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Tag: concepts

Education 4.0?

On February 26, 2024

Informal thoughts on Tomasz Huk’s article.

It is a good time to reflect on the rapid changes in technology and its impact on education. I consider myself to be Gen Y (scraping through by old parameters) which is now called ‘Millenial’ and the goal posts have changed, pushing me back into Gen X, which I don’t identify with (but I don’t identify with Millenial either – sounds too young for my 44-year-old bones!). As someone who was a child in the 80s, a tween-and-teenager in the 90s, and a uni student at the turn of the century, I’ve experienced education pre-technology and post-. I grew up with it slowly inching its way further into the classroom by small degrees, and it was always just an appliance. A computer was like a microwave – not in functionality, but in how people interacted with it: it was designed for a purpose, you used it for that purpose, and otherwise you left it alone. It didn’t do much else.

And then I was in a weird tech cocoon for three years, living in Japan where I had a ‘fancy’ flip phone – in colour! – but used technology only to email home occasionally. I was still watching films on VHS. I felt sheltered, isolated, from changes and advancements in digital technology, and I still feel those gaps today. Like waking from a coma to find several years had gone by and things don’t quite make sense.

But working as a teacher now, it’s clear just how much has changed. Technology is still a tool, but it’s used in a different way – and for many of our students, they are incapable of ‘leaving it alone’. Integrating digital technology into the classroom means you can do all sorts of fun little things, or get them to work in more interactive ways, but it can’t replace the core essence of what teachers do. In that sense, it’s still just a tool. What’s really good about it is as an aide for students (and staff) who have things like dyslexia, ADHD, dysphraxia etc.

There is a persistent idea, which is present in the article, that teachers merely ‘facilitate’ learning, and ‘monitor’ it, but don’t actually teach (or rather, that this is an ideal model). It makes me laugh. Such ideas are always presented by people who don’t actually teach. Huk talks about an interview with a principal during COVID about the benefits of online learning – having experienced it myself, I and my colleagues know it isn’t as effective. Our students struggled, with motivation but also in understanding. As a teacher, my job is to translate content, break it down, explain it, present it, discuss it etc. This theory reminds me of SOLE, and of Gonski 2.0 – the idea that anyone can teach themselves anything. There are very few people who can do that, and usually only in one or two select areas (with a great deal of persistence!). But what they can’t really teach themselves is critical thinking, and so we now have the reality of millions of people ‘teaching themselves’ (“doing their own research” without the skills) about things and creating a whole whack of misinformation online.

It’s okay to see teachers as ‘gatekeepers’ of knowledge. Things have changed, and teachers aren’t autocratic dictators prepping students to work in the factory – which brings me to Industry/Education 4.0. Australia’s universities have already shifted from education to training, prioritising courses that skill students for a specific job, and not ones that teach them to think or encourage ideas. This is of great concern, and also marks a shift away from ‘experts’ in their field (e.g. scientists, medical researchers and academics) to individuals with an online platform and a camera.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a frightening, invasive and unethical dystopian vision!

“computer applications used at schools could allow for automatic substitution
for absent teachers and planning of education for each student.” (p. 44) Again, COVID taught us that you can’t replace real teachers.

References

Huk, T. (2021). From education 1.0 to education 4.0 – Challenges for the contemporary school. New Educational Review, 66(4), 36-46. https://doi.org/10.15804/tner.21.66.4.03

Education Paradigms

By Shannon Badcock

On July 25, 2023

In ETL504, Reflection Post

Informed by Robinson’s presentation, think about the influences upon a school – structural, cultural and societal and identify a key driver for change in each area that the teacher librarian could respond to through school library programs.

Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash

The British educational theorist Ken Robinson and his ideas regarding systems and structures of education – and how they fail 21st century children – are well known. Anyone working in a school knows that the disengagement and distractions of students – and the disrespect that seems to come with it – is a problem, and that our educational model doesn’t fit all. In Australia, we have the (probable) consequence that our educational attainment measures – such as NAPLAN and the PISA ranking – show that our students are struggling.

I wonder if, in our desire to embrace so many different pedagogical theories, and in drastically expanding the role and responsibilities of teachers, we have become fragmented and overwhelmed by options and choice. They do say that too much choice is actually a negative (is this a structural, cultural or societal influence? It can be hard to separate them!).

