My Vision for Learning in the 21st Century

Developing a Digital Resource for 21st Century Learning

(Academic Styles, 2015)

When I was a first year university student I did not feel as though high school prepared me for the rigours of academic writing, especially when it came to researching and citing sources. I actually failed my first English paper because I hadn't learned how to properly cite sources in MLA style while I was in high school. I spent the first few months of university in the library with the style manuals spending hours teaching myself how to cite sources in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles for all of the different courses I was in. Now that the BC curriculum is going to include prescribed learning outcomes for digital literacy, it is my hope that all students leaving high school for post secondary education or to start their career will have the requisite skills necessary to be successful in the 21st century.




Since I am not currently teaching in my own classroom or in a Teacher-Librarian position, I would like to develop a resource that can be used by both classroom teachers and Teacher-Librarians. After conducting a reading review on the topic of ethical online behaviour pertaining to citing sources, I decided that I would like to create a digital resource that the staff and students can access from work/school, at home, or even once they are attending university, that will guide them through proper research techniques. By creating this digital resource, it is my hope that this will help students understand proper research techniques and how to use digital tools that will assist them in writing a research paper. The BC Ministry of Education Digital Literacy Standards that my digital resource would primarily focus on are Research and Information Fluency, Digital Citizenship, and Technology Operations and Concepts.

(Burnaby South Admin Blog, 2010)

Key Elements

I'm still in the process of deciding how much information I want to include in my resource because I do not want it to be overwhelming for other teachers who plan on using it with their students. I many need to start small and gradually grow the resource one teachers have started using it. The University of Alberta's Guide to Developing Student Research Skills includes many of the key elements required for conducting proper research. I would like to focus on including several of these key components in my digital resource. A diagram of the research model is below:

Another source of information I came across was Scholastic's 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need which narrows down some of the key skills from above into the basic skills needed including: 1) Checking Sources, 2) Asking Good Questions, 3) Digging Deeper, 4) Being Patient, 5) Respecting Ownership, and 6) Using Networks. While these skills are pretty basic, I think this would be a good starting point for a digital resource that covers the main research skills needed for students. Another resource I consulted was Edudemic's Helping Students Become Better Online Researchers. One of the skills that I would like to include in my resource that was mentioned in this article is consulting an expert. The expert, of course, being the Teacher-Librarian. While I am hoping the students and staff would access this digital resource I'm creating from home, I think it is important that the students also have time in the library as a starting point for developing and/or increasing their research skills.

Format

I am planning on using a digital curation tool to compile the necessary resources for this project. I am hoping that the digital curation tool I choose (I can't decide between Symbaloo and PearlTrees) will be user friendly enough that even the staff members and students at my school who are not tech-savvy will still be able to access and use this resource with minimal problems. If I find that it is necessary to create a low-tech version of this assignment in order for more staff members to utilize this resource with their students, then I can do that at some point down the road. As for choosing a digital curation tool, I am leaning towards using Symbaloo because it is more widely know than PearlTrees and it has so many different options for embedding websites and tools. PearlTrees is another great option and I like that Word documents can be embedded directly, unlike Symbaloo which uses GoogleDocs. I haven't had too much time yet to explore all of the features both tools have to offer, so I will need to experiment with both tools in order to determine which one will work best for my audience. The following video explains the different features of both Symbaloo and PearlTrees:

(Bradley, 2015)

Audience

I would like to share this digital resource with my colleagues to begin with in order to ensure that this resource can be used throughout the school for a variety of subject areas. Once I have had a few colleagues try out the resource, I would like to share it with a broader audience. One of my goals is to start giving back to the online teaching community since I have "borrowed" so much from other teachers who post their resources online.

References

Academic Styles and Their Significance: Meet MLA, APA, Chicago, and EEE. (2015). Retrieved 12 November 2015, from https://studentshare.net/content/articles/academic-styles-and-their-significance-meet-mla-apa-chicago-and-ieee/

A Guide to Developing Student Research Skills. (n.d.). University of Alberta. Retrieved 12 November 2015, from http://www.library.ualberta.ca/documents/focusonresearch.pdf

BC Ministry of Education. (2010). Profile of Digitally Literate Students. Retrieved 11 November 2015, from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/dist_learning/1012profile.htm

Bradley, P. (2015). A Guide to Creating Pages in Symbaloo and Pearltrees - Social Media for Creative Libraries. Facet Publishing. Retrieved 12 November 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqVolGKuUcs

Hudson, H. (2015). The 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need. Scholastic Teach with Technology. Retrieved 12 November 2015, from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/6-online-research-skills-your-students-need

Muthler, S. (2015). Helping Students Become Better Online Researchers. Edudemic. Retrieved 12 November 2015, from http://www.edudemic.com/students-better-online-researchers/

The 21st Century Learner. (2010). Burnaby South Admin Blog. Retrieved 10 November 2015, from https://burnabysouthadmin.wordpress.com/tag/21st-century-learning/