I've called this a "beta test" before. The project has kinks -- not all of it was a success (Great Philosophical Crisis of '14, anyone?), and there are things that need my immediate attention before we get started again for next semester.
But that's just it: I want to keep this going.
I'm also wondering what else we could do on similar platforms; I have all of the students join Goodreads at the beginning of every semester, so they have a sort of "reader's social network." What if we switched our library blog (whose traffic has been pitiful this semester) over to a wiki, using something like Weebly? SMA's could post book reviews, book trailers...all kinds of cool stuff.
I'm also wondering about whether or not we should leave old pages up; before, I mentioned that Weebly didn't seem to have a page limit for sites, but eventually, if we don't weed some of them out, it's going to be unwieldy...and that's on the off chance that we don't reach a limit for pages. Would we keep everything, then, and find a way to organize sites and sources? I like the idea of keeping a digital archive, like Dewey Browse...but I also wonder about things like link maintenance. We could have students fill out a broken link report form, and have SMA's find replacement sites for any that suddenly don't work... it's a thought.
Over all, the beta test taught us a lot about what needs to be happening in the RRS, and in the library. So. in order to keep the RRS going, we're going to have to adapt and learn from our success and failures.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Hindsight is 20/20.
Looking back on the RRS, the survey results, the Great Philosphical Crisis of '14... there are a lot of things we should do differently next go 'round.
1. Sources. A goal for the coming months is to beef up our existing collection with better texts and/or periodicals. To ensure that we get what we need, I think I'm going to try and survey teachers, particularly senior project teachers. I want to know what topics they see over and over again, what topics we really need to address in our collection -- (I've mentioned welding before; it's pretty popular, and we have absolutely zilch on the subject).
2. Better thesis help from SMA's. I've got to find a way to better educate the SMA's, so that they, in turn, can assist with reference interviews.
3. Better grading system for the SMA's. I need more specific requirements for the SMA's; maybe everyone should be in charge of turning in an RRS portfolio at the end of the semester, where they help at least three patrons and complete a set amount of paperwork (web eval forms, reflections, possibly keep a blog on the process, etc.).
4. START EARLIER. We are GOING to make this work for the senior project next semester, I am DETERMINED.
1. Sources. A goal for the coming months is to beef up our existing collection with better texts and/or periodicals. To ensure that we get what we need, I think I'm going to try and survey teachers, particularly senior project teachers. I want to know what topics they see over and over again, what topics we really need to address in our collection -- (I've mentioned welding before; it's pretty popular, and we have absolutely zilch on the subject).
2. Better thesis help from SMA's. I've got to find a way to better educate the SMA's, so that they, in turn, can assist with reference interviews.
3. Better grading system for the SMA's. I need more specific requirements for the SMA's; maybe everyone should be in charge of turning in an RRS portfolio at the end of the semester, where they help at least three patrons and complete a set amount of paperwork (web eval forms, reflections, possibly keep a blog on the process, etc.).
4. START EARLIER. We are GOING to make this work for the senior project next semester, I am DETERMINED.
Survey Says...
Survey results are in.
Here was the breakdown:
Question 1: How would you rank the resources you received through the RRS?
Not helpful at all: 17.65%
Only Slightly Helpful: 5.88%
Somewhat Helpful: 35.29%
Helpful, but could be better: 23.53%
Very Helpful: 17.65%
As expected, we need to work on our resources. Partly, I think this was because of the lack of vocational sources. Partly, though, I think it's because kids don't realize that just because we're finding sources for them doesn't mean that they are exempt from reading. There was a disconnect with some students; reading is a HUGE struggle for some kids, and handing them a book on ancient Rome in general when their topic was on ancient Roman technology meant that they were actually going to have to read to find information.
Question 2: How would you rate the thesis help you received through the RRS?
Not helpful at all: 5.88%
Only slightly helpful: 5.88%
Somewhat helpful: 35.29%
Orange: Helpful, but could be better: 35.39%
Very Helpful: 17.65%
Better results on this one, probably because there was a lot of one-on-one thesis help going on here. Still not perfect.
