At DonorsChoose.org full time public school teachers- yes, this includes teachers who are in charge of the library, aka librarians or media specialists– can sign up to seek funding for school projects and materials they need. Much like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites, educators can tap into a network of individuals much larger than the school community and their own personal circle of friends and acquaintances. The fact is, people want to help. Particularly if they can see how the money was spent and are able to interact at some level with the recipients.
The great thing about this site is that it’s very simple and straightforward. Teachers sign up (for free), detail out the materials and/or activities they need, and the campaign starts. Costs are verified by a member of the DonorsChoose team who then makes the purchases and sends items directly to the school. Finally, teachers are asked to send thank you letters, photos and a report. Donors can search by location; teacher or school; grade level, type of project or resource; amount needed; or by a keyword of their own choosing. They can fund a small part of the project or all of it. Sometimes there’s even a flash funding event where an organization or famous person- such as Google or Bill Gates, steps in and funds the whole thing. But mostly, it’s just regular people who want to feel useful.
And it works. At DonorsChoose.org, 74% of the projects get fully funded. And on average, this happens within 27 days. Feel like cutting through the red tape, anyone? What I love is the range of projects that educators post. Here’s a few good examples:
Teacher of Three Oaks Library: A simple request for more library books. The teacher has identified three of the most important genres lacking from the library and then listed each book desired in the three categories.
A list of “Nearby Projects” yields 10 projects in my own school district! I like this one which is asking for bean bag chairs for the reading center.
Educators, if you haven’t already used DonorsChoose.org, please give it a whirl. And parents, please pass the word on to your children’s teachers.
Ohmygosh! This was such a simple, practical article about creating effective makerspaces. It got me dreaming about the makerspace that is supposedly coming to my daughter’s school. I really need to get better plugged in there because I didn’t even know they were putting one in. I would have loved to provide some input.
Most importantly, I would have asked if there was any way that it could be connected to the library. I think it’s a real missed opportunity to not have these two learning spaces connected. The library, after all, is a place where students are exposed to new and previously unexplored ideas. In an ideal world, there’s enough library time each week for library programs that help students actively engage with those ideas through collaborative, hands-on projects. We know this is how students learn. Having a makerspace would be a step in the right direction.
Modern school libraries have moved waaay beyond the role of merely supporting traditional literacy (reading and writing), toward being a key player in ensuring students meet state standards related to digital, visual, textual and technological literacy (which apply to K-5, not just the older kids). The modern library is a place of learning and doing. As Joyce Frye Willams puts it, “Our libraries should transition to places to do stuff, not simply places to get stuff. We need to stop being the grocery store and become the kitchen” (take a minute to explore my colleagues’ website about makerspaces where I discovered this quote; it’s about highschool makerspaces, but very informative with lots of relevant resources.)
By separating the makerspace from the library, we risk marginalizing the library and move further away from giving our students an integrated, collaborative learning experience. You could almost argue that it sends a message that reading, writing, and inquiry/research have nothing to do with making things, undervaluing both the the library and the makerspace. Instead, we should be modelling the idea of connected learning, demonstrating that learning occurs in different contexts, is production-centered, and is powered by student interest (Harlan, 2015). One of the district’s core strategies for becoming “the model of educational excellence and innovation” is stated on page eight of its strategic plan: “The library is an important and central hub of each campus. The library can and should be involved in every aspect of the educational process.” Adding a makerspace to the library would help bring this vision of a learning hub into reality in a big way. Both libraries and makerspaces are important investments of time, money and energy, and should be maximized for optimal impact. They are, after all, more similar than they are different, sharing the common mission to “ignite a love of learning and a sense of curiosity in all students”- which, incidentally, is the school’s stated vision. Sounds like a win-win-win-win to me.
References
Harlan, M.A., (2015) Literacy and Media Centers in the Twenty-First Century. In Hirsh, S., Editor, Information Services Today: An Introduction. (pp. 53 – 61). Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
In our elementary school, English Learners (EL) represent 33% of the student body. Last year (2014-15), 10% of EL students were redesignated as Fluent-English-Proficient (FEP). Compared to a 4% FEP reclassification rate five years prior, this could be considered an improvement. Yet, the last three years have seen a steady reduction in FEP reclassification rates (RFEP)- from 16% (2012-13) to 12 % (2013-14) to 10% (2014-15). Our reclassification rate appears to be leveling off. I’m wondering why, and also to what extent EL reclassification rates reflect on the quality of a school’s instruction and/or library services- if at all.
