Teaching academic honesty is always a tricky one. Last year, my involvement was limited to showing a tool (Noodletools) to large groups of students, howling in protest that they preferred the predatory alternative EasyBib, too late in the year and being a second opinion on whether submitted work was honest or not. This year, I'm … Continue reading How to lie and cheat …
And we need it to survive. I meant to write this post a little while back, but then school started, and whoosh there went all my potential blogging time. On one of the FB groups I follow someone was asking about teaching academic integrity / honesty. Naturally the librarians in the group responded with "ask … Continue reading Collaboration is air to us
It's been a while - quite a stressful last few weeks of term - make that a stressful first half of the year. And now the last day of the vacation. Here's a somewhat lighter post on two movies we saw that I'd like to comment on. The first was Bohemian Rhapsody. The whole family … Continue reading Facts getting in the way of a good story
A long while ago (3 years) I wrote a post about the fact that we needed to look beyond "search and cite" in teaching information literacy and look at the threshold concepts of research, and a presentation I'd given on the theme. I remember at the time seeing half the audience (of librarians) eyes glazing … Continue reading Beyond beyond search and cite
There are problems with reflection. Seeped in the IB tradition, first through my children and now as an educator, I know that no matter how well it's disguised or re-engineered most students do not like reflection. In my own children, the response to me asking them about the reflection process resulted in one saying, "it's … Continue reading Reflecting on reflection
Last night my daughter asked me about citations for her Geography project. Now let it be made clear, my children, while lovely human beings, are in the "potted plant" phase of adolescence. So this was pretty rare. It's also rare for them to acknowledge my knowledge or specialisation either. But despite her multi-big-$$ education in … Continue reading The second shift
This no excuses post has been a long time coming. One of the things that most librarians have in common is that they are long-suffering, friendly, helpful, accommodating types, ready to share knowledge, know-how and eager to grasp on any acknowledgement they receive from academic leadership and fellow teachers. While the grumbles and moans are … Continue reading No excuses – Britannica Image Quest
There's been quite a to-do on librarian sites recently about the acquisition of RefMe, an academic citation tool by Chegg, a purveyor of online textbooks and tutors (and more). Before you click past this, let's have a little look and think about this business model... The citation engine issue In the opinion of my peers … Continue reading Buying the future of research …
I've just spent the last 4 days at the #LKSW2017 where 80 librarians around the SE Asian region got together to learn and share (mainly teacher) librarian practise. I also hosted a Chinese lady from a school in China and gave a daily ride to another Canadian librarian working at a school in China. We had … Continue reading A tale of two systems
As a teacher-librarian who still has one foot deeply immersed in academia I spend a considerable time wondering if the things we do are the "right" things. And that's before I've opened any social media related to the profession where people are posting articles about the wrongs of everything from levelled reading to literature circles, … Continue reading A short tale of grit and resilience
Informative Flights - Musings of a Teacher Librarian 