Newsletter Archives

 

Issue 4 2007

With or without leave – Setting up for research at the outset

Dr Susan Boyce's  study was based in professional practice during her time at Caulfield Grammar School, Melbourne. Recently retired from her position with the School of Education, Faculty of Education at Deakin University, Susan shares her journey as a researcher - a story that is warm, knowing and encouraging

Undertaking research at post-graduate level, whilst working full time, particularly as a teacher, may well seem a daunting task, but it is something I managed to do - without taking leave. This is a personal story, and it might sound rather smug, but bear with me, the story is short and the moral may be useful.

I’m not pretending that life was not a grind for a lot of the time during my courses of study. Of course, postgraduate study at the level of Master and Doctoral degrees cannot be achieved without dedication, discipline and putting in the hours – which is what I did – at night, weekends and throughout most of the school holidays. But what I should confess is the private pleasure I experienced in recapturing my concentration in the process. Isn’t it true that constant interruption of thought is the very essence of parenthood, of classroom teaching and especially of library work? Whilst I claim to have exerted dedication and self-discipline, perhaps I should also admit to an obsessive, preoccupied immersion and the satisfying intensity of orchestrating and negotiating my way through the intricacies of a very large problem-solving project, in my own, uninterrupted realm of deep thought. I should explain that I returned to study at a very favourable time of my life and within a very propitious set of circumstances, which, together, benefited the quality of both the study and the experience. 

My four children had all become reasonably independent with lives of their own, my partner had taken up rowing and I had the benefit of almost two decades of professional experience during a period of great social and cultural change. 

Study and academic research gave me the opportunity and where-with-all to make sense of these changes, opening sight lines in and around the future. But that wasn’t all. Because my workplace was my data pool, life there suddenly became hyper-interesting.  It wasn’t just that I was wallowing, more often drowning, in data-rich whirlpool of culture, politics and power (integral to a study of communications and technologies), I also came to realise that I was developing a split identity.

As librarian and a member of the school community, I was an insider but as an academic researcher, bringing critical self-reflexive awareness to my inquiry, I was simultaneously an outsider. With this dual means of being ‘in the know’, my loyalty hovered perilously around the paradox of sometimes being complicit in the very situations under critique. 

But this is what made life so interesting, and surely it is this very ambiguity that marks the post-modern researcher – immersed as an actor in the daily particulars of institutional life on the one hand and involved in a critical re-thinking about the institution on the other.

 

Diplomacy in practitioner research

Which brings me now to the more prosaic politics and diplomacy of in-house research. 

Bear in mind that your colleagues may not necessarily share your interest in, or conviction about, the benefits of your research. Remember that you are ploughing their field as well as your own. Tread carefully.

Keep your Principal informed about your processes as well as your progress. As manager of the estate, he/she may perceive your research as having all the potential of a public audit. Clarify, early in the piece, whether study leave could be an option at a later stage. After all, the Principal, responsible for the smooth running of the estate, employed you for a particular purpose and may be sensitive about sanctioning your absence and creating a precedent.

In retrospect, I have to smile at the heady breathlessness of covering all contingencies and I wonder why my family never told me to get a life. Perhaps they could see that I was beyond redemption. Would it have helped if I had taken leave, taken a break to hasten the work along, or at least to get a perspective on myself? I don’t think so. The truth is, I loved it. I couldn’t bear to stay away.

So, the moral of my story is this. If you are going to embark on a research project that will be as time-consuming and demanding as a Master or Doctoral degree should be, set it up so that it will be an experience you can enjoy, so that the rewards might be found in the process as much as in the final relief of a satisfying completion. Check that your circumstances and timing will allow you to make the most of this adventurous opportunity.

Don’t lose heart, nurture that little flame of enthusiasm and courage, and if you need to take leave – ask for it.

SB

 

Issue 3 2007

Web 2.0 - What’s going on?

Judy OConnellJudy O’Connell is the John H Lee Memorial Award Winner for 2007. Judy won this prestigious award for the innovative work she has done within the Parramatta Diocese in bringing teaching and executive teams together with students in gainfully using the power of Web 2.0. Her following article examines the power of Web 2.0.
 
The Internet was once mostly about surfing from one static Web site to another while collecting or viewing data along the way.  But now users share information, collaborate on content and converse worldwide via social-software tools.
 
