LIBE 477 Final Project Considerations

For the next three weeks, my posts will be dedicated to my final project for my course, LIBE 477 Special Topics in Teacher Librarianship.  

I have several ideas floating around in my mind for a final project.

Connections-based learning

I’ve discussed connections-based learning many times before.  It is an area of great interest to me because of its potential to motivate and inspire students.  I could produce a presentation to share with staff on the topic as well as collate resources that would help people connect with experts outside the walls of their schools.   

YouTube Channel – read alouds

I like the idea of extending beyond the walls of the school.  It’s a theme… Having the ability to record short read alouds for students and storing them in a place that can be accessed at a user’s convenience promotes a love of reading and is appealing to me.  I could even introduce a green screen to liven things up. The resource would be the channel where the clips are stored and I could put together a user manual of how I set everything up.  

YouTube Channel – book reviews

I’m always looking for reviews on great books and so, I imagine, are students and teachers.  Creating a repository of book reviews would allow me to reach a larger audience and could potentially lead to students trying different genres than they are used to.  Once I have a few reviews on the site I could open it up to other TLs in my district who could then add additional reviews of their own.  

Revisiting the Living Library Project

The Living Library Project was developed by my wife, Suzanne Bartel, and I when I first started teaching.  We were both inspired by people’s stories after attending our first WE Day.  This quote by Craig and Marc Kielburger at the event resonated with both of us.

“In all corners of the globe, storytelling is a longstanding tradition with significance that’s lost on no one.  It’s vital to preserving culture. It speaks of moments of pride. It speaks of moments of injustice. It offers an opportunity to learn.  Most importantly, it inspires us to create change for the future” (Craig and Marc Kielburger.)

We came back to our school in the hopes of helping students find their own stories and to have those stories inspire others.  The Living Library needs a refresh and a new approach so my final project could somehow centre around giving the site a refresh and a new direction.  Perhaps in my new role as teacher-librarian, I can open it up to include more students in my school. 

Collating information literacy resources – content creation app

In a time when we are inundated with information, providing a resource for students and teachers to help navigate the flood of data may be helpful to both parties.  I could use a content creation app such as Scoop. It! or Paper.li to collate and share resources, articles, and content on the topic of information literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy.  I could also help to define some of these terms and provide visuals that explain each of their components.   

References

Bartel, S., & Lister, C. (2017, January 20). The Living Library Project. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://livinglibraryproject.ca/.

Collect great content. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://paper.li/.

Content Curation Tool. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://www.scoop.it/.

Empowering Students and Teachers at WE Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://www.we.org/en-CA/our-work/we-schools/.