IASL's Reviews of Professional Materials

Bendigo Senior Secondary College Library Staff. Researching Together: Engaging Minds. School Library Association of Victoria, Melbourne, 2005. [CD-ROM]. AUD$165 (including GST) for single- and multi-user site licence. ISBN 0-909978-29-8.

Intelligent, clear, well organize, and stimulating are some of the qualities of this electronic resource, created by the library staff of the Bendigo Senior Secondary College from Victoria, Australia.

Researching together: engaging minds is presented in the form of HTML files that can be integrated into any library website, and it intends to be a "learning and teaching resource (--) designed to be used by collaborative teams of teachers and teacher-librarians". It aims to create a learning environment, supporting information literacy while encouraging the use of information and communication technologies.

Elaborated under the authority principles stated by the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and the Principles of Learning and Teaching, it incorporates four main tools:

  • Research Formats that can be adapted to each school curriculum and incorporated in each school Intranet;
  • Planning Templates, with online resources and information to be used both by teachers and students throughout the research process, providing questioning techniques and independent learner strategies;
  • Knowledge Sharing, with some Library essentials, showing samples of printed and electronic resources on research strategies and, among others, thinking and learning skills and instructional assessment for the use of information technology in the classroom;
  • and Evidence, where teachers and students can find practical support for the research and thinking processes, including the evaluation of the progresses achieved by the learning teams.

These four items are very well organised and the navigation is user friendly, while the template forms provided are presented in Word, PowerPoint, and HTML files, easy to print or save for further independent use. In addition, the resource presents a very helpful site map and a userís guide with all the technical specifications needed to use the program. New users are also encouraged to start by reading three PowerPoint presentations, divided into an identical number of Professional Development Sessions, about Planning, Research Formats and Evidence & Knowledge Sharing. Finally, the list of Internet resources provided to support the online researches is accurate, actual, and criteriously selected.

Although it was designed to fulfill the needs of the Victorian Schools Curriculum and even though all the web links and information provided were created having in mind English speaking schools, this program is so complete, flexible, and intelligently conceived that it could perfectly be translated and adapted for other parts of the world.

It is really satisfactory to find out that it was designed by a school library staff, showing how the information literacy theories can be put into practice, using information technologies to create learning environments within the conception of a real collaborative work between teachers and teacher librarians. In fact, Researching Together: Engaging Minds is a powerful tool, combining the powerful concepts of information literacy and knowledge thinking with a collaborative conception of the teaching and learning processes grounded on profound professional knowledge. As we explore it, we feel more and more enthusiastic and satisfied with the rigour put in its organisation and in the selection of information. It is, in conclusion, a highly recommendable program, really helpful for teachers and students, and an example to be adapted and developed by other schools and school libraries, even in other parts of the world, with different curricula and different languages.

Reviewed by Manuela Barreto Nunes, Professor and Library Director, Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal.

Last Updated 29 August 2005 (LAC)