It’s been a busy start to the year. My posts have been few and far between but I’ve been more active in sharing things on Twitter and Scoop.it as well as our new LibGuides online resources. Oh well, here’s a video I think you might enjoy. I found it here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ECtrGn6zXdg#!]
This has been reposted from my school library blog.
On the topic of the teacher librarians’ role and exactly what it is we TLs do in our jobs, I wanted to share this article in The Guardian: Beyond books: what it takes to be a 21st century librarian. We all know that there’s more to being a librarian than stamping books, as the subtitle of the article states. How bothered are we by the fact that a large proportion of our school communities have little idea what we do?
If we stopped the next person walking by on the street and asked them what our jobs as librarians involve, we’d be willing to bet that their first answer would be stamping books. This is because many people’s experience of librarians is of the frontline, customer service staff.
I think the same can be said of school libraries although it varies greatly depending on the interaction between teacher librarians and teaching staff. What the article says about librarians is surely relevant to teacher librarians, librarians and technicians –
If anyone ever thought they’d become a librarian because they liked books or reading, they would be sorely disappointed if they did not also like people too.
Of course, in the digital age, in fact, in the global digital culture in particular, teacher librarians play a vital role in schools. What exactly is the role of a 21st teacher librarian?
It’s not something which can be answered in a simple sentence. For this reason, I want to share links to curated websites on this topic. I am including a list of Scoop.its which have been curated by various people (including me) on the topic of the 21st century teacher librarian. I hope you find this list useful; it includes all things relevant to the 21st century librarian in the broadest sense.
My Scoop.it – What is a teacher librarian?
Curation and libraries and learning – Joyce Valenza
e-Books – Carmel Galvin
Create the web and learn to live – @pipcleaves
21st century libraries – Dr Steve Matthews
Educational technology and libraries – Kim Tairi
Embedded Librarianship – Buffy Hamilton
Graphic Novels in the classroom – @dilaycock
Information coping skills – Beth Kanter
Information science and library studies – Joao Brogueira
Information fluency, transliteracy, research tools – Joyce Valenza
Inquiry and digital literacy – Shawn Hinger
Internet Search – Phil Bradley
Learning – Darren Kuropatwa
Libraries and ethnography – Buffy Hamilton
Libraries and Tumblr – Buffy Hamilton
Libraries as sites of enchantment, participatory culture and learning (what a title!) – Buffy again
Livebinders – Peggy George
Multiliteracies – Vance Stevens
New librarianship – Karen Burns
Personal learning networks for librarians – Donna Watt
QR codes – libraries – NairarbilUCA
Readers’ advisory for secondary schools – Marita Thomson
School libraries – Nickki Robinson
Social media content curation– Guiseppe Mauriello
Social networking for information professionals – Judy O’Connell
The library technician – Dawn Jimenez
Student learning through school libraries – Lyn Hay
Weird and wonderful – for librarians and booklovers – Jean Anning
This selection is only a small fraction of what’s being curated by people passionate about their topic on Scoop.it. It’s overwhelming but also a fantastic way of keeping track of evolving scoops on searchable topics. The fact that the list relevant to teacher librarians is so broad indicates the breadth of the teacher librarians’ focus and involvement. Of course, we can’t do everything but it’s a good idea to see potential involvement, and having seen the bigger picture, delegate to team members (assuming you have a team) the most pressing areas according to their interest.
By the way, Scoop.its are very easy to make and make reading enjoyable in their magazine-scoop-style presentation. It’s easy to follow, to search, to share and to recommend Scoop.its and articles. It’s also a brilliant way to build your Personal Learning Network by investigating the curators, checking out their bio, looking at what else they’ve curated or what they themselves follow.
You’ve got to start somewhere! Happy scooping!
Photo courtesy of CanadianAEh on Flickr
Time is one of our most precious commodities in a fast paced world. This is particularly true for educators, don’t you think? For teacher librarians, curating information and resources and doing it well is more important than ever. Our information management strategies enable us to control the flood of online information, and to connect with others in order to receive and share information.