First, the why: More rigorous performance standards (the minimum tests scores and qualitative data, such as teacher feedback, that students must obtain in order to be reclassified) are associated with lower reclassification rates. So, the schools that make it more difficult to get out of EL status have a lower reclassification rate. The state board of education (SBE) provides guidelines on the standards but allows districts to create their own- and 90% of school districts adopt standards that are more rigorous than those recommended by the SBE. There are two main things at play here that may affect reclassification rates: 1) the new CCSS testing environment necessitates a revision of district-specified scoring mechanisms; 2) changes in the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that increases funding for districts with large EL populations, potentially providing a disincentive to move kids up to FEP status.
Even though the reclassification issue is most sensitive for long term (6+ yrs) EL students in middle and high school where being an EL student starts effecting ACT scores, access to AP classes, and even graduation- I am still interested in understanding reclassification rates at the elementary level. It seems like a real catch 22; you don’t want to reclassify them too early, putting them into classes where they are unable to learn core concepts, and you don’t want to keep them in EL status too long, limiting their access to appropriate academic content and increasing stigma and demoralization.
Across the Twitterverse there appears to be a generalized concern about low reclassification rates (and a lot of celebrating of RFEP status). A recent report (Hill, Weston & Hayes, 2014) on reclassification of EL students in California recommends that reclassification standards be lowered in districts using standards more rigorous than those suggested in the SBE guidelines, and that perhaps all districts should follow a statewide standard reclassification criteria that is less rigorous. Some of the report’s key points:
Reclassified students not only outperform EL students, but also often do as well as native English speakers when it comes to measures of academic outcomes. But it’s best to reclassify early—those reclassified in grades 8 to 12 generally have lower levels of performance than those reclassified at younger grades.
It is possible that districts with high reclassification thresholds (strict fluency standards) are restricting the access of EL students to the full range of academic instruction that non-EL students receive, which would squelch the academic achievement of high-performing EL students.
Reclassified students’ outcomes are better in school districts with more rigorous performance thresholds, but not by much, calling into question if the trade-off between improved RFEP outcomes and fewer RFEP students is worth it.
I don’t know what to think. Please chime in if you have some thoughts or experience with this.
Getting back to how and if the library has anything to do with reclassification rates: We know that students acquire critical grammar, vocabulary and text structure needed to comprehend the academic language found in textbooks through self-selected recreational reading. To that extent, the school library is supporting EL students by providing a wide range of reading materials and giving students free range to indulge their interests. I also think that having a good selection of native language books (in our case, Spanish) available would be helpful because background knowledge and general literacy in the native language both affect the rate at which students perform academically in English; reading skills are reading skills- they transfer from language to language. Literacy as a baseline skill is used to develop higher-order thinking skills. I don’t think lower reclassification rates directly reflect on the quality of a school’s instruction, but I do think that instruction in a student’s native language facilitates the acquisition of English, and that policies discouraging native-language use in the classroom (or materials in the library, for that matter) will diminish EL student engagement.
References
Hill, L. E., Weston, M., & Hayes, J. M. (2014). Reclassification of English learner students in California. Public Policy Institute of California. Retrived from http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_114LHR.pdf
Vista Unified School District (VUSD) was one of the first 10 districts to be a part of the “#GoOpen” movement which aims to rely less on textbooks and more on open, timely and often free educational resources (OER) available on the Internet. In fact, VUSD is one of a few districts testing a new OER platform by Amazon Education that will allow schools to upload, manage, share, and discover open education resources from a homepage that resembles the Amazon online retail website. This focus on OER is an opportunity for the district’s certificated school librarians, who are uniquely qualified to leverage OER, to show their expertise with curation and other edtech skills. As Joyce Valenza puts it, “This is our gig”. In her call-to-action on OER, she points out that we will need to take the lead in making sense of the massive amount of content that is going to hit schools, developing workflows to help teachers and leveraging content that will undoubtly help boost equality of access, as we develop user-friendly collections from a sea of content.