Similarly to Robinson, Paulo Freire famously theorised (and challenged) the concept of ‘banking education’, the idea that teachers/adults possess the knowledge and they deposit it in children’s heads (because, y’know, their heads are empty otherwise). This aligns with the factory structure of schooling that Robinson talks about. To be honest, you can see where the comparison comes from, and why it developed that way: efficiency. Anyone who has taught others would know that it’s pretty straightforward instructing a homogenous group, where the learners are of the same ability level, similar background, and non-neuro-divergent. Though also quite boring. And for the longest time, our schools ignored difference, forced left-handed kids to write with their right hands, and offered little extra support for anyone struggling.

Absolutely the historical traditions of pedagogy still influence schools. There have been plenty of ‘experiments’ led by departments of education in an effort to ‘fix’ the system – especially to engage those students for whom the mainstream school system doesn’t work. Many of these are well-funded and make for good ‘announceables’, meaning that a Minister for Education can look good on the news and then quietly let it all slip into obscurity when the data doesn’t show it’s helping.

Yet the Teacher Librarian (TL) is in an ideal position to support new initiatives precisely because they don’t have a rigid curriculum to follow: they can be more flexible, more adaptable, and offer a more personalised approach to student wellbeing than teachers often can (due to large class sizes, time pressures, expectations etc.). The TL – and the library – are well-placed to help with student wellbeing, which is a current social issue dominating Tasmanian schools.

There are major problems with our school system, and serious challenges. No one really seems to know how to fix them, because they’re bigger than schools. And many schools in Tasmania no longer even have a library, let alone a TL. We are floundering, the education department is adding more to our plates, and one societal influence that is occasionally discussed is the growing anxiety among young people – climate change, job insecurity, housing unaffordability, health concerns etc. With so many anxious young people, it’s really not surprising that they’re educational scores are dropping, the older they get.

Certainly a lot has changed in schools, even since Robinson’s talk (his reference to an ADHD epidemic doesn’t really fit an Australian context, and he doesn’t offer any analysis of the reasons why diagnoses increase across the eastern states – but it aligns fairly well with an increase in parental involvement and ambition, class and wealth. Getting a diagnosis is expensive, after all). In Australia, one of the big influences on schools is the notion of ‘choice’, and the growing class divide. Pasi Sahlberg’s essay “By design: New foundations for teaching and learning” in the Griffith Review is enlightening and brings a lot of strands together. In Australia, structural issues must include this incredible funding divide we have here, which only exacerbates class tensions.

Robinson describes the earlier understanding of people’s abilities as being either academic or non-academic, which is still a polite way of saying ‘dumb’ (but shouldn’t be). Sahlberg’s essay explains how providing parents with choice – and politicians encouraging them to ‘shop around’ (thus treating education/schools like a consumer product) is a major part of the problem. The other is our emphasis on ‘excellence’. We end up having to teach to outcomes, rather than skills – even though our Australian curriculum is skills-oriented. The recent push to collect data, and be ‘data-driven’, only adds to this.

Regardless of the type of school, the school library can and should be a neutral space, welcoming to all, not just so-called academic students. It can, through fun and engaging programs and resources, be an inviting space that may help students engage better in school. But to ensure that a school maintains the TL role – and its library – the TL must exercise leadership skills. I see this leadership role as a way of connecting the TL to every facet of the school: to be indispensable. Not as a power-hungry move, but to be able to perform the role as it is intended and to achieve the best outcomes. It’s a win-win, really.

References

Robinson, K. [RSA Animate]. (2010, October 14). Changing education paradigms [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Sahlberg, P. (2022). By design: New foundations for teaching and learning. Griffith Review 75. (pp. 84-97)

What is Children’s Literature?

By Shannon Badcock

On March 7, 2023

In Discussion post, ETL402

Such an interesting topic! Having been through an English degree, the word ‘literature’ is stuck in my brain as meaning something along the lines of canonical, and ‘high brow’ – I don’t agree with it but the word has been used in such a way throughout the 20th century, and that’s the meaning I grew up with. (In short: elitism, often guarded by old white men.)

So some of the definitions of children’s literature rub my feathers the wrong way – especially the definition that includes non-fiction (Ross 2014).

The definitions that resonate with me are ones like Kathy Short’s (2018), who says that literature illuminates “what it means to be human and to make accessible the fundamental experiences of life” (p.291). I can see that a lot of non-fiction can do this as well, which brings me to the sticky part: quality.

Barone (2010) explores the definition of children’s literature as being of ‘good quality’ if it meets “critical analysis” or “readers’ appreciation” (p.7), stressing that this is subjective.

