Word Cloud Rains Down Coding Clues

To start this blog, I began by brainstorming words that came to mind when I thought of Information Literacy. I re-read sections of Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada to remind myself of some of the skills needed for 21st century learners. I also included the skills identified from the National Council of Teachers of English (NTCE) 21st Century Literacies as outlined by Richardson’s book Why School in chapter 5. By this time, my list was over 120 words long and I was no closer to identifying major themes of interest for future pursuit. 

To aid me in making sense of this long list, I entered the word list that I had compiled into a word cloud generator. Although there are many available, I made use of worditout.com since it was free and fairly user-friendly, while allowing for some control over text, direction, colour and word emphasis. I’ve included the image below.



As you can see the main word that rose to the surface was information. This makes sense as we live in a world where information is now readily available and the problem of accessing information has been replaced with problems of how to effectively search, discern and apply information. This leads me to another word that jumped off the page in my word cloud: skills. Students of today need to be taught skills in how to navigate the online world safely and be empowered to contribute and navigate online spaces. Media continues to be a place where students interact with news, each other and the wrestle with the credibility of information sources. Teaching directly to how to engage with others on line in a respectful manner that also encourages critical thinking skills remains a challenge for educators and parents alike.

The other theme to emerge from this word cloud exercise revolve around the concept of coding. These appeared in the smaller print, but when combined together represent a larger theme. Words such sequence, SpheroSPRK, Scratch, conditionals, robotics, debugging, solving, create, problem solving, sphero mini, logic, evaluation, thinking, array, games, gamification and open-ended all relate to this umbrella topic. 

Although I was hired as a teacher librarian, due to COVID19 I was reassigned help in a grade 1 and grade 2 classroom. There is also much uncertainty surrounding the future of teacher librarians in Manitoba schools since an education review is set to be made public sometime this year and may eliminate this role altogether from the public school system. Knowing this context, I am particularly interested in learning about a topic in more detail that I can apply to any teaching context find myself in the future. 

To that end I think the most exciting theme to emerge from this endeavour has been the theme relating to coding. I have started some very basic coding-based lessons with the grade 1s but I suspect there is much more I can learn on this subject. I think coding and online games which incorporate block coding such as Minecraft, Sphere or Scratch present some great opportunities to develop a multitude of digital literacy skills that can easily applied to 21st century realities our students are facing. 

Richardson told of the many skills which his son developed by exploring the world of Minecraft; skills such as creating his own curriculum, creating multimedia texts, consulting experts, assessing his own work and offering feedback to peers (Richardson, ch.3). Although I don't think this type of self-initiated, self-directed learning should replace school as we know it, I do believe that there is a place for it within our system and I admit to not knowing enough about this subject.  I would be very interested in learning more about the educational pedagogy surrounding this topic and how best to implement it within the school - specifically within the grade 1 and 2 context.

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/i/information_technology.asp

References:

Richardson,W. (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences Publishing. [EBOOK]

Stahler, Jeff. Retrieved January 21, 2021 from  https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/i/information_technology.asp 


Comments

  1. Aaron MuellerJanuary 25, 2021 at 7:11 AM

    This was a strong brainstorming post that captured your early attempts at identifying a topic and research area and getting a little overwhelmed with the amount of areas, topics and keywords that you are potentially interested in. A very good strategy to create your word cloud and to focus on the key terms that are so often repeated as a part of your inquiry. This will help you focus and narrow your topics to be something much more useful and relevant. Overall, a good first post that setups the rest of your inquiry well!

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