A commitment to resource-based learning requires a resource network that supports the development of information literacy skills on an ongoing basis. Schools can build a network of resources by drawing on all the information at their disposal. Apart from books, libraries should acquire software, games, videos, audio tapes, newspapers, maps, artifacts, pictures, photographs, objects from nature, and magazines. Full-text CD-ROMs provide access to journal and newspaper articles as well as multimedia encyclopedias. The World Wide Web offers an amazing range of reference books and information files, all free of charge, and these resources will soon be available at every school across Canada.
Unfortunately, some teachers avoid resource-based programmes because they fear the work of providing enough resources and they are unsure of what resources exist and how to teach others to use them effectively. Although commercial units are available, such as the Voyages of the Mimi, they are expensive. Many school boards in Ontario purchase one or two copies of these units and allow schools to book them for a term. In the case of the Mimi units, which include videotapes, software, workbooks, audiotapes, and ideas for many learning activities in a teacher's guide, a single school would use the programme across several grades at once for an entire term. This unit has been used in many classrooms in Frontenac county and teachers and librarians attest to its dynamic shaping of the learning environment. For an example of a locally designed resource-based unit which costs nothing, see Model RBL Unit.
Outlines for many existing resource-based units are available by searching the ERIC database (Education Resources Information Center, Washington, D.C.) on the Web or ONTERIS (Ontario Educational Resources Information Service) on a CD-ROM at a university or school board library. These units may be hundreds of pages in length and provide objectives, activities, materials lists, worksheets, and evaluation methods. They can generally be found in a library associated with a Faculty of Education and may be copied free of charge for classroom use only. Both teachers and librarians should learn to take advantage of the thousands of tested programmes which are presently available at university libraries.
Even though school budgets for materials are forever shrinking, drawing on the community for existing learning materials has never been undertaken in an ongoing and organized fashion. Local experts, sites, businesses, and institutions including cemeteries, museums, art galleries, libraries, book stores, nature walks, and senior citizens homes, are information rich in many subject areas. A cemetery supports studies of the environment, land use, genealogy, local history, social conditions, population trends, diseases, stone rubbings, literature, and creative writing. These topics could become part of either an elementary or secondary school classroom and lend themselves to thematic development across several disciplines.
The creation of products which themselves serve as future resources should not be overlooked. These could include: a taped interview with transcription; "how-to-do-it" manual; bulletin board display; story board on a historical event; learning game; presentation of artifacts; collection of photographs with descriptions; or a videotape with accompanying written analysis. A programme which is adopting this philosophy of resource creation has been proposed at Sydenham High School in Ontario and involves an interdisciplinary course to trace the geographic and social history of the surrounding community. The outcome of the course is to build a museum housing the resulting findings.
-- RBL Index --