Scoop.it (beta), a new way of curating online resources for a topic of choice, has sprung up out of nowhere (somewhere, obviously), and it seems that most of the people in my Twitter, Facebook and other networks are giving it a go. At first I thought – what!? yet another thing to keep up with; do I really need to tie myself down to managing more than my existing blogs and bits? But honestly, Scoop.it is probably one of the most effortless ways not only of curating a topic online. You just create a topic, get the button, then ‘scoop’ websites as you see them. The layout is great, magazine-style page, much easier to skim and select than looking through Diigo or Delicious accounts. Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when all information is enhanced by a visual layout; much more user friendly.
The networking part of Scoop.it works really well. I get email alerts when one of my people creates another topic, and then it’s just a matter of having a look to see if I want to follow it. Looking through someone’s list of followed Scoop.its opens up even more topics, so every day I’m discovering new resources. Since people choose areas of interest, they are often experts in resourcing this topic. Developing a personal learning network has never been so important. Networking is a powerful way of having the best and most relevant resources come to you. You can even suggest resources for somebody else’s Scoop.it topic, and then the creator has the choice of accepting or ignoring this.
There is an option of sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and that is often how I am alerted to new topics and links. Of course, tagging makes locating resources easy.
Today on Facebook Karen Bonanno shared the Library Research Services’ Vimeo Channel featuring videos such as School library characteristics that affect student achievement – an excellent series of videos, quite digestible in video form, and I wanted to share these with my library team so I added a post in my school library blog.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/16517124 w=400&h=225]
Chapter 4: School Library Characteristics that Affect Student Achievement from LRS on Vimeo.
Currently I’ve only created 2 topics:
Apps for learning and What is a teacher librarian – can’t say I’ve put much effort into these. I think you have to get into the mindset of thinking ‘Scoop.it’ as you read and discover things online. However, I have been looking through others’ resources, and I’m happy to say that Scoop.it has turned out to be more than a new gimmick. I suppose you have to give new things a go in order to decide whether they warrant your time and focus.
The Explore tab at the top of Scoop.it takes you to the latest scoops within the topics you follow. Currently I follow 75, and yes, you can’t keep up with everything all the time. Like the fast flowing Twitter stream, you just dip in when you have time or when you’re looking for specific resources.
If you’re using Scoop.it please leave your Scoop.it identity in the comment box. I would love to see what you’ve been curating. It would also be good to discover your favourite topics. Don’t be shy!
I’m a little tired of people telling me I’m wasting my time on Facebook.
Yes, I do enjoy keeping an eye on what my friends and colleagues are up to, seeing photos of their weddings, new babies and celebrations, particularly when they don’t live close. But I also use Facebook professionally. I’m a teacher librarian – I resource the curriculum, and that means I need a constant stream of information coming to me. Facebook, my Twitter network, Google Reader, my Diigo and Delicious network, my Vodpod network – all connect me to what I need to do my job. The same goes for what I’m interested in.
Some read the newspaper, others do it differently.
I don’t know what you see on your Facebook page but this is a cross-section of what I see –
You get the idea…
Photo from Enokson on Flickr
Books have been a source of information for some time now. But in libraries, the people have been important too. Librarians have been the personal link to information for some time too.
As the world of information has changed from being bound in books to becoming available to all on the net, people have become even more important because of their expertise. In schools, just as we are seeing a movement towards reducing funding to libraries, teacher librarians are skilling up in step with a fast-changing, online world, and are not only supporting the management an overwhelming outpouring of information, but are also able to support new digital skills in a globalised society.
Libraries are no longer prized for their hard-copy content as much as for their intellectual property. Resource centres, stage for events that bring people to ideas, gathering places – libraries have evolved and continue to do so.
If our libraries are recognised in these ways, we will never be redundant – on the contrary, we will be essential.
How do you see the emerging role of libraries and school libraries?
See other retro library posters here.