Witchfairy by Brigitte Minne & Carll Cneut

Too often, it is assumed that children’s literature must be ‘simple’ and ‘easy’ because it is often defined by age range – birth to the end of adolescence (variously 16 or 18, depending on the source). But they are far from simplistic – they are often quite complex and deal with sophisticated subject matter. It is the form that creates the illusion of simplicity. Really, ‘simplicity’ is more accurately ‘accessibility’. Like adult literature, children’s literature helps readers access a complex world, shape it, understand it and thus ‘control’ it (Saxby, 1985 in McGregor, n.d.) – i.e. control how it fills their brain and helps them navigate anxiety.

Accidental Heroes: The Rogues 1 by Lian Tanner (9781760528676) - PaperBack - Children's Fiction Older Readers (8-10)

Accidental Heroes by Lian Tanner

The way that we sort literature – into adult and children’s – is by form, which publishers control. Children’s literature is going to look different – larger font, more white space, often illustrations, brightly coloured covers. The style of writing is different from adult fiction – some adult novels seem to be simply, sparsely written yet the ideas are denser, and require broader, deeper cultural knowledge and understanding of society etc.

Some works of literature sit uneasily across manufactured, age-based divides, reminding us that, originally, there was no ‘children’s literature’; children read adult books (Barome, 2010, p.8).

Honeybee - Craig Silvey -- Allen & Unwin - 9781760877224 - Allen & Unwin - Australia

Honeybee by Craig Silvey

Books such as Jasper Jones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time are novels that I understood to be adult fiction, but which others see as children’s literature because the protagonist is a child. Yet the protagonist of My Absolute Darling is also a child but due to its graphic content I would not feel comfortable recommending it to a child (I don’t say this because I want to censor it, but because it’s most definitely an adult book about a child). So the age of the protagonist cannot be used as a sole definer of what makes a children’s book.

Having read through all these definitions and more, I can see why there’s no one clear understanding. Ultimately, children’s literature serves the same purpose as adult literature: to help us see the world in new ways, create a safe space for us to feel new feelings, and challenge us to think again. The ‘why’ seems to be similar. It’s the way this is done – the ‘how’ – that is a bit different.

Collection Development Policies

By Shannon Badcock

On May 12, 2022

In ETL503, Reflection post

Photo by Sindre Aalberg on Unsplash

As I near the end of ETL503 Resourcing the Collection, I feel the need to consolidate my understanding somewhere – and what better place than my blog?

I have written a blog post on the TL’s role in selecting resources; reflected on Sara Mosle’s post “What should children read?” and the debate about non-fiction vs fiction; mused about the limitations of a digital collection; reviewed online curating tools; discussed budget proposals and who should control the library budget; compiled information on various methods of evaluating the collections and the benefits and challenges of weeding; and considered self-censorship in light of student mental health and wellbeing (because that’s where my thoughts happened to take me at that time).

Photo by Mavis CW on Unsplash

In all of that, though, I find on reflection that I’ve skirted around some of the key points. Namely, why do we need a Collection Development Policy and how can it ‘future proof’ the collection?

Khan and Bhatti (2021) quote several sources in explaining what ‘collection development’ means, which can be synthesised (and simplified) as the plan for acquiring, maintaining and disposing of items in the library collection. A key distinction here is that it is a plan, a process, an outline that provides structure, and that it must be in response to the users’ needs. It is not the ‘how’ so much as the ‘what’ – the how belongs in a Procedures manual for library staff to follow. A Collection Development Policy is a guide, a framework – as a ‘policy’ it supports the decision-making processes of the library staff, both providing some direction and some support.

What’s telling is why this is needed in the first place. As Wade (2005, p. 12) says, “today’s librarian is a new breed that no longer keeps saying ‘quiet’ and is concerned with more than just how to catalogue items under the Dewey Decimal system.” With the increase in complexity of the information literacy sciences comes an increase in responsibility. Teacher Librarians (TL) must contend with various forms of technology – both using it, managing it and supervising it – as well as new and varied sources of information – in terms of quality and access.

Compounding this is the reduction of funding of school libraries, TL positions on staff – and the dearth of TLs overall (in Tasmania, there are only a couple left!). So the TL must do more, often with less. Less time, less staff, less funding, less collaboration with teachers – because they too are time-poor, over-stretched and, when schools don’t even have a TL, there’s no one for them to collaborate. Many new teachers wouldn’t even know what a TL does because they’ve never worked with one. What a sad thought!

So, what can a TL do? Draft a solid Collection Development Policy to make it clear that they’re not just buying random books and that there’s more involved than just cataloguing, shelving and checking them out. And then shelving again.

Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

A Collection Development policy is part of a larger process that begins with analysing the needs of the school’s users, and extends to budget, selection, acquisition, collection maintenance, evaluation and de-selection (Khan & Bhatti). Collection development, overall, includes planning, consultation, goal-setting, decision-making, promotion and sharing (Khan & Bhatti).