Question 3: Suggestion box! How can we make the RRS better?
Mixed response here. Some kids wanted more print resources, some more web resources. One wanted me to find a way to outlaw essays altogether. If the survey weren't anonymous, I would tell him/her sorry, no can do.
Question 4: Would you use the RRS again in the future, and/or recommend it to someone else?
Near universal on this one. Not sure what we did to wrong the one who said no, but not everyone left comments, either, so....who knows?
Here was the breakdown:
Question 1: How would you rank the resources you received through the RRS?
Not helpful at all: 17.65%
Only Slightly Helpful: 5.88%
Somewhat Helpful: 35.29%
Helpful, but could be better: 23.53%
Very Helpful: 17.65%
As expected, we need to work on our resources. Partly, I think this was because of the lack of vocational sources. Partly, though, I think it's because kids don't realize that just because we're finding sources for them doesn't mean that they are exempt from reading. There was a disconnect with some students; reading is a HUGE struggle for some kids, and handing them a book on ancient Rome in general when their topic was on ancient Roman technology meant that they were actually going to have to read to find information.
Question 2: How would you rate the thesis help you received through the RRS?
Not helpful at all: 5.88%
Only slightly helpful: 5.88%
Somewhat helpful: 35.29%
Orange: Helpful, but could be better: 35.39%
Very Helpful: 17.65%
Better results on this one, probably because there was a lot of one-on-one thesis help going on here. Still not perfect.
Question 3: Suggestion box! How can we make the RRS better?
Mixed response here. Some kids wanted more print resources, some more web resources. One wanted me to find a way to outlaw essays altogether. If the survey weren't anonymous, I would tell him/her sorry, no can do.
Question 4: Would you use the RRS again in the future, and/or recommend it to someone else?
Near universal on this one. Not sure what we did to wrong the one who said no, but not everyone left comments, either, so....who knows?
The Survey
Evaluating projects like this is always a bit hard. Verbal feedback is well and good, but surveys, I think, are the way to go. That way, feedback (and the project's successes and failures) are a bit more quantifiable.
The survey is based on four questions.
1. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being very helpful, how would you rate the sources provided to you by the RRS?
The idea here is to quantify how successful we were in finding students useful sources. Hopefully, the good stuff we found for them will inspire them to move on to better their own research skills in the future.
The idea here is to quantify how successful we were in finding students useful sources. Hopefully, the good stuff we found for them will inspire them to move on to better their own research skills in the future.
2. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being very helpful, how would you rate the thesis help you received through the RRS?
Since I did most of the thesis help stuff, I'm now wondering how to add that to the next phase of the project -- how do I easily create a teaching tool for SMA's to bear some of the thesis help burden, and make them better thesis-writers in the process?
Since I did most of the thesis help stuff, I'm now wondering how to add that to the next phase of the project -- how do I easily create a teaching tool for SMA's to bear some of the thesis help burden, and make them better thesis-writers in the process?
3. Would you consider using the RRS again in the future, and/or recommending it to someone else?
If kids hated it, thought it was a massive waste of time, I want to know. That way, I can overhaul it and/or scrap it for something better.
4. Give us a suggestion on how we could improve the RRS.
Oh, how high school students love open-ended questions!
If kids hated it, thought it was a massive waste of time, I want to know. That way, I can overhaul it and/or scrap it for something better.
4. Give us a suggestion on how we could improve the RRS.
Oh, how high school students love open-ended questions!
To Turn In or Not To Turn In?
When we did the website evaluation lesson, the students breezed through the quiz like nobody's business, and answered questions appropriately. One of the requirements for website evaluation, if it didn't meet obvious criteria (reputable/well known media outlet/museum, etc.) was to fill out a checklist (put together by the ITS and myself) adapted from Kathy Schrock's guide to website evaluation. What I can't decide is whether or not the students should turn it in every time they fill one out.
The checklist is pretty comprehensive; hopefully, it will very efficiently weed out the bad websites. However, we have a LOT going on in the library, and I'm not sure if it defeats the purpose of having the SMA's do this project to grade the website evaluation checklist every time they have to use it.
