Month: June 2013

Thinking about reading…

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I came across this post a few weeks ago, and it has been sitting open in a tab of my browser ever since, while I’ve wondered what I wanted to say about it.

The author, Paige Jaeger, is advocating the rights of children to choose their own reading materials, rather than educators getting hung up on giving children texts that support particular curricular outcomes. Whilst Ms Jaeger is looking at the US context and their Common Core Standards, her points are equally applicable here.

In the classroom, the teacher’s job is to help children make sense of the rules of language, digging deep into grammar, text types, writing styles, vocabulary, and all the other elements that going into developing the knowledge and skills necessary to be literate.

When those children step into the Library, what the Teacher Librarian really wants is to see those children dive joyfully into a wide variety of books and come back up grinning with delight at the treasures they found inside.

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Picture taken from the poster of Rights of the Reader

Perhaps this week the theme is to challenge themselves to explore two new genres – the TL will remind the students how to search the catalogue by subject, and suggest more titles that might intrigue them.

Other students are looking for information on their favourite animal, or tv show, or arguing about the status of Pluto – the TL will steer them towards the tools they need to find what they want.

Sometimes though it is a bit trickier – what about the child who at 9 years is still reading like a 6 year old? He needs simple but interesting books that don’t look babyish, because he’s ashamed of how far behind he is and is worried about being teased. Or the child who at 10 years can decode just about any book you put in front of him – he isn’t old enough for the themes in most YA fiction, but the majority of books written for his age group are too easy to engage his attention.

This is where TLs and classroom teachers work together, talking about the needs of their students and looking for books that will help both the struggling and the exceptional students become confident, eager readers who see books as a source of entertainment and delight.

Finally, I think it is fitting to include The Rights of the Reader, a beautiful book by Daniel Pennac, with an equally delightful poster illustrated by Quentin Blake.

The right of the individual to decide how to be a reader – that’s the whole point, really.

Rate of [Cyber] Change

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Today I attended an ACMA Cybersafety training day, with another Teacher Librarian from my school, and two other teachers from local schools. I had been to one of these days a few years ago, and we use the Cybersmart
Shame on the Internet -Magic City Fake Screenshot- by =thayCVB on deviantART

I should have known better – the technology evolves so quickly, and with it user behaviours, so naturally there has been a great deal of change in online activities since the last time I really spent any time considering it deeply.

Key points:

  • The ages at which children have access to the Internet gets younger and younger
  • Internet-enabled devices are being given to children at a much younger age – partly the hand-me-down effect
  • Stand-alone lessons do not stick
  • Need to embed safe attitudes and behaviours in all relevant lessons – just-in-time and explicit commentary. Example: when posting to a class blog, remind students no photos and first names only; bringing up current headlines and discussing what students could have/should have done; reminding students not to click on flashing ads or accept emails from people they don’t know.
  • Cookies tracking your search habits and geolocation services – be aware of what they mean for you
  • Social media – evolution of sites and apps – young people migration to more instant, more photo oriented tools
  • Targeting bystander behaviour is key to combating cyber bullying
  • Preventative measures – building resilience and self-managing behaviours
  • Involve students in developing their own resources around Cybersafety

    • Follow-up
    I will be looking at what I am doing to teach safe behaviours to years 3&4, and review the use of stand-alone lessons. I think that with these younger kids, it is still important to spend time establishing a good understanding of key concepts such as privacy of information, so that thereafter we can refer back to those understandings in relation to other activities.

    I think that my colleague and I should also look for some time to talk to staff about what we learned – if we were startled by some of the statistics, it is likely that they will be too!

    Lastly I want to ensure that we run a technology use survey once again, as we have done in the past, to get up-to-date data on what our students are doing with technology. This would be really valuable to complete before we hold some Cybersafety sessions for students, staff and parents later this year.

    So, to sum up – Cybersafety is an attitude and awareness, not a static list of facts about bad websites. The only way to help children and ourselves is to develop the necessary skills and mindset to be critical, sceptical and ethical users of technology

    Rate of [Cyber] Change

    Leave a comment

    Today I attended an ACMA Cybersafety training day, with another Teacher Librarian from my school, and two other teachers from local schools. I had been to one of these days a few years ago, and we use the Cybersmart
    Shame on the Internet -Magic City Fake Screenshot- by =thayCVB on deviantART

    I should have known better – the technology evolves so quickly, and with it user behaviours, so naturally there has been a great deal of change in online activities since the last time I really spent any time considering it deeply.