Actually, over the last few years, our relationship with the Web has been changing dramatically!  Simple new technologies like blogs, wikis, podcasts, flickr, del.icio.ous, podcasts and more, are allowing us to not only create content like audio, text and video more easily, they are also allowing us to publish and share that content on the Web with very little effort.
 
We’re entering the age of the Read/Write Web, and this Web 2.0 world is one in which contributing knowledge is as easy as consuming it.  Learners are co-learners and co-authors in this type of environment making it possible for learners to collaborate and generate new knowledge or build expert domains by a community of practice. 
 
We have many options to participate and publish and these technologies are often described as social software.  So our learning and teaching is shifting to absorb social software tools for creating collaborative knowledge spaces, where learners can access people and knowledge in ways that encourage creative and reflective learning practices that extend
beyond the boundaries of the school, and beyond the limits of formal education.
 
Web 2.0 provides the opportunity to shake off old models of technology use and capitalise on new opportunities for creativity and innovation in an online world.  Web 2.0 is giving our learners, our teachers and our libraries options never before possible.
 
The social web: learning together
Knowing our students is no easy task in the early years of the 21st century.  Whether it is blogs or wikis or RSS, all roads now point to a Web where little is done in isolation and all things are collaborative and social in nature.  
 
The Youtube and Myspace generation is leading the way in creating new forms of social networking and community-based learning.  School and home life are no longer compartmentalised and so our approach to learning needs to adopt the same flexibility and online permanence for lifelong learning.  
 
Two prominent collaborative tools being used in education are wiki and blogs.
 
Weblogs (blogs) are a very popular Web 2.0 tool and are used in education as a way of sharing or managing information and promoting literacy and learning.  Blogs can be used to communicate, showcase student work, collaborate, demonstrate analysis and synthesis and promote as well as develop peer involvement. They allow students to publish their work, present ideas, record events, promote podcasts (their own audio or media files), offer commentary, share images, experience fieldtrips and more.  Blogs have proven to be a highly effective medium for fostering a professional learning community and a personal learning environment. 
 
Wikis are also popular and a useful way of sharing and creating knowledge, or managing a project.  Wiki software allows students to easily upload content to the internet, with the important addition that it is then editable by other readers.  The best know wiki of all, wikipedia, is an online encyclopaedia which shows the power of collaborative action.
 
Wiki, more than anything, can promote collaboration and group work and are an ideal way for Teacher Librarians to organise and present information resources for students.  Students can easily create and use a wiki for topic areas, projects or assessments, or to share experiences.  Our teachers have recognised the importance of good wiki and are looking for opportunities to get wiki-kids into action!
 
RSS – coming, ready or not!
Imagine having the latest headlines and updates from your favourite websites or blogs delivered to your desktop. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, an XML formatting language which allows users to subscribe to sites that offer ‘feeds’ of new content.  You can use a ‘feed reader’ to see any new
content from a range of web pages or subscriptions.
So an RSS Reader acts as an aggregator.  RSS services allow distribution of information and can be used effectively to disseminate newsletters, podcasts, or information alerts. RSS lets the student or teacher control what content they need in their personal learning space.  Parents too can join in the blog community, and keep up-to-date with the ‘doing and thinking’ of the learning spaces of their child.
 
RSS has also made it possible to podcast (broadcast) audio to wider and more specialised interest groups.  Podcasts are available for download to personal computers or mp3 players for entertainment or information.  Students are beginning to produce podcasts to share their work and display their knowledge and enthusiasm to their peers.  Students love to have their say and podcasting allows them to do this in digital style.
 
Fast forward – facts and flicks
Social bookmarking allows learners and teachers to share their internet bookmarks or favourites to a public website rather than searching bookmarks stored on a personal computer.  Users have the option of adding tags (keywords) to help define the information and improve the organisation and sharing of the information.  While different social bookmarking sites encourage different uses, social bookmarking opens the door to new ways of organising information and categorising resources.  Teachers and teacher librarians at many schools are branching into these new ways of working online 24/7, using Del.icio.us, preparing and sharing their knowledge with transparent ease.
 
And of course, pictures or images are a vital part of our visual world.  Learners have easy access to a pool of images in Flickr, or have a place to store images for their projects, school excursions, or school events.  Not to be outdone, teachers also share video snaps through TeacherTube or other media sharing sites.
 