Ever since I came across this article (p. 56), I have been trying to ignore it. I’m a big fan of the unquiet librarian, and always pay attention to what Buffy Hamilton has to say. But it bummed me out a little bit (okay, a lot) in that it validated everything I was thinking as I worked through yet another exhausting assignment for my school libraries course: It’s impossible for someone to be all things to all people…how can the school librarian simultaneously be: 1) instructor for students (information and digital literacy) both in the library and in the classroom via co-teaching and collaborating with teachers, as well as instructor to teachers for edTech and other professional development units; 2) collection developer and manager; 3) facilities manager; 4) instructional technology specialist and website developer; 5) advocate; 6) program developer/manager? And all of this in the face of widespread misunderstanding (or outright cluelessness) about the role and value of the school librarian. This wearer-of-many-hats idea is a lofty, noble, heroic vision of the school librarian, for sure. But realistic? Maybe not so much.
In this article that had me questioning the treacherous path that is school librarianship, Buffy Hamilton, High School librarian and influential blogger, and Kristin Fontichiaro, author and professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, assess where the profession stands nearly 20 years after the release of Information Power (the American Library Association’s 1998 vision for school librarians) and urges us to discuss the unspeakable: is this really working?
Among the more painful excerpts about the 20-year old vision that has yet to unfold:
Despite being professionally recognized for superior transparency, innovation, pedagogy, and program advocacy- the “best” librarians still lost staff. [I needn’t go too deep into the widespread loss of school librarians, but this 2010 map drives home the point by mapping out the number of school districts within the U.S. that have eliminated their certified school librarian positions, despite evidence of the link between certified school librarians and the academic achievement of students.]
Teaching and learning are not necessarily the centerpiece of a school librarian’s professional practice. In some states, a teaching certificate is required, in others it’s not. Across the country, meaningful collaboration with teachers is the exception, not the rule; many teachers don’t think there’s room for inquiry-based work with their students anyway, given the ever-present threat of standardized testing, and even if they do, tend to marginalize the librarian’s role to a short, 1-shot tack-on to a brief library visit.
Thinking about the wearer-of-many-hats idea: “Are we accidentally setting up unreasonable expectations for the overall profession? What might the cost be of flying the profession’s flags so high that no one can reach them?” What, in fact, does it mean to be a “great” school librarian? Sometimes, it just means that you had less obstacles (a more supportive district, a larger school site funding base, more cooperative teachers, etc.) How does local context allow for meaningful performance metrics across the discipline?
And this one that I’ve been struggling with since my school libraries coursework began: “What do librarians do that classroom teachers cannot?” Of course, the answer has to do with our combination of being information specialists (heavy on inquiry and research skills), curriculum generalists, and saavy with technology- yet this unique combination of skills somehow remains invisible to the larger school community. Open educational resources (OER), classroom libraries, and 1:1 programs now muddle up this skill set and make it appear that everything is available online anyway.
I’ll leave you with the last searing question of the article: “[can] the dreams that began with Information Power still be achieved? Is our job to face reality and adapt, subjugate, or thwart it? Or to continue to push a boulder up a steep, resistant hill, strong in our convictions but exhausting ourselves with the Sisyphean effort?”
This article was published in the print version of Knowledge Quest (Sept/Oct 2014), so I don’t know what kind of conversations ensued. What’s your take?
Earlier this year, the California School Library Association (CLSA) had its annual conference at the Bahia, down in Mission Bay- an easy day trip for me. I cleared my schedule for that Friday, made sure my husband could pick my daughter up from school, and headed down to the bay. My objectives were simple: learn a few things relative to k-5 school libraries, introduce myself to the librarians from my daughter’s school district who were presenting that day (Risen from the Ashes), and meet up with my professor and some fellow students.
I was glad I made the effort to come down, but I almost didn’t make it in. I hadn’t read the registration information correctly back home, and when I got there, I realized that a one-day pass was much more expensive than I had anticipated, even with my CSLA membership. For a self-funded romp in library conference land, it just wasn’t worth the price. My miniature drama played out in front of everyone as we were all queued up to check in. I had already been given the official conference schwag-bag and when they could not offer me any student discounts or alternatives, I swallowed my pride, handed back the bright red Perma-bound sponsored bag and announced that I would at least be keeping the free pen, since I had already been using it. Oh well, I thought. I can spend the day catching up on homework instead. Then, just as I was approaching the elevators, my conference angel tapped me on the shoulder and whispered conspiratorially, “Here’s a bag and a program… Go! Just go! Enjoy the sessions.”
