SJSU Libr233 fall '09 Reading Log: October 2009

"The Role of a School Library in a School's Reading Program" by ELIZABETH “BETTY” MARCOUX AND DAVID V. LOERTSCHER

Discussion groups are my #1 challenge right now. When? Academic classes, theater and arts, sports, and homework fill these kids' lives seemingly to the brim. Must be such a fun thing that it's considered recreation?
Multi-media access to reading material!
p. 10 - "Every classroom is a print-rich environment." Class sets of textbooks are a disaster. Would other classroom collections be more stationary? Think UFS.
p. 11 - "Time to Read" strategies: everyone reads (students, faculty staff); time to read is scheduled during the school day; material is available for both required and recreational reading for every reading level present; and reading aloud is part of the daily program.
p. 11 - Out with the reading contests--reading is its own reward.

How e-Books Could Smarten Up Kids and Stretch Library Dollars: A National Plan by David Rothman

Never thought before of the advantage of ereading when it would become widespread--health records, taxes, newspapers. All of these on enhanced ereaders that would be as convenient as a tablet reader like Kindle but useful for vision impaired individuals as well.

Route 21 Skills - Partnership for 21st Century Skills

How I wish I could clone myself as I only ever have when I had two very young children! This entire endeavor, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is incredible. I'll be investigating it on an ongoing basis for months I'm sure.

Learning and Innovation Skills -

There's that collaboration element again. Just as we're being called to in library school, 21st century learning seems to believe it's an education necessity as well. We're preparing kids (we hope) for an economy that values innovation, making connections between disparate pieces of information and people, and finding smart work. Of course, by preparing kids for this world, we're also creating it, right? Yes, were responding to their world, but we're also determining what shape it takes right along with them.
"...understand the real world limits to adopting new ideas." So important to separate our egos from what we and others can actually do. Disappointment is inevitable, but with some perspective on just what can really happen, it's mitigated somewhat. On the other hand, youth has the courage to ignore obvious limits and drive the culture furthet for its lack of recognizing pain around the corner.
"...understand that creativity and innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes." How can we keep this at the forefront of our teaching and learning while grades hold such a huge place in our kids' consciousness? Pride in work is huge, but some standardized motivating element is doubtless effective.

Information, Media, and Technology Skills -

Understanding how, why and for what purpose media are presented is so important and something fairly complex. It's easy just to villify every .com s a money-grubbing source as opposed to orgs's or 'edu's. But that's not the whole story of course. This how, why and for what purpose teaching has to be ongoing from the bery beginning, through college, I believe.

Life and Career Skills -

"Work effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities." This is a lesson we faculty desperately need to learn and model for our students. It's radically difficult, like truly from our roots. We want to depend on the way things are, and we want the kids to behave dependably. But we need to figure out when we're creating order and predicatability for own own comfort primarily when it might be limiting our students' harmless and real need for freedom to explore their world and express themselves within it.
Under "Initiative and self-direction," I question the ubiquitous need for multi-tasking as a skills. In my experience it's extremely effective, in fact default, for some people, and absolutely disastrous for others. This is one we need to look at on an individual basis, I think.

AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner

p. 2 - "As a lifelong learning skill, reading goes beyond decoding and comprehension to interpretation and development of new understandings." Great quote for the experimental learning commons online at the Teachers' Workroom website page and in the physical learning commons.
It's almost impossible to reflect thoughtfully as I read through this. It's so thick with import. The wording has obviously been distilled down to absolute necessity such that taking it in is a bit like reading poetry. That is, I get so much just by having the language and ideas wash through my mind, but there's so much more there to reflect on and connect to others' written work and my own daily work.
It occurs to me that these standards are of a contemporary teaching mind frame that reaches far beyond many of our teachers' expertise. At a private school, they are hired for their content knowledge, some experience, and who they are as persons vis a vis the school's mission. I'm probably working through much more teaching training through this class than most if not all of them have experienced. That's not to say they're not qualified, just that specifically learning how to teach the 21st century learner is not something we just know from having been 20th century learners. It involves quite a different set of skills and foci. Kind of overwhelming while inspiring.
2.1.6 - "Use the writing process, media, and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings." This is a great guideline for checking the effectiveness of new technologies and teaching techniques--what new understanding is expressed in the students' products?
I'm bookmarking these standards right now on my work iGoogle bookmarks window.

