Back to School Special

TL Virtual Cafe's Transformative Conversations for the 2010-2011 school year have begun. The first webinar has already occurred, but don't worry, the Elluminate session will be archived as well as the text chat, slides used during the presentations, and other resources will be available on the TL Virtual Cafe wiki.

The first webinar, Back to School Special: Making You and Your Library Indispensable, was presented by three different teacher librarians. Keisa Williams talked about what she does in her elementary school, Gwyneth Jones discussed her middle school program, and Shannon McClintock Miller shared what happens in her secondary program. Lots of great ideas were presented as well as discussed in the text chat.

Plan on attending next month's October 4th webinar with Doug Johnson presenting on the Changes in the Physical Library.

SIGMS Forum: The School Library 2.0 and Beyond

ISTE's SIGMS sponsored a forum at NECC 2009, The School Library 2.0 and Beyond. This event was videotaped and is available here. The panelists gave presentations about their view of how Web 2.0 will influence the future of school libraries. The audience was asked to collaboratively explore a challenge related to each panelist's presentation. A presentation wiki has links and other resources for each panelist AND since the forum was participatory, the audience was then prompted to add their suggestions for solving the challenge on the presentation wiki. (see the links for the tables on the wiki)

The forum began with the announcement of ISTE's Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award sponsored by Follett Software to an elementary, middle, and high school LMS and teacher. (about 12 min.)

The four panelists and their challenges were:

• David Loertscher and the learning commons,
• Cathy Jo Nelson and the challenge of integrating tools into the classroom and teaching ethical and responsible use,
• MaryFriend Shepard and collaborative tools that help students do things differently and have students do different things, and
• Christopher Harris and cloud computing.

The forum took almost 120 minutes, but it's worth your time. Keep in mind that each panelist spent 12-18 minutes with 10 minutes for audience participation afterwards. So, roughly, there's about 80 minutes of hard content.

I really enjoyed Cathy Jo Nelson. I follow her on twitter and I thought she was personable and down to earth. Her presentation was easy to understand and included examples that I could relate to. Many tables responded to her challenge but tables 18, 23, and 25 answered only her questions. Her Wiki Spaces for Professional Development has a wealth of resources and presentations that she has developed.

Christopher Harris' presentation really made me think about the role of libraries and LMS'. Becoming more involved in development by using API's and moving towards a mobile platform will insure that school libraries will have a virtual presence where the students are already located.

MaryFriend Shepard is an educator, though, the only panelist without a library background. As a part of her presentation she shared a wiki that has been developed by her grad students. (It was also the basis for another NECC 2009 presentation, Powerboost Your Lessons with Wikis.) The wiki is a great learning tool. It gives instructions on how to embed various applications into Wikispaces.

I would recommend viewing the video and also having the wiki open. That way you can open the panelist's presentation while the video plays. The screen is sort of small and in some cases it's easier to read text from the presentation link. For those of you who will view the video, during the 3 (10 minute) audience participation time periods, you should check out these tables: 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30. They all made comments for at least two of the panelists, but many for more.

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Turbo Tagger

Social Media Specialists

I attended the webinar, Is There a Place for Media Specialists Who Don't Know Social Media? It was hosted by Steve Hargadon at a session of The Future of Education. I learned about the webinar through Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch blog. She along with Carolyn Foote, Buffy Hamilton (The Unquiet Library), and Cathy Nelson began a discussion which orignally started within Twitter. The Twitter link goes to Karl Fisch's blog post compiling all of the Twitter discussion.

These were the questions Joyce and the other panelists hoped to cover:

• How does a librarian use social media in practice? for professional development? with learners? faculty?
• What specific social networking tools do you use and how do you use them?
• How does social networking reflect/support our standards?
• Can you be relevant without understanding the new tools?
• What do these new tools mean to library big concepts? (information ethics, intellectual freedom, access to information, evaluation, collection, interacting with information sources, communicating with users/learners, contributing as digital citizens, etc.)
• How does social media change the way we present our services and instruction online?
• Do we need to retool our profession?

Needless to say in a one hour session, coverage of these questions was brief, allowing only a tempting taste. The 4 panelists collaboratively created a wiki which contains background resources and links to the panelists blogs. The Elluminate session links are available to review if you're interested here. At one point there were 90+ participants. The chat was just as valuable as the presentation slides and the audio. Obviously, the profession should be retooling.