‘Planning’ is another way of saying ‘analysing users’ needs’, because that is always going to be the start and end point: the purpose and the outcome. When it comes to the students, so many things need to be considered, including the curriculum; the school context (e.g. socio-economic status; setting – remote/rural, inner urban; religious affiliation etc.); the diverse profiles of the student body (language, citizenship status, age, neurodiversity, interests etc.); the school’s goals and strategic aims; access to technology; and, encompassing it all, the library budget.

Planning must also exist within the purpose of the library. Fleishhacker (2017, p.31) says that TLs should provide resources that motivate students to read. The first standard for the teaching profession is “Know students and how they learn” (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2017); Mathur (2022) says that it is “imperative” that TLs support the variety of teaching and learning styles that exist in a school, and quotes Carrigan in Johnson (2009) in saying that “‘choice’ is the essence of collection development”.

It sounds simple but gets tricky – and this is where people don’t really understand just what a TL does. In providing ‘choice’, in selecting resources that engage, inform, present multiple perspectives and points of view, that represent diversity, educate and entertain, the TL must be aware of their own biases (the better to avoid self-censorship) and use a methodical approach to avoid challenges.

A “tightly written collection development policy that spells out how you approach deciding what goes in the collection (including how gift items are handled) and […] how to handle challenges to materials” will provide support for the TL (Shores, 2018, p. 175-6).

References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. Australian professional standards for teachers. (2017). https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards

Fleishhacker, J. (2017). Collection development. Knowledge Quest, 45(4), 24–31.

Khan, G., & Bhatti, R. (2021). An argument on collection development and collection management. Library Philosophy and Practice, 1-7. https://primo.csu.edu.au/permalink/61CSU_INST/15aovd3/cdi_scopus_primary_2012013622

Mathur, P. (2022). Curate, advocate, collaborate: Updating a school library collection to promote sustainability and counter eco-anxiety. Scan, 41(2). https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-41-2022/issue-2-2022

Shores, W. (2018). Collection development in an era of “fake news”. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 57(3). DOI: 10.5860/rusq.57.3.6601

Wade, C. (2005). The school library: phoenix or dodo bird? Educational Horizons, 8(5), 12-14. https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/aeipt.144858

Organising Information: Defining terms

By Shannon Badcock

On July 17, 2021

In ETL505, Study Notes

Information resource — something that contains information, in many forms (Rowe, 2021). Recorded information should be one of the object’s (digital or physical) primary functions. Something may not be intended to contain or convey information, but in a new context (such as a museum display) becomes an information resource (Hider, 2018, p.1). These resources contain any and all of data, information, knowledge and wisdom (Hider, 2018, p.2). Likewise, a ‘document’ is any kind of text, in any mode.

Resource description — descriptions enable us to understand things but also so that things can be used (Hider, 2018, p.3). The descriptions are practical, supportive and applied (rather than theoretical or abstract). The intention is key: resource descriptions should enable connection; people should be able to use them to find, identify, select, obtain and explore useful, relevant information (Hider, 2018, p.3). Descriptions cover different aspects of the resource, and “can be broken down into different elements that each pertain to these different aspects.” (Hider, 2018, p.4). Different types of resource will require different types of descriptions (Hider, 2018, p.13). May also be called ‘cataloguing’ or ‘indexing’ (Hider, 2018, p.13).

Describers — those actively engaged in creating resource descriptions. These may be people or computers or organisations such as publishers. They may be directly connected to the resource (such as the author) and their motives may vary, but their intent is always to help people searching for information (Hider, 2018, p.3-4).

Recipients — those searching for information of particular kinds. Recipients may be individuals, groups, other computers or the general population. Recipients are the intended audience and understanding them and their information seeking behaviours will influence the nature of the resource description.

Metadata — literally, ‘data about data’. The term ‘information’ can be used interchangeably with ‘data’, and ‘metadata’ can be used in place of ‘information resource description’ (Hider, 2018, p.4). Metadata is commonly associated with digital information resources, and refers to information (or data) that can be processed by a computer. Metadata is used to identify and describe information for retrieval, which is also described as ‘discovery metadata’ (Hider, 2018, p.5). Other terms include ‘cataloguing’, ‘bibliographic data’, ‘indexing’, ‘tagging’, ‘archival description’ and ‘museum documentation’ (Hider, 2018, p.6). Metadata includes the author’s name, the title, the year produced/published etc.

