The
weeks of exploration from this course that got my mind directed towards my “aha”
future vision project was week 6 and on.
It began with me wanting to expand my own PLN, but a major focus for my
vision project stems from week 7 as to how I will best support and be responsive
to the personalized needs of the educators, staff, admin, parents, and other
members of my educational community.I am hoping to create a library learning commons homepage with links to
resources, videos, and my own professional blog as a way to share out the technology
and resources our school has available, taking into account the varied abilities
and experience levels to accommodate all within my learning community. My
current homepage is a basic, standard school district one.
Coldstream Elementary School current library homepage
I know that my long term vision is greater than
what I will be able to accomplish in the next three weeks and it will be an
ongoing project. In order for my
homepage to be responsive to my learning community it will need to continuously
evolve anyway.It has been on my mind to
do something with my library homepage and now this is my opportunity to get
going on it and with a specific purpose and direction.A few weeks ago my future vision project in
my mind was to make videos of the various makerspacers (microbits, osmos,
spheros, etc )
available in our school for my staff as the audience.I still want to do this, but that may be
farther down the road.First I have
decided I need some other basics on my library webpage to service more than
just staff. From this course, I have
certainly come to understand the value of sharing out my ideas and resources,
as I ‘steal’ others’ ideas from pinterest to tweetsso I best share, too!I know there will be value in my vision
project in that all members of my school community will benefit from it
eventually, including me.I doubt my
library webpage will help others country wide, but perhaps within our district
it will spark feedback from my fellow TLs and help my page evolve and become
even more useful.Perhaps fellow TLs in
our district will make their library webpages a useful resource to their
learning community, as well.
I
know that my first step is to contact our district website person to allow me
access to the site. I need to find out
what I can and cannot do according to our district guidelines. I have started exploring other TL library webpages
this week to get a better sense of what I want my actual final project to look
like. I did note that some TLs have almost
nothing on their school library homepage, but a link that connects me to their
well-designed blog or site. I am
assuming they don’t have the access to do so on the school homepage. I will explore some more sites, but so far I have
gained some insight about my format likes and dislikes. I like the sites that are simple in
layout.
I did check out Aaron’s ParklandSecondary School site and love the simplicity of an image/title that leads to many resources
on one topic. I have liked tweets from
Anna Crosland so searched to find her new school library site thinking it would
be a good one to model mine after. Her
school, which is called Ecole Martha Currie, library website is a standard district one. It gives a link to her edublog, which is personalized to better meet her learning community needs. What I like about her site is the display of student
work. Kids and parents must love that
and me, as a fellow TL, love to be able to steal cool ideas. Anna, like Aaron, has clear titles linked to
resources clearly laid out. I also checked
out a local TL who is always a step ahead of the rest of us here in Vernon with
great programs in his library, Mark Bendall of Vernon Secondary School . I liked his links for students like note
taking and citations. I think I’d like
information like that on my site, as it’d be helpful for my students. A neat
upcoming idea Bendall is working on is online book chats, which is an online space for students to recommend books or argue which book is better. One idea I’d like to steal from Black MountainElementary learning commons webpage is how they created links to author webpages. My students could be exploring the books, games,
and blogs of their favourite authors.
Stacey Manoin of Mar Jok Elementary has awesome clear tabs that pull down to a plethora of resources for students
to parents, plus has highlights of upcoming author visits and virtual field
trips.
I
have lots of ideas, but where to start!I know I want clear labels with an easy to navigate site.I want to target my whole learning community
to have everyone coming to the library homepage.I hope to include the learning happenings
through pictures or videos, have digital resources for staff, parents and
students.A little more planning and
sometime investigating web design are my next steps….for now!