This morning I read a tweet that left me in shock:
New FF blog post So long and thanks for all the fish: This is the 798th post to the Fiction Focus blog sinc… http://bit.ly/9eNNmK #FFblog
Following the link I discovered the bad news – Judi Jagger would no longer be writing the Fiction Focus blog:
This is the 798th post to the Fiction Focus blog since it began in early 2008. We didn’t quite make the 800. Unfortunately funding is no longer available for me to continue in this role, so my involvement has ended.
Whether or not my colleagues will have the time to maintain the blog will decide its fate. It certainly cannot be at the rate of posts that there have been in the past as they have an enormous workload.
Thanks for all the positive comments that come this way over the past nearly-three years. I have enjoyed every minute. No, make that lovedevery minute.
I know that I speak for many people, teacher librarians in particular, for whom the Fiction Focus blog has been the first port of call for best quality YA fiction reviews and current information about books and reading.
The blog has been a wonderful extension of the CMIS Fiction Focus journal published three times a year by CMIS, Department of Education and Training (WA). Although we’ve relied on the hard copy journal for a long time, the blog has been a welcome development at a time when social media transforms static publications into writing which has a personal voice and invites commentary and discussion.
I’m completely baffled as to why such an initiative would be terminated.
If you’ve enjoyed the Fiction Focus blog, please join me in expressing your gratitude to Judi and the team, and leave a comment on this blog or, better still, on Fiction Focus’ last blog post here.
Everything has changed since information became available to all on the internet. Not so much changed as exploded. When something explodes, it shatters into countless pieces which means the whole we used to know needs to be re-examined. Why are we still looking at the old ways of teaching, the old focus of our instruction, fellow teacher librarians? Yes, more than ever, our job is to help students learn how to manage this information explosion. Hence, information literacy is still a major focus for our instruction. But let’s expand our vision, let’s analyse that newly reconstructed whole to see what other literacies we need to teach – we need to learn in order to be able to teach. Digital literacy, network literacy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0I13tKrxcA]
I found this video on the Fair use and info ethics page on the NECC Library Learning Tools BYOL Smackdown wiki set up by Joyce Valenza, Cathy Jo Nelson, Karen Kliegman, Wendy Stephens, and Keisa Williams at the National Educational Computer Conference in Washington, D.C. 2009.
There is a wide range of skills covered in this wiki for teacher librarians, including the traditional information literacy/fluency as well as Digital Citizenship. In a way, digital citizenship is an extension of information literacy. If information literacy is about learning to navigate the whole information package online, then digital citizenship is learning how to behave online, how to responsibly work with and create from what is available online. All educators are responsible for teaching digital citizenship but teacher librarians are certainly well placed since they are already experts in the management of information.
Why stop at research skills when you can equip students to behave responsibly and ethically as they use digital content to view, create and remix?
I recommend you browse the many and varied aspects of this wiki. Fellow teacher librarians, isn’t it exciting to have such a broad and challenging role!
Photo courtesy of Beverly_&_Pack on Flickr
A while ago I was surprised to discover that my blog was included in a list of 100 most inspiring and innovative blogs for education published by Online University Reviews.
At the time I just skimmed the extensive lists, but this evening I have been poring over lists in different categories, and I must say, they’re definitely worth looking at.
Not one for business or gossip, here are some of the lists which caught my eye:
50 best blogs for grammar geeks
10 important writers who went to jail for their work
100 best scholarly art blogs divided into the categories of best art news, best art critic, best art communities, best artists’ blogs, best artist inspirational blogs, best children’s art, best art photography and best art resources
(also including Art forum Australia)
50 free games for teaching literacy online
100 useful tutorials for the twittering librarian including for the beginner, best blogs for Twitter, best way to find other twittering librarians, best timesavers for Twitter, best ways to promote your library using Twitter, best tools for Twitter, best games for Twitter, best add-ons for Twitter, best image tools for Twitter, best video tools for Twitter, best books for Twitter and best librarians to follow on Twitter.
50 best websites for modern Shakespearean scholars
50 incredible books every educator should read
100 famous writers you can follow on Twitter
100 most inspiring and innovative blogs for educators – these are divided into the categories: general teaching blogs, specialty subject blogs, best podcasts for teachers, best video blogs for teachers.