What does this all mean?
Today we are witnessing the demand for new ways of learning and teaching in school and outside school driven by the emergence of new forms of Web 2.0 read/write technologies.  We need to ask ourselves whether what we teach and how we teach is a sound basis for engaging our digitally native students.
 
The learning agenda in today’s world is totally new, totally engaging, totally global and totally personal.  The story of this wave of innovation known as Web 2.0 is still developing.  What is certain is that nothing will ever be the same in the learning landscape of our schools – and that teacher librarians are embarking on a significant journey of challenge and change together, affirming the importance of our work and the value of shared inspiration.
 
Judy’s Sites
 
 
Resources  
Richardson, Will (2006) Blogs, wikis and podcasts and otherpowerful web tools for classrooms. California: Corwin Press.
 
 
 
 
 

Issue 2 2007

PLUG IN - LISTEN TO LEARN

Adele Falconer, Head of information Services, The King's School bought the requisite MP3 tools when she became interested in the power of digitally delivered curriculum content.  As a daily commuter, she began to listen to podcasts of documentaries that she had missed.  As an avid reader, she downloaded audiobooks - the commute to work and back home again has taken on a new meaning as those precious hours lost in travelling are now used to catch up on the news of the day and her 'reading'.  The offshoot was Adele's interest in the power of listening and the outcome was her undertaking of a literature review investigating the value of  developing listening as a n essential literacy.
 
 
We can see the evidence: kids love audio. Just look around to see the extra bits attached to their ears these days. But whatever is going in has them engaged. And listening is as important as chatting.
 
The Art of Listening
Listening is an undervalued art, perhaps because of its seeming passivity.  Listening is recognised, however, as a valuable literacy in our increasingly multi-modal world (Board of Studies NSW English 7-10 Syllabus, 2003). Interestingly, fifth grade listening ability has been identified as a predictor of high school performance (Anderson et al. 1985, in Beers 1998)
 
Prensky’s digital natives (2001) are increasingly ‘tuned-in’ throughout their daily lives; students find myriad opportunities to listen, including in their role as commuters en route to school, home and holiday destinations (McCormick 1996; Varley 2002).
 
The popularity of digital MP3 players and the availability of digital audio content offer unprecedented opportunities for teachers to engage students in listening activities. But would they be meaningful activities?
 
Is listening really of value in the classroom?
 
The Value of Listening
A review of the literature uncovered significant and at times evocative comments about listening as a valuable learning strategy.
 
1.  Listening is a medium in its own right for both content acquisition and enjoyment:
 
  • Listening can provide an extra literacy for all students, increasing their understanding of subject content material (see study by Boyle 2003).
  • Listening meets the needs of the 30% of students who have been identified as auditory learners (Dunn & Dunn 1993 in Chen 2004) and use of audio content therefore demonstrates teacher respect for differing learning styles.
  • Listening is an especially effective learning tool for boys.  While girls’ recall is not hampered by the mode of content presentation, boys’ recall after listening and after reading aloud is better than their recall after silent reading; also, boys’ recall after listening was as least as good as girls’ (Johnson 1982).  
  • Listening is a way to enjoy both fiction and non-fiction content when unable to read print such as when commuting or exercising.  Adult audio fans are generally avid readers who listen when they could not otherwise be reading (Aron 1992); the two activities fill different needs and those who do both often cannot remember later whether they read a particular book or listened to it (Varley 2002).
 2.  Listening can be a scaffold in overcoming barriers to reading: 
  •  Listening can increase motivation.  Audiobooks provide a taster of fluent reading by removing the difficulty that poor readers have in moving beyond the mechanics of reading to the enjoyment of the action of the story (Allen 2000).  Audiobooks can also enable students to experience success in reading (Beers 1998).  Remember that for older beginning readers, the memory of past struggles in reading is hard to overcome (Baskin & Harris 1995).  
  • Listening can overcome text complexity.  Audiobooks can bridge the gap between reading and listening vocabulary, allowing students access to age appropriate literature which would otherwise be beyond their reading ability (Baskin & Harris 1995).  By facilitating access to the content of books, audiobooks enable students to participate in classroom discussions with their peers, an important step in their learning (Beers 1998).  Even able readers are challenged at times by such features as unfamiliar names or words and complicated sentence or narrative structure in books.  Many textual features (such as accented speech, tone, sarcasm and humour) are enhanced through audio rendition, bringing greater comprehension (Baskin and Harris 1995).  
  • Listening can improve reading strategies. Reading aloud to children is seen as a single most important activity for building knowledge required to become a reader (Anderson et al. 1985, in Beers 1998).  To older students, listening while reading offers the opportunity to hear fluent reading modelled and to practice reading both independently and often.

