AR can be used to bring still pictures to life, point the camera on a mobile device at a still image and it will trigger a video. By following a few steps described here (with examples) you can create your own learning materials.
Alternatively AR can be triggered by location. Point your device at a pre-detemined location to retrieve a video or information you have prepared for learning.
"It was the best times, it was the worst of times…." This famous observation by Charles Dickens is certainly applicable to the current status of school library programs and school librarians. On the one hand, some programs are valued and receive ongoing support from their communities. Led by competent, effective school librarians, programs such as those recognized as meeting the criteria of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) National School Library Program of the Year Award, provide solid evidence of the positive impact of best practice on teaching and learning. On the other hand, the economic downturn, often combined with a lack of understanding or value for how school librarians and library programs contribute to student achievement, has led other communities to eliminate positions and to cut back, curtail, or get rid of once thriving programs.
"The mission of Code Club Australia is to give every child in Australia the chance to learn to code by providing project materials and a volunteering framework that supports the running of after-school coding clubs."
"The mission of the National Forum on Information Literacy is not only to promote information literacy at home and abroad, but also to provide programmatic research and training activities to a broad spectrum of constituencies. Our aim is to provide workforce development support services in the following areas (1) education and learning, (2) business and economic interests, (3) health and wellness, and (4) government and citizenship."
What interests me is not just the explosion of the printed word but the inspirational library spaces created to curate them.
As a space, it is about inspiring young people.
The senior school library continues the journey. Here we aim to combine the power of the story with a concept premised on the Cabinet of Curiosities. Curiosity in its purest sense where a student's learning is entirely unrelated to examination specifications and is encouraging learning for its own sake. The first cabinet being mooted relates to an evening next term where the films of Charlie Chaplin will provide both entertainment and a cultural reference point. Our Curator of the Cabinet of Curiosities is tasked with supporting this with the curation of a range of objects which will stimulate interest and encourage inquiry. Our approach is unashamedly about inspiring a love of learning.
Dr. Lodge McCammon is a Specialist in Curriculum and Contemporary Media at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation (www.fi.ncsu.edu). His work in education began in 2003 at Wakefield High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he taught Civics and AP Economics. He finished a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2008 where his work at The Friday Institute continues to bring innovative practices to students, teachers and schools. He developed a teaching and professional development process called FIZZ which encourages and models best practices in implementing user-generated video and online publishing in the classroom to enhance standards-based lessons. He is also a studio composer who writes standards-based songs, with supporting materials, about advanced curriculum for K-12 classrooms. More information, user-generated videos, and songs can be found at Lodge's website (www.iamlodge.com).
"Research Entrepreneurs," lays out a future in which "individual researchers are the stars of the story."
Reuse and Recycle," describes a gloomier 2030 world in which "disinvestment in the research enterprise has cut across society." With fewer resources to support pathbreaking new work, research projects depend on reusing existing "knowledge resources" as well as "mass-market technology infrastructure."
The "crowd/cloud" approach is widespread, producing information that is "ubiquitous but low value."
"computational approaches to data analysis" rule the research world. Scholars in the humanities as well as the sciences "have been forced to align themselves around data stores and computation capacity that addresses large-scale research questions within their research field."
"Global Followers," describes a research climate much like what we know now, except that the Middle East and Asia take the lead in providing money and support for the research enterprise.
nstitutions as well as individual scholars will follow the lead of those parts of the world, which will also set the "cultural norms" that govern research. That eastward shift affects "conceptions of intellectual property, research on human subjects, individual privacy, etc.," according to the scenario. "Researchers bend to the prevailing wind rather than imposing Western norms on the cultures that increasingly lead the enterprise."
"I plan to use the scenarios to engage staff and key stakeholders in mapping things out,"
The cumulative point made by the scenarios is that librarians should think imaginatively about what could happen and not get hamstrung by too-narrow expectations. (The phrase "adapt or die" comes to mind.)
By developing this wiki with reading lists, information on texts, study guides, rubrics, book trailers, book reviews, directions and general requirements, students in years 9-12 (and their parents) have a head start on the year's required reading for English classes. Well done to Joyce Valenza for supporting her students in this manner.
Librarians feel compelled to acquire eContent from only one distributor because it is too confusing – for them, for students, for teachers, for business managers - to purchase eContent from a variety of distributors, thus materials selection is driven by who they buy from, not what a
igns with the curriculum. This is a classic example of the tail wagging the dog.
It is our job to develop our collections, aligning them with our school/district’s curriculum – not to buy ready-made packages from vendors. It is our job to create, instructional materials, and to determine how to best assess our students’ learning. This requires granular knowledge of our patron base, our curricula, and our collections. You can't fake this. It takes a long time to build that knowledge base. If we relinquish these responsibilities to commercial interests, we literally sell out our own profession.
eContent requires meticulous, patron-aware (rather than traditional) cataloging. It is virtually (no pun intended) impossible to “display” eContent. There is no way to physically put it in the hands of students, if students are using their own technology. This is not happening for a few reasons:
Since vendors and library management systems have made it possible to import MARC records, librarians, as a whole, have been falling out of the cataloging practice.
Cataloging is time consuming, and tedious work.
Cataloging, as we learned it, doesn’t work for our students. We have to reinvent it. For example, at New Canaan High School, we add the project name as a subject heading to each title in the eCollection that supports it.
In BYOD programs, library programs should be undergoing significant instructional transformations that evolve as students’ facility with mobile technology increases. The ratio of print to digital content should be contingent upon students’ ability to access eContent. Developing a system to calculate this would help school librarians make sound decisions about format choices."
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
"Public school libraries have always served an admirable purpose in education. In an indirect way, K-12 libraries have given students support in learning endeavors and been a go-to spot for information. With that being said, as the first Internet-generation rises through the public school ranks, libraries need big changes to remain relevant. It is not enough to simply "be there;" school libraries need to reach out to students and pull them in with helpful resources that combine traditional and contemporary theories in literacy."