100 open courses to take your writing to the next level
top 100 liberal arts professor blogs – these are divided into art, economics, education, english, history, maths, media/technology, music, philosophy, psychology, political science, science, sociology and theology
50 best blogs for literacy teachers including ESL/EFL, grammar, literary criticism and reading promotion
I hope you have an enormous amount of time on you hands because you’ll need a small lifetime to investigate all these links. I’ve been madly saving some of these to my Diigo library. Although I doubt that these lists even cover most of the best of the best – obviously other bests exist elsewhere – it’s definitely a list where you can find something for everyone.
What do you say to a student who says your reading blog updates are spam? And what do you say when more than one student sends you an email like this one
Could you please stop spamming me. You are cluttering my inbox and inhibiting me from working.
Now, there are several things bugging me about this email and those like it.
I know that students receive many emails aimed at a general audience and that my weekly email is only a drop in that ocean. Emails about sport they’re not involved in, activities, general information, etc. I get the feeling that these emails are just deleted on a regular basis (or left to gather dust, so to speak). I might be paranoid but I think the emails I’ve been receiving are symptomatic of the way students see staff who work in the school library. Now, I may not be about to describe the situation in your school, but I’ve seen a few school libraries where teacher librarians, librarians and library technicians are considered similarly. To some extent, students don’t consider library staff in the same way they consider teachers. Hence, the email without any greeting or mention of my name – something I’ll bet they would never do to any subject teacher.
Some teacher librarians claim that they teach a class (at least) so that they’re seen as ‘real teachers’. That makes sense. It’s a good idea if you can. Currently I teach a year 7 English class collaboratively on a regular basis, and I enjoy the ongoing relationship with the students, getting to know them in a way I wouldn’t when I come into classes here and there to support information literacy or reading promotion.
But if I taught more classes regularly, I wouldn’t have the time to spread myself around the school, offering my expertise across the curriculum to different year levels at point of need. A teacher librarian’s skills are diverse, and as we keep up with changes in education (which respond to changes in the workplace and the world in general), we have the potential opportunity to become involved in rich ways. As an example, I’ve been teaching within a ning for the first time, experimenting with enriching learning possibilities for the year 7 class I’ve mentioned. I’ve been constantly developing resources within wikis for English and Art, and I’m about to begin the same type of support for Maths and LOTE faculties. This is a time-consuming, out-of-hours, but ultimately satisfying job. I can do it because I’m not having a full load of face-to-face teaching. I love this work, and I believe teacher librarians have a lot more to offer now than they ever used to. I know many colleagues will agree with me on this.
The other thing that I find problematic when I think about the student’s email to me is the view that reading is not relevant to him. Information about books and related films, animation and the such, belong to the library, and are not relevant to this student’s subject-based focus. I think this reflects the problematic nature of developing a reading culture in the school. I started the fiction blog in order to begin to address this very important aspect of school life. I absolutely believe that developing a strong reading culture within the school community, including everyone in that community, is essential to and will have direct bearing on every other aspect of education. For a start, research demonstrates that reading is directly associated with academic results. And why wouldn’t it be? The more you read, the more you understand, the more ideas and perspectives you glean, the broader your outlook and access to diverse information will be, the more you will engage in discussion to further develop your ideas, practise delivery of what you want to say, etc. You get the point.
And yet, reading is still associated with libraries and librarians. That’s what we do. Other people do other things but we just read books. At least that’s the common perception.
This is what I want to change. I take responsibility for perceptions of reading and librarians such as those expressed by the above-mentioned email. I intend to work through this problem until I’ve made some progress. Not single-handedly, of course. My colleagues and I are united on this one. I admit it’s hard not to take emails like this one personally. But I also think that disciplining the student, as important as it is, will not solve the problem. The problem of reading’s relevancy to learning must be analysed, and the approach of the teacher librarian to this problem, as well as to the role of libraries in schools, must be worked through. Otherwise, if we are seen as not being essential, or even worse, irrelevant, to learning and teaching in schools, we’re in trouble.
