Guest blogger: Summertime Professional Reading

Today's blog recommends two books that will bring you up to speed on the impact of the maker movement in schools. Paula Hollohan is the Instructional Technologies & Information Specialist in the Doucette Library who keeps up with technology trends in education. Check in with Paula's blog, Doucette Ed Tech if you'd like to keep up with all sorts of cool and interesting, wide-ranging topics.

I, too, will be coming up with some summertime reading recommendations in about two weeks - NOT focused on technology, as you might expect. So stay tuned for fiction and nonfiction reads whether you're at the  beach, cabin, or in the back garden. There will be something for everyone.

Tammy

Summer Reading

By: Paula Hollohan

Summer is a time to re-energize and have some time for new learning in a more relaxed atmosphere.  That’s everything I love about summer reading except that the location can and be the beach or the deck.  Set your sights on something you are interested in, get a big set of post it notes and away you go.

This summer, I am recommending two reads to reinforce the notion of the “Maker Mindset.”

Both books, while not published this year, are new enough to speak to the notion of making embedded in curriculum and in school culture more completely than a room called a “Maker Space” ever could be.  That is not to say that having a makerspace in any facility that you educate in is not a great bonus but without a leading edge, expensive maker space, any educator can still advance the notion of making in any environment.

The first book is “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is changing our schools, our jobs, and our minds” by Dale Dougherty with Ariane Conrad. 

Beginning with Chapter 1, “We are all Makers,” this book, published in 2016, gives a generous overview of the maker movement and some specifics about how it fits in education and more generally, how it is changing the real world.  Chapter 7 specifically addresses the nature and conditions needed to adopt a “maker mindset.”  This book is a quick read to give educators a great foundation in what maker is and what is looks like within each community.

The second book is by Edmonton’s own, George Couros, “The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture ofcreativity.”  

This book speaks directly to educators no matter what stage they are at in embracing the maker movement.  He addresses, because of his own experience, just how difficult it is to lead a revolution in a school system.  However, the information contained here will give educators much to talk and think about.  Many questions will be addressed, like how to create meaningful learning while having innovative students and educators leading the way.

Have a great summer and allow these two great books to help inform your practice in September.

Both books are currently being catalogued and will shortly be available in the Doucette Library.

Interest in Pinterest

Today's blog falls in the category of a--

 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

Many of you know that I curate Pinterest boards that list books found in the Doucette Library and tie-in with the Alberta Education curriculum.  My focus has been mostly on elementary science, social studies and math. For science and social studies, I have created individual boards for every grade and every topic. For math, I did not organize resources according to individual grade level but rather grouped books by topic such as Number Sense, Measurement, Patterns and so on. I've included fiction and nonfiction books, DVDs and a few websites on these boards.

Recently, I've been busy adding more resources to these boards to keep them up-to-date and more complete.

I've also added several new boards based on requests by student-teachers around specific topics. These are Fractured and Adapted Fairy Tales and Activists and Activism K-6 and Activists and Activitism 7-12.

Also, I've just added several boards that correspond with the social studies curriculum for grades 7 to 9. Again, each topic has it's own boards and include: 

   Canada: Origins, Histories and Movement of People 
7.1 Toward Confederation
7.2 Following Confederation: CanadianExpansions

   Historical Worldviews Examined
8.1 From Isolation to Adaptation: Japan
8.2 Origins of a Western Worldview:Renaissance Europe
8.3 Worldviews in Conflict: The Spanishand the Aztecs 

   Canada: Opportunities and Challenges
9.1 Issues for Canadians: Governanceand Rights
9.2 Issues for Canadians: EconomicSystems in Canada and the United States

These boards predominately list nonfiction resources but do include fiction when something was available.

I hope to add boards that will correspond to the junior high science curriculum later this summer.

If you have any recommendations for resources that correspond with these or any other curriculum topics, please drop me a line. I'm always keen to add resources to the Doucette collection that will connect with Alberta Education's curriculum.

Exploring the depths

Everyone loves a mystery, right?  And what’s more mysterious than regions and realms we can only imagine, know little about and rarely see.

Under Water, Under Earth: there are whole worlds to explore just below the surface

by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski is a book that will captivate 8 to 12 year-olds easily and even older if kids (or adults) are into information presented in a highly visual and interesting format.

This oversized book is divided into two sections each starting from one of the covers and meeting in the middle. The reader views the book by turning it on its side. From one side we are introduced to the fascinating and mysterious world of what lies underwater. Though it includes lakes and sinkholes, the book predominately focuses on the ocean. Besides looking at the various plants and animals that live beneath water from shallow waters to the deepest known point, a great deal of information is given about human activities, as well. Like how we submerge ourselves using diving equipment, submarines, submersibles, or drilling platforms. The book starts with the shallowest levels of life and phenomena to those found deep, deep down underwater.

Flip the book around and we start to learn all about the wondrous worlds found under our feet. Again, there is a focus on plants and wildlife that depend on earth to survive. For example, I love the 2-page spread that illustrates the various depths to which tree roots grow.  I also found the illustrations showing the underground barrows for various animals fascinating. Here too, human activity is covered including transportation, mining, how we move water, sewage and other utilities, archaeology and paleontology digs. Then last part of this section has the cool geological features such as caves, volcanoes and the earth's structure.

