Edmodo, school libraries and promoting ethical online behaviour

In 2007, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) developed Standards for the 21st-Century Learner that include skills, dispositions, and responsibilities essential for today’s digital citizens (AASL, 2007). The first set of these standards states that teenagers must be given opportunities to learn to access and evaluate the information found on social networks.

  • Standard 1.1.5: Evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.
  • Standard 4.1.7: Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information.
  • Standard 4.4.4: Interpret new information based on cultural and social context.
  • Standard 2.3.3: Use valid information and reasoned conclusions to make ethical decisions.

Within these standards, AASL also addressed ethical and legal behaviour on social networks and supports the provision of opportunities for teens to follow legal regulations and demonstrate ethical behaviour that is associated with conducting themselves appropriately on social networks.

  • Standard 1.3.3: Follow ethical and legal guidelines in gathering and using information.
  • Standard 3.1.6: Use information and technology ethically and responsibly.
  • Standard 3.1.2: Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners.
  • Standard 3.2.2: Show social responsibility by participating actively with others in learning situations and by contributing questions and ideas during group discussions.
  • Standard 4.3.1: Participate in social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person.
  • Standard 4.3.4: Practice safe and ethical behaviours in personal electronic communication and interaction.

School libraries have an opportunity to address these standards by incorporating appropriate social networking platforms in their library teaching programs (Agosto and Abbas, 2011). An example of such a platform is edmodo.

Edmodo new

Edmodo is specifically designed for schools and allows teacher librarians to create groups, upload resources, provide an ongoing connection with the library to promote learning and publicise events, and stimulate community by providing students with an opportunity to develop appropriate skills in a social networking site which is supervised, age appropriate and readily accessible.

Edmodo also has the capability of providing a connection to school families if the parent account provision is utilised.

Students have lots of opportunities to engage in social networking but not a lot of chances to develop their social networking skills in a supervised forum with the aid of a trained professional – their teacher librarian.

References

Agosto, D. E. & Abbas, J. (eds) (2011) Teens, libraries, and social networking – what librarians need to know. Santa Barbara, Calif : Libraries Unlimited.

American Association of School Librarians (AASL) (2007) Standards for the 21st-century learner. [online] Available at: www.ala.org/aasl/standards

China and social networking

Visiting a website called China Internet Watch does have an ominous feel about it. China is not known for open access internet browsing so the use of social media in China would surely come with a sense of caution about who is watching, reading, tracking, knowing…

All those fears aside, though, and the numbers of social networkers and social media users in China are simply staggering. The headline reads 482M Chinese Visited Social Media Per Month in 2015’ and those are impressive numbers by any standard. Roughly half of net users in China are also users of social networking sites. The article goes on to describe the penetration rates across age groups and China appears to be no different from other countries as the numbers increase across all age groups.

There are differences between social media usage in China and USA including that for Chinese social networkers it is more Sina Weibo Sina Weibo qrabout humour – sharing jokes and videos – than commentary on daily events or news items like it is in the US… which probably makes sense given the attitude towards free speech in a Communist country. However, the mashups of western video and celebrity watching on Weibo (China’s twitter) looks remarkably similar to the twitter feed of the average western teen.

The top 5 social media websites in China are

  1. Sina Weibo – the Twitter equivalent but with twice as many users!
  2. Renren – once touted as China’s equivalent to Facebook but after a lengthy court battle over name and URL rights, it has recently seen a decline as its popularity amongst its student base has waned.
  3. Tencent is a social media hub so has a large user base across multiple platforms. It was originally founded on a messaging service so it is still popular in this format.
  4. Douban is an interesting service that is popular with intellectuals and writers in China. Its point of difference is that it allows access to unregistered users.
  5. Wechat has gained ground in recent times because it is a mobile voice and text app which has gained popularity in a country that has an addiction to mobile devices.

 

Read more:

http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/17191/481-5-million-chinese-social-media-month-2015/#ixzz42b8BDD1r

http://mashable.com/2012/07/02/china-social-networks/#dyeRkkzy9uqk

 

ETL503 Final reflection: so many books… so little time

 

“It does not matter how many books you may have, but whether they are good or not.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca (3 B.C.-65 A.D.), Epistolae Morale

Six months into a new position as a Teacher Librarian in a NSW DEC high school, writing a proposal for a Collection Development Policy has been an opportune and significant learning activity. While the second assignment required broad strokes utilising the topics covered in modules presented in the course, I found myself mentally applying the elements of the topics covered and the resulting proposal structure, to the specific circumstances and challenges of my new role. The narrow focus of the first assignment, resourcing for a specific topic, was a good introduction to the challenge involved in developing a collection to meet specific curriculum requirements (Hogg, 2015a). The second assignment widened the horizon to incorporate the Library Collection as a whole.

