ASLC

I was looking at the Alberta School Library Council website and I saw they had this video about what TL's do. As it is exactly what we are writing about now I thought I would put it in here.

"What's in a name?"

Basically, it is a short article which talks about what TLs need to keep their role balanced between 'instructional partner, information specialist and program administrator' or we will lose control over one of these areas to the administration.


The article above's details are as follows:

Abilock, D. (2004). What's Your Name?. Knowledge Quest, 32(3), 9-10.

Using a wiki in school

My wiki has finally been allowed access by my students in Stage 3. They are using it to record information about Nationally Remembered Days. It has been interesting because some children have replaced what others have written because it was the same as what they wrote. This was my fault because I did not explain to them that I wanted them to demonstrate deeper thinking by adding to what is already there. Anyway, it has been a learning curve for all of us and now they are not doing  this anymore.


Now it is no longer a blocked site but a private site for my students I will use it to do all of our work over the year. It should be interesting to see how it pans out. At the moment they are involved in collaborative note taking. I suppose I want them to see that note taking is more important than the writing itself as it provides the backbone and framework of any academic writing.

I will put onto it the better reports so that they can all see what a well written report looks like.

School library linking with the local council library

I am writing about this to remind myself that I want to link up with our local library. We had a talk at our Network meeting and they spoke about using the kid's library cards to get them to access the extra databases that the library offers for their study/research. They also said that we could ask the library to drop off a batch of books which might interest our clientele but are not in the library.

Mrs Macs Library Links

Have a look at these links. Mrs Mac is my hero! Also, her blog Skerricks is  award winning. The link is given above.

Prezi

This is the first time I have made a Prezi. I will use it with my Stage 2 students to teach them about Pemulwuy the aboriginal resistance fighter. All of the videos I found were a bit difficult for them so this should get around this. Prezi's are exciting tools. I bet they are not cleared by the DET either.

What interferes with TL's capacity to do their work?

I have two wikis for Stage 3 which I had hoped to use all year. The organisation I work for has blocked the children's access to editing these sites. This means that I cannot ask them to collaborate online. My employer pays me to go on courses so that children can collaborate and then blocks those sites. I will have to ring them, again, tomorrow to ask them to unblock this part of my wiki. Very frustrating.
They have also blocked bighugelab which means that the children can't use it either to make ads. This fits in beautifully with the work on persuasive texts. Tomorrow, I will also talk to them about this.
What a waste of my time!

Author Visits

The lesson of this story is be careful what you agree to. Without naming names, I agreed to have two authors visit my school and talk to the children. What they really wanted was to promote their books. 2 months before that I have the book fair on from Scholastic. The former is okay because it happens every year and it can be seen as a win win. However, it is still making my head spin, organising it.
I am having to promote the books the book fair is selling and now I am being asked to promote the visiting authors books too. Obviously I will have to do  the latter after the fair is over. Yes it is all a question of time management- not one of my strong points.

Just to make my life a little more complex, I have also been negotiating with a speakers agency, the principal and the teachers to align an author visit for Book Week. I sent off the deposit on Thursday but it took a lot of foot work to get to that point.  Still,  it will be great to have Andrew Daddo come and speak to our children. It should be especially engaging for the older boys who are not reading as much as the voracious readers in the rest of the school.

It all sounds very simple when I write it down but it has been a sharp learning curve managing the book fair and negotiating with the pushy authors.

Reflecting on Delicious

Part of my role is to participate in continuing professional development, and as such, I went to a course on wiki's run by Pam Kelly, a few weeks ago. In this course she talked about the uses of Delicious. I already had an account but did not really understand how it could be used in class.
She showed us how to set up a public account which the Stage 2 children at our school log onto and use to access the websites I am using in my teaching.
Now, all of the websites that teachers suggest at school are going to be put on a school Delicious account for all of us to use and upload to. I was going to establish a school library website but now with Delicious I am not quite sure if  it is all that necessary. Anyway, I have a Stage 2 Persuasive Blog,  a Library Monitors blog and a Stage 3 wiki. This is enough for one school librarian to cope with.

More on the role of the teacher librarian

As part of my  Term 1 2011 school library program I wrote about the role of a TL. I have copied and pasted it here so that I can start to track the development of my understanding of the TL's function.

The Role of a Teacher Librarian

A teacher librarian is someone who implements and supports the aims of the school community by developing and demonstrating the use of worthwhile library and information programs which encourage and facilitate the students and the staff to become life long learners.

This is achieved by using their professional knowledge in regards to pedagogy , the curriculum and combining it with an understanding of information management and skills.

It is the teacher librarian who’s task it is to:

·      Provide access to and engage the learners with, an information rich environment

·      Collaboratively plan, resource and teach information literacy and literature outcomes.

·      Manage library and information services to a high standard.

·      Evaluate their own teaching practice in order to improve teaching and learning.

·      Promote and model lifelong learning.

·      Promote the profession of teacher librarianship

·      Participate in continuing professional development.

·      Promote an environment in which reading is expected and enjoyed.

Source:  Australian School Library Association.  (2004) .Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. Retrieved from http://www.asla.org.au/policy/standards.htm