References
Bendall,
M. (2018). VSS Library - Vernon Secondary School. Retrieved from
http://www.sd22.bc.ca/school/vss/Programs/library/Pages/default.aspx
Crosland,
A. (2018). Anna Crosland TL | Anna Crosland TL. Retrieved from
http://annacrosland.edublogs.org/
Learning
Commons - Black Mountain Elementary. (2018). Retrieved from
http://www.bme.sd23.bc.ca/Programs/lc/Pages/default.aspx
Library -
Ecole Martha Currie Elementary. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.surreyschools.ca/schools/marthacurrie/Library/Pages/default.aspx
Manoin,
S. (2018). Stacey Manoin. Retrieved from https://staceymanoin.weebly.com/
Mueller,
A. (2018). Course: Learning Commons. Retrieved from
https://parkland.sd63.bc.ca/course/view.php?id=274
I am excited with the many, many ideas and blogs, posts and research
we have piled through this month.The
best part of it all for me is that it is applicable to the work I am
doing!It made this course not feel like
a hoop to jump through, but one where I have tonnes of takeaways, lots to be
interested in, and lots I have already incorporated into my work.
One new avenue for development for me personally is that just
this week I received another inquiry grant from my school district.The grant is for my little TL group in which
we began as an inquiry group working to transition our libraries to a learning
commons.This year we are collecting
resources and sharing with each other our learning.This is a huge help to me professionally as I
am given time to talk, share, discuss, and learn with fellow TLs.I feel I learn LOTS from simple conversations.
We
will continue our march on towards becoming a full library learning commons and
are almost there.There are so many
ideas I gathered from this last month, such as Book Clubs or Book of the Month
to continue the development of the reading culture in our school
community.
Our group also hopes to bring
in a neighbouring district guru, Amber Hartwell, to help inspire other teachers
in our district to transition their libraries and give us guidance, as
well.I like the idea of having my own
personal inquiry in that I am modelling the process for colleagues in our
school, just as we embark on a school wide inquiry process.Another area for me to development in my own practice
is staying on top of an efficient and practical way to curate resources.I think heading forward I hope that my
library webpage will hopefully house resources through links, my blog, and twitter.
Moving forward from what I learned this month is I will be sharing
out!I had thought about it briefly before,
but my biggest takeaway is definitely the importance of sharing out and how not
just others benefit from it, but me too!
Richardson (2012, p.387) named reasons that teachers don’t share out,
from fear to a culture of competition in schools, but I feel the biggest factor
for me is time.Really the lack of time
is my issue.However, sharing out with
fellow local librarians, colleagues, and other TLs is an area needing growth
for me, one that I can attain, and one that will help me professionally, as
well.A quote from Paige Bredenkamp found
in fellow wolf Karla Germaine’s blog has stuck with me since I read it: “Knowledge
is the result of interactions and experiences through connected networks in a
community”.
I have some highlights of learning I have gained from others
over this past month and one is that it is time, past time, to have a blog and
active twitter account for my school. Although twitter has not been my favourite
social media form (I don’t feel I have time to sort through what people had for
breakfast to find things of interest to me), I do like being able to get
snapshot ideas.It is growing on me now
that I found some that are specific to teaching and like the quick snippet idea. Two new accounts I am now following are fromHannah's blog : https://twitter.com/bctla and Darryl Beck's blog: George Couros, which both provide professional and thought provoking ideas.I still feel blogs are more valuable overall
to me and I have appreciated blogging with my fellow wolves. For me it is the discussion feel, like a
conversation, that I am drawn towards.I also like the building on the plentiful array of ideas.I give an idea, but others tag in and say…”I
also tried this”, which is a little new tweak to something I had just
done.It adds a fresh zing to add onto an
idea.Every single blog post from my
colleagues has had a little idea or two I have either incorporated already or
hope to do.For example, as TLs we are
always looking for a perfect book for someone and ask questions of them, “what
did you last read?What is your
favourite book?” etc., but I have tried Hannah’s reader personality testand students had fun with that.They
were shocked to see that some of the books recommended to them from the test they
had already read so the simple quiz seemed to work for many.Thanks
to Alison's blog for 2 peas and a dog blog, which I now like to peruse.Another tidbit idea from Karla’s blog,
which is still rumbling around in my head, is about helping students and
colleagues with their PLNs.I have been
focused on me, but Karla shared the ideas of Irene Hanreates and her ideas which has me thinking of
how important sharing out is, the need to model it, to work on my own PLN, but to
help others gain the benefits of this, too.
