In the first few weeks of LIBE 467, I have found myself humbled again and again. There is so much still to learn, and comparing myself to others in classes is very problematic. I am not in a Teacher Librarian position, nor does my school have its library functioning to its fullest capacity yet. Since that discussion post, I have learned that that "imposed queries" are searches or reference points given by a teacher or Teacher Librarian in the inquiry process, and "unimposed queries" are searches or reference points stemming from students. I did feel like some of my other, more practical questions from my first discussion post were left unanswered, either due to no one reading it or no one having the experience I was wondering about. The questions I asked indicated that I "struggle to understand how any TL may help an entire class of students "let loose" onto the internet to research. I know that I give my students a list of resources which may aid them in their research, but some teachers do not, so I can only imagine how difficult it makes the TL's job if/when the students come into the library for research. What do you all do? Do you go into the classroom and help find websites, do you work with classroom teachers? What about when it seems like the whole class has a question and they're all different? I need some guidance on this management part!"
In lesson 3, we discussed the evaluation process and I chose to focus my discussion post on the topic of weeding and how I felt uneasy with the idea of completing the task sneakily. I understand the necessity of it, but feel like it is a professional obligation to complete the task, regardless of how others feel about it. I was glad others echoed my uneasiness and said they do not weed in secrecy. I was reassured when I read the responses. I enjoyed seeing the reference material link that Eleana had posted as I found that it was pleasing to the eye and helpful for staff, students, and parents. http://www.sd43.bc.ca/Resources/StudentResources/Pages/default.aspx I was not shocked, however, when I discovered that our school library was found to be below standard in all of the grading categories as outlined in Achieving Information Literacy. In the discussion, I noticed a lot of my peers also indicated that in most areas they too were below standard. I think that with today's climate in Education, there is simply not enough emphasis on our libraries as a lot of the focus is on repairing what was mismanaged previously. In Alberta, class sizes continue to be large, teachers asked to take on more and more, and teacher librarians given less time in their roles, while given other extra responsibility. What I am seeing here in Alberta seems like it parallels what has happened in B.C. I enjoyed reading the back-and-forth in the crowd-sourcing forum, as I am always encouraging my students to use whatever tools are at their disposal, including Wikipedia. I had heard somewhere that Wikipedia is 93% accurate, and then a number of months later 96%. I had also heard in that same meeting where I heard 93% that textbooks, by the time they go through the process of being written and published, their reliability drops down to 74%. When I tried, myself, to find those same numbers, I could not. Neither could I find any trace of those numbers in any reputable database. In Wikipedia, Friend or Foe, "Wikipedia articles can be used to illustrate the attributes that differentiate trite articles from good articles. But, like any knowledge source; it should not be used in isolation from other sources of information" (West and Williamson, 2009, pg. 270). In many areas which evolve constantly (medicine, sciences, math, and current events), there may be some benefit to using crowd-sourcing sites for a basis of understanding, but not research. I think there are much less people altering or changing Wikipedia sites for fun or enough to make them unreliable, but those people on the front lines doing the work to make discoveries and promote change are not going to sit down at their computer to update the Wikipedia entry. Thus far, I feel as if this theme is opening my eyes to the complexity of teaching and instructing our students in the scope of reliability, which is proving to be very difficult when the entire internet is at our students' fingertips nearly constantly. References [Inquiry]. (2016, March 29). Retrieved January 26, 2019, from https://britannicalearn.com/blog/the-value-of-inquiry-the-art-of-failure/
[Query image]. (2016, December 21). Retrieved January 26, 2019, from https://blog.paytm.com/ready-resolutions-to-your-frequent-queries-e02609919c7c Kathy West, Janet Williamson, (2009) "Wikipedia: friend or foe?", Reference Services Review, Vol. 37 Issue: 3, pp.260-271, https://doi.org/10.1108/00907320910982758
2 Comments
Aaron Mueller
1/28/2019 07:08:25 am
A well done reflection on the first theme of our class. Sad to hear that not all your questions have been answered. To offer my advice (I purposely try to stay off the discussion board, as soon as I contribute, that becomes "the answer" for everyone after that).
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2/2/2019 12:59:08 pm
I really appreciate your honesty in this post. I am also not a teacher-librarian and I am only working as a TTOC so I feel like I don't have much exposure to any libraries as well. I am also feeling overwhelmed and so many questions forming (this may be because I'm taking 4 courses at once...). It is nice to have the discussion boards to see what others think and learn from them. I think this will be one of the most important thing to take from these courses - the network of people to use as a supportive resource. Even though a month has passed in these courses I still feel like it is early on and with time I will learn more to make me more at ease. Thanks again for your honesty in sharing your thoughts!
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