Centennial Collegiate Library

Projects with the Public Library

Our latest project in the community involves a collaboration with Mrs. Comrie’s reading class, Alice Turner public library and Centennial Collegiate library. Currently the students are creating therapeutic books for Alzheimer patients. The picture books will be used by Senior homes in Saskatoon. Thanks to the Local History Room staff, we have colated a variety of pictures based on themes such as “shopping”, “automobilies”, and “sports.” The students plan on producing 10 themes and then reproducing those themes to supply senior homes with their own reading kit. We hope to have the kits ready by the end of January.

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Centennial “Leaders”

As part of Mr. Dawe’s Leadership class, students have been challenged to create a blog that fits the criteria of what makes a good blog. After talking to the students, we established that the 4 categories: usefulness, visual effect, user friendliness and reading enjoyment. After a brief introduction students we given time to set up their blogs using blogger.
Their goal is to create a blog that encompasses what they have learned, relflected on, and created within their Leadership course. The assignment will allow for them to share their blog, to edit their blog once they receive feedback. AFL will play a role in student assessment as the students have shared in the building of the criteria and will have a chance to assess their work and to be assessed. For many students this is their first experience with this type of web 2.0 tool. Mr Dawe and I are looking forward to seeing the Blogs once created.

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Plaigerism

With the use of the internet, plaigerism is a growing concern. The key is to help students recognize what plaigerism is and how to avoid it. A great site to start is plagiarism.org. This online resource includes some excellent teacher tools. Most people try checking for plaigerism by “googling” in a phrase or sentence and then placing quotation marks around the word, phrase or sentence. Unfortunately this is not the best way to check. There are several online plaigerism prevention programs, but most of them come with a fee. Turnitin comes highly recommended by educational facilities. Unfortuantely the fee is somewhat costly. Therefore prevention is still your best way to combat this. By speaking to students about the moral and ethical side to internet usage, it may go a long way towards preventing plaigerism.

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Citations in the classroom.

Centennial does not have a set policy on which type of “format” a student should use when creating citations. The only subject area that has decided on a format is the Language Arts. Their preferance is MLA. Christina Krysa emailed Doug Thorpe a professor from the U of S English department, to ask him what formatting preference they recommend for students. Below is his response.

” We use MLA, but some of our first-year instructors use writing handbooks that outline other styles as well, and knowing that the students in the class might go on to be Psychology majors, or Chemistry majors, etc., they show some leeway in allowing the students to use different styles. In my own first-year classes, however, I always use only MLA. Upper-year English classes almost exclusively use MLA style for assignments.

It might interest you to know that the Department puts out a booklet called /Requirements for Essays/, which is distributed to all students in first-year English classes. An electronic version is posted to our website (http://www.usask.ca/english/requirements_for_essays.html).
Feel free to download it and use it as you see fit.” Doug Thorpe

If a teacher has been using the online “citation machine” or “ottobib” under the e-library site, they know that this is an excellent tool for their students. If a teacher does not know how to show their students how to access these sites using our school board site, please feel free to ask me to come speak to your students.
Generally this is a skill that we want to teach to all of the grade nines who enter Centennial, however teachers still need to decide which format they want to use.
With students now accessing the internet it is even more imperative that students learn how to find their information, critique and cite their information.
This whole topic raises some issues and questions for us as a staff. Are we “consistently” and “deliberately” working towards helping students learn how to access, process and cite their work? Do we need to have a policy on citing? How will we make sure all students learn how to cite their work? What are your thoughts?

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Web 2.0 Tools: Blogging Q and A

Hopefully some of you have had a chance to “play around” with “blogs”. The first question asked is “What is a blog?” It is basically an online journal that is shared with whomever you wish. The two blog generators I am familiar/comfortable with would be edublogs and blogger.com. They are both easy to use, but edublogs is specifically set up for teachers as it keeps your blog more secure and free of “pop ups”.

Q and A around blogs.

Q. Why Use Blogs in the classroom? Students are very comfortable with online learning. A.They are used to “socializing” on the net. Brain research also indicates that our students brains are physiologically “geared” to learning better with technology.

Q.How can I use blogs in the classroom?
A.Blogs can be used for: posting samples of class work, posting student work for parents, reflection, giving students a chance to discuss and write about their learning experience, students creating an on going portfolio, showcase student artwork, writing and poetry. THE SKY IS THE LIMIT!

Q.Where can I find a good tutorial on how to use a blog?
A. The two sites I suggested actually have online help, however an excellent site with easy to follow sessions is on our school board site. Follow this link to the online tutorial

Q.Who can “walk me through” the process?
A. If you are even a bit apprehensive about signing up, trying it out, please feel free to see me (Jacqueline) in the library. I would be more than happy to get you started. It takes about 20 minutes in total.

Note:Here are some excellent samples of some award winning blogs

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Overwhelmed with technology? (I know I want to use technology in the classroom, but I get tired thinking of it)

Jing, Del.ici.ious, Animoto, Camtasia, Blogging, Avatars …Just listing off some of the tools makes my head spin! Using Web 2.0 tools within the classroom can seem a daunting task to many teachers. Time restraints, computer access and lesson planning that integrates the technologies can intimidate the most `fearless`and àdventuress` of teachers. Added to this, many staff feel exhausted just thinking about how to learn and keep up with the `latest. As librarian of Centennial Collegiate I feel it is my job to assist staff who would like to implement some of these tools within their classroom. I understand teachers apprehensions as this journey is relatively new to me. Within the last 4 years I have had the chance to `wrap my head`around some of the best (and the worst)things that technology has to offer.
By collaborating together, we can assist the students in learning how to appropriately access, analyze, critique, manipulate and create new information in an ethical way. I will personally work with you and your class to develop lessons that integrate technology in a meaningful way. Just contact me anytime via email, or leave a comment as to what you hope we can work on as a staff. I am looking forward to hearing from you

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