REPORT
VIRTUAL LEARNING COMMONS DEVELOPMENT MEETING
JO LEARNING COMMONS, JUNE 18, 2013
ATTENDANCE: Excellent (approximately 20 TLs, secondary and elementary); convened by Moira Ekdahl and attended by Mary Locke (TL Mentors in transitioning); supported by input from Brian Kuhn, CIO and Director of Technology for VSB
Moira reviewed the website information in the "Making the Case" document below, putting forth the evidence of need and argument for a whole new look and a whole new, more practice-supportive "tool" in the form of a district and school-based Virtual Learning Commons. Horizon constrains the presentation of a virtual learning commons and thus its capacity to support teaching and learning more effectively. The group looked at other ways schools, school libraries, and districts are using a web presence to provide greater user-friendly access to services and resources 24/7. The need is to replace, not fix up, our present Digital Library and Webcat configuration.
Attendees were encouraged to join the Planning Group for BC Virtual Learning Commons, sponsored by the Ministry of Education and convened by our own Maryann Kempthorne. [NB: Be sure to read "stuff" from Kevin Stranack, esp the case for using WordPress]
Brian reassured the group that both Sharepoint and WordPress are options. Many districts are using WP esp for school libraries, as per report from AASL Conference, Minneapolis. VSB already has a WP server and people assigned to support WP. It is cost-effective. WP Multi-sites was used in the Victoria School District to create school websites that were consistent in look, dynamic in capacity to showcase events, new books, etc., interactive and responsive in its capacity to have several creators, and customizable within agreed limits that ensure functionality.
Brian explained that "Interactivity" will be greatly advanced not by a tool like WordPress but by "an enterprise system" such as Office365 which the VSB will be introducing in the Fall. This system will enable students to have VSB email and to work in closed classroom groupings, to work in a blogging environment or to use wikis as tools, etc. Teachers and students will have "on-shore" storage (that is, FIPPA requirements are wholly addressed) as well as chat or group collaborative opportunities, etc. Such a tool would be appendable to WordPress and both would be appendable to Sharepoint. That is, they would offer interoperability.
With reference to the sites identified in "The Case" below:
- The links sent by Ted Pennell (below) to the Victoria School District school websites (not the Library & Resources link, BTW) provide a design or look that is consistent but different for each site. Ignore the content here -- it's not about creating school websites but about a process and considerations for re-design -- and consider what the top menu or overarching categories or keywords could be the same for every school library and for districts has Quick Links and Events in the sidebar.
- The process of developing the Victoria SD school website "fixed" Headings or categories that "frame" each school's page as a consistent web experience for users involved an in-depth analysis of every school website in the district. The Team with its consultant wanted to determine what had emerged on school websites or should have emerged across the district. Certain features of these pages are changeable -- font, colour of font, background, edgings, logos, etc. -- to give each school a unique page. Certain capacities are enabled, like Translate, Maps, Photo Gallery, etc., and schools can choose to activate or not.
- Victoria (and Aaron suggested that Saanich possibly) might be interested in a collaborative venture. After all, there should be some uttlerly consistent features of such pages. NB: Aaron is taking the job at Parkland Secondary in Saanich.
- Gladstone and Magee school library or virtual learning commons pages use blog tools. Look at how they are using headings or "tabs."
- VTLA website is a visually simple but effective using WordPress. It uses a "fixed drop-down" design.
- Tecumseh's Library website is deep with information, traditional in its approach, and a Sharepoint product.
- the Prince George School District's Virtual Learning Commons is rich and user-friendly. Would tabs or drop-down menus be an option to the scrolling this requires?
- Check out the tabs (both Valenza and Hamilton use WordPress with LibGuides to create the tabbed pages). Note that many different types of resources and links and tips or instructions are contained within a tabbed page.
Where did we leave it? There were many questions and discussion points.
