Yining's Journal in LIS 568

June 28  Perspective: In recent reading and discussions of this course, we had opportunities to explore the role of school librarian in supporting the use of Ed Tech in schools and help students developing knowledge and skills needed in the digital age. We have seen that federal and state’s legislations play a big part in these areas. As school librarians, we have the responsibility to be at the forefront of digital technologies and resources and providing them in ways consistent with the laws. It is challenging work given the continuously changing technologies. The challenge is even greater if not knowing if there are legislations that have a direct impact on what we do as school librarians, or not having a clear understanding of what the law says In an article by Dawkins, A (2020), the authors points out about the confusion and uncertainty about the role and responsibilities of school librarians in teaching about digital citizenship. A study conducted after the state of Ut...

June 21 We will be looking at a craft teaching website: Red Ted Art.  Home Page - Red Ted Art - Kids Crafts   https://www.redtedart.com/ It has 2500+ crafts ideas and how-to-do videos and instructions sheets. The crafts are browsed by seasons, holidays and special occasions, as well as by age group and types of art craft. Users of any age can make a craft using this resource. While an adult can borrow a DIY gift idea from this site, the crafts shown here are generally for children to make, use or give, as they are simple, safe, fun, contain themes of children's stories and characters, and reflective of children's way of looking at the world. One useful category is gift ideas for teachers. With a few inexpensive materials the kid or the parent can make a lovely gift for the teacher, like a bath bomb, a paper weight, or a lavender bag. Cute gifts that show your appreciation and make a teacher smile. Another good resource is the holiday gifts. The fact that there are many Chinese...

June 15 In another LIS course that I’m taking now, I became aware of some free classroom materials for students K to college. I decided to take a look at this web tool in Project Look Sharp - a program of Ithaca College that aims to educate children and young adults about media literacy.   https://www.projectlooksharp.org/   The team of educators seeks to achieve this mission through a process called media decoding and from a constructivist approach that involves inquiry-based teaching to give the students the skill for critique thinking. Through coaching, the students will learn to analyze and evaluate media material and construct knowledge for themselves.   You are able to search for free media decoding lessons using a keyword search that also includes the subject and grade/level. I searched for “social justice”-subject: “social sciences/history”-grade/level: “upper elementary”.   The site returned 24 lessons. The lesson may include a lesson plan, activ...

June 12, 2024 While reading what makes a good school library website in  School library website during shelter in place by Moorfield-Lang, H. and Craddock, I. M. (2020), I came across a web tool that allows the user to view a site with color filter as if seeing it from the eyes of a color blind person. Even though this is a very simple tool, I would like to write down what I have observed . I decided to give a try with this web tool since it was brought to my attention by a resource for this course. The article brought up this web tool in the context of suggesting ways to improve the school library websites. Moorfield-Lang, H. and Craddock, I. M. (2020) pointed out that color blindness would affect a person's ability to read in-graphic text and provided the link for a web tool that allows you to check a website. It seems a good advice from an authentic source, so I followed the link and played with the tool. Colorblind Web Page Filter Testing Tool & Simulator | Toptal® It was ...

June 5, 2024 I found a web tool on educating children and teenagers about copyrights. It seems a perfect fit with what we are learning in LIS 568. It's an appropriate time to experiment with this educational tool as I start to learn basic concepts about copyrights. I feel this tool is beneficial to me as much as to its intended audience. This web tool - Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens - has been chosen by AASL as the best tool for teaching and learning. Some of the criteria for this recognition by AASL includes Innovation/Creativity Active Participation Collaboration User-Friendly Encourages Exploration Information/Reference This tool appears to meet these expectations, especially in the areas of Innovation, User-Friendly and Encouraging Exploration. Objective: AASL gives a summary of what this tool do and its main objective, which is " to offer useful and positive information about what copyright allows and how students can successfully navigate and re...

 I am excited to be here and meet all of you. But I'm also nervous about the prospect of using many technology tools for this course. I had a hard time figuring out how to create an url when I set up this blog. It was such relief when I finally got a valid url. Now I'm struggling to make my page look interesting with a design...Thanks for your patience while I'm experimenting with the tools. I foresee many more barriers and challenges ahead as I absolutely have no skills with new technology. I'm listening to podcast for the first time, and what is RSS feed that our instructor ask us to join? I feel so lost at this time. Hope by end of this course, I will have more confidence with using these tools. I look forward to learning with you and be guided by the work you share.