So that’s what I did. My first selection was a jam-packed session entitled “New Books for Boys: And Anyone Else Who Likes a Good Read” by Deborah B. Ford, Director of Junior Library Guild. I got the impression that everyone already knew her (or knew of her) and were there to hear the good word. But really, it just amounted to her describing book after book that was coming out. To me, it seems like that would be something I could do on-line, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was hoping for more lecture and tips. Still, I scribbled some notes in my freebie Follett notebook, including a reference to TuBooks with whom I am now connected on Twitter.
Finding my next session was an adventure, as it turned out to be aboard a paddle-steamer. Sadly, we never went out on the bay, but just learned about content marketing while rocking back and forth at the dock. Brigeen Radoicich-Houghton (please don’t ask me to pronounce that) from the Fresno County Office of Education gave a great session, full of interesting and useful information, summarized in my tweets:
As I moved from session to session, I carried my red schwag-bag with me like I owned the place. Or, at least like I belonged there. Like I was a legitimate, paying member of the profession. My bag and I ended up at Doree Tschudy’s presentation, “Becoming a Centered Librarian”, which, by that point in the afternoon, sounded enormously appealing- as if we might even get down on the floor and do some yoga, who knows. Well, that didn’t happen, but I did learn that creating stations for various library programs can be as easy as using book carts, and that crazy determined people like Doree Tschudy get away with library programming for each class that involves a choice of six centers in a period of 20 minutes, leaving 10 min to check out books. Wow!! I’d like to try something like that next year.
Later in the afternoon, I got to listen to the Vista Unified School District (VUSD) librarians who are really rockin’ it. They gave us an update on the implementation of the district’s library strategic plan- reviewing some of the successes and lessons-learned. I was proud to be a VUSD parent and library volunteer. Great group of ladies who know their stuff. I met briefly with Ranae Mathias afterwards and, later, sent her a quick email to follow up and let her know that she should think of me as an ally and advocate.
Finally, that evening, I got to sit down with Mary Ann and talk to some of my student colleagues. I really enjoyed chatting with Suzanne Sannwald who is a high school librarian down in San Diego and who I plan on keeping in touch with. I’ve admired her work on our course site and discussion boards for the past two semesters, so it’s great to know her now.
All in all, it was totally worth the effort. If not for the session content, then definitely for the people I met, and the red bag that, together with my #sensibleshoes, has school librarian written all over it.
I wanted to write a post about OER and the #GoOpen movement, but as so often happens, as soon as I get near Feedly or Twitter, I get distracted and wind up in the rabbit hole for hours. It’s a hazard of a good PLN. … Continue reading Choosito!
I was just waiting for the fallout. News of Kiddle, the new google-like ‘safe’ search engine for kids splashed onto the scene over the weekend. In the beginning, most of the tweets in my feed were just quick retweets of news articles introducing the service and a few comments that it wasn’t actually a google product, but rather, used the google safe-search platform. Kids can choose to search by web, images, news or video. The first three results are handpicked by editors to include only articles written for children; results four through seven are also supervised by the editors and include content that is deemed simple enough for children to make use of; and the rest of the results simply rely on google safe-search filters without editor input. Wait, back up…did I just say ‘handpicked by editors’? Yup. Here’s the story as it unrolled on Twitter depicted in my storify.
The idea of librarian-as-teacher first came to me in Michael Stephens’ course, The Hyperlinked Library(INFO 287). For the most part, this course was about public librarianship and the role of librarian as facilitator vs. gatekeeper. Of course, there were earlier classes, and the books we read in them, that helped set the stage- in particular, the works of Clay Shirky and Peter Morville, that helped grow my awareness of participatory culture. By the time we jumped in deep to the Hyperlinked Library course, I understood that things will never be the same again in libraryland: that regular people are no longer simply consumers of information, but also producers of it. This has huge ramifications for traditional authority structures, particularly education. The new vision of a teacher as the ‘guide on the side” instead of the ‘sage on the stage’ helped me imagine where I might fit in; I could see that I could add value as a guide- helping connect the dots, ensuring access, facilitating learning. Creative, rewarding, ethical work that lives at the intersection of people, ideas and technology.