"Flip this Library" by David V. Loertscher

I've read this once before, before needing to annotate it. Reading it again, more slowly this time and with some small steps toward creating our own learning commons at PRS under my belt, a lot more is coming clear about just what the LC consists of. It's a radically new practice--right from the roots to the tips--and it's taking a while to really get it.

p. 46 - "The main objective of the open commons is to showcase the school's best teaching and learning practices." I really didn't get that the first time around. The key word is "showcase." In this way, the learning commons librarian provides a space for the big think of the whole school. This really is a place where we can see it all tying together.
p. 48 (box) - I've looked at fish4info.org briefly before, and looking again I realize I've GOT to check out Drupal more carefully! As we're building the VLC, it could be a vastly more reliable platform than Google sites turns out to be. And, no, the bigger picture of changing the library website into a networking and content processing center isn't lost amid the cool new toys. The reality of actually engaging students immediately upon arrival is a chance too good to miss if we really want to educate them and ourselves.
Book clubs, book clubs!
Ok, here are a couple of obstacles I've got to overcome, moving from "won't work" to "doing it!" (a) class-set textbooks are disappearing and/or simply not accessible to the students who need them when they need them, but (b) the Academic Dean really doesn't get the magic of ebooks and etextbooks. And (c) the computers in the library are currently constantly having glitches and there just aren't enough of them. Solutions: (a) no more classroom sets of textbooks and no more students' families purchasing them--we WILL use etextbooks and electronic readers next year for textbooks; (b) this will actually be vastly cheaper for families, and there will be financial aid available for those who can't afford it; and (c) there will be a C.O.W. in permanent residence in the learning commons.

Chelmsford HS Learning Commons

The Learning Commons Orientation is inspired--so much like our intro. class to the MLIS program at SJSU SLIS. Not insignificant I think, the visual arrangement of the homepage is clear and takes a more serious, "academic" approach--looks like a college site perhaps. And as far as what we're focusing on-- encouraging better teaching and learning through open conversations instead of top down assignments--the Common Grounds Cafe is perfect. I know my own library is full of kids in the morning before classes getting last minute work done, socializing, and generally gearing up for the day. How fantastic to make it also a place where they can have a comforting cup of coffee or tea--it really would become welcoming.

Springfield Twp. HS Virtual Library

An incredibly inspired, amusing, captivating opening page! I've never seen anything like it and I want to do it too. The pathfinders, database and catalog page, and the databases by subject, though, all need to take a cue from the Open Resources and College and Career pages. I found the former pages confusing and overwhelming, which does very little in my opinion in turning the VLC client-side. The latter two, however, are carefully organized both based on content and then visually on the page. Each section allows the reader to peruse maybe 20 links at most, many have fewer than that. I think one of the main points of the client-side organization is organization and embedded guidance. So much of that guidance can be done visually--witness the fantastic opening drawing that leads the visitor happily through the VLC's many sections. When it comes to the number of research options to offer MS and HS students in particular, more is not always better, and if the subject simply requires a large number of resources, when we shelve them virtually, we need to take the time to leave clear markers as to which resources will address what questions or what kinds of inquiry. That way, when the student is encouraged to dive in and "see what you can find," he or she will first encounter our virtual presence having left not only a path but, anticipating how the student might progress through it, a model for successfully handling the tools. It's challenging and time consuming, but I think this opening page demonstrates the success and worth of the effort.

Waste Not, Want Not by Jamie McKenzie

McKenzie's article brings up important points throughout that I must keep in mind, and that we all need to discuss in an ongoing way. I know I often feel intimidated by IT's so-called iron clad knowledge of what "just can't be done." I found that section of her article particularly noteworthy because, turned on its own head, this response, especially when it indicates that not enough storage was purchased in the first place, is the perfect argument for cloud computing! Too expensive and time-consuming to go "back" now and buy more storage? How about every student and teacher has his or her very own generous amount of storage within the suite of Google Apps or Apps for Education? Love it.

