Proposal for Implementation: "Resource Discovery to Resource Creation: a mashup"
Tamara Cameron, Teacher- Librarian, York House School Library
Introduction
This proposal is to fulfill the partial requirements of the course 5 Weeks to a Social Library. My objective upon entering the course was to research ways to make our library website more interactive as a learning tool for students.
Technologies
The technologies proposed include RSS and Social Bookmarking with the ultimate end of producing a wiki. This wiki will not be a formal subject guide, as a perceived organizational formality may hinder participation. Del.icio.us and RSS will be used to "push" resources to the shared space of a wiki. This technology can save both time and money, and capitalize on the knowledge of both students and staff. Del.icio.us is basically an online database of webpages, without the need to upload or copy/paste URLs. RSS is a webfeed used when sources are frequently updated. A common account will be set up so that resources are pushed using RSS to a drafting page of a wiki. At any time various people may be tagging resources, so RSS precludes the need to continuously check for new resources. The advantage is efficiency, you only get requested information.
Service
Our library patron base consists of both students and teachers. The primary purpose of the wiki will be to facilitate resource discovery and sharing.
Students
Students can begin to create a knowledge base of websites and electronic resources they have found useful in completing their topics. It is possible to make submission to the wiki a requirement of their research projects. Using the 'comments' feature, students could add an opinion or differing viewpoint, or provide additional facts they believe are pertinent. This additional information may increase points of access when the wiki is searched. Tagging resources is a way to increase students' understanding of topic-based description of resources.The value of the wiki over the blog is that resources can be categorized (and-recategorized) more easily.
Teachers
Stage 1: The teacher dimension is similar except that the wiki will be used for the quick compiling of lesson materials, and learning objects. A collaborative space on the wiki may facilitate resource sharing amongst teachers.
Stage 2: The benefit of the wiki is its ability to expand. We have two educational areas, information literacy and environmental education, to focus on as part of an internal wiki. Because these are not part of the 'graded' curriculum, integration into curriculum is necessarily problematic. A separate education task force has been created. It is our goal to link student outcomes with appropriate learning materials.
"DART is unlike other gradebook or student information systems since it is completely learner-centered, not tied to staff or school schedules, and provides a intuitive interface for tracking standards, and how those standards relate to other data collected by our organization. It also links relative student weaknesses directly to instructional resources on this wiki, and permits students, teachers and administrators to both assess current status, and plan for meaningful instruction in an easy to understand, dynamic, personalized manner."
Evidence
- The Information Literacy wiki uses basic general themes to link to more specific sub-themes to organize its resources.
- The Instructional Resources Wiki demonstrates how a wiki can be used to organize resources by grade level and subject. Obviously a 'natural born' classificationist!
- The Teacher Librarian wiki uses the basic table of contents approach on their home page.
- Chad's Biz Wiki uses a directory approach, drilling down (or searching) to find articles. The main benefit I see to 'cataloguing' resources on separate pages is the ability to keep usage statistics.
Institutional Barriers
Training
Students can be taught to tag web resources during their information search sessions in the library. The del.icio.us buttons have been installed in the browsers. They will not have to learn how to RSS since they will be asked to use a common del.icio.us account. The resources will go to a single drafting page where comments can be added. The lack of familiarity with the applications can only be addressed through the "what's in it for me" principle. The wiki must be advertised, constantly promoted, and the benefits made clear.
Culture
The most probable way to gain student acceptance is to make the procedure a mandatory requirement in their research process. For teachers to buy into this student model, it would be needed to show the helpfulness in regards to plagiarism (they can easily re-locate resources), proper citation of web formats, and evaluation of resources.
The concept of resource sharing is also a barrier, especially in regards to sharing of personally developed instructional resources. Access and editing are known items of contention in regards to 'student vandalism.' Lack of communication and trust amongst staff members will also manifest itself in the online space (Tonkin, 2005).
A small group of teachers will be asked to come on board in order to initiate content and discussion. Change in communication patterns within the organization must start with a committed few.
Software
PBwiki will be used because of its simplicity. It has fairly sophisticated access controls. As this is a resource discovery wiki, ease of us is a priority. It is very simple to upload word documents and attachments, thus will suit the 'resource creation' aspect. PBwiki also allows full HTML, and is capable of accepting Java Script. Internal commenting would be a nice feature to have, and MediaWiki is the second alternative.
Policy Issues
Our school's Internet Acceptable Use Policy may have to be amended to include ethical treatment of social editing tools. The external wiki will be generally available on our intranet; however, it will be monitored for inappropriate content.
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