For example: the whole point here was to get kids to be better researchers AND to save time by educating the SMA's to be examples of good research -- to have them work as my own team of research-librarian minions. If I have to go behind them and check on everything they do, individually, that's going to be a pile of paperwork, particularly after the lack of guaranteed-reliable resources discovered during the Great Philosophical Crisis of '14. However, I don't want students to make a massive mistake and pass it on to other students under the guise of reliability -- I have to remember that the SMA's are, after all, students. They are not professional reference librarians.
Maybe a compromise could be reached? Instead of a full-on thorough grading of the checklist, I could just require they turn one in and keep it on file for every website evaluated?
It's a consideration.
The checklist is pretty comprehensive; hopefully, it will very efficiently weed out the bad websites. However, we have a LOT going on in the library, and I'm not sure if it defeats the purpose of having the SMA's do this project to grade the website evaluation checklist every time they have to use it.
For example: the whole point here was to get kids to be better researchers AND to save time by educating the SMA's to be examples of good research -- to have them work as my own team of research-librarian minions. If I have to go behind them and check on everything they do, individually, that's going to be a pile of paperwork, particularly after the lack of guaranteed-reliable resources discovered during the Great Philosophical Crisis of '14. However, I don't want students to make a massive mistake and pass it on to other students under the guise of reliability -- I have to remember that the SMA's are, after all, students. They are not professional reference librarians.
Maybe a compromise could be reached? Instead of a full-on thorough grading of the checklist, I could just require they turn one in and keep it on file for every website evaluated?
It's a consideration.
Battle of the Wiki Sites: Weebly vs. Wikispaces
When we got all of this started, I opted for Wikispaces to host our RRS wiki. I've used it before, in my classroom, and my experiences have more or less been positive.
The kids kind of shot this idea out of the sky.
When I used wikispaces last year for a collaborative project with an art teacher, we had students a.) create awesome digital posters b.) embed them onto their own page on the project wiki c.) create a QR code advertising the site. The reason I had them create digital posters? Wikispaces allowed me to add several editors to the wiki (the students who were participating), but it wasn't pretty. The site had the barest of bare-bones formatting; basic text, basic image uploads, no flashy templates. Making digital posters (using Glogster, Smore, etc.) and embedding them was one way to circumvent the general blandness Wikispaces' pages.
The students this go 'round, however, had been using Weebly in various classes instead. I had only a base knowledge of Weebly and how it worked, and I was under the impression that it was a way to build really attractive websites, but with only one editor and a limited number of pages. The kids proved me wrong in seconds flat.
First off, Weebly is most definitely prettier than Wikispaces -- it has dozens of eye-catching templates and several different options for pages within those templates (for the RRS wiki, I chose one with a stock-image of a hiker in the mountains -- perfect for a former Boonie's pathfinder page). Second, I was wrong about pages; as far as we can tell, the pages are unlimited. We can add as many as we want. And third, perhaps most importantly, I can invite as many editors as I need to -- just like Wikispaces.
Sorry, Wikispaces. Looks like Weebly won this round.
The kids kind of shot this idea out of the sky.
When I used wikispaces last year for a collaborative project with an art teacher, we had students a.) create awesome digital posters b.) embed them onto their own page on the project wiki c.) create a QR code advertising the site. The reason I had them create digital posters? Wikispaces allowed me to add several editors to the wiki (the students who were participating), but it wasn't pretty. The site had the barest of bare-bones formatting; basic text, basic image uploads, no flashy templates. Making digital posters (using Glogster, Smore, etc.) and embedding them was one way to circumvent the general blandness Wikispaces' pages.
The students this go 'round, however, had been using Weebly in various classes instead. I had only a base knowledge of Weebly and how it worked, and I was under the impression that it was a way to build really attractive websites, but with only one editor and a limited number of pages. The kids proved me wrong in seconds flat.