In Command! by Robin T. Williams & David V. Loertscher

Loved this book! I found the directives, instructions, insights, and relentless turn-around perspective both approachable and inspiring. Some specifics as I read:

p. 3 - Very important insight: our attention is the "major currency of this generation," and everyone wants a piece of it.
p. 4 - I'm very concerned in my own school about how the time will be spent in the classroom vs. out of the classroom. Are the kids going to work online in class? Even having read the whole book, I'm still quite confused about how the traditional teacher's role either remains or completely morphs in the Learning Commons/In Command model. Confused and therefore kinds of panicky, actually.
p. 23 - I'm very concerned about the number of RSS feeds suggested. I find that filling widgits with RSS feeds from so many authorities is just as overwhelming and confusing as receiving too many emails.
p. 24 - Again, I feel confused about how to organize the teachers, the specialists, and myself in such a way that we're all available and dialed in enough to add the kinds of comments, directions, and encouragement suggested.
p. 24 - But I love "...turning adults from dictators to coaches."
p. 25 - I am SO doing the action research unit on introducing info. mngment. to learners. Love the petri dish approach. This is exactly what the kids are so good at--trying new things and telling you honestly what works and what doesn't.
p. 28 - Note to self on iGoogle pg. notepad--check out Pageflakes.
p. 30 - Also Google Notebook.
p. 34 - Ditto Google Librarian Central.
p. 36 - "In a perfect world every teacher would add your assignments to a Google calendar...." Ok, could I actually convince the tech ppl, teachers, and administrators to abandon that stupid, useless Whipple Hill account and Outlook with its calendars and email, etc., and replace them with a suite of Google apps? I mean, I think they'd actually object because it's free. Strange irony of working at an independent school. The COO would love it. If it's free, some would surely say, it must be lower quality and full of perverts. Well, the lesson throughout all these readings is that I will be misunderstood, but I persevere not because everyone loves me all the time, but because I'm that committed to the kids' learning process and outcomes.
pp. 60-61 - The Big Think is exactly what one of our teachers, educated at St. Johns College not surprisingly, is all about--meta cognition. I agree with him wholeheartedly that we need to keep that in mind. Our school actually already does so many neat projects, but what's missing is this leap to the next level where individual and/or group lessons learned are challenged to become patterns for solving completely unexpected problems.

Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program by David V. Loertscher

