As a guest blogger, I asked the librarian of my school, Beth Dunbar, to discuss her take on technology integration and especially in the realm of the library. The following is what she had to say:
"Technology is an integral part of education and is an important part of the modern library function. In the past, students would come to the library and begin researching by using a physical card catalog or a computerized system. Then the student would go to a shelf and retrieve the book and peruse the table of contents or index for the required information. In turn, the student would have the opportunity to find related topics and keywords. How times have changed, but is it all for the better? Are our students researchers or regurgitators?
Presently, when a student comes to the library to do research he will go directly to a computer and double click on Google. The student will then type in his full inquiry and wait for the information to appear at his fingertips, where he can scan through the results. The ease at which this happens causes me, as a high school librarian, to question our students true ability to do research and think beyond the assignment. Do our students know if they are using the best keywords to find their information or are they just looking at the first few results that appear and using those sites out of conveniences, rather than scholarship? This is a question that haunts me, as I have taught numerous classes on research and finding the scholarly websites. Upon inquiry of students, I get mixed results; some are true researchers, others like Wikipedia. How do we inspire our students to think and really look at the information for more than just fulfilling an assignment, but furthering their own personal knowledge?
This past school year, I participated with another teacher in an iSearch lesson and was inspired by the students and their ability to research topics that were student driven. For this particular lesson, students were able to pick topics of their own choosing and had to focus on answering questions from other students in their class regarding their chosen topic. As a result, the students were invested in the research as they had their own questions, but wanted to provide answers to their fellow students questions too. They were given 2 days to research and 1 day to write, before presenting a speech to the class. As they began researching, we required every students to write 5 different keywords or search terms they could type into Google to find relevant research. This step made the students think about their research, as we learned that students often type full questions into Google and not keywords. Our students had a difficult time narrowing their research questions to just a few essential words.
This gives me pause, maybe we need to go back to teaching basic researching skills to make our students think about their assignments and to find meaning in our assignments to engage them in true research scholarship. Maybe we are assuming that previous teachers have appropriately taught our students to do research when that is not the case. Lessons like iSearch can help break down the research process and it fits perfectly with the technology that is available to us by give ownership to the students for the assignment, while enabling the research to be presented in a variety of ways. Technology is a blessing, in that we can access the world through our fingertips. As educators, we need to help our students harness this convenience and to use it to think deeply about their assignments presently, and their lives post high school. The ability to research is a life long skill."
Beth Dunbar
Library Media Specialist
Dauphin County Technical School
"Technology is an integral part of education and is an important part of the modern library function. In the past, students would come to the library and begin researching by using a physical card catalog or a computerized system. Then the student would go to a shelf and retrieve the book and peruse the table of contents or index for the required information. In turn, the student would have the opportunity to find related topics and keywords. How times have changed, but is it all for the better? Are our students researchers or regurgitators?
Presently, when a student comes to the library to do research he will go directly to a computer and double click on Google. The student will then type in his full inquiry and wait for the information to appear at his fingertips, where he can scan through the results. The ease at which this happens causes me, as a high school librarian, to question our students true ability to do research and think beyond the assignment. Do our students know if they are using the best keywords to find their information or are they just looking at the first few results that appear and using those sites out of conveniences, rather than scholarship? This is a question that haunts me, as I have taught numerous classes on research and finding the scholarly websites. Upon inquiry of students, I get mixed results; some are true researchers, others like Wikipedia. How do we inspire our students to think and really look at the information for more than just fulfilling an assignment, but furthering their own personal knowledge?
This past school year, I participated with another teacher in an iSearch lesson and was inspired by the students and their ability to research topics that were student driven. For this particular lesson, students were able to pick topics of their own choosing and had to focus on answering questions from other students in their class regarding their chosen topic. As a result, the students were invested in the research as they had their own questions, but wanted to provide answers to their fellow students questions too. They were given 2 days to research and 1 day to write, before presenting a speech to the class. As they began researching, we required every students to write 5 different keywords or search terms they could type into Google to find relevant research. This step made the students think about their research, as we learned that students often type full questions into Google and not keywords. Our students had a difficult time narrowing their research questions to just a few essential words.
This gives me pause, maybe we need to go back to teaching basic researching skills to make our students think about their assignments and to find meaning in our assignments to engage them in true research scholarship. Maybe we are assuming that previous teachers have appropriately taught our students to do research when that is not the case. Lessons like iSearch can help break down the research process and it fits perfectly with the technology that is available to us by give ownership to the students for the assignment, while enabling the research to be presented in a variety of ways. Technology is a blessing, in that we can access the world through our fingertips. As educators, we need to help our students harness this convenience and to use it to think deeply about their assignments presently, and their lives post high school. The ability to research is a life long skill."
Beth Dunbar
Library Media Specialist
Dauphin County Technical School
Beth (and Alicen), I've often wondered why we don't teach Boolean logic to students in the K-12 environment. What do you think about this?
ReplyDeleteI think it is an interesting thought, but to add one more thing to teach in an already full curriculum is daunting to me.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of teaching Boolean logic is a missed opportunity. It isn't a terribly complex skill to learn. It just needs time and practice to master the skills and to me the library would be the perfect place to learn this skill. I think the biggest challenge is that many schools no longer have a librarian to teach the skills that were taught to us growing up. Many of my high school students have no understanding of the Dewey Decimal System, because they have never been taught. This is just one of the small ways that not having professional led trained staff in libraries effects student learning. Boolean searching is so useful and could be incorporated into every subject, but like Alicen said by high school it is one more thing to add to an already packed curriculums and it it not part of any test, so it goes by the wayside.
ReplyDeleteTeaching students how to conduct digital research is huge but students do need to be taught how to best utilize it. Telling them to just go look it up will produce nothing but frustration for some. Students need to learn at a young age how to research information and it is up to the teachers to introduce it to them.
ReplyDeleteI love this posting and the discussion. I am happy to read about the efforts of this school librarian and the ways she is meeting the challenges. I often hear about the marginalization of school libraries by teachers and administrators, and the stories of some school libraries even closing. So it gives me hope to hear of these success stories. I agree that we simply must teach students effective ways of researching online through library and general web resources. If they don't have these skills they are at the mercy of whatever pops up first in Google. I often see first year students at the college where I teach who have very poor research skills from their schools. Many of them do not know how to do research beyond typing a few words into the Google search box and looking at the first page of results. They get a baptism by fire when we then jump into Boolean search strategies and selecting peer-reviewed resources.
ReplyDelete