- What could this notion of collaborative development of Virtual Learning Commons (one for the district and one each for 110 schools, with similar "frames" for Victoria and Saanich) look like for the provision of consistent, agreed-upon, reviewed, yet dynamic 24/7 support for the provision of resources and services for teaching and learning?
- What would we be seeking to achieve? Profile; equitable access -- every child in every school; differentiation of access to resources (intellectual); support for users including parents, students, and teachers; engagement ....
- What did we see -- or what have we seen being done in other places -- that we would want our District Virtual Learning Commons page to do?
- How do we proceed?
Let's begin with an asset review.
What will "frame" our school VLC websites (headings for a fixed top menu and for sidebar)? We need to create an inventory of what our present sites offer and what they consider important enough to create headings for.
How do these sites look? What design features and widgets are being used and which ones are worth keeping?
What do we need to keep on our school sites and what is worth relocating to the Virtual Learning Commons (like an agreed-upon Style Sheet for secondary with a Beginners' Guide to Writing Style for elementary, for example)? Two lists. District / School. Top Menu for Essential Headings. Sidebar for "grabber" headings.
How might we optimize the use of our district databases and/or digital resources?
And what would the options or constraints be for school libraries in terms of custom-designing their own Virtual Learning Commons page? What would need to be consistent and what customizable?
- How long would this process take? A year.
- How would the group proceed to ensure collaboration? Hangouts, Elluminate, googledocs, reviews, etc. Who would communicate on behalf of the development group with VSB?
Making The Case:
It’s Time to Build a New VSB Virtual School Library/Learning Commons “Digital Library” Site
as well as School-based Virtual Learning Commons sites:
Rationale:
- The VSB Digital Library “page” is not only stale-looking but also not nearly so dynamic and responsive to teaching and learning, thus, helpful in our schools and extended learning communities, as it could be. http://webcat.vsb.bc.ca --> Databases --> additional links and tabs
- While at one time its “iconic” look was ahead of the game in its initial district presentation of the subscribed and other digital resources, we have fallen behind and are not optimizing the teaching and learning potential of new curation and presentation tools; re-sizing and re-organizing is not the answer here.
- Each TL has been expected to develop a digital presence for his/her own school; there is increasingly a call for centralized access as there are so many tools, looks, resources, and demands for time.
- “Access” is an expanding concept; 24/7 access no longer means simply physical, intellectual, and technological access to information on the hidden internet via the icons or to more readily accessible information via google or firefox. It certainly alludes to ways of understanding which source is best for the purpose and, for teachers and TLs, for whom it is most likely to be accessible. Who presently has optimal access and who is furthest away? How do we close the gaps for learning amongst children in Vancouver?
- At the Ed Centre, the TL Consultant/Mentor has the broadest insights into where the locally created or custom resources are, where the gaps are, and how to navigate access to and “publication” of “best of the best” work to be shared with the educational community.
- Teacher-librarians, working with teachers, know best what resources work with teaching and learning and are in the best position to curate these. This work would best be done, in collaboration with TLs and accessed centrally, that is, at the district level.
Here’s some homework for us to do:
What was important on website development at the IT4K12 Conference, June 2013? Here is a link to key presentations at the IT4K12 ERAC Conference. From my notes on Victoria School District's experience of re-designing technology integration with teaching and learning and its web presence:
1. Janine Roy, District Principal, Learning Initiatives, Victoria: Janine talked about opportunities through teacher inquiry for collaborative conversations where technology was not the focus but the tool to create, explore, explain, reflect, produce. Maybe the tool makes the difference and maybe not. Schools had .1 FTE learning mentors who could relieve a teacher for an afternoon to collaborate. There was a summer institute on technology integration. She recommended William Ferreter's Teaching the iGeneration and book clubs, writing to empower. They had Tech Edcamps or Unconferences that resulted in personal learning networks. They provided enhancing learning grants with teacher inquiry and "seed money" that resulted in emerging informal groups and informal professional development. There was a discussion board and drop-in support. The emphasis was on thoughtful professional development.
