Continued Community Outreach

It always catches me off guard when other educational professionals tell me that our learning resources centre is the model for other schools in El Salvador.  It seems a bit over the top and makes me a little uncomfortable for various reasons. This isn't because I doubt the impact that our centre has on our community nor do I doubt the cutting edge education practices that take place there every day. I have experienced what visionary thinking based on sound educational research and practice can do, when the right balance of technologies and resources are brought together with motivated practitioners and sufficient financial and academic support. This discomfort is likely a direct result of this question-Why aren't there more LRCs around? Yes funding is one of the main drivers in building a massive initiative, but there is plenty of scope in other institutions to  rearrange and redesign based current beliefs about learning spaces and practices. These don't  cost and arm and a leg, but rather in time and dedication of professional teams of innovative risk takers.

Over the years, it has become commonplace to see hosted groups of administrators, teachers and librarians as well as students of these disciplines touring the facilities. Using technology we have been able to further expand these tours and engage in discussions and shared practices as far away as Malaysia and up and down the Americas.  These are always meaningful reciprocal learning experiences for everyone involved. We look forward to them and always come away with that greater sense of community and the satisfaction that accompanies the sharing of ideas and practices by like minded educators.


Last Thursday we were awarded the enormous privileges of hosting a class of student librarians at the Universidad de Costa Rica.  We hosted the class via Google Hangouts, using our various cell phones and one laptop. This technique worked really well as we were all able to not only converse with the group but also tour them around the facilities and in doing so pop in and out of the conversation as it developed.  We spent an hour and a half with this class,  during this time we shared ideas for the development of learning resources centres, special projects, and purchasing ideas for equipment and resource. We shared the way we organised our print library as well as the virtual library and its functions finishing up with a complete tour of the facilities as well. The beauty of this type of meetup is natural flow of conversation punctuated by concrete examples and poignant Q and A.

The professor  in charge wrote to us the following day to thank us for coming into her classroom the evening before and working with her students. We in turn were thankful for the opportunity to do so. There is so much scope for work like this. It costs next to nothing to beam a group in via the internet and collaborate. We do it with our students in lessons, why shouldn't we collaborate through web conferences with other institutions as well. All it takes is a few people who are not afraid of taking a risk and are willing to use the technology most of us carry around as if it were an additional appendage.

We would be thrilled to hold more of these virtual meetups in future. We'll keep the updates coming.

Jen and the Librarians

Collaborating with Other Schools

We do our best to link up our curriculum horizontally across subjects and vertically across grades, but when it comes to linking it up with other schools, it can sometimes be a bit tricky.

Recently, we've been working on a collaborative project with two wonderful schools, one in the USA in Missouri and the other in Brazil.  Our 6th grade students along with the 6s from the other two schools have been sharing a typical day in their lives with each other, using Google Presentations.

Leap back in time:
This was was not the first time we had done this project. My friend and colleague Lisette Casey, from Colorado first approached me about it six years ago, and we ran a similar project with our then 6th grade, current 12th grade students. It was as simple yet magical a project then as it is now.

Back to 2015: 
Along the way our students have worked on their initial understanding of primary research, Creative Commons licensing and presentation construction. They have created avatars, word clouds, searched for images that represent something important in their lives and even created word searches based on the reflections they have done. Here is a link to all of these resources just in case you are interested in learning more about the process and tools they used.

Yesterday, we held our long awaited web conference with St. Justin Martyr School, in Missouri.  Students prepared for this by submitting questions and ideas  to share with their partner school, using a Google Form.  They also volunteered, if interested, to speak at the conference and prepared their topic prior to the meeting.

Caution: 
One of the things to watch out for when planning a web conference is tech troubles, which may include firewalls and more. We knew this going into it, having participated in quite a few web conferences in the past. We tested, retested and even triple tested and all systems were go, until we had the Performing Arts Centre full of 6th grades (the entire grade) and the partner class was awaiting us in the United States.  We had video but no audio.

Improvising:
Our partner teacher Cindy Lane was wonderful. While I messed around with the techs at our school, she took the reins at her end and had the kids participate in a brief hands up activity. We had video, and audio from her end and her class had video from ours. During the activity, kids responded to a series of questions by using their hands to indicate the answers to her questions.

All that Planning:
Luckily when you work with technology on a daily basis, things like this don't throw you easily. You have a plan B, C and sometimes D up your sleeve and when those don't work, you sometimes cycle back around to plan A. Long story short, we cycled through all of our plans and about 25 minutes later, plan A actually worked. We had video and audio.

Magic:

That was when the fun really began. It is difficult to describe the joy and level of engagement that students experience when participating in a web conference. You really have to be there and live it, but if you can imagine a large room full of smiles,  and electricity zapping every which way, you will have a better idea of what it is like.

This was an unforgettable sharing and learning experience  for our students, one which I am sure they will remember the rest of their lives.

It is vital that the current generation of children  learn to actively engage with the world in a positive manner and practice good netiquette in doing so. Experiences such as this one help students build their understanding of global citizenship and embrace its values and practices.