    Key points:

  • The ages at which children have access to the Internet gets younger and younger
  • Internet-enabled devices are being given to children at a much younger age – partly the hand-me-down effect
  • Stand-alone lessons do not stick
  • Need to embed safe attitudes and behaviours in all relevant lessons – just-in-time and explicit commentary. Example: when posting to a class blog, remind students no photos and first names only; bringing up current headlines and discussing what students could have/should have done; reminding students not to click on flashing ads or accept emails from people they don’t know.
  • Cookies tracking your search habits and geolocation services – be aware of what they mean for you
  • Social media – evolution of sites and apps – young people migration to more instant, more photo oriented tools
  • Targeting bystander behaviour is key to combating cyber bullying
  • Preventative measures – building resilience and self-managing behaviours
  • Involve students in developing their own resources around Cybersafety

    • Follow-up
    I will be looking at what I am doing to teach safe behaviours to years 3&4, and review the use of stand-alone lessons. I think that with these younger kids, it is still important to spend time establishing a good understanding of key concepts such as privacy of information, so that thereafter we can refer back to those understandings in relation to other activities.

    I think that my colleague and I should also look for some time to talk to staff about what we learned – if we were startled by some of the statistics, it is likely that they will be too!

    Lastly I want to ensure that we run a technology use survey once again, as we have done in the past, to get up-to-date data on what our students are doing with technology. This would be really valuable to complete before we hold some Cybersafety sessions for students, staff and parents later this year.

    So, to sum up – Cybersafety is an attitude and awareness, not a static list of facts about bad websites. The only way to help children and ourselves is to develop the necessary skills and mindset to be critical, sceptical and ethical users of technology

    Sometimes the simple things…

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    Sometimes you have a lesson that is perfect just because it taps into the most basic needs and interests of your students. No technology, no complicated set-up, just pure engagement.

    20130612-220143.jpg

    Today I taught one of those lessons with my Prep and Year 1 classes. These boys are mostly nice children, although there are a few in there with poor social skills or impulsive behaviour that can interrupt carefully-planned activities. Many of these children are still learning to read with any fluency, and cannot write long pieces of text. Therefore a lot of our response-to-literature activities include drawing, colouring, matching images to words, those sorts of things.

    Not today.

    Today we were interactive.

    Our book today was Donald Loves Drumming by Nick Bland. Young Donald the rhino has a drum kit which he loves to play, but he is just as happy to drum his sticks on any other object available, or to clash cymbals, or do anything that is louder, faster, messier, higher or more dangerous! There is so much boy-focused action in this book that I thought we should have some in our class, and let them get really involved in the story. (I’m sure that wiggly little girls would enjoy it too, but as my school is boys-only, the point is moot for me.)

    The Activity:

      I asked everyone to space themselves out further than usual so that there was a little circle of space around each child.

      Every time I said ‘drumming’, the boys had to drum madly on the floor until I said ‘stop!’.

      We practiced drumming and stopping a couple of times, with lots of reinforcement of great listening.

      I told the children that we were going to have a lot of fun with this, but that we could only do the drumming if everyone followed the rules.

      I read the book to the class, putting plenty of emphasis and expression into every ‘drumming’, and using very sharp and clear ‘stops!’.

      The boys were thrilled with the chance to get really physical and a bit noisy with the story, and loved the challenge of stopping exactly on my command.

      As the story went on I introduced some other actions, such as wiggling fingers to show rain, a falling sound or hammering sound to match events in the story.

    The Result:

    I am really pleased with the way this lesson turned out. We didn’t have any cute pictures to take home for the fridge, and I am kicking myself for not thinking to set my iPad up to record the sound of their drumming, but that wasn’t the aim. I wanted the boys to recognise their role as participants in the story. Given that these boys are 5, 6 or 7 years old, a really physical activity is a beautiful match for their stage of mental and social development.

    Although this lesson required no technology, I think it demonstrates why things like iPads are so exciting for children. They are still learning about the world by physically manipulating it, or by moving their bodies or making a noise, and activities that reward those kinds of behaviours will be more interesting to children. When we give children access to technology, we need to make sure it matches their needs and abilities in a rich way. I think that my classes had morefun today drumming on the floor than they did in other lessons when we manipulated an ebook app on the IWB.

    I know I did!