2. The Victoria SD IT Team of Ted Pennell, Director of IT, and Andy Canty, IT Manager, accompanied by UpanUp Studios Consultant Peter Knapp, presented their project to create a new look for websites in the 50 schools and for the 20 000 students in the district, websites that would ensure consistency, responsiveness, scalability, functionality while ensuring affordability. That is, they intended to eliminate the stale, the insecure, and the non-existent websites that had developed (or not) over time. They wanted standardized information with a standardized look and design, with an additional goal of site-based management. They wanted good-looking sites that were easy to use, device-neutral, and that offered immediacy.
The Team chose WordPress. It had interoperability (with Sharepoint, for example, although they opted not to use Sharepoint for this initial school website project) and agility.
They asked, What makes a great school "learning community" site? What needs to be centralized? What are the essentials at the school level? They created a blueprint.
- The top level menus were standardized, based on their look at the district's sites
- design mock-ups to check that the design was responsive, looked great, no matter what device, esp mobile
- identified builder and user roles
- ensured security, compliance with privacy / FIPPA --> hosting
- populating content
- alpha delivery and piloting --> go live
- training
Some essentials for school sites: Translate, Google Maps, Contact, site-based metrics and analytics, Search function, sidebar Quick LInks
Sites have some choices: included 5 colours, 10 fonts and colours, 12 background images, unique logos and pictures, photo gallery, edging (clouds, curves, etc)
Phase 2: teacher sites, library sites [NB recent email communications with Ted Pennell suggest some interest in working collaboratively on library sites]
Here, in an email from Ted, are some school websites that have "gone live" that we can consider for WordPress VSB Virtual Learning Commons:
Thanks for reaching out right away and it was a pleasure meeting you. I’m still digging through my email from last week.
We are very excited about our new school websites and are in the middle of a staggered deployment. Every day, at least one new site comes online. We hope to have all 48 sites completed by the end of next week. I believe our IT4K12 presentation will be online through ERAC very soon. I believe the real gems in our template solution is creating a standardized environment yet allowing for a unique look and feel for each school. Also, the responsive design elements to the solution are a must have in any new web development. With one of the school websites below, try resizing the site on your browser and you will see the website realign depending upon the size of the active browser window. Looking at the same site on a desktop, iPad, and iPhone will also demonstrate the responsive design aspects.
I know WordPress does offer some integration with SharePoint but we have not spent much time yet evaluating this. As we stated in the beginning of our presentation, we initially considered SharePoint for this project but felt it isn’t quite ready for what we could do through WordPress for public facing school websites. However, I love the direction you are envisioning for a district-level and school-level Virtual Learning Commons. Perhaps there may be enough shared vision and commonality between us to consider a shared project.
Here’s a list of some of our schools that demonstrate our use of WordPress.
https://sundance.sd61.bc.ca/
https://georgejay.sd61.bc.ca/
https://campusview.sd61.bc.ca/
https://monterey.sd61.bc.ca/
https://vichigh.sd61.bc.ca/
https://thelink.sd61.bc.ca/
https://reynolds.sd61.bc.ca/
https://doncaster.sd61.bc.ca/
https://viewroyal.sd61.bc.ca/
https://arbutus.sd61.bc.ca/
https://sjd.sd61.bc.ca/
Let me know what you think.
Ted.
What's New in Vancouver School Library (and library-related) websites?
New -- Tecumseh Elementary Library (Sharepoint)
New -- Gladstone Virtual Learning Commons (edublog)
New -- Magee Virtual Learning Commons (wordpress)
New -- VTLA (wordpress)
See also:
BC Virtual Learning Commons Planning Group: join now.
This community will be a discussion forum and information sharing space for everyone interested in the development of a BC-wide Virtual Learning Commons. The BC Ministry of Education's Library and Literacy Branch and the BC Libraries Cooperative are at the very early planning stages of developing a BC Virtual Learning Commons and we're looking for input into what it should be, what it should do, and what the possibilities are.