Of course, ‘teachers’ are everywhere. They exist in all professional fields, at every level, from upper management to front-line workers, and in every every social strata. One need not work in a classroom or a library to be a teacher. But! If one did work as a librarian in a school, one would be afforded the opportunity to work with children, while also collaborating with adults- teachers, parents, administrators and fellow librarians. School librarians are in the unique position of serving all the students and teachers in the school, at each grade level. Their purview is broad- encompassing everything from literacy and technology, to advocacy and trendspotting- but their ideals are grounded in the longstanding values of intellectual freedom, diversity, open access, lifelong learning and service. The idea of collectively working towards lighting students’ fires is tremendously motivating. To do this from the the library environment is appealing because the library can be a place of both personal and academic safety…a helping place, that ideally works as a third space- neither home nor the classroom, but hopefully somewhere in between.
The public library is also a great venue for lighting fires and is increasingly being recognized as a third space that communities have come to rely upon. The real pull towards school librarianship for me is more personal. I like the idea of getting to know the kids; the continuity of the school community, and the flow of the school year, which coincides with my school-aged daughter’s schedule. The real clincher, however, has been the network of teachers and teacher-librarians that I have been exposed to in the last few months as part of my coursework and while volunteering in my daughter’s school library. I have been so impressed and inspired by my fellow classmates, professors, and teachers and staff at my daughter’s school- not to mention the thought leadership coming out of the school library blogs, class readings, and twitter feeds. Smart, creative, dedicated people. Simply put, they have shown me that there is interesting, worthwhile work to be done. I want to be a part of that.
Well, I hope it is as I’ve described above. Like anything, there’s always a gap between what something could be and what it actually is. Closing the gap is a process; one probably never actually gets there, for another gap is always opening up. Still, we move forward, toward those things that inspire us, and in so doing, we begin to close the gap. I hope that…
…we can make the library a hub of openness to all kinds of learning, having earned the trust of the school community- the key component to being able to make a direct and meaningful impact on student achievement.
…the school librarian workforce becomes increasingly diverse. Some of our allied fields, such as publishing, are also paying attention to this gap, but it’s slow going.
…school librarianship is increasingly attractive to creative, savvy,value-centered workers who get a kick out of kids.
…the library becomes the model for collaboration within the school- between librarians and teachers, between the teachers themselves, between librarians and the administration and the wider community, and between students from different grades and programs- leading to a third space within the school. This is certainly the way public libraries are headed, and given that school libraries are nestled within a school that is nestled within a district, that is in turn embedded into the wants and needs of the local community, it is both appropriate and necessary that school librarians collaborate with their broader stakeholders.
Concerns About the Profession
I remember as a sociology undergrad thinking that every. single. social. problem could be traced back to the evils of capitalism. If only it was that simple; that black and white. Of course, there is a constellation of causes and effects, misguided policies, and human foibles at work. Likewise, there are a number of concerns within the the library profession and the field of education that could be alternatively characterized as hiccups, obstacles, or outright wicked problems for school librarians (The Horizon Report always offers a great analysis).
To keep it simple here, and to focus on solutions, rather than problems, I would say, I hope the profession gets better at advocacy. At a recent CSLA conference, I attended a session about library marketing by Brigeen Radoicich-Houghton, Library Coordinator for the Fresno Office of Education. She had us do an exercise that really brought home the point: We were to rate, from 1-5, which of our five constituents (community, parents, administrators, teachers, students) we impacted the most; then rate which we spend the most time with; and finally who pulls the most weight in terms of decision-making. You can guess where this is going. Major discrepancies exist between who we spend the most time with (students) and who makes the decisions (administration and community). This is not to say we shouldn’t be spending so much time with students, but that we really need to be developing relationships with the administration and the community (including parents and teachers) in order to learn their pain points and tailor our services around solutions to those problems. When that happens, we have a broad base of support for our library program and we are fully integrated into the broader goals of student achievement. In this way, we are able to articulate the success of the library in a way that is understandable, meaningful, and actionable for our decision-making constituents. Librarians need to step away from telling their administrators what the library needs, and instead show them what the library has achieved. (Hint: circulation statistics alone won’t cut it). Disruptive technologies, budget cuts, and a widespread misunderstanding of the librarian’s role threaten the sustainability of our school libraries, and targeted advocacy may be one of our most powerful weapons.
