Re: Introduction
Suzanne Alejandre (salejan@e2.empirenet.com)
Wed, 26 Mar 1997 18:09:04 -0800
Hi Don,
>I am a middle school library media teacher and
>practitioner in the NSF Virtual Canyon project for the Monterey Peninsula
>area.
As a library media teacher do you have classes of students? or are
you supporting classroom teachers and their students? or perhaps you
work with certain groups of students?
>The project combines various aspects/tools of technology with
>scientific research. My students work in partnership with the Monterey Bay
>Aquarium, it's sister research facility MBARI, and California State
>University Monterey Bay.
Could you describe your middle school? size, diversity .... etc.
>They have come to use them like a pencil or pen. This is an
>important aspect of our project. We want all students and staff become
>familiar with these resources and use them as an intragal part of their
>curriculum.
That is a great way to describe how technology should be used!
>They work with the librarian in the library's application center.
Could you describe specifically what is in this center?
>Using electronic and online resources along with hard
>copy materials, student teams do research on a particular subject, organize
>the data, and construct a multimedia presentation followed with discussion.
>The teacher works hand-in-hand with the media teacher thus learning the
>process along with the students.
Is that media teacher another staff person or the library media teacher?
>I believe it is important that we all become more familiar with the ways
>technology can be applied with present curricula in a natural,
>non-threatening way. If we are to get buy-in, we can't create another
>thing to do. It just won't fly in an already too busy world.
I agree! I think that teachers want to try new ways of technology but they
need someone to help them. For whatever reason schools usually do not
support a technology support person....but....I like your idea of having
the library media specialist fill that role. Unfortunately in some schools
there are no library media specialists!...but...the idea might be helpful
for those schools that have one!
I have found that as far as the Web goes it helps other teachers to create
what I call "Reference Pages" which focus students (and their teachers :) on
the task. I write these for Frisbie Middle School and some of my students
are currently writing some, too.
You can see some examples:
Language Arts
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/bio.html
History/Social Science
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/history3.html
Mathematics
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/mathematicians.html
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/patterns.html
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/alejandre/workshops/polyhedra.html
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/alejandre/workshops/chart.html
Science
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/science.fair.htm
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/alejandre/workshops/buckyball.html
Interdisciplinary
http://www.rialto.k12.ca.us/school/frisbie/gentable3.html
Your description of multimedia projects sounds great with the idea of having
someone support the teacher and students as they are creating their products.
That is quite a bit more involved than using Web information! Could you give
a specific example of one of your projects?
Suzanne Alejandre