ERAC in the Classroom on this page: http://bcerac.ca/news/erac-update/current.aspx#2185
Prince George district LC portal: http://prin.ent.sirsidynix.net/client/drc
Gordon Powell's Fall 2012 presentation to Vancouver TLs can be found at goo.gl/AADIL
Session – Inquiry, Interaction, Knowledge: Student Library Websites
Presenters – Drs Eileen Schroeder and Anne Zarinnia
Schroeder and Zarinnia begin by quoting Dave Lankes: the mission of libraries is to improve the learning of children by helping them in the creation of knowledge for the knowledge society
Sugata Mitra, Indian educational scientist known for his “hole in the wall” project, asks about libraries as conversation: do school library and learning commons’ websites encourage conversation and the creation of participatory places? How do we facilitate research as conversation? Extending from Mitra’s observations of the effects of installing an open-air computer in poor neighbourhoods in India and Sri Lanka, there are additional questions: What kind of a society are we trying to build? Are we enabling “two-tiered” learning without exploring the ways in which “literacy is the power to become”? What is our conception of literacy? Are we valuing the intellectual?
Schroeder and Zarinnia looked at the characteristics of the best websites. They were the products of aggregating, curating, and organizing by teacher-librarians. They included:
- Dropdown menus (Conduit toolbars), including search boxes
- Tools: widgets and gadgets, plugins, embedded mini-applications for blogs, wikis, websites, databases, search tools, calendars; widgets that
- push content, like Wonderopolis and twitter feeds;
- push books, like Shelfari, LibraryThing, GoodReads, Amazon Carousale, catalogue feed, lists, new books, student responses, etc; social bookmarking – “Feed2JS” creates code you can copy and past onto your page”;
- push images, like Flickr, Picassa;
- gather data, like embedded GoogleForm or SurveyForm, Poll Daddy – which Hunger Games characters do you like the best? – Wallwisher;
- enable discussion, with chat features like Meebome and Gabbly; Skype, wiki, blog
- construct understanding, like google maps; googledocs, google sites, typewithme, Titanpad
- share video and presentations, like Vimeo and Screencast-of-matic;
- enable collaboration, like Webspiration, bubbl.us/ gliffy
- enable curation, where students gather what works for learning, using Scoop.it and Paper.li to create an online and current magazine, and LibGuides
- enable graphic display, like spreadsheets, timelines, timeplots
- etc.
LibGuides - Worth a Look / By Jen Maney -- School Library Journal, 01/14/2009
If you’re like me, you struggle with ways to get kids and teens to notice and use your library’s resources. Ask a kid or teen (and I have) what they do on the library’s Web site, and they’ll talk about looking up books, and, if you’re lucky, they may say they renew their books. Ask them if they know about the plethora of homework stuff you offer online, and they’ll look at you blankly. Maybe it’s because libraries don’t advertise well. Or maybe it’s because these resources are complicated, and we present them to the public in complicated ways. We’re always looking for easy, clean ways to present info on subjects that kids and teens need for school, life and fun.
Enter LibGuides from Springshare. LibGuides is a hosted service which allows you to create online subject guides easily. No need for a web server or IT staff, because LibGuides hosts the content on their servers. A guide is made up of boxes of content that you create and put together to form a guide. Really, the words “subject guides” don’t do justice to what LibGuides offers.
LibGuides is 2.0 goodness at its best. Integrate your LibGuides into Facebook to reach out to users where they are. Get comments on LibGuides from users right there on the page. Pull RSS feeds from Google Reader, Delicious, or your own Web site news into your LibGuides. Post your LibGuides updates to Twitter automatically. Add a Meebo box to your LibGuides to chat with your users in real time. Oh, and yes, link to your databases and favorite Web sites by subject. You can even use content from one guide on another guide. LibGuides are also customizable – add your header and footer, choose your colors, and pick what boxes you want on each guide.
