91,000/year regularly used the Internet, compared to 47% of people making less than $24,000. This gap has lowered slightly since 2005.”

However, the points above mainly focus on one element of the digital divide, which is different forms of access to technology – mainly computers and the Internet. An article entitled Web 2.0 in Schools: Our Digital Divides Are showing! points out that the digital divide could be looked at on four different levels:

“The first level of digital divide is access. Access to adequate amounts and types of hardware is an ongoing issue, but we’re now seeing access play out in schools in terms of bandwidth available for applications like streaming video and audio.
The second level of digital divide is skill and Web 2.0 tools present a new professional development and personal mastery imperative for many schools.
The third, and emerging, level of digital divide is policy. All too often in schools, we’re seeing technology policies that enforce slow hardware replacement cycles or restrictive use and filtering policies that block Web 2.0 applications.
The fourth digital divide, motivation, cannot be overlooked. That is, we’re seeing children, teachers, media specialists, and administrators all having different motivations to either adopt, ignore, or actively thwart learning innovation with Web 2.0 tools.”

Personally, I think access and policy are two elements that are often closely linked. Is YouTube blocked because of bandwidth or content issues? A text expert in a school I was in recently responded to class problems accessing Web 2.0 by saying “we’re all trying to squeeze everything through one little pipe” - meaning there’s only so much the divisional and school system can handle. The teacher-librarian working with the students at the time could not take solace in the fact there was nothing to be done on a classroom facilitator level, but I could only applaud her perseverance. On some levels, I would say that skill and motivation can be pretty closely linked as well. I believe that if many teachers and students could see how easy and engaging many Web 2.0 tools can be, they would be motivated to adopt some of them. But change is never going to be easy, and although I have not witnessed personally anyone “actively” thwarting learning innovation with Web 2.0 tools, I also have not seen a lot of time or incentives given for educators to do so.

An article written by Sherril Steele-Carlin entitled “Caught in the Digital Divide” tells readers that not only might there be a digital divide along economic, societal, racial, and geographical lines, but gender as well. “According to Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age (2000), a recent study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education, a majority of high school girls are totally disinterested in technology education, and fewer women than ever before are entering technology fields.” The article also touches on the idea that a lot of “people, however, question whether a digital divide fueled by ethnic, geographic, societal, or economic factors exists.” From the plethora of evidence I’ve seen now, I’m beginning to think that there is not one digital divide, but many.


So what does all of this mean to educators and students? What can we do to work towards bridging the divide(s)? First of all, educators need to recognize, if not a tangible divide, then at least the reasons why many think there is a divide. In other words, be aware of all of the reasons why students may not be as comfortable or familiar with technology. Are students not completing assignments utilizing tech tools because they are lethargic or because they are frustrated with working on the computer? If we’re diving into Web 2.0 tools and becoming surprised when students are stumbling when using MySpace or FaceBook, maybe some students aren’t as wired as we think. At the same time, Web 2.0 tools may be part of the solution, as Ilan Tsekhman suggests:

The most obvious potential for Web 2.0 applications is that they provide free tools to the user which would otherwise require expensive software packages, one example of this is using the free Google Docs service to replace Microsoft Office. The concept of providing applications as internet services is known as "cloud computing". Parallel to this is a movement towards what is called "thin computing" where the majority of the computing processes of a task are handled by a central server as opposed to on the users local machine. Thin computing promises to lower the system requirements of common online tasks and therefore lower the costs of computing itself.

In fact, others have proposed that free online tools could benefit those with lower incomes in any part of the world. Also, using Web 2.0 tools may be advantageous for adult learners as well. An amazing project in Uganda saw a group of farmers exploring websites, SMS, blogs, RSS feeds, Google Maps, Flickr, Picasa and Skype, and it has been suggested that their experiments helped them to strengthen organisation, planning and information sharing within the community which improved their livelihoods considerably.

But closer to home, the digital divide is a gigantic problem that isn’t going away, and it needs much more than individual teachers, teacher-librarians, or administrators to create a solution. I’ll leave it to Will Richardson to have the last word on starting to decrease the divide:

One idea that I see starting to take root is getting old computers, stripping out all of the old drives, running a Linux thin client and just a Web browser. Right now, you can do 75% of what you do on a store bought computer out on the Web (see thinkfree.com, for instance, or writely.com). And those computers cost next to nothing. So if we could put together a program for that to happen, it might make a difference. But the reality of it is that we are living in a world where one out of every three people in Philadelphia have NEVER BEEN ON THE INTERNET much less have access. For that to change in all parts of this country, it's going to take vision and leadership that just isn't there right now.