The one topic that resonated with me most this past month is
in regards to how I will continue my own professional development.This is my last library course and it scares
me a bit to become stagnant.So often
you see a teacher teaching the same grade and same material year after
year.They are doing what they know
well, but not updating or challenging themselves with something new.It isn’t enough to go to a pro-d day, but in
a role as TL I can do so much more to be inspired and to inspire.
References
12 Ways a School Librarian Can Help Teachers - 2 Peas and a Dog.
(2018). Retrieved from https://2peasandadog.com/2018/07/12-ways-a-school-librarian-can-help-teachers.html
BCTLA (@bctla) on Twitter. (2018). Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/bctla
Beck, D. (2018). Mr. B's Blog. Retrieved from http://kidstonkokanee.blogspot.com/
Couros, G. (2018). George Couros (@gcouros) on Twitter. Retrieved
from
https://twitter.com/gcouros?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Cuthill, A. (2018). LIBE 477: Special Topics in Teacher
Librarianship - New Media and Technology in the School Library. Retrieved from
https://critiquelecture.wordpress.com/
Germaine, K. (2018). Reflections of a New Teacher Librarian.
Retrieved from http://kargermaine.blogspot.com/
Reader Personality Types - A Book And A Hug. (2018). Retrieved
from https://abookandahug.com/reader-types/
Richardson, W. (2012). Why
school. New York, NY: TED Conferences.
Wilson, H. (2018). Hannah's Learning Library. Retrieved from
http://hannahslearninglibrary.blogspot.com/
The topic of libraries around the world is a new area of exploration
for me! I found it to be quite
insightful and super interesting. When
I first read this new topic, I immediately thought of two school trips that my
husband, Cliff, was a chaperone for. As
a highschool teacher he has helped make Me to We trips possible for his school to China and Ghana.
retrieved by: https://www.metowe.com/
Two of the five main themes of Me to We is to
help create and ensure a sustainable future for rural children by providing
access to and removing obstacles to a quality education and another is to
create nutrition programs at schools.
Cliff traveled to Asemkow, Ghana with 15 students to help build an
additional room to the community school.Asemkow had one school in the village for about 100 children from the
surrounding area.The school went up to
grade 8 and was of no cost to students.Only those that could afford highschool continued on past grade 8, which
this village sent about 5-6 children per year.The highschool was about an hour walk away.
Those that did not go to highschool became street
vendors, fisherman (boys) and helped to cook/house chores (women).This school had three teachers that commuted
daily to the village.The school had
tablets…..CHALK tablets.There were no
books or technology, just a blackboard…in fact there was no electricity in the
village save one light post. What my
husband couldn’t figure out is that the highschool kids all had cellphones, but
where did they charge them without power? (He assumed at the highschool, but
never saw it). It was only an hour’s
drive (no cars in the village however) to a bigger city with a westernized
university, but there was such a difference from grade school to highschool and
university. Moving forward to best meet
the needs of Asemkow, Me to We is helping to train the teachers in the school
plus build rooms and teacher accommodations complete with furnishings and
toilets. There is no one working at
expanding access to the internet at this point in Asemkow, but this is an area deserving
some thought.
Cliff’s trip to China involved building a school garden and chicken
farm in Gufubao (2 hour drive Northwest of Beijing). The idea was to help this smaller village
become sustainable with better nutrition. There was such a stark difference between the bustling city of Beijing
and a poverty stricken Gufubao. This
school had more than that of Asemkow.
Gufubao has 12 classrooms up to grade 5, electricity, and books in each
classroom. There was no library and the
classrooms had no internet access. The
teacher rooms, however, did have access
to the internet. Teachers taught students from a learning
package provided to them by the government. Cliff’s trip was in 2016, so maybe in the past three years students in
Gufubao now are connected to the internet?It seems if the teacher accommodations had internet that it is plausible
to have the internet in the hands of students, as well.Only teachers had cellphones.