Dispositions of the School Librarian: My Areas of Strength
Based on the dispositions outlined by Professor Harlan, I would point to communication and advocacy as being my top strengths. To the extent that dispositions are understood as attitudes and/or habits of mind, we can point to the ways we tend to respond to problems and the ways we tend to approach tasks and set goals as our dispositions. Our observable behaviors are ‘proof’ of what dispositions we actually hold. Here are some of the behaviors you would observe if you spent time with me:
I blog. I tweet. I ask. I seek. I write. I naturally seek out opportunities to ask questions and talk about what I’ve learned; you will see me telling everyone I know about libraries. If you were around the school where I volunteer, you would see me introducing myself to the superintendent when he is on site, and thanking him for supporting our Model School Library programs. You would also see me tweeting to him when the right opportunity arises. I realize that he doesn’t really know who I am, but I know that a simple ‘thank you’ from a parent and a reminder that I am volunteering my time in his library is advocacy in action. Similarly, you would witness me inviting different parents to come visit the library and jumping at the chance to tell them why I volunteer there. You would see me communicating with teachers about the future of libraries. Here’s an excerpt from a recent email I wrote:
From the very beginning of library school, I felt the pull toward advocacy. In fact, for my first paper, of my first class (LIBR 200) I chose to write about demonstrating the value of the public library. The paper was eventually published in the iSchool’s Student Research Journal and reflects my continuing passion to advocate on behalf of libraries. I am also interested in assessment, which ultimately, harks back to my disposition towards advocacy, since performance assessment gives us the means to demonstrate our value. If you were at the recent CSLA conference session about using centers in the library, you would have seen me asking about assessment- ‘how do you know if [the centers program] met the learning objectives…how did you assess if it was all worth it?’ If you were a fly on the wall at my daughter’s school where I am collaborating with a first grade teacher, you would see me writing the assessment piece into the lesson plan- it’s one of the first things I thought about when we began our collaborations. Indeed, even my blogging is rooted in assessment and advocacy, using it as a reflective practice, which is really a self-assessment strategy as I progress through library school.
In my future professional life, my disposition for assessment will allow me to see problems and address them effectively. My communication skills and disposition for advocacy will in turn help me broadcast the right information to the right people at the right time, resulting in a funnel of support for my role, my library program, my school, and my students. Likewise, my penchant for communication will enable me to share with and learn from members of the profession, further positioning me as a leader.
As a communicator, I enjoy sharing information with people who might find it useful, forwarding news articles or links with a quick note of why I think they should take a look. Likewise, I like to keep people in the loop. When a teacher recently sent me two students who needed some assistance in the library, I wrote her a note outlining what we did so that she would be on the same page. This wasn’t expected, but it’s natural for me to try to keep the lines of communication open. This has helped us build trust and is laying the groundwork for future collaboration.
Related to my inclination to communicate is my natural disposition toward participating in learning communities. I use Twitter for this and attend free webinars that are of particular interest. Although I am still a student, yet to work in a library, I actively participate in these channels, asking questions and sharing news, my own blog posts and papers. Both of these avenues have given me access to professionals I never would have been able to engage with otherwise. I recently paid my own way to a professional conference where I was able to soak up new ideas, observe how the profession interacts with each other, and make new contacts. In a similar vein, I carved out a volunteer position for myself at my daughter’s school library, knowing it would be a fantastic learning opportunity.
Indeed, the volunteer work has proven to be a rich source of learning. It has also given me the invaluable opportunity to ‘try on’ the profession. Sure, a lot of my time there is spent shelving books, but this gives me the perfect location from which to observe, ask questions, and get to know the students and staff. I made it clear to the media specialist that I was open to helping in a variety of ways, which led to me writing and delivering an instructional unit on Destiny and giving a digital citizenship lesson to 4th and 5th graders.
The more I learn in library school, the more I try to practice it in my volunteer position. It is natural for me to want to collaborate; it is something I have done in previous work outside librarianship and is something I enjoy. Despite having no teaching credential and little instructional experience with children, I have reached out to a few of the teachers to explore some potential collaboration. To my surprise, I have an offer to jointly develop an inquiry-based project for high-reading-level first graders! I think there are a number of factors as to why I got this opportunity, but the foundation for it comes from my communication skills and my ability to successfully advocate for what libraries can do for students.