The best thing to come from this webinar will be the opportunity to participate in similar discussions on a monthly basis. Steve Hargadon suggested the need of media specialists to communicate on a regular basis. Many agreed with him. So... watch for more webinars to occur through The Future of Education ning.

On a personal note, I already subscribe to Joyce and Buffy's blogs and follow Cathy and Steve on Twitter. Now I have two more contacts to add to my Personal Learning Network, Carolyn Foote and Karl Fisch.

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Learning Commons

I'm not sure why I haven't been blogging...into Twitter/Friendfeed??? Well, anyway, I'm back.

I attended a webinar, Transform the School Library into a Learning Commons, presented by David Loertscher and Carol Koechlin. Awhile back I also participated in a AASL-ISTE SIGMS learning community meeting in Second Life where David Loertscher facilitated a discussion about the learning commons concept.

In the webinar, David and Carol began with a history of school libraries and how they have changed. Isolated librarians have become collaborators, co-teaching, and participating in learning partnerships. Inquiry and learning literacies are now part of the program with flexible scheduling and "just in time" teaching taking place. Print materials have been joined by many other forms of media.

The presenters discussed what schools need in the 21st century:

• Learners who are Engaged
• Classrooms that Foster Student Achievement
• Specialists with Access to Teachers and Learners
• Principals who Promote School Improvement

They compared two models: Microsoft's "if we build it, they will come" or Google's "if they build it, they will use it". The user-centered Google model is the basis of the learning commons concept. Client-centered commons that exist in both the physical and virtual realms.

Virtual learning commons that allow conversations and collaboration, built by everyone (teachers and staff, students, community), and available 24/7/365. Learners build their own information spaces for personal and group use within the school setting and also globally in the community and world.

Physical learning commons encompass an open commons and an experimental learning center.

The open commons will: be flexible, mobile and portable; be wireless; be comfortable and stimulating; include books and other resources and computers; include networking spaces and tools; include productivity spaces and tools; celebrate learning and exhibit exemplary learning experiences; provide individual, small and large group areas; have its own calendar; provide "office" space for specialists; and become the cultural center of the school.

The experimental learning center will: be a neutral area that is safe for risk-taking; nurture new teachers; provide professional development; conduct action research; initiate school improvement

Learning Commons Characteristics

• Sense of ownership
• Place to create, collaborate, exhibit, think, and learn
• Flexible
• Active Learning
• Change is the norm

The webinar is available here. (requires Windows Media Player to view. Mac users may have to move to a windows machine to view.) The book, The New Learning Commons Where Learners Win: Reinventing School Libraries and Computer Labs by David V. Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan is supplemented by the School Learning Commons Discussion Wiki. The wiki includes a link to the webinar's powerpoint presentation slides as well as discussion questions, resources and connections.

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Eisenberg's SL Learning Community Mtg

Mike Eisenberg was the facilitator in this evening's AASL-ISTE SIGMS virtual learning community in Second Life. He led a discussion on 'The Crisis Facing School Libraries and Librarians" and how to survive shrinking budgets and staffing cuts.

His main focus is a return to the functions of the library media program which need to be tied to the curriculum and assessments of the school. The library media program (and he emphasized that the word library needs to be used) needs its own curriculum and assessments. The professional is a teacher not support staff. A vision statement is an essential starting point. (He diss'd the AASL Learning Standards as being incomprehensible and lacking a vision statement.)

The 3 functions of LMC program are information literacy learning, reading advocacy, and information management. The program should be directly connected to the school's priorities, goals and objectives, assessments, and document the program's effectiveness.

Some of his statements caused a flurry of discussion:

• Collaboration is a means not an end,
• Avoid isolation,
• Coordinate and manage information literacy for the entire school,
• You can be an effective teacher librarian without a "library".
• The online catalog is becoming almost irrelevant,
• Print reference collections are obsolete.
• Forget about selecting and cataloging books. Use ASE's (article search engines) like EBSCO or Proquest.

He suggested creating advisory groups including administrators, teachers, parents, and students to determine which of the 3 functions is essential and then concentrate on that function.

Slides and notes will be available here and on this wiki shortly.

Today's School Libraries

"Today's Library: A fun look at the schools library and how it has changed over the years."
The Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools recently produced this informative look at what school library media centers and media specialists can do to teach 21st-century literacy skills. Remixing a 1940s-era librarian vocational film with interviews with middle-school and high-school information specialists, teachers, and students, Today’s Library is an entertaining showcase of the importance of professional librarians in the educational process....
Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools Video Vault