First off, Weebly is most definitely prettier than Wikispaces -- it has dozens of eye-catching templates and several different options for pages within those templates (for the RRS wiki, I chose one with a stock-image of a hiker in the mountains -- perfect for a former Boonie's pathfinder page). Second, I was wrong about pages; as far as we can tell, the pages are unlimited. We can add as many as we want. And third, perhaps most importantly, I can invite as many editors as I need to -- just like Wikispaces.
Sorry, Wikispaces. Looks like Weebly won this round.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Thesis Help Is Hard.
Well, it is.
Fortunately, I knew this already, and it was not a surprise. But...as the Great Philosophical Crisis of '14 denotes, I had a hard time striking the balance between getting students to rewrite their thesis statements... and conceding that their statements were fine and our collection was where things were amiss. One of the articles I read during my exploration phase described a class of students who changed their topics completely (drastic changes -- one, if memory serves, switched from "music's physical and emotional effects" to "Mexican food") simply because of the lack of resources.
With the internet at our disposal, in everything from online encyclopedias to ordering print books, it seems ridiculous that that student couldn't just amend or refine his/her thesis -- keep it in the general area, but perhaps make the research/paper-writing process a bit easier for everyone.
This is harder than it sounds.
As a result, the vast majority of thesis help in our reference interviews has gone straight to me -- the SMA's, many of whom are concerned with their own senior projects, had a hard time refining/writing their own thesis statements, and so it is left to the English-teacher-come-librarian.
Fortunately, I knew this already, and it was not a surprise. But...as the Great Philosophical Crisis of '14 denotes, I had a hard time striking the balance between getting students to rewrite their thesis statements... and conceding that their statements were fine and our collection was where things were amiss. One of the articles I read during my exploration phase described a class of students who changed their topics completely (drastic changes -- one, if memory serves, switched from "music's physical and emotional effects" to "Mexican food") simply because of the lack of resources.
With the internet at our disposal, in everything from online encyclopedias to ordering print books, it seems ridiculous that that student couldn't just amend or refine his/her thesis -- keep it in the general area, but perhaps make the research/paper-writing process a bit easier for everyone.
This is harder than it sounds.
As a result, the vast majority of thesis help in our reference interviews has gone straight to me -- the SMA's, many of whom are concerned with their own senior projects, had a hard time refining/writing their own thesis statements, and so it is left to the English-teacher-come-librarian.
Philosophical Crisis, Part 4: The Quest for a Solution
And now, what is (hopefully) the solution.
Before we get started on this next semester, I am (hopefully) going to add at least a few helpful resources to some vocational topics that I know will appear next semester.
I started exploring Amazon.
Sure enough, the second I did, I found books on all of the needed vocational topics: HVAC installation/maintenance, car stereo systems, etc. Welding, interestingly, is a popular topic, as the local community college (and by local, I mean literally across the street) offers a great welding course of study -- I even found books on welding for everything from engineering to art.
Of course, I'll have to adhere to our CDP -- finding reviews to ensure that these materials are quality, etc., before I buy them. But I am more than a little depressed that of all our resources, the only ones we could find were from outside sources.
Another possibility to consider? Re-subscribing to periodicals. When I started working here, the previous librarian had cancelled all magazine subscriptions, citing that no one used them. That's probably true. However, how great would it have been if we had an archive of the past year's issues of Golf Magazine for my golf researcher, or of Car and Driver for my auto-mechanic researchers? That would have been fantastic.
Here is what I learned from the entirety of the Philosophical Crisis:
1. I profoundly dislike how my library neglects/ignores vocational topics, and would like to change it, post-haste. The way to do that is to find out what we need and find a way to fill that need.
2. It's a darn good thing I had the kids study web evaluation, because we relied solely on outside-of-the-library web sources for several of these topics.
3. We shouldn't HAVE to rely solely on the internet for sources; if a librarian knows his/her patrons and community, the collection should reflect their needs.
That's the bottom line, right there: if I know my community, my patrons, and my school, my library's collection should reflect their needs.
I'm on it.
Before we get started on this next semester, I am (hopefully) going to add at least a few helpful resources to some vocational topics that I know will appear next semester.
I started exploring Amazon.
