1. BeyondTextbooks: Inquiry-based Teaching for Meaningful Learning
M. Ekdahl, TL Mentor
Vancouver School Board
UBC Faculty of Education
June 2008

2. Points of Inquiry:
No longer can it be assumed that the teacher is the expert as students actively construct their own personal understandings of information. This kind of learning is best accomplished within a model of inquiry .…
Points of Inquiry, A Framework for C21L
Developed by BCTLA using BC curriculum documents

3. Many Models, Same Skills …
Glogster: Inquiry Models
“Although the models may look different and use different vocabulary they all include the same basic processes and skills.”
From Nell Ududec - Educational Resources/Library Consultant, Pembina Trails, Manitoba

4. BCTLA’s Points of Inquiry Model
BC curriculum
Benchmarked
Developmental
Common language
Frame for school-wide
tech planning, AfL,
IL skill development in
all subject areas …

5. Inquiring Learners: Are actively involved in the learning process
Make connections and use prior knowledge
Ask good questions, investigate
Construct new understandings and communicate these
Think and reflect critically as they become independent as learners

6. C21 Teachers Move to the side, guide, scaffold learning
Provide feedback, empower deep learning
Encourage students to have more authority over their own knowledge and inquiry
Are actively engaged in learning, assessing, and teaching
Ensure new learning happens in active, collaborative, social contexts (real or virtual)

7. Good questions are the key to inquiry:
Langley Teacher Librarians’ Wiki:
Inquiry Questions
For Use with the Points of Inquiry Model

8. Textbooks are not enough …
Textbooks, although they certainly have an important role in content area learning, have been scrutinized by educational critics who express concerns about their quality in terms of accuracy, readability, and appeal. These criticisms remind us that some textbooks may as well be made for furniture rather than learning ….
Vacca and Vacca (2005)
Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum.
NY: Pearson Education, 154.

9. Is Technology the Answer?
Do we start with questions like these?
How long before the iPad2 expires?
Will everyone have one for home and school?
How will this tool be used by teachers and students today and in years to come?
Is there an App for that? Or are there more fundamental questions of educational philosophy?
“Whatever your guesses are the next year or for 2020, the questions that need answers are not about the rapid expiration dates of the newest device – including the ‘revolutionary’ iPad – nor to what degree technology will be ubiquitous in home and school nor even how new technologies will be used by the next generation of teachers and students.
No, those are not the questions that need to be asked.
Instead, fundamental questions have to deal with matters of educational philosophy.

10. More Fundamental Questions Like:
What knowledge has the most worth? Why?
What are the best ways of teaching and learning?
Or broader moral and political questions:
What is the ‘good’ life?
How does one live a useful and worthy life?
When these questions are asked and answered, then and only then can new technologies play their role in schools and classrooms.

11. TC4C
Where are you and other teachers on The Continuum for Change in teaching and learning?
Just fine where I am, thanks.
No time to think about it. Just surviving here.
What was good enough for me is good enough for them.
Convince me.
I get bored doing the same old thing over and over.
I’m aware that students get bored with “read the chapter, do the questions.”
I’m always looking to try new ways to engage kids with learning.
I love to work with technology. Let’s go …
Want to work on a new unit together? Let’s try Blogging Mathematicians!

12. Top Ten Alternatives to Traditional Textbooks: #1: Other Educators
What are other teachers or educators doing?
Check out –
Springfield Township High School Virtual Library (Joyce Valenza)
Eduscapes.com
Kathy Schrock`s Guide for Educators
PSAs, like Math Teachers
Twitter eg: YA Audiobooks, free for summer reading
Your recommendations?

13. #1, : Twitter / Tweetdeck
Hashtags: #bced #edtechbc #bctla #edchat

14. Try ones like these from VSB’s Digital Library:
#2 = Databases
Try ones like these from VSB’s Digital Library:
Global Issues in Context (SS and Science)
Biography in Context
Bookflix (ESL, SPED)
Newspapers (All)
Culturegrams (Home Ec, SPED, ESL)

15. #2, continued: Sign up for LearnNowBC

16. #3 = eBooks Go to VSB Webcat, click onto Video and More:
Check out such online book sources as:
Books should be free
Librivox Audio Books
Open Library Accessible Books Online
Project Gutenberg
World Book EBook centre
Smart History Art web-text
Merlot eText Content Online

17. #4 = Students Need “InfoSmarts” -- Teach search, retrieval, and CT strategies
Keywords
Google / Beyond Google = Chrome, Scholar, Ninja
Wikipedia – “begin here but never end here”
CCRAP – #9: evaluate sources for currency, coverage, relevance, authority, perspective
Schrock’s Evaluating Websites page
BOOLEAN Machine
Advanced Search features
Wolfram Alpha (For Math and stats and other data, see By Topic)
Corroboration – hoax sites
ME’s Plagiarism Website

18. #5 = Authentic Sources
Authors
Creators
Scientists
National Geographic
NASA
TED Talks
Your recommendations?

19. #6 = Product Launches and Trials
What do you want to see?
Ask District Resource Centre for product trials
Ask Teacher-librarians for product updates

20. #7 = Digitization Initiatives
Canada in the Making - Constitutional History
Canada in the Making - Aboriginals: Treaties & Relations
Canada in the Making – Pioneers and Immigrants
Where are the Children? Healing the legacy of the residential schools
Moving Here, Staying Here. The Canadian Immigrant Experience - LAC
Multicultural Canada
Historica
History by the Minute
Canadian Encyclopedia, The
Black History Canada from Historica
… and lots more

21. In Vancouver, Webcat links to Video and More by tab
#8 = youtube, NFB, TED, etc.
In Vancouver, Webcat links to Video and More by tab
Find a good short youtube clip, like -
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years,
4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

22. #9 = Trade Books (and TLs)
Trade books are:
For use by general public
Informative, entertaining, appealing to range of readers
Picture books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Focused on a subject
Develop in-depth understanding
Opportunities for reading to learn and learning to read
Best when used in multimedia environment with curriculum integration in mind
An optimal way to extend and enrich learning
See more in Vacca and Vacca, Chapter 5 (circulating)

23. #10 – Self-created Resources
Create your own resources with tools like:
Animoto, blogger, Prezi, etc.
Find out more about:
Merlot
Lulu

24. It’s Just The Beginning…