Learning objects are reusable items, often, though not essentially, digital, that support technology-enriched learning. Today I have viewed a number of learning objects available through ESA . The first thing I noticed was the number of resources that were unavailable, moved or no longer supported. Of the first 8 resources I attempted to look at, 7 were no longer available. This was very disappointing and served to underline the importance of keeping resources updated, checking the live status of links on a regular basis and ensuring that bookmarks are regularly reviewed. It would be easy for a school library patron to discredit the library as an out-of-date, irrelevant institution if resources promised can not be delivered on such a regular basis. Regular maintenance of such repositories would have a three pronged impact: ensuring links are current and active, locating and potentially adding (or removing) new titles to ensure all learning areas are addressed, and promoting teacher librarian familiarity with the digital catalogue, allowing them to assist members of the school community to identify and locate resources at point of need.
Despite my initial lack of success, I did not give up. I looked for resources to support areas of the HSIE curriculum, looking at the places strand in the geography syllabus. For Early stage 1, I found a unit of work from The State Library of NSW: People live in places. Important places – Homes which is a mini unit of work based around a collection of photographs of homes in Australia during different time periods. Students learn about features of homes and how they have changed and stayed the same over time and consider how we look after homes. The inclusion of teachers’ notes along with all resources needed makes this a simple but effective activity for Kindergarten. Teachers can direct students’ attention to the fact that the State Library is a reliable source and discuss the value of photographs as primary sources. The inclusion of metadata with each item allows both class teachers and teacher librarians to attribute ownership and show students why it is important to do so.
Next I looked at Aboriginal understandings of weather and seasons. This interactive map shows the various traditions and beliefs from different areas of Australia. This is an interesting resource for year 1 as it combines understandings from both the Science and Geography syllabuses and makes clear the differences between the First Nations peoples. However, it is quite text heavy and would require teacher assistance to be useful for this age group. It would be interesting to pair with a study of Cooee Mittigar by Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Mulgo Watson.
Following on that theme for stage 2, I searched for a learning object for stage 2 about significant places in Australia. This site, https://storyspheres.com/uluru/ takes viewers on a virtual tour of Uluru. At each place of interest, a recording of Aboriginal elders explaining the significance of what can be seen is available. The site is quite graphics and sound heavy and so is a little slow to load, however, it is a rich source of information gathered from a primary source and is accessible to all students due to its highly visual and auditory nature. This site is useful from a digital literacy perspective because the options available to the user do not become apparent unless the look for them. They need to use the 3D interface to notice details and look over the whole landscape before choosing where to go or what to listen to. The provides opportunities for discussion around examining all parts of a source rather than jumping in a focusing only on the obvious.
The final learning object I found for stage 3 involves comparing how people live in various parts of the world. Dollar Street allows users to compare the daily lives and activities of families from all over the world in all income brackets. Students in stage 3 can learn about ways in which they are similar and different to people all over the world, but also identify poverty as a significant issue in the well-being of people. This could be a very good resource to use in the initial stages of an inquiry unit and presents opportunities to look at how the families were selected, who is represented and, importantly, who is not represented. This video (Ted, 2018, January), a Ted talk by the creator explains it very well.
Ted. (2018, January). Anna Rosling Ronnllund: See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income
. YouTube. https://youtu.be/u4L130DkdOw
