Ideas for the Development of a School or Public Library Virtual Learning Commons

Fong, Kevin

Journal Article

 

Henry, K., Lagos, A., & Berndt, F. (2012). Bridging the literacy gap between boys and girls: An  opportunity for the National Year of Reading 2012. The Australian Library Journal. 61(2), 143-150.

Complete Proposal

 Berndt, F., Henry, K. & Lagos, A. (n.d.). Book Quest; a reading adventure for boys. Retrieved from http://bookquest2120.wordpress.com/contact/

 Video Trailer

Berndt, F., Henry, K. & Lagos, A. (n.d.). Book Quest; a reading adventure for boys trailer. Retrieved from http://bookquest2120.wordpress.com/book-trailers/

 

The article; Bridging the Literacy Gap between Boys and Girls presents not only an overview of  the issues of  literacy amongst boys but also a number of strategies to improve their literacy that culminates in the authors’ presentation of their suggested reading program for boys. Overall the article is too brief and does not fully express the complexities that encompass the low literacy levels of boys. With that being said; the article does accomplish its secondary purpose of providing an impetus for further thought on what needs to be done to improve the literacy levels amongst boys.

 

The authors' original program proposal; Book Quest: A Reading Adventure for Boys from which this article is based is a more appropriate expression of their research and thoughts on improving the literacy levels of boys which included  elements such as the use of technology to create book trailers, weekly gaming activities and participation in a reading advisory service for their peers that could be easily be implemented in the development of a school or public library VLC. In addition the authors produced a video trailer that both captures the imagination of the viewer and raises their curiosity about the program.

5 states increase class time

Class Time Increases In 5 States In Effort To Improve U.S. Public Education. (n.d.). Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/02/class-time-increases-in-5_n_2229411.html


5 states:  Colorado, Chicago, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee are all increasing the time per day that a student is in class.
It's a  three year pilot program that's being tested in under performing schools in the state.
The purpose behind it would be to raise our global performance in Education since many other countries are in school for more hours per day or more days per year.

For me this struck a chord for this class--because I don't think it's about longer school days--it's about improve the school day we have.

If we could develop physical learning commons and virtual learning commons where students could work on projects that involved technology and problem solving skills--we would probably be giving our kids a better education.

If we could create big thinks and help our students develop their own ideas and find their own answers--we would be better off than just spending more time in a traditional classroom.  A few weeks ago-I took my students to the computer lab to do a big think that we were later going to put into a Google presentation together--only to find out--there's no computers in the school that will support a large group working on Google because our computers don't have enough memory for that.

Yesterday at a site council/department head meeting we talked about changing our cell phone policies and moving towards integrating technology into our curriculum and creating bench marks for our students.  If we could teach our kids 21st century skills--they'd learn more than just being in the traditional classroom.

The article mentions Japan which has less schooling than we do-but still outperforms us.  Japan is based more on Inquiry and has fewer standards to achieve each year--so that subjects could be studied in depth. We could start to move towards more inquiry if we have PLCs and VLCs.

What if we had a teacher librarian who actually taught and created collaboration? (My school doesn't have this--so I apologize to anyone who is a teaching librarian that I might have offended)  We could bring our kids further academically.

It's not about the hours in school--it's about how we use those hours.