"...an evolutionary pattern of change for the library media program is unacceptable" (p. 8). Up 'til reading that sentence the thrust of this book didn't surprise me much, especially given our class discussions and the author's presentations of his ideas so far. I'd been enjoying what I was reading but nothing caught me off guard. Rejecting an evolutionary path, though, upset my apple cart immediately. I'm always railing on about our need as a culture, as a nation, as individuals to evolve, please and thank you very much. But revolutionaries, as Thomas Kuhn taught us all so well, don't evolve. They find critical anomolies not addressed at all by current systems, reject the system as incomplete or flat out mistaken, and replace it with one that appears to fill in the holes they discovered. Of course this is all well and good, and then the next revolution must take place. So I take from Loertscher's words the instruction that I may, if I choose to be a new library media professional, demand that each an every person involved in the students' education at my school adopt a radically inclusive and cooperative approach to teaching and learning. I may envision and work whole-heartily toward achieving technological integration in every classroom at every level. I have to say, this sure is more exciting than evolutionary change--waiting for this or that single teacher to think I might be able to add something to his or her class if allowed to participate.
Figure 2.1, diagonally dividing professional and paraprofessional duties in half is brilliant. It has informed by daily work since I first looked at it about a month ago.
"Books on shelves, plugged in computers, and wired schools provide only potential tools, not automatic results" (p. 61). This is so true! I wonder how the admin. will assess the effectiveness of the tools, though.
Loertscher goes on to answer this question: both "hard and soft" data flow to the administrator(s) making clear the positive changes in teaching and learning. But what are those data comprised of? Standardized tests? How do we measure and show students' increased sense of ownership of their work? I haven't seen it in action and am a bit confused as to what this would look like.
Collaboration: "The more sophisticated information technology has become, the more important has become the necessity of having a sophisticated human interface between teachers and learners on the one hand and...technology on the other" (p. 69-70). Beautiful and noteworthy explanation of the way the world is and our consequent need for expertise.
Collaboration: you becomes we (p. 70) when trust is developed (p. 71).
Regarding that revolutionary approach--Loertscher writes that establishing "a systematic program of collaborative planning" takes 5-7 years, unless, however, one ramps up the process with "extraordinary measures" (p. 78). What might those be? Are they the questions that follow on the next page, the ones designed to assess the current state of collaboration and possibilities for it in a school?
Understanding teaching styles keeps coming up and I'm beginning to understand why, I think: depending on the style of teaching going on in the classroom, the LMS tailors her work to create a balance between the teaching output (by instructor and LMS) and what the students are expected to learn. Without an understanding of how the teacher teaches, the LMS really can't create collaborate effectively.
That last point segues directly into the beginning of chapter 8--becoming a good diagnostician.
"Yes sir, no sir" on p.91...not sure what that means.
I find the Map of an Instructional Unit really compelling. In fact, I've just seen WebQuests in action for the first time today! Mapping out the entire instructional unit is invaluable, as it helps me to really begin to understand what interventionist collaboration looks like and when the real thing begins, how to construct it. The filled in form is great as a guide.
Suggestion to provide options for participation is golden (p.102). Nothing like choice to encourage a sense of ownership and personal investment in a learning experience.
I want to know more about the jigsaw model! In the jigsaw report itself, I really don't quite get the difference between the first set of questions groups A, B, and C are asked and the second set of questions put to the shuffled groups.
"Mending a hundred books the first month is not a good beginning" (p. 109). I've come to realize over the past couple of days that what people see me do is sit at my desk working on my computer. They see me around campus maybe delivering magazines to classrooms, but for the most part I'm mending books, as it were. I've got to get up and out, into classrooms and grade level meetings.
The point cannot be made too clear: the LMS is a leader in the school. This is a challenging role for me, but one that I must grow into.
Ok, but I can't help but continue to ask, why? Why is it so important that the LMS is involved and leading? I know this may sound stupid, but other than for the purpose of self-presevation, why exactly are we indispensible? The author mentions time, resources, and I believe an approach to learning that can only really be exercised by a professional outside the teacher's relatively narrow realm of content instruction. Still, though, I wonder if I weren't working at Pacific Ridge, in fact, if there weren't a library at all, what difference would it make? I mean besides the habit of my colleagues' being used to simply having a library at a school whether they use it or not.
It's not a rhetorical or self-deprecating question. I need to carefully consider the impact I already have so that I can really begin to imagine the impact I can have.
p. 129 Now on to creating avid and capable readers: I like the notion of the whole school's taking on the task of nurturing readers, especially the entire school year's plan for increasing and improving reading.
Same pg. - I now have a cadre of 16 educated, strong-minded mothers volunteering in our tiny library who are hungry for things to do to help the school. They have the $ so they have time. It's an incredible resource and I'm working hard to keep them involved. They would be great for the author's suggestion that the "parent group might take the leadership for the motivational reading activities for the year with the support from the advisory committee" (p. 129).
Within the year and a couple of months that I've been a working librarian, I've moved from what I considered to be the ideal forms of technology and information literacy training, namely formal instruction, to what I'm embarking on this weekend--curriculum-driven, point-of-need instruction.
p. 138 - Just thought of a fun game with the Process skills--students mill around in small groups with one of the skills on a piece of paper taped to their backs; each person has to guess which process skill he or she is, based on the examples others' provide for that skill in action. Speakers can't use any of the words in the person's label. For instance, I have to guess my identity when a someone says to me, "when something's not working, you don't give up, you think of all kinds of ways to make things better. You keep thinking and changing your approach until the situation is resolved." I'm a Problem Solver.
p. 145 - With PRS's mission statement, which speaks directly to ethical responsibility, I can't wait to integrate especially the last three of the Nine Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning, those focused on "Social Responsibility," into our faculty's understanding of what it is to educate kids today.
pp. 152-153 - Going to copy off the "Integration of Information Technology into the School as a Whole Checklist" and the parallel, "Checklist of Danger Signs When Technolog is Not Supported Well by the Library Program." Important to keep these front burner as we grow into our new space next year--I hope.
p. 162 - Never thought of confused students lacking motivation and performing below expectations as signals for a good time for research process training. But this approach shows that information skills must work directly and immediately to solve a problem rather than being taught at the outset in hopes that they'll be stored, ready to avoid problems.
Same. "...when process and content merge...The students begin to take control of their own learning" (p. 162).
p. 172 - After reading the same idea many times throughout this book, something has just become crystal clear to me. That is, just as "a few quality sources are to be preferred to many poor ones" (p. 172), the flip side to the advantage of a school library's providing sources within school walls is the school library's only providing some sources. In other words the school library's excluding so much more than it includes is one of its primary functions. This is exactly what we're trying to help students create for themselves with the iGoogle pages. I'm so convinced of the worth of students' having their own iGoogle pages that I wonder what on earth will take its place within the narrower world of Google Apps Education Edition. Eek!
Documenting progress! p. 181 - Over the course of a year, train kids in info. literacy; at the beginning and end, rate each student as a learner, Dependent 1 2 3 4 5 Independent.
p. 191 - Tip sheets on bookmarks for new technolgies! Simple. Quick. Clear. Must try this for EBSCO and online catalog. I write them, vols produce them.
p. 203 - "Those who build computer networks don't always understand the needs of the school." I'm very friendly with our IT personnel, hired out not in-house, but I'm beginning to realize that their main goals for students revolve around allowing them just enough access to technology to complete work, but to constantly thwart what they expect to be destructive, irresponsible behavior.
pp. 210, 215 - Funding agencies like plans that solve problems. Must make a collection map plan (perfect ongoing volunteer job, maybe with a leader to coordinate the effort over a couple of weeks) It will be excellent to really know what we have and to provide potential funders. Similarly, once $ is made available I must account for every penny spent, particularly according to segments of the collection that funders may have targeted.
p. 218 - Our new library space! Five functional corners are in many ways already in the design--by my intuition and the designers' experience, except the Teacher Respite. Had two teachers in the library just today (very unusual), relaxing and asking about comfy chairs. Must include a real teacher respite especially keeping in mind that the open teacher workrooms may encourage collaboration, but many complain about the distracting noise and exposure.
p. 228 - Back to $, budget must have justifications (haven't done this so far), be spent wisely, and produce a "reportable result."
p. 235 - Advice: document what I do. I 'spose I'm a little nervous about this. All the more reason to do it. Make sure PRS's largest investment in the library, my salary (albeit, part-time), is being wisely spent with reportable results.
pp. 246-247 - Evaluation data collection and analysis could be done with a couple of highly skilled, experienced volunteers in coordination with teachers, then collated and examined over the summer with these vols.

