Library, Marblehead Village School, 1.25 hours

“Promoting a love and appreciation for reading and good literature.
Creating capable and critical users of information and technology.”

That is the mission statement listed on the VillageSchool Library website immediately above Mrs. Soghomonian’s name.  This mission statement was the basis of today’s observation of a 4^th grade class.

Village School Library Website

            As always the lesson criteria were listed clearly on the easel for the students to see upon entering the library.  They were as follows:

·         “Just because it is out there doesn’t mean it’s true.”

·         What about Wikipedia?

·         The clue is in the URL.

After a brief follow up from the previous lesson on creating Microsoft Word documents to see what the students retained and to query if any students had used this skill at home, Mrs. Soghomonian asked them what types of resources the students used for their recent research project.  Out of a class of 21 children an informal poll revealed the following source usage:

·         Database – 2 children

·         Books – 6 children

·         Google – 16 children

·         Wikipedia – 10 children

Children stated that they liked Wikipedia because it has “good info” and “it is always there when you need it.”  I was surprised at the overwhelming 76% of resources that were from Google and Wikipedia.  The lingering question is, “What is the validity of the information that the students used?”  This was a nice way for the librarian to delve into a discussion about why Google and Wikipedia are not always the best.  She reminded the students that they need to always be good “information detectives.”  Mrs. Soghomonian decided to search on “Inuit.”  She showed how the first two Google results of the 9,540,000 results had nothing to do with the Inuit.  The third result was for Wikipedia.  The librarian took a moment to refresh their memories of the questions that you need to ask when evaluating a website:

·         Who wrote it?

·         When was it written?

·         What special features does it have?

·         Can I read it and understand it?

Focusing back on Wikipedia, she made it crystal clear that each and everyone in that class could go on the site and alter it, therefore becoming an author.  To further give the children tools to find a site author, Mrs. Soghomonian used the Wikipedia left side bar tab “About Wikipedia.”  Here it states that Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous internet volunteers who write without pay.  (Each of the underlined words was discussed to ensure that the students fully understood what they were reading.)  In this case, there was no idea who wrote the site and if that person(s) had any authority about the Inuit.  The children were able to correctly state where in a book you find this information.  Making the connection from print resources to internet resources was a nice way for them to recall the previous skills that they were taught to find out about an author from a print resource that the children were using.

           

            The children brainstormed possible motives for someone to include incorrect information on a Wikipedia page such as an attempt at humor, to be mean, or that the person might not know the information was false.  While Wikipedia volunteers do go on and check information, you just never know if what you are looking for is accurate….so BEWARE and be a good detective!  The librarian told them that no matter the site, the students should always look for the “about” and “disclaimer” tabs often at the bottom of the home page.  The most eye opening moment came when the librarian clicked on the disclaimer tab.  Even Wikipedia makes no guarantee of the accuracy of its information.

Wikipedia Disclaimer

            After seeing the potential high probability of inaccurate information that they were using for their projects, Mrs. Soghomonian again polled the class to generate other databases that would be great sources of information.  Some students volunteered World Book, Kids Info Bits & Culturegrams.  While the librarian did agree that these 3 sources might not be as easy to use as Google, the information is checked and you can use it without reservation.

           

            Finally, she reminded them about the clue in the URL.  The Uniform Resource Locator gives the website’s address on the internet.  I was amazed that they children were only familiar with “.com” & “.net” URLs.  After a listing and definition for “.K12, .org, .edu, .gov, .ca and .uk” she asked them which ones would most likely have the most information for research purposes.  The top there were “.org, .edu and .gov” of the list generated.

            This philosophy of being a detective is not a new realization.  Behind the librarians book check out area on a large poster is the following:

           

An Information Detective Wants to Know:

1.      Who wrote it? Why?

a.       Are they qualified?

b.      How I heard of them?

c.       Clue in the URL?

2.      When was it published?

3.      How is the information organized?

4.      How do I locate information?

5.      What special features help me to understand?

6.      Is the information useful?

a.       Does it make sense?

I was eager to see how Mrs. Soghomonian would approach this important skill.  Since I just took a class involving website evaluation prior to this one, I found she did a great job of making the criteria age appropriate without going into too many details to bog the children down.  Just being aware of what is out there and where a good place to search is will set them up to be good researchers.  She hit home the fact that anyone can make a website and that the information that the search yields on Google is not always the best.  In case the students forget all the criteria that Mrs. Soghomonian taught them and is posted in the library, the same information can be found on her Glog that is linked to her library page.  It is definitely worth taking the time to review.  When it comes to a research paper, can you really afford not to evaluate the information you will be using?

Mrs. Soghomonian’s Glog on Website Evaluation

Library, Marblehead Village School, 1 hour

Technology literacy was the focus of the 4^th grade class that I observed today.  Mrs. Soghomonian established the goals of today’s lesson immediately.  Working with the 4^th and 5^th grade teachers, she made it clear that being able to open a new Microsoft Word document and format it properly would aid the students in the many papers they would need to write this year and next.  She informed the students that they would shortly be entering the computer lab and wanted to preview with them the steps that the children needed to take to complete the lesson.  Since they had to move on to a new topic next week, this would be the only opportunity they would have to work on this skill.

