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Literature Research and Data Collection:

I have found it very difficult to find focus this week. My research has left me treading water, and struggling to keep my head above water! Despite my difficulties, I have found many journal articles and some books which will help with my future exploration. Judging each find critically was the toughest part for me. My criteria for choosing a resource morphed from general keyword associations, to more specific, and immediately useful resources. I have always believed that professional development, coursework or workshop attendance was deemed worthwhile if I was able to glean at least one concept or lesson idea that was immediately useful to me, my students or other staff members. ‘Gold level’ sessions provided a wish list of apps, lessons, web games or projects that I wished to try. My Wish List is a bit overwhelming at this point, and needs some organization and categorizing to be most useful. The keywords or phrases that I hope to discover more about are:

• personal learning networks 
• teaching media arts 
• inquiry-based projects for collaboration 
• collaborative publishing 
• digital literacy 
• coding 

Personal learning networks article research threw me into teacher, and college student networking. Great information to be found here, however, not the elementary student focus I was hoping for. Researching the teaching of media arts proved equally distracting and led me to fine arts articles on music and art (also very interesting to me), but not the focus I was intending. I have done some previous coursework on inquiry-based projects for collaboration, and have lists (previously referenced) that are awaiting time and organizing in order to put into practice.

The last three keywords in my initial blog post ended up becoming my focus for this post. Hoping to find successful lessons and tools for elementary students to work collaboratively online to create documents or projects to represent their understanding, I found the following article, "Implementing a digital reading and writing workshop model for cntent literacy instruction in an urban elementary (K-8) school", by Ciampa (2016).

This article helped me in several ways. Ciampa outlines a workshop model which is a great professional development idea potentially useful for my staff in future curriculum development teacher meetings. However, what I want to look into more fully is the personal comments and results included in the ‘Evaluating the Technology Professional Development Workshop: Did It Make a Difference?’ section of the article (p. 9). Each participating teacher wrote a brief description of the technology, both hardware and software or apps used, and their evaluation of success. As the teacher librarian, I am collaborating with all grade levels, so this article provides many ideas for me to share with teachers and try with our students.

A second article, "Creating Digital Authors", by Zoch, Langston-DeMott, and Adams-Budde (2014) also interested me. I am hoping to spend more time investigating, describes the development of collaborative publishing in a writer’s camp format. This is particularly interesting for me as a ‘Read and Tech’ summer program instructor.

"The building blocks of digital media literacy: sociomaterial participation and the production of media knowedge" by Dezuanni (2005), led me to view digital media literacy in a new way, giving a basic framework, and spurring me to unpack this concept more fully in my mind.

Finally, while listening to the following Ted Talk with Mitch Resnick, the creator of the Scratch (a programming language and online community for learning about coding), an idea for the summer ‘Read and Tech’ course which I will be teaching began to form.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code#t-985068
Mitch’s inspirational talk sparked the idea for an inquiry project for my students to plan, create and deliver a mini-lesson for their classmates using coding. I hope to incorporate some of the websites shared in the article “10 Great Resources for Teaching Programming and Coding to Primary School Students.” ICT blog post, linked below.
http://www.ourict.co.uk/primary-school-coding-apps/
Now that I have some goals for further research on topics which interest me, I am eager to dive into the virtual information pool, and start swimming!

Works cited:

• Ciampa, K. (2016). Implementing a digital reading and writing workshop model for content literacy instruction in an urban elementary (K–8) school. The Reading Teacher, 70(3), 295-306. doi:10.1002/trtr.1514
• Zoch, M., Langston-DeMott, B., and Adams-Budde, M., Phi Delta Kappan (October 2014). Creating digital authors.Vol 96, Issue 3, pp. 32 – 37, Retreived from: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0031721714557450 
• Michael Dezuanni (2015) The building blocks of digital media literacy: sociomaterial participation and the production of media knowledge, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47:3, 416-439, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2014.966152 
• Resnick, M. (2012, November). Let's Teach Kids to Code. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code#t-985068
• ICT. (June, 2016). 10 Great Resources for Teaching Programming and Coding to Primary School Students. Retrieved from: http://www.ourict.co.uk/primary-school-coding-apps/

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