Metadata evolves with technological and resource changes over time but it needs to be conventional and standardised, not arbitrary (Hider, 2018, p.11). The title page of a book, film credits, record labels are all forms of metadata formats that have evolved over time, based on the type of resource. Likewise, the conventions of library catalogues – the formats and systems and style – have “become increasingly standardised” (Hider, 2018, p.11), enabling people from different countries to understand and locate the resource through metadata.

Elements — these can be the information or content itself or how it is ‘carried’ – the mode (book, computer file, roll of film etc), or both. Content elements include subject and language while carrier elements include size and physical location (Hider, 2018, p.4). There is no set number of elements a description needs – they can be infinite – but some may be more useful than others. Elements may also be called ‘categories’ or ‘data fields’ (Hider, 2018, p.7).

Values — within elements, values are the words used to record the information, such as the form the author’s name takes (full, or abbreviated?) or how broad or narrow the words used are. The element might be ‘subject’ but what words will you use to capture a book about animals? Just ‘animals’ or ‘fauna’ or ‘farm animals’ or ‘mammals’? These words are the values. The words chosen can effect the quality of the metadata; accuracy is important but so is logic, usefulness, and intelligibility (Hider, 2019, p.6-7).

Format — the format for recording the values needs to be appropriate and compatible with the intended information retrieval system (Hider, 2018, p.7). How it will be transmitted is also a factor.

Information organisation (or ‘knowledge organisation’) — the intellectual as well as physical organisation of resources, using descriptions (Hider, 2018, p.13) that support access to information through tools like indexes (Hider, 2018, p.15). Information organisation involves manually creating resource descriptions.

Indexes — a database of representations of the actual resource in the form of metadata taken from titles, authors and/or content. Indexes are tools that provide access to the collection, such as library catalogues, archival finding aids, museum registers and search engines (Hider, 2018, p.14).

OPAC — online public access catalogue (Hider, 2018, p.16).

Information retrieval — the separate yet parallel field to information organisation “which developed the mathematical algorithms that have made today’s web search engines so successful” (Hider, 2018, p.16). While the main difference is method, it is a significant difference. Information retrieval systems such as search engines are based mostly on the indexing of content rather than indexing metadata and cannot offer much help with “the formulation of search queries” or with “the selection and identification of resources.” (Hider, 2018, p.18) Still, search engines like Google and sites like YouTube rely on text-based descriptions – the metadata provided by users and contributors (Hider, 2018, p.18).

FRBR — Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (1998) – “a conceptual model of the bibliographic universe involving four different ‘levels’ of information resource” (Hider, 2018, p.25).

LRM — Library Reference Model (2017) – a new version of the FRBR model where “information resources are divided hierarchically into four ‘entities’, labelled works, expressions, manifestations and items (WEMI) (Hider, 2018, p.25). The hierarchy is based on “increasing levels of abstraction”.

WORK: known by a title; a package of content, such as a novel, picture, law or news report. Works can exist within larger works. (Andrea Lorenz’s example: Emily Bronte coming up with the story for Wuthering Heights)

EXPRESSION: how the work is expressed, such as in what language, by a translator, or what version. (Andrea Lorenz’s example: Emily Bronte writing Wuthering Heights)

MANIFESTATION: how the particular version or expression is ‘carried’ or conveyed – a particular printing of an edition, the pressing of a CD. (Andrea Lorenz’s example: the publisher publishes Wuthering Heights, assigns an ISBN)

ITEM: an individual information resource that has a physical form; an object (Andrea Lorenz’s example: the specific print copy of Wuthering Heights, to hold in your hands)

Semantic Web — a vision that builds on Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 using linked data. “This, in theory, will allow computers not only to find web documents but to make sense of them, through the data linked to them” – but only if the data is of high quality and reliable (Hider, 2018, p.19).

References

Hider, P. (2018). Information resource description: Creating and managing metadata (2nd ed.). Facet.

Lorenz, Andrea. (2012). FRBR Simplified. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPBpP0wbWTg

Rowe, H. (2021). Introduction. In The need for information resource description [ETL505 Modules, Module 1). Retrieved from Charles Sturt University website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_57507_1&content_id=_4494340_1

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Organising Information: Defining terms

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Portable Magic

"Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.” – Nnedi Okorafor

Tag: concepts

Education 4.0?

Education Paradigms

What is Children’s Literature?

Collection Development Policies

Organising Information: Defining terms

Categories

Currently Reading

Currently Reading

Recently Posted

Recent Comments

Tags

Book News & Reviews

MEd (TL) blogs

Professional Associations

Professional TL Sites

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Goodreads Library: Read in 2021

Shannon 's bookshelf: 2021

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