Sure enough, the second I did, I found books on all of the needed vocational topics: HVAC installation/maintenance, car stereo systems, etc. Welding, interestingly, is a popular topic, as the local community college (and by local, I mean literally across the street) offers a great welding course of study -- I even found books on welding for everything from engineering to art.
Of course, I'll have to adhere to our CDP -- finding reviews to ensure that these materials are quality, etc., before I buy them. But I am more than a little depressed that of all our resources, the only ones we could find were from outside sources.
Another possibility to consider? Re-subscribing to periodicals. When I started working here, the previous librarian had cancelled all magazine subscriptions, citing that no one used them. That's probably true. However, how great would it have been if we had an archive of the past year's issues of Golf Magazine for my golf researcher, or of Car and Driver for my auto-mechanic researchers? That would have been fantastic.
Here is what I learned from the entirety of the Philosophical Crisis:
1. I profoundly dislike how my library neglects/ignores vocational topics, and would like to change it, post-haste. The way to do that is to find out what we need and find a way to fill that need.
2. It's a darn good thing I had the kids study web evaluation, because we relied solely on outside-of-the-library web sources for several of these topics.
3. We shouldn't HAVE to rely solely on the internet for sources; if a librarian knows his/her patrons and community, the collection should reflect their needs.
That's the bottom line, right there: if I know my community, my patrons, and my school, my library's collection should reflect their needs.
I'm on it.
Philosophical Crisis, Part 3: The Crisis Reaches Critical Mass
Well, after slogging through Overdrive to no avail, I did some hard thinking.
Probably some hard over-thinking.
A few years ago, I sat through a staff development with the rest of the English department and saw a video that (articulately) put into words much of what I had been struggling with in public education. The video in question:
Probably some hard over-thinking.
A few years ago, I sat through a staff development with the rest of the English department and saw a video that (articulately) put into words much of what I had been struggling with in public education. The video in question:
Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms
The part that struck me was the idea that education today was still patterned after the goals of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution; we teach things just for the sake of knowing them (rather than things students need to know in the real world). The best example of this phenomenon that I can think of is the fact that students are not required to take or pass a personal finance class before they graduate high school. If the goal of public education is to arm students for real-life with much-needed life skills, we fail miserably.
I'm not saying that we should stop teaching e.e. cummings or particle physics; on the contrary, I think the more poets and and scientists we inspire, the better. But our goal shouldn't be to JUST produce poets and scientists -- it should be to accept and inspire auto-mechanics, welders, plumbers, bakers, firefighters, and all other manner of professions, too.
And my library's collection, right now, is seriously neglecting those other professions.
Philosophical Crisis, Part 2: The Trek Through the Overdrive Forest
So. After the initial shock of the dearth of useful resources on vocational topics, I decided to put on my big-girl britches and do something about it.
Our school system has endured intense, serious budget cuts this year. I've had to turn down every peddling phone call this year, all with the dreaded "budget cut" line. However, my school system recently subscribed to Overdrive, an e-book collection/e-library service where all materials therein are covered under a substantial amount of grant money. Eureka! I can look for the appropriate books in Overdrive, order them, and have sources for the kids as soon as they download!
Alas, 'twas all for naught.
The second I started searching Overdrive's marketplace, it quickly became apparent that I was to have no luck here, either. Just to see what they had, (and remembering a senior who focused his senior project on welding last year), I searched for "welding" under the topic line. The suggested results were, in order, "westerns, witches, women's fiction, women's studies, and writing." Then, when I decided to browse the nonfiction section, the vast majority of titles (available to my school system, anyway) were middle-school level science and history books -- often with snarky skeletons or nobly-determined founding fathers gazing back at me from their digital covers. No luck. In the "careers" section, almost everything was geared toward public service: police, emergency response, teachers, etc. -- there were barely options for business-oriented careers. There were myriad books on job interviews, resume building, etc., but nothing on careers that weren't juvenile "teachers/sanitation workers/policemen help society" books.
Overdrive, the "great" online library source, doesn't even have what we're looking for.
To be continued in Part 3: The Crisis Reaches Critical Mass.