Listening as a learning and teaching strategy
Teachers in general have reservations about using audiobooks which appear to stem from several perceptions (Cox 1996):

  •  the seeming passivity of the act,
  •  the perceived interpretive nature of audiobooks, and
  •  teacher unfamiliarity with medium.
 
The active nature of listening (vs. hearing) is seen in an audiobook listener’s ability to keep track of characters, settings and plot in a story which may last for hours (Chen 2004). As well Varley (2002) discovered that the brain’s short term memory works harder in listening than in reading
 
Teachers readily use video in classrooms to add meaning to texts studied and are able to draw comparisons and conclusions from students regarding various interpretations and emphases; this does not often extend to using audiobooks which may be used to similar effect.
 
Summary
The literature strongly suggests that listening has a valid place in learning and teaching.  Audio is a means of conveying content material to all students.  Audio can also overcome barriers to reading such as lack of motivation, text complexity and lack of reading strategies.  As well, students can gain different insights from an audio version of a text than from their own interrogation of print version.
 
Audiobooks are one of the longest-standing media available to teachers and have evolved to use the most up-to-date and popular technology available, thus warranting, as Baskin & Harris (1995 p. 373) note, examination into:
 
how its unique properties could be harnessed to enhance the learning environments of the secondary classroom - not just as an attractive alternative to the usual presentation of literature but as a basic instructional tool.
 
And finally, because young people are fast to uptake new technologies, audiobooks, podcasts and MP3 files merge with powerful classroom potential.
 
So smile when the kids are plugged in .  They are developing an important literacy!
 
References
Allen, J 2000, Yellow brick roads: Shared and guided paths to independent reading 4-12. Stenhouse: Portland ME.
 
Aron, H 1992, Bookworms become Tapeworms: A profile of listeners to books on audiocassette, Journal of Reading, 36, 3, pp. 208-212.
 
Baskin, BH & Harris, K 1995, Heard any good books lately? The case for audiobooks in the secondary classroom. [electronic version] Journal of Reading, 38, 4, pp. 372-376, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Beers, K 1998, Listen while you read: Struggling readers and audiobooks. [electronic version] School Library Journal, 44, 4, pp. 30-35, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Board of Studies NSW 2003, English Years 7-10 Syllabus, accessed online <http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/english_710_syllabus.pdf> 18 May 2006
 
Boyle, EA, Rosenberg, MS, Connelly, VJ, Washburn, SG, Brinckerhoff, LC & Banerjee, M 2003, Effects of audio texts on the acquisition of secondary-level content by students with mild disabilities. [electronic version] Learning Disability Quarterly, 26, 3, Summer, pp. 203-214, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Chen, SL 2004, Improving reading skills through audiobooks. [ electronic version] School Library Media Activities Monthly, 21, 1 pp. 22-25, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Cox, R 1996,  Audiotaped versions of children’s stories. [electronic version] Children’s Literature in Education, 27, 1, pp. 23-33, retrieved from EBSCO database 28 November 2005.
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Johnson, S 1982, Listening and reading: The recall of 7 to 9 year-olds. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 52, pp. 24-32.
 
McCormick, M 1996, Classic children’s literature abounds on audio. [electronic version] Billboard, 108, 31, pp. 80-81, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Prensky, M 2001, Digital natives, digital immigrants.  On the Horizon, 9, 5, viewed 6 October 2005, <http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf>.
 
Rickelman, RJ & Henk, WA 1990, Children’s literature and audio/visual technologies. [electronic version] The Reading Teacher, 43, 9, May, pp. 682-684, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
 
Varley, P 2002, As good as reading? Kids and the audiobook revolution. [electronic version] The Horn Book Magazine, 78, 3, May-June pp. 251-262, retrieved from ProQuest database 24 November 2005.
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