There’s a lot to LibGuides that merits a very close look. The best place to start is Cindy Trainor’s Cindy Trainor’s BIGWIG Social Software Showcase 2008 presentation. Watch this eight minute video, and you’ll see what I mean about 2.0 goodness. She’s not the only one who likes LibGuides. Looking around the web, I found many positive reviews about LibGuides.
LibGuides is not a free service, so you’ll have to keep your budget in mind. From blog postings, Cindy Trainor’s video, and the Springshare Website, LibGuides appears to be very affordable. According to Springshare’s FAQs, “annual license fee ranges from $899 to $2,999. Most libraries would fall under the lower license range.” So far, LibGuides is mostly used by academic libraries, but I can imagine some great uses for LibGuides for schools and public libraries - reader's advisory guide for teens, homework subject guides, ask a librarian guide. I know I’m going to request a quote for my library. To see what some of the academic libraries are doing, take a look at some guides created by Community Members.
If you’re looking for something free and you have some web development know-how and IT support, you might want to look at SubjectsPlus, an open-source product created by Ithaca College Library. SubjectsPlus is not hosted for you - you have to be able to get it onto your web server. There are some differences in functionality from LibGuides, but worth considering if budget is more of a concern than IT support.
Jen Maney is the Virtual Library Manager for Pima County Public Library in Tucson, Arizona. The motto of the Virtual Library is, "Designing for uncertainty."
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APPENDIX I: From S L J (2009): “Worth a Look” by Jen Maney http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6628338.html]
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Great Websites for Literacy:
- Site recommended by Lisa Pedrini at the VSB who wrote: I had previously shared these resources with the Social Responsibility and Diversity Team, and we had thought that the support booklets in particular could be adapted for use here, as they provide a great model of a practical handbook on teacher inquiry. There is also a DVD that I have requested from the Ontario Ministry of Education.
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Virtual Learning Commons, by Pippa Davies
(Heritage Christian Schools / Blended Learning Commons)
April 10, 2015. Queensborough Community Centre, New Westminster
1. Who are the patrons? eg: distance learning --> virtual workshops, emoticons, trust-building
2. What is the vision? eg: creating community through literacy and innovation
3. What is the level of trust (students and teachers)? what level of reliability do you presesnt?
Website --> move to social media, subscriptions for reference
eg: BrainPop #1 tool amongst students
DiscoveryEd
Reading Egg
RAZ Kids
Sharing --> weblinks, Diigo, Scoopit, Pinterest, Blogger, Mentor Mob, Good Docs, WordPress, Twitter
4. Where is the light? Create light in the physical commons. Democratic, collaborative place where creation of vision is shared.
Find your space: Apple TV, IDEA Paint, iPads, Flexible furnishings, student response tickets, augmented reality, fresh air and light --> http://www.appsbypaulhamilton.com
Feedback on IDEA Paint
5. What about a sustainable Virtual Commons? social media, ranking, tagging,etc. Downloading is cheaper by far than shipping. Staff of 10.
WordPress --> magazine theme (HSC Learning Commons) widgets / engagement, elegance, ease of use; archives, guides in new BC Learning ?
6. Where is the culture? Have you created a culture? Have you inspired followers (and participants) eg: Ning
7. What about the e-library? Overdrive as key to collection growth and use (includes movies, audiobooks, workbooks, recommendations
8. Have you gone global? collaboration, communication, connection, blogging, virtual commons beyond local community
9. Is learning accessible and available to all, esp gifted, special needs?
10. Is your learning relevant? Makerspaces, video production, robotics [outgowth of STEAM = science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics]
Makerbot, MakeyMakey (?), PocketLab (connects data to projects like rockets), MakerEd
Invent to Learn (book)
TLs tackling change --> give, connect, create art --> become indispensable in your school [lynchpin]
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