Our school system has endured intense, serious budget cuts this year. I've had to turn down every peddling phone call this year, all with the dreaded "budget cut" line. However, my school system recently subscribed to Overdrive, an e-book collection/e-library service where all materials therein are covered under a substantial amount of grant money. Eureka! I can look for the appropriate books in Overdrive, order them, and have sources for the kids as soon as they download!
Alas, 'twas all for naught.
The second I started searching Overdrive's marketplace, it quickly became apparent that I was to have no luck here, either. Just to see what they had, (and remembering a senior who focused his senior project on welding last year), I searched for "welding" under the topic line. The suggested results were, in order, "westerns, witches, women's fiction, women's studies, and writing." Then, when I decided to browse the nonfiction section, the vast majority of titles (available to my school system, anyway) were middle-school level science and history books -- often with snarky skeletons or nobly-determined founding fathers gazing back at me from their digital covers. No luck. In the "careers" section, almost everything was geared toward public service: police, emergency response, teachers, etc. -- there were barely options for business-oriented careers. There were myriad books on job interviews, resume building, etc., but nothing on careers that weren't juvenile "teachers/sanitation workers/policemen help society" books.
Overdrive, the "great" online library source, doesn't even have what we're looking for.
To be continued in Part 3: The Crisis Reaches Critical Mass.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Philosophical Crisis, Part 1: Picking Up Rocks (And Finding LOTS of Bugs)
A strange new problem has arisen in the Research Reference Service experiment.
Vocational topics, I am learning, are a problem.
When I was in the classroom, I taught seniors twice. Both of those classes took place within my first two years of teaching. Those seniors had to participate in the senior project, meaning they had to choose a topic of interest (usually involving community service and/or a potential career), produce a product, and write an argumentative research paper thereon. Since I usually taught "lower" level courses (read: NOT the kids who get into Shakespeare), a huge chunk of those topics were related to what I call vocational subjects: car maintenance, welding, etc. Those students always came to me complaining that they couldn't find sources on their topics, either in the library or in the library's online databases. At the time, I chalked it up to laziness in research -- surely, they just weren't looking hard enough.
The first group of students to utilize the RRS were 9th Graders, writing informative papers for World History. Their topics were incredibly easy to research: Auschwitz, Cleopatra, Technology of Ancient Rome, the Cold War, etc... sources were practically jumping out at us and waving emphatically yelling, "Me! Me! Pick Me!" However, we next worked with a group of 11th graders, writing their "junior papers," a precursor to the senior project. And a LOT of those papers were on topics like HVAC systems, rebuilding diesel engines, installing car sound systems... just to give a few examples. We had NO print sources on any of the above in our collection; we had little to nothing from library databases. We barely rustled up enough to meet the bare minimum of their teacher's source requirement.
The plot thickens in the next installment. To be continued...
Vocational topics, I am learning, are a problem.
When I was in the classroom, I taught seniors twice. Both of those classes took place within my first two years of teaching. Those seniors had to participate in the senior project, meaning they had to choose a topic of interest (usually involving community service and/or a potential career), produce a product, and write an argumentative research paper thereon. Since I usually taught "lower" level courses (read: NOT the kids who get into Shakespeare), a huge chunk of those topics were related to what I call vocational subjects: car maintenance, welding, etc. Those students always came to me complaining that they couldn't find sources on their topics, either in the library or in the library's online databases. At the time, I chalked it up to laziness in research -- surely, they just weren't looking hard enough.
The first group of students to utilize the RRS were 9th Graders, writing informative papers for World History. Their topics were incredibly easy to research: Auschwitz, Cleopatra, Technology of Ancient Rome, the Cold War, etc... sources were practically jumping out at us and waving emphatically yelling, "Me! Me! Pick Me!" However, we next worked with a group of 11th graders, writing their "junior papers," a precursor to the senior project. And a LOT of those papers were on topics like HVAC systems, rebuilding diesel engines, installing car sound systems... just to give a few examples. We had NO print sources on any of the above in our collection; we had little to nothing from library databases. We barely rustled up enough to meet the bare minimum of their teacher's source requirement.
The plot thickens in the next installment. To be continued...
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