            Upon entering the computer lab, which was as sought after as a trip to Disney World, the children took their assigned seats.  I was impressed with the large screen displays that the Macs provided.  The height positioning and size of the computer monitors made them highly beneficial for all children but especially ones that may have had visual difficulties.  As with any computer exercise almost half of the class of 22 students, had forgotten their school identification number.  The librarian asked me to assist the students with ID retrieval from her book while she addressed the other random computer questions that cropped up from those that had logged on successfully.  I was surprised at how quickly the students forgot the set up prompts that were given orally and visually in the other room.  It was like once they heard “computer lab” the children just couldn’t focus on the document font and font size, layout of the page, and 8 typed lines that they were given.  This lesson had the children access the “toolbox” which was located at the top of the screen.  She told them that each computer will have this "toolbox" in a different place depending on the version of the software and the type of computer you have.  She hoped that they took away the knowledge that these tools were available, but not always where you had seen them on another computer.

Village School Computer Lab

           

            While it was chaotic and the children needed a great deal of reminders as to the requirements that they were given in the other room, overall it was a great hands-on activity.  After seeing how long it took everyone to get the initial formatting correct, post a centered title of their choice and only type one out of eight lines of content, the librarian decided to push off the next lesson on alternatives to Google searching until the following week.  As with anything else, logging everyone on can be a huge undertaking, combined with the fact that a few computers always seem to need some sort of random update that was not covered in the directions.  I know that the librarian had hoped to be done with this lesson today, but she also realized that this skill is a lifelong crucial one.  Taking the time to practice this takes patience and continued exposure.  Every moment of this class was used for instruction so the students were told to come after school or before school for book choosing.

On a side note, in the very first moments of instruction, a tutor entered the library and told the librarian that she needed to take 2 students that missed their Aimsweb testing.  The librarian allowed the students to leave but informed the tutor that this was the only scheduled opportunity that this skill would be covered and it was needed by their classroom teachers.  At the end of the scheduled class, I asked Mrs. Soghomonian if having children pulled was a common occurrence.  She told me that special education often pulls children out of “specials” that they have 2 times a week such as PE and music along with the one and only library class that the children have.  I asked what the logic of this was and she told me it was to help the children with curriculum support.  I wonder if the children will be able to receive this valuable skill support as well since it is one that is clearly going to be needed now and in the years ahead even more.  At least for these two students, I am glad they will have one more opportunity to learn this skill next week.  I do wonder why this testing was not done first thing in the morning or possibly during a read aloud of a pleasure book that was not curriculum related. 

Library, Marblehead Village School, 1 hour

Today’s blog posting falls nicely into the inquiry guideline as it addresses a great example of modeling the inquiry-based approach to learning through the use of detective skills on a primary source document.  I found today’s lesson, with the 5^th grade class that I observed, to be highly informative, creative, discussion provoking and fun.  As the children entered the library, they saw a vintage advertisement displayed on the whiteboard and the three objectives were clearly posted on an easel at the front of the room. 

The objectives were:

1.      Primary or Secondary?

2.      Examining Primary Sources

3.      Activity

Discussion began when the Mrs.  Soghomonian reviewed what the children knew of primary source and secondary source documents from a previous class.  From their examples and responses she recreated the definition of each type of document.  To ensure that all children were secure with this, she gave each child an example of either a primary or secondary source and they needed to identify it.  While fun in design, this provided an informal assessment of previous material retention. 

Finally, she turned her attention to the displayed advertisement that was produced by Swanson to promote their TV dinners, circa 1950s.  The librarian used the image she had saved from a Flickr account, but when I went to the link that she had originally procured it from, it was not longer there.  I found the Swanson TV Dinner image also seen below at the Library of Congress site.

Swanson TV Dinners 1950s Advertisement

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

She introduced the activity and passed out a worksheet to each child.  (For near point visuals she also had a copy of the color advertisement in a protective sleeve on each table.)  This worksheet clearly laid out the objectives of the activity.  There were 4 bolded questioning words (What, Who, Why & When) that focused the children on what they needed to determine during their mission as “history detectives.”  Mrs. Soghomonian worked through the first 4 questions as a group to allow the children more time on the last question that would necessitate critical thinking.

As a group the children discussed:

·         “What is it?”   (An advertisement) 

·         “Who created it?”       (Swanson)

·         “Why did they create the source?”     (To promote TV dinners)

·         “When was the primary source created?”       (The responses varied from 2009, 50 years ago, 1997, between the 1950s and the hippies, and my favorite, in between the 1960s and the 1980s when they made awkward stuff.)

Discussion was honest and always backed up with a “why did you say that” response from the librarian, which the children provided.

The last question was, “After carefully examining this primary source, what do you know or what can you infer about the time, the place, and the people that this primary source belonged to or portrays?”  Mrs.  Soghomonian made it clear that the students were NOT to describe the picture but, based on what they saw, make a guess about something relating to that time period.  She modeled her thinking by saying, “There are 2 clues that people wore a lot of hats.  How can you tell this?”  Students said by the hat on the woman’s head and the hat box on the table.  After another example of what she expected them to do, she told them to work with their small table groups to discuss what they could infer from the clues in the advertisement.  She circulated among the groups, monitored their progress, and provided prompting when needed. 

At the end of the 10 minutes she had the class come back together to share what each group found.  She showed the classes that they could find out a great deal of information from looking at a primary source document based on the clues provided.  The children I observed were very engaged with the exercise and from their small group discussions I could tell that they were mimicking the thought process that the librarian had sufficiently modeled for them.  Mrs.  Soghomonian received numerous desired responses and this encouraged the children to find the deeper meaning in their observations.  I only wish that there was more time for the students to go through this same analysis and synthesis exercise of another primary source advertisement from a different time period.