My exploration this week followed my earlier thinking about Asemkow
with no electricity and that of Gufubao being so close to being connected to
the world and how can they best move forward.There is so much out there!I
came across an article, Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in P-12Classrooms of Selected Countries that discussed the enormous difference of access to technology between
developing countries and developed countries.Developed countries had similar technology available, but developing countries
had a huge range of different digital technologies available.An interesting takeaway for me was that funds
were found to have digital technology in schools in both developed and
developing countries, but there was not money to have proper training on the
use of the technology.This study by
Khan, Hasan, and Clement (2012) focused on Bangladesh, but outlined barriers for developing countries
acquiring ICT: lack of equipment, lack of technical support, lack of funds,
political views of the country, social and cultural factors, teacher shortage,
lack of skill. That is a lot of barriers
to overcome with Asemkow not even having electricity! I focused my search on how to overcome these
barriers in developing nations and found this article by Steven Livingston,
Classroom Technologies Narrow Education Gap in Developing Countries. The discussion debates the idea of putting funds towards laptops and
not adequately training teachers and employing enough teachers.
retrieved from: https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/
However, I was excited to find a link to the Varkey Foundation on how
help is being given to Ghana! The belief of this organization is that every child deserves a good
teacher and access to a good education.
They are not necessarily at the point of putting a laptop in the hands
of every student, but instead investing in training teachers for remote areas. Dubai Cares is also training teachers for tomorrow
and working on helping with nutrition in Ghana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqGjsMAGbk
I also came across an Edu Tech, A World Bank Blog on ICT Use inEducation and found it to be an interesting read talking about the electricity
divide, not the digital divide! Also the
‘second digital divide’ is discussed in regards to skills and abilities of
people benefiting from technology. There
were interesting concepts that make financial sense helping communities with
little funds, such as a school having only one computer but 50 students
benefiting from its use, each with their own mouse. Another idea is the use of a mobile phone
connecting a teacher in a remote area to education content.
It seems that some organizations want to train teachers in
developing countries and other organizations want to put a computer in the
hands of every child, such as One Laptop Per Child .
retrieved from: http://one.laptop.org/
One Laptop Per Child's aim is to have every child have " a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop" called the XO Laptop 4.0 pictured here on the left, which students can take home even without electricity in their home. Which is the best way to provide greater
access to information that best meets the needs of a particular community? Training teachers, XO, or perhaps it is the simple mobile phone that is
the best option for these remote villages?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-M77C2ejTw
Just quickly, as I have gone on too long about the vast amount of information
out there about technology in all nations, I wanted to share my thoughts about
developing nations relying on donations and weeded books from developed
nations.I am okay with quality books
being donated, however serious thought needs to be taken to ensure the books
are appropriate both in regards to language and culture of the country.Plus, books must be in good condition and
newer. I do not feel weeded books from my library should go there.If they are garbage to me, why give outdated
or poor fitted books for others to deal with.Giving an outdated atlas with countries that no longer exist, border
changes, or without a new territory in it means the teachers and students need
to figure out which part of the book is up to date and which is not.They deserve better.
References
Cares, D. (2018). Dubai Cares. Retrieved from
http://www.dubaicares.ae/en
Ghana Starts Africa's First High-tech Interactive Distance
Learning. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.voanews.com/a/ghana-africa-first-high-tech-interactive-distance-learning/3179512.html
Khan, S., hasan, m., & clement, c. (2012). Barriers to the
Introduction of ICT into Education in Developing Countries: The Example of Bangladesh.
Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED533790
Livingston, S. (2016). Classroom technologies narrow education gap
in developing countries. Retrieved from
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/08/23/classroom-technologies-narrow-education-gap-in-developing-countries/
ME to WE | Products & Experiences that Make an Impact. (2018).
Retrieved from https://www.metowe.com/
One Laptop per Child. (2018). Retrieved from
http://one.laptop.org/
The Varkey Foundation. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/
Trucano, m. (2014). Promising uses of technology in education in
poor, rural and isolated communities around the world. Retrieved from
https://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/education-technology-poor-rural
Vu, P. (2014). Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in
P-12 Classrooms of Selected Countries. Retrieved from
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/itet/article/view/17933/17904
I cannot agree more that teacher librarians are looked
to for everything from evaluating and acquiring new resources to developing new skills.I like Barbara Braxton’s blog on the 500 Hats
of a TL, as our role is certainly becoming quite varied!My favourite way to share what I learn
with colleagues is through collaboration with them IN their classroom.I get to connect and learn with
students.It also allows me to share the
new technology or learning strategy with a teacher as they learn to use it,
which I hope gives them the confidence to be able to try it on their own the
next time.If lucky they may even collaborate
with another teacher and the ripple effect will take over!We have a technology crew (District
Technology Innovation Coordinators) in our district with each having a family
of schools that they connect with, introduce new technology to, and help with
guidance and expertise.They,
thankfully, see the value in a TL position and like to train us with new
technology with hopes we can go back and share with everyone.
