Dare – Care – Share presentation at RIVPAT 2012

On Friday I presented the opening address for the Riverina Professional Association of Teacher Librarians (RIVPAT) held at Lake Albert Public School in Wagga Wagga, NSW. It was great catching up with the RIVPAT crew, and heartening to see how many local teacher librarians in the area have gained their Teacher Librarianship qualification from CSU. It was also lovely to meet some TLs currently completing their MEdTL degree with us at CSU.

Dare – Care – Share [RIVPAT Conference 19 October 2012] from Lyn Hay

My keynote consisted of a series of 27 challenges for TLs in helping move our profession forward. Participants were asked to select 3-5 of these challenges and then plan a course of action for meeting each challenge, whether some of these be tackled between now and the end of this year, or build into their professional plan for 2013.

Dear RIVPATters, please keep me posted on your progress!

ALA Presidential Task Force: Focus on School Libraries 2012

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries

In the March 2012 issue of the journal ‘School Library Monthly‘ (Vol XXVIII, No 6), Susan D. Ballard (AASL President-Elect and Co-Chair of the ALA School Library Task Force) summarises the current state of school libraries in the United States, and details the focus of the ALA School Library Task Force, which “is charged with “leading a campaign addressing the urgent need for advocacy for school libraries, as well as the impact of the de-professionalization and curtailment of school library instructional programs on students and student achievement” (ALA 2011).

Photo: ‘Science in the stacks‘ by SpecialKRB on Flickr

 

This article outlines the 5 goals of the Task Force and the strategies and tactics devised to achieve each goal. The final section on the ‘Tipping Point’ details the implications for students and society if school age children do not have access to school libraries and school librarians based on ‘what we know’ from research regarding school libraries and student achievement.

Many of the recommended readings and points made can be utilised by the school library profession in other countries to support their own advocacy campaigns. This article is also useful reading for our new students entering CSU’s Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) course as they are exposed to school librarianship issues and trends in Australia and worldwide in the subject ETL401 Teacher Librarianship.

If you find any recent research evidence on the impact of school libraries on student learning, please recommend journal articles, research reports and websites to my curation site on Scoop It! http://www.scoop.it/t/student-learning-through-school-libraries. The more evidence we can collect and disseminate regarding the important and essential role of school libraries in school life, the better!

Video contest asks students why they belong in their school library

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries
The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), in collaboration with SchoolTube, announces the launch of the School Library Month 2012 student video contest ‘You Belong @ Your School Library’.

Beginning Feb. 7, video submissions will be accepted that illustrate why the school library is (either physically or virtually) the place to be. More information can be found at www.ala.org/aasl/slmvideocontest. Submissions for the video contest will be accepted through March 29 and winners will be announced during School Library Month on April 17. Contest judges will select one student entry from an elementary, middle, and high school each. School librarians are encouraged to share this contest with students in their school community. Student collaboration and educator support is encouraged; however, school librarians are asked to limit their help in the production of videos.

“This year’s School Library Month theme – You Belong @ your library – is perfect for a student video contest,” said Carl Harvey, AASL president. “The great thing about today’s school libraries is that there’s not just one way to belong. The school library is a welcoming environment where students can explore and learn at their own pace, engage in great programming and collaborative projects with their peers, and be challenged and introduced to new information and technologies. I look forward to watching the students’ submissions!”

Winning entries will also be featured on the AASL and SchoolTube websites and social networking platforms.

I think this is an excellent strategy on the part of AASL collect and publish ‘student voice’ pieces as further evidence of the impact of school libraries on student learning.

Maybe the Australian School Library Association could run a similar competition… what do you think? Tweet @ASLA_National if you think this is a good idea as part of Australia’s National Year of Reading 2012.

A Head Teacher’s Thoughts on Leadership and School Libraries – Pedagog Malmö

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries
This interview with a Principal of a school in Sweden demonstrates the critical role of the principal in supporting school libraries to assist them in playing a significant role in supporting student learning. (Note the term Head Teacher is used for school principals in a number of European countries).

Here’s some sound advice for any newly trained teacher librarians about to commence their work as a TL in Term 1, 2012 from this principal regarding the TL role:

“I think it’s important that they (TLs) are visible. Teachers are like actors. You’re up on stage every lesson. They’re strong personalities. As a librarian, you also have to be seen. You have to be an extrovert, whether you are as a person or not. Otherwise you’re just going to get ignored. Once the librarian is visible, the next phase begins, where s/he teaches scientific method, language development and information literacy.”

Edward Jensinger also provides advice to principals planning a school library:

“Firstly, you have to decide what the purpose of having a school library is… The aim must always be for the students to get better results… what you need is an active teaching librarian.”

Good luck to all of our 2011 Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) graduates who are starting their journey as practising TLs in 2012.
BE VISIBLE from Day 1

Via webapps2.malmo.se

The Concord Review – publishing exemplary history essays by high school students

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries

The Concord Review publishes exemplary history essays by high school students. What a fabulous vehicle for students to publish what they have learned as a result of their guided inquiry projects!

Many thanks to Marcia Mardis from Florida State University for alerting us on IASL_LINK about this, in her words: “Students work hard to prepare their research papers, but often, these papers get turned in and are never seen again. However, there is a great outlet for exemplary student work that can also be a great way to feature school librarians’ contributions to the research process. The Concord Review has been, since 1987, the only journal in the world for the history research papers of secondary students. So far, it has published 978 essays (average 6,000 words) by students from 39 countries and locations all over the world, including Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Sri Lanka, United States, Canada and South Korea (special issue Summer 2011).   School librarians play such an important role in developing student research and writing skills. I encourage school librarians to support this journal by subscribing (it’s only $40 per year to subscribe) and/or bringing it to the attention of your history and social studies teachers as a way to inspire their students and enhance collaboration with you!”