There is a lot of information to be found in this book. The bite sized pieces of information make it highly accessible and easy for browsing. The format is very appealing and will work for more than one student viewing at a time.

Highly recommended.

Passel of animal books

Well, another academic school year is over. With exams finished up last week, we’re officially in ‘summer mode’ for the next 4 months. Fewer students around means it’s catch-up time here in the Doucette Library.

So I’m getting caught up with reading a backlog of picture books. I’ve read a fair number of animal books recently and I thought I’d give a few recommendations for the ones I liked best.

Starting with--

Clara: the (mostly) true story of the rhinoceros who dazzled kings,inspired artists and won the hearts of everyone…while she ate her way up anddown a continent! By Emily Arnold McCully

Not many Europeans knew what a rhinoceros looked like in the 1700s but Clara, an orphaned baby rhino changed that for many people. Brought from India by a Dutch sea captain to Europe, they traveled for 17 years to Holland, France, Italy, England and Germany entertaining people from all walks of life. I see this book as a great discussion starter and for research, too. How were animals treated in the past? What parts of Clara’s story have been ‘tinkered’ with? How much food does a rhino really need? There are lots of possibilities.

Elephant Journey: the true story of three zoo elephants and theirrescue from captivity by Rob Laidlaw

I love stories where animals, in dire straits, are given new leases on life such as described in this book.  We learn about three elephants from the Toronto Zoo who are moved to California to take up residence in a sanctuary. It’s quite a feat of organization and transportation to get Toka, Iringa and Thika to their new home and how they adjusted to a life outside a small, cold zoo enclosure.  I recommend this for elementary grades.

Follow the Moon Home: a tale of one idea, twenty kids and a hundredsea turtles by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson.

Turtles are endlessly fascinating creatures faced with a myriad of challenges for survival. One such challenge is getting to the ocean from their beach-sand nests. Along beaches where there has been significant development, lights from homes and hotels often mislead the baby turtles in the wrong direction, away from the ocean. This story focuses on the efforts of a young girl to save these turtles by having the people living along the beaches turn off their bright lights when the turtles are hatching. This has a great combination of science and social activism for upper elementary grades.

Glow: animals with their own night-lights by W.H. Beck

This one introduces us to the topic of bioluminescence featuring mostly deep ocean creatures. The photos are pretty amazing. Elementary students will likely find this one quite appealing.

Otters Love to Play by Jonathan London

There is something very appealing about otters – cute faces, lanky, bendy bodies and their playful behavior are irresistible.  Great book for early elementary grades about otter’s habitat and seasonal changes in behavior. Illustrations really give a good sense of their playful natures and body movements.

And, lastly—

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk by Jan Thornhill

This now extinct bird had at one time numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the North Atlantic. Outlined here are the conditions that came together over a period of time that contributed to the bird’s demise: namely the bird’s inability to fly, the northern waters they inhabited for cold water fish and few viable spots for laying and hatching eggs, climate change and human hunting (for food and collectability once it became rare). The author lays out the interconnectedness of these conditions, the impact of the birds on local peoples and their legacy. I highly recommend this for middle grades.

Peace Bridge

Today’s recommended title will be of particular interest to Calgarians, Albertans and Canadians.

Bridges: an Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers by Didier Cornille introduces us to 10 bridges from various countries spanning the globe providing a brief entry about the architects who designed them and sometimes a little about the construction process.  Each bridge has a something distinct about it, whether it was for a new construction process, a new design, extraordinary length, or a design feature.

Among the selected few is Calgary’s own Peace Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava (2012).

The other bridges include:

Iron Bridge designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard (England, 1779)

Brooklyn Bridge designed by John Roebling, Washington Roebling and Emily Warren (United States, 1883)

Forth Bridge designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker (Scotland, 1890)

Plougastel Bridge designed by Eugene Freyssinet (France, 1930)

Sydney Harbour Bridge designed by John Jacob Crew Bradfield (Australia, 1932)

Golden Gate Bridge designed by Joseph Baermann Strauss (United States, 1937)

Rio-Niteroi Bridge designed by Jean Muller (Brasil, 1974)

Millau Viaduct designed by Norman Foster and Michel Virlogeux (France, 2004)

Mucem Footbridge designed by Rudy Ricciotti (France, 2013)

Each entry is very brief. I love the format of the book, which is oversized and read turned on its side so we are flipping the pages up. This is great for giving the reader a sense of length, giving the illustrations of each bridge lots of room to span the page. The details usually include a little information about the designer including other projects they’ve been involved in and most often specifics about the construction process.  The illustrations are simple, uncluttered and placed on pages with lots of white space.

The entry for the Peace Bridge in Calgary features several of Calatrava’s other structures giving only two short pages dedicated to the Peace Bridge itself. However cool looking this bridge there is not a lot of information about it in terms of construction.

Another thing I noticed is that with the exception of Emily Warren, who stepped in when her husband died building the Brooklyn Bridge there are no women featured here. There have to be some noteworthy bridges designed by women, right?

This book will be of interest to teachers for science (building things, designing), STEM, and social studies (Alberta, Canada, local politics). I would recommend this for middle grades.