Last year they gave every TL a set of
microbits for their school, if we attended the workshop on how to use them!I have placed an emphasis on building teacher
relationships the past 4 years plus getting to know the needs of my learning
community and I hope this helps me be able to share out these kind of new ideas.
As far as my admin goes, mine is energetic, supportive,
and forward thinking. We ran into each
other at our last pro-d day where we were at an innovative education
conference. We spent our whole lunch
hour bubbling with excitement about plans for the school with our newly
acquired ideas. I am not sure I will be
able to keep up with her, but together we share, plan, and support new ideas
and our visions for the school.
To be honest, I think I have more I need to be doing than I am actually
doing to be more responsive to the needs of my fellow educators, staff, and
parents. I do think a library website
with lists of tools and links to resources and teaching ideas would help meet
professional development of staff.
Having it all organized in one easy to find place would at least give
staff an idea of what is out there!
Videos on how to incorporate technology into their class would give them
inspiration I hope. I like this quote
from7 Reasons Why Digital Literacy is Important for Teachers:Digital literacy
doesn’t require that teachers become experts, but it does require that they
understand the digital tools that can unlock their deeper teaching potential. Although I have emphasized mutual
respect and trust with colleagues in the past, this year I can spend more time
helping teachers on HOW to use resources with the redesigned curriculum and
help teachers’ exploration of curriculum topics and competencies. I think it is important to gain input from
staff in regards to areas we need to explore further. I have always wanted to get a library
committee together that would include staff, parents, and students to create a
solid vision for our space and to discuss areas requiring improvement or change.
I have done well at weeding the student library
collection but not the teacher resources.
This week’s assignment has me thinking about how I could handle this. I am thinking I will put on display teacher
resources at a staff meeting. When it is
my turn to share I can remind teacher to browse the resources and ask them
which they use and then discard those that no one is using. Once that is weeded we can then look to see
what areas we would like to see broadened.
I came across Anna Crosland’s great idea to get books circulating. I could do this with teacher resources and our
regular collection:
Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/crosland_a
To continue to be responsive to the needs of my educational
community, I plan to carry on being receptive and available to teachers’ needs,
continue to model my own personal inquiry and improve and share my own teaching
skills. I will continue to bring in
experts or skype with them where my expertise cease. I’d like to follow the Working with Colleagues, A Guide for ICT Mentors as it states that a TL is to provide colleagues with training, support,
and advice, and collaborate with them as they move towards more effectively
integrating ICT into their teaching and learning (2002, P.14). Okay, so this article dates itself with the
older model computers on the front cover, but some great nuggets of advice in
the write up like how to assess the needs and interest of teachers and setting
personal action plans. One other piece
of advice I took from it was to start small and build on success (2002, p.23),
as you can start to feel overwhelmed with so much one is trying to do!
In addition to starting
small, I think it is important to work at the comfort level of each colleague. Edutopiahas some good ideas on how I can work with teachers
with the tools they have or are willing to use.
For example if you only
have one computer in a room, I can offer a bite size option such as: starting a
collaborative blog, curate resources, build a google site to house class
content, or record screencasts for providing onscreen instruction.
retrieved from: http://500hats.edublogs.org/
Finally, we have revived our TL LSA and this means we have
the opportunity to share with each other, but also a chance to start a TL
mentor ship program to work together with newer TLs.
References
7 Reasons Why Digital Literacy is Important for
Teachers. (2018). Retrieved from
https://rossieronline.usc.edu/blog/teacher-digital-literacy/
(2002). Retrieved from
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/pdfs/curriculum/appliedskills/mentors.pdf
Braxton, B. (2018). 500 Hats | 500 Hats.