Dispositions of the School Librarian: Areas for Improvement
Among the areas for improvement, the need to develop a variety of instructional strategies at my fingertips will be crucial to my success as a school librarian. I have theoretical knowledge of various pedagogical approaches and have done instructional design coursework, but do not have a working familiarity with teaching. I will either need to obtain a teaching credential, or look towards work with private/independent schools while getting as much informal teaching experience as possible, and continuing to be active in learning communities. Either way, teaching will be at the forefront of my practice. Whether it is in a public school with a teaching credential, or in an independent school without one, remains to be seen.
Finally, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that I will need to work continuously on developing resiliency. I have a hunch that if I traded in the desire for perfection in favor of persistence, I might get further faster. Perfect is the enemy of good, right? I suspect this is a tough one for many school librarians who have to do so much with so little; who tend to be under-appreciated and whose work is often misunderstood by the very people they are serving. I think that if we were to pull from our professional ethic of intellectual freedom, in the sense of always being open to new ideas, we might find a sense of possibility opening up. To this end, I also think that reading outside the field of education and librarianship is beneficial. Brian Mathews offers a good example of this kind of thinking, wherein he applies commercial/business concepts to his academic library practice, recognizing a number of ways that ‘thinking like a start-up’ can help build great library programs and build culture of problem-solving resilience.
My personal learning network for all things library began in the Spring of 2014 (2 years ago). The heart and soul of my PLN was Michael Stephen’s Hyperlinked Library course (now also a MOOC), which provided the necessary information, impetus and inspiration for developing an PLN. For that course, I was asked to start a blog with which I would turn in assignments and reflect on what I was learning. I saved this little infographic which shows just how far I had come after one semester (or rather, just how low of a base I began with!)
*Icon attributions at the end
And now, here we are. I wasn’t so good at maintaining my blog and developing my network over the summer and throughout other courses, but thankfully, I never lost it altogether, and now, with more direction in my studies, I can really begin to tailor my PLN. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.
Since that initial push, which mostly revolved around public librarianship, I starting following a few school library people on twitter, added several school library and educational blogs to Feedly and most importantly, began volunteering in my daughter’s elementary school library. I’ve been sucking up information ever since.
Here’s what I’ve done the last couple of days to organize and revitalize my PLN:
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Looked into the idea of using a dashboard product as my homepage. I’m currently using a chromebook (LOVE*), which is fine because everything is web-based these days. I considered Symbaloo and Netvibes and then just decided to stick with the existing products I love: Diigo and Feedly. I can set up my chromebook to always open with these tabs active. (I will probably add Twitter and Canvas to the active tabs).
LEARNING NETWORKS
Joined a couple groups in Diigo related to EdTech and then subscribed to those feeds in Feedly….that way I can see some of the links people are adding directly from feedly. Not sure if this will be helpful or not. Time will tell.
Reorganized Feedly with new collection categories, promoting some blogs to ‘must read’ and adding new ones. (Re-promised myself to read. feedly. every. day.)
Tweeted out an interesting article or two. I’m pretty good about avoiding the temptation to blindly re-tweet; I typically aim to provide some input/value add. At least I checked that this article wasn’t already all over #tlchat.
Made arrangements to go to the Friday session of The CSLA 2016 Conference (Vista Unified School District is presenting) and attend SJSU’s iSchool meetup. Who am I to turn down an invitation to cocktails?
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*Icon Attributions: RSS by Daniel Llamas Soto from The Noun Project; Texting by Luis Prado from The Noun Project; Twitter by aguycalledgary from The Noun Project; Telephone by Simple Icons from The Noun Project; Network by Bruno Castro from The Noun Project; Cloud Computing by Andrew Forrester from The Noun Project; Icons not cited are public domain.
community). This is not to say we shouldn’t be spending so much time with students, but that we really need to be developing relationships with the administration and the community (including parents and teachers) in order to learn their pain points and tailor our services around solutions to those problems. When that happens, we have a broad base of support for our library program and we are fully integrated into the broader goals of student achievement. In this way, we are able to articulate the success of the library in a way that is understandable, meaningful, and actionable for our decision-making constituents. Librarians need to step away from telling their administrators what the library 
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