As the course has progressed, I have applied the learning to the collection I now manage, and find myself suitably impressed by the previous holder of my current position. She was known as a bit of a dragon… but her skills in Collection Development are revealed to me now in a way that can only be described as impressed. I inherit a solid collection that is meeting the current needs of the learning community of my school – my challenge is clear… the continuation of this legacy. The development of my own set of selection criteria, applicable to my school circumstance and its changing needs, has been well informed by the readings and discussions on the forums in this course. The process of selection and acquisition in a school with specific budget constraints has also led me to realise the benefits of a well established, local bookshop, and the long connection that the staff have with my library collection (Hogg, 2015b).

Weed

To weed…

The Australian Library and Information Association Schools considers that a Collection Development Policy is essential to a school library as it explains why the collection exists (ALIA Schools and VCTL, 2007). In considering the development of such a policy for my school, I have come to realise how important the four areas of analysis provided by the Collaborative Access Environment model are as posited by Hughes-Hassell in Collection management for youth : responding to the needs of learners (2005). In order to provide the service required by our Collection, as the Teacher Librarian I need to achieve a deep knowledge of my resources, a clear understanding of the learner characteristics of the students at my school, foster strong collaborative partnerships with other teaching staff, and gain access to and understanding of the teaching and learning programs being offered at my school. This is quite a challenge and forms only part of the role of the Teacher Librarian in a school library – but certainly provides clarity of purpose as I move forward and develop skills in this position.

Amongst the many other topics covered by the modules in this course, there are a number of challenging facets of the TL to be honed, one that particularly stands out for me is the process of weeding. Essentially, collection development means both adding to and subtracting from a library’s collection (Olin, 2012). Completing the CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation and Weeding) (Larson, 2012) exercise was difficult – both in finding the time in a busy school timetable, and the torture of making decisions about the fate of individual books! Being a hoarder by nature is certainly not a useful attribute for a Teacher Librarian… and a focus for future personal growth in the role!

Lastly, planning a Collection is built on speculation (Anderson, 2011) and it is influenced by our inability to predict the impact of new technologies in education. Some aspects of our future in libraries seem predictable while others we will just have to wait and see.

 

References

ALIA Schools, and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, (2007). A manual for developing policies and procedures in Australian school library resource centres. 1st ed. [ebook] Melbourne: ALIA Schools and VCTL. Available at: https://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/events/policies.procedures.pdf

Anderson, R. (2011) Collections 2021: the future of the library collection is not a collection. in Serials, 24(3) Available at: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/67113024/collections-2021-future-library-collection-not-collection

Hogg, D. (2015a) Annotated resource list. Available at:  http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/debhoggoz/2015/04/03/etl503-assignment-1-annotated-resource-list/

Hogg, D. (2015b) Personal connections in the purchasing process.  Available at: http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/debhoggoz/2015/04/03/etl503-reflection-personal-connections-in-the-purchasing-process/

Hughes-Hassell, Sandra. & Mancall, Jacqueline C.  (2005).  Collection management for youth : responding to the needs of learners.  Chicago :  American Library Association

Larson, J. (2012). CREW: a weeding manual for modern libraries. Austin, Texas: Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Available at: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod12.pdf

Olin, J. (2012). Letters to a young librarian: weeding is where it’s at: deacquisitioning in a small, academic library. Available at: http://letterstoayounglibrarian.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/weeding-is-where-its-at.html

So far away and yet close enough to learn with…

keep-calm-and-ask-a-librarian-1Tonight’s Adobe Connect session was a great opportunity to find out more about my fellow students – where they are, what their time challenges are, what their fears are… as we all face the challenge of returning to study, in an online format over vast distances.

Carole from the CSU Library is a model of what we all aspire to be, and her quick wit and gracious responses reminded me that the role of a University Librarian requires a cool and calm approach… must practice those attributes because they surely don’t come naturally! 🙂

Barbara also modelled lots of other skills too that represent how expertise in Information Services has morphed in this new century. Being able to manage a presentation delivered through a browser, managing chat streams and questions, sponsoring audience participation and clarity of response… all done with good cheer and encouragement to the audience in far flung places.

It’s interesting to consider the level of expertise and confidence required to manage participation in a course completed through a distance education model. It’s all very well to suggest that the answers to all questions are provided on an information dense website, but frustration levels can reach new highs when design features don’t meet user expectations… especially those users who are pressed for time and can’t dedicate the amount needed in order to become familiar with the navigation on a complicated set of websites. This mode of delivery certainly does come with a range of mountains to climb.

Having an opportunity to connect with fellow students and find out what level of access they currently have to a library space, led immediately to offers of connections in real life that will hopefully build a real sense of community amongst this current group of Masters students. Meeting over coffee always ends up resolving fears and building bridges that will provide the support we all need for the challenges that lie ahead in completing a post-graduate degree.

All in all… a great session 🙂

Deb Hogg

Another beginning…

Another challenge.. another adventure… I’m jumping out of a perfectly good plane again!

This blog will track the learning that ensues as I complete my Masters of Education (Teacher Librarianship) at Charles Sturt University. I’m going to just dive out into the clear air and see what learning I can find.

Come learn with me 🙂