Retrieved from http://500hats.edublogs.org/500-hats/
Crosland, A. (2018). Anna Crosland (@crosland_a)
on Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/crosland_a
How to Integrate Technology | Edutopia. (2018).
Retrieved from
https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-implementation
I have been taking
library courses at UBC one at a time over the past 4 years; all the while I
have been in the same school library.
This has worked out well for my own personal learning, as inspiring
ideas and changes get implemented as I learn about them. It isn’t just the actual learning in the
courses, but some ideas presented in them that have become part of my practice
and some ideas have become springboards for the exploration of new learning. It
helps being new as a TL, as the learning curve is steep and quick and you can’t
help but start to network and learn!
Also, it helps that the TL position itself is changing from that old
school “shushing” librarian.
One way I
started supporting my own learning since becoming a TL is through collaboration
with colleagues. Every different teacher
I work with results in a change in my personal learning. I am slowly gaining the collaboration confidence
of more and more teachers on my staff as time goes by and plan to have this
continue for myself, fellow staff, and our learning community. I may have mentioned previously that I am
part of a TL inquiry group that began when we were all taking courses to become
librarians. We naturally were drawn
together because of our coursework, but were able to make library plans and
make change through the acquisition of an inquiry grant through our school
district. We started on a journey to
change our libraries to library learning commons. This small group of four (Others are joining
us this year. We are year 3 – yippee!) have
all made great progress in our own libraries, with ourselves, have started a TL
LSA, and advocated at the board level for TLs.
Our vision evolves as we implement changes. We have new goals for this year plus long
term visions and are happy to be making connections with neighbouring districts
and with fellow TLs (our LSA coming alive has helped with this) within our
district, which has proven to be great networking.
There are a
couple of areas I hope to improve on which will help my personal learning. First, I have started working at ways to
efficiently curate resources both for my use, fellow colleague use, and student
use. It gets overwhelming with the
plethora of ideas and resources out there and to keep on top of it all in an
organized way will help me use them more and be able to share them out. I started using Scoop.it! ,
Retrieved from:https://www.scoop.it/media-kit
but I admit I have neglected it. With my
goal of having my whole school doing an inquiry project on one topic, I hope to
get my Scoop.it active again. Another
area deserving some attention for me is my school library website. I want it to be a way to share out student
learning. I think it will help connect
me to my learning community, from parents to students. Although
the sharing of successful teaching experiences does not automatically guarantee
effective learning and teaching, it helps to develop a knowledge base for
teaching that is more applicable to real educational settings (So, Pow, and
Hung, 2009, p. 775). Ideally
in my perfect world with spare time my teaching blog could be linked from the
library page and yes…gasp…maybe even an active twitter account! Yang (p.11, 2009) speaks of how blogs allow people to exchange information without space and time constraints, to broaden their knowledge, and to meet personal needs and interests at the same time. A more interactive website is a win-win for everyone. One day my curated resources
will be linked to the page, in addition other social network options would be
good links to add. I have a couple of
people in the district which would be good support for web design and the site
has potential to keep me growing in my own learning and definitely is a way to
share out!
So, W.W.m.,
Pow, J.W.c. & Hung, V.H.k. (2009). The Interactive Use of a Video Database
in Teacher Education: Creating a Knowledge Base for Teaching through a Learning
Community. Computers & Education, 53(3), 775-786.
Yang, S.-H.
(2009). Using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of
practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12(2), 11-21.
I have made changes to my school library and my
own practice over the past 4 years of being a TL at Coldstream Elementary and
hope the changes are both meeting the needs of our school community and
fostering a reading culture. Exciting
times this week, as my work order for a little redesign of my library space
finally went through and our physical space is getting an uplift! This is one step closer for our space to
become a library learning commons, but I hope it is a step in the right
direction to making our space more welcoming and hopefully will foster a comfortable
reading space. I feel good about the state of my collection and believe it is fostering
a reading culture, from the weeding of my library to the newer resources I have
selected. I make the most of my 20
minute book exchanges. I like to throw a
story in there, but also hopefully pique the interest of a student or two with
a book talk. Last year I introduced books by author, but
this year I am “selling” books by genre following the strategies in the book the
Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller.