The sample essays section on the Concord Review website provide excellent models of essay writing skills for students, even the list of essay titles could be used to demonstrate the richness and breadth of history topics and to motivate students to explore a range of historical ideas or events as part of their learning in history.

Via www.tcr.org

Reading to children has ‘long impact’ according to OECD’s PISA study

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries

Children whose parents frequently read with them in their first year of school are still showing the benefit when they are 15. This PISA study examined the long-term impact of parental support on literacy and found, discounting social differences,  children with early support remained ahead in reading, with results showing a strong link between teenage reading skills and early parental help. Analysis of PISA data “based on teenagers in 14 developed countries, found that active parental involvement at the beginning of school was a significant trigger for developing children’s reading skills that would carry through until they were teenagers. On average, teenagers whose parents had helped with reading at the beginning of school were six months ahead in reading levels at the age of 15.”

The report stated “that parents did not have to be particularly well-educated themselves for this impact to be achieved. What was important was that parents read books regularly with their children – such as several times a week – and that they talked about what they were reading together.”

A summary of the results of this study are published in the OECD PISA In Focus 10 newsletter at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/4/1/49012097.pdf.

Teacher librarians in primary schools should be utilising results from studies such as these to connect with parents of those students entering Kindergarten in Term 1 of 2012. Such findings can be used to encourage a strong relationship between the TL and school library and Kindy kids (and their parents) at the very beginning of the school year.

Consider writing a short column in your school’s first newsletter of the year to parents about the importance of reading being reinforced at school and the home and promote the idea of the TL building a strong partnership with parents to support student achievement.
Via www.bbc.co.uk

Looking Toward the Future: Competences for 21st-Century Teacher-Librarians | Alberta Journal of Educational Research

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries
This article reports on a study by Joanne de Groot and Jennifer Branch that explored what core competencies are required by teacher librarians for developing exemplary school library programs in 21st centurt schools, based on the experiences and attitudes of graduates from the TL Masters program at the University of Alberta. Key findings from this study indicate that technology and leadership issues are the most pressing needs of TLs. These graduates also indicated that their “traditional roles and responsibilities” are changing as they are responsible for promoting new literacies and evaluating, selecting, organising, and managing diverse learning resources. The best way of getting your hands on this article is via EBSCOhost’s Education Research Complete unless your organisation subscribes directly to the Alberta Journal of Educational Research (AJER).
Via ajer.synergiesprairies.ca

Content curation and the power of collective intelligence

I have been exploring this topic as part of the subject INF506 Social Networking for Information Professionals that I am teaching this summer (it’s an elective in our MEdTL amd MIS courses at CSU). A lot is being written about content creation within and beyond the information professions. Here are a few gems that I recommend TLs and librarians check out:

Beth Kanter’s blog post Content Curation Primer is a good starting point for information professionals.

Building Thought Leadership through Content Curation

View more presentations from Corinne Weisgerber

Weisgerber clearly presents the difference between aggregation and curation, highlighting the importance of the ‘human touch’ in curation by contextualising the ‘found information’.  

I think her 8 steps in successful curation provide an excellent guide for information professionals who wish to become proactive curators of digital content, adding value to the content they curate.

Glenn Remoreras provides us with a nice historical snapshot of the shift from Web 1.0 – Web 2.0 – Web 3.0 in his post Forecast 2020: Web 3.0+ and Collective Intelligence. His diagram on collective intelligence is excellent!

Donna Pappacosta’s presentation Best practices for content curation provides some useful practices and strategies – advice on slides 45-53 is very practical.

Sophia B. Liu’s presentation on her PhD research at the University of Colorado about crisis and curation and how the world of social media is shaping a brave new world in curation of crisis information and how the history of crises is captured is Fascinating (with a capital ‘F’!). She looks at the role of curation and curators in society before exploring curation within the context of information on and about crises.

Curation and Crisis: Curated Crisis Content

View more presentations from sophiabliu

Her presentation is a fabulous educational resource about curation with detailed speaker notes included for many of her slides. This is highly recommended viewing and reading.

Joyce Valenza’s blog post, ‘Curation – The Musical’ highlights the importance of building school students’ capacity as digital curators, while her ‘Guide for Teacher Librarians: Curating and remixing the tools that define current professional practice’ demonstrates Joyce’s own capacity as a content curator – this is such a comprehensive professional portal for teacher librarians. Thanks Joyce!

And finally, I recommend you follow the activity on the Curation Nation website. Also view some of the short videos on this site including Allen Weiner’s defining curation and the importance of credibility in curation, and interview with Clay Shirky about curation.

I’d love to hear from teacher librarians about your curation efforts. It would be great to start building a collection of curation practices by TLs in schools.

Teacher librarians as ‘information dietitians’

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book, The Information Diet when it is released in early January 2012.

Love the subtitle ‘A Case for Conscious Consumption’. The book blurb states: “Healthy information consumption habits are about more than productivity and efficiency. They’re about your personal health, and the health of society. Just as junk food can lead to obesity, junk information can lead to new forms of ignorance. The Information Diet provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy way, by showing you what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective.

With this book, you’ll learn:

• The relationship between power, authority, and information since the dawn of the first major information-technology boom
• How people react to information consumption, according to cognitive science and neuroscience findings
• How the new, information-abundant society is suffering consequences from poor information consumption habits
• What constitutes a healthy information diet and how you can get started”

I really like the way ‘information’ is being explored here as part of a person’s healthy lifestyle, and people being empowered by the ‘information choices’ they make to inform their lives.

Should we be presenting teacher librarians as information dietitians in 2012?