Lending a hand

photo credit: Meredith_Farmer via photopin cc

It is always a privilege to be asked to present a session for other teachers. Last Thursday I had the opportunity to provide some training and guidance for library staff at another school. Their particular need for LibGuides training played to my expertise and I was delighted to lend a helping hand.

We have been using the LibGuides platform for a library web presence for 12 months now and are most impressed with functionality, flexibility and back end support. The presence of a strong community of librarians from around the world adds to its usefulness as resources are shared freely for others to use.

The statistics clearly show our library site is being well used with our Mathematics guide alone showing more than 1500 viewings this year.

Some guidelines to consider for your library if you are interested in using LibGuides are listed in an earlier post here. 

How will I note that?

Image: 'Notes' http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503078599@N01/63823366

Note taking

Scenario: A student has located what he/she considers to be a great resource for their research. Faced with many pages of information from a lengthy journal article or website, the student is uncertain how they should take notes.

When asked how to decide what is important information, typical responses from high school students may reveal obvious shortcomings in note taking strategies. Some respond that they need to write down all "the important points" but when questioned about what is important, lack of strategies in determining what may be important, become apparent.

This is a good teaching moment no matter the topic. A quick revision lesson on what to look out for is an important pre-reading and pre-class strategy. It helps students focus and prepare for note taking from the written, aural and visual media. Here's a document I use with classes to remind them of what to capture.

The tools to use for note taking are indeed another topic. With the proliferation of online tools such as the popular Evernote and Diigo we are still doing our students a disservice if we do not teach them how to discriminate between the important and the trivial. In a world awash with information this is a critical skill. A collection of other note taking tools and strategies are collated on this research guide.

Swap Days, Parents and Students

This is Week 5 of our 2012 academic year and our Year 7 students are settling well and finding their place in the school. This week we have two Swap Days for them and their parents. Students are taken on excursion whilst a parent/guardian takes the student's place in class and spends the day experiencing the life of a first year high school student.

The task of locating rooms, swapping from subject to subject, having the correct books for lessons and even managing to unlock the student's locker provides quite a challenge. Many parents participate in these days and classes usually end up being about half/half  - students and parents.

What a great opportunity this provides for parents to gain an insight into their child's life and to get to know the teachers. Staff also appreciate the opportunity to meet the parents and gain insight into their new charges. Parental feedback from these days is overwhelmingly positive with some expressing surprise at how much schools have changed, how much is fitted into a day, along with a few laughs about unexpected experiences.

Some parents commented after my session on cyber safety and digital citizenship, that they would check their Facebook privacy settings on returning home. One hopes students take on the same message.

Does your school have any similar programs?