Check out Miller’s facebook! So far more books are going out when
introduced by genre than last year’s by author.
As I introduce books in a given genre I have created simple visual lists
(book cover picture, call number) so students coming in are able to find
similar books to one they liked on their own.Something new I am trying this year is Red Cedar Book Awards to inspire reading.
retrieved from: https://www.redcedaraward.ca/
My generous PAC is on board and has given
money to buy these books.I am super
thankful of my PAC and appreciate their support of the library and also like
that it is my way of me sharing with the parent community what is new and
happening in our library.Every year we
do our own version of a battle of the books, called Gypsy Breath and Longstockings.Battle of the Books is great for those few
gung ho readers who are capable of reading 10 books, but Gypsy Breath involves
lots of readers of different abilities plus staff and parents.Teams are created of grades 3-7, at least one
book is to be read, and it concludes with a trivia evening event with 100
readers and their families dressed in costume with food galore and book prizes.This gets lots of kids involved reading, but
also involves their families.New this
year for Gypsy Breath we are making one book per grade be online.We are bringing in our public librarian prior
to our book title release and inviting students to get and use a library card.They can access this one title by using Libby
available through our public library.
One thing I am struggling with is not being able to have
open hours during the day to create a welcoming, open door atmosphere.We have teachers on staff that do not want
students in before the day begins and certainly not at lunch when they ‘need’
fresh air.I have been working at ways to be
considerate of the teachers’ needs, but inclusive of students and try for open
hours.I would love to have library
leaders in at lunch and mornings to help fellow students find books, but again
I have hit a roadblock. I snuck in a few virtual field trips at lunch hours, like talking with an author, so
that was a start last year at getting some events into our space and a way to
inspire students to read.I went google searching for ways to involve
students as leaders in libraries and I came across a New Zealandlibrary website with tidbits of ideas on how
peers can be influential with reading. Another little challenge I have is different
from class to class. Some teachers
religiously bring their class to the library, allow me time with them to talk
books, and their classes take out a variety of books with the teacher insisting
they all have books out. Then some
teachers only send a few kids if they ‘need’ a book, but then I miss my change
to encourage the reluctant ones to get a book. Some teachers let students pick anything and
out walks a student with the same 3 graphic novels week after week. Right?
Or wrong? I am not sure. I found this One Education read that presents
ideas such teachers needed to show children how to pick books. One wee goal I have
wanted to try is to have a human library (every person has a story to tell),
but I have not pushed past the roadblocks in the form of colleagues, time,
money.
This is on my to do list and one
thing I hope to have work out this year.
Trying to get EVERY teacher to collaborate with me is an ongoing battle,
but one where I think students would see the value we all place on learning,
working together, and thus a positive school culture overall. One last item I am investigating and merely
at the contemplating stage is whether or not to set up my library like a book
store model or not. I am dabbling a bit
with it this year by presenting books in genres. I just feel like students come in and ask for
fantasy books or mystery ones, and not as much by author. Certainly my primaries ask for princess stories or puppy stories. So perhaps the book store model would be more
user friendly with the browse around effect?
Fialkoff (2009), Fister (2009), and BISAC
(Book Industry Standards and
Communications) give some perspective on the Dewey or don't we" debate. Lots out there about
the dropping of Dewey!
References
A school-wide reading
culture. (2018). Retrieved from
https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/a-school-wide-reading-culture
BISAC Subject Codes - Book
Industry Study Group. (2018). Retrieved from https://bisg.org/page/BISACSubjectCodes
Education, O. (2018).
How to create the perfect reading environment in school. Retrieved from
https://www.oneeducation.co.uk/one-editorial/literacy/the-reading-environment/
Fialkoff, F. (2009). It’s Not About Dewey. Library Journal, 134(18), 8. Retrieved
from
http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=502989667&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Fister,
B. (2009). The Dewey Dilemma. Library Journal, 134(16), 22–25. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=44468055&site=ehost-live
Miller, D. (2014). Book
Whisperer, The. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
Miller, D. (2018). The Book Whisperer.
Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/donalynbooks
Red Cedar Book Awards | B.C.'s Young
Readers' Choice Awards 2017/2018. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.redcedaraward.ca