"Extreme Makeover," by David Loertscher

Stating that librarians are often "treated like...slaves" is extreme and distracting in my view.
I am working very hard to become that new "professional—one who focuses on teaching and
student learning rather than on organizational tasks." Exactly that.
This new "knowledge team leader" "collaborates with the pod's other three teaehers, planning and implementing high level learning experiences, and is responsible for designing assessment tools and making sure that ever)' student succeeds." This really is a revolutionary idea--we're erasing the librarian/teacher boundary and recasting the roles, such that the professional who used to be librarian is an interdisciplinary "how to" teacher with the big picture constantly in mind.
Loertscher was at this point still envisioning a central gathering place rather than his current thoughts of a virtual learning commons that reaches out to students and teachers wherever they are.

"Finding Time" by Mary Alice Anderson

I find this article particularly encouraging on a personal level because I've been in many ways lucky enough and in some few ways wise enough to delegate widely in my library. So not surprisingly, I think it's great advice. I've had a much harder time, though, accepting the first consequence of delegation on my own family's homefront, that is, when someone else does the job, I lose control of it. It's inevitable, and I've had to relinquish that control, knowing that the way in which chores are done (or even if certain particulars never get done at all) has got to be negotiable in order that a more balanced, co-operation can emerge. As Ted Nellen recounts in his article, "Morphing from a Teacher to a Cybrarian," only out of chaos can order develop.

"Morphing from Teacher to Cybrarian," by Ted Nellen

Having just read the entire article, I will say that Nellen is not only an immensely skillful technologist and teacher by the sound of his own assessment, but a fantastic writer. Some of my thoughts:
Re: "...computers were installed in 1992 and every one is still working. They are 486 PCs. They are networked and attached to two servers: an intranet and the Internet. In its day, it was high tech; today it is a museum."
Makes we think about the lure of the newest machine that's always available, but could we fix and continue to use our own version of Ted's 486's as a major "green" component of our schools instead? I could use some of my own advice at home--adding RAM, making use of certified techs for fixing instead of lusting after the new Macbook.
Re: "We have built a core of student interns who are assigned to any one of our computer classrooms to help the teacher, who may be experienced or not, in assisting with the technology aspect of any given class."
Brilliant. We have one such kid at our school, but could have more. It's a great source of confidence and positive interaction between student and teacher.
Re: "By the beginning of the second year this teacher is beginning to morph and is ready to mentor a new recruit."
It's remarkable to read Ted's very practical, structured, and totally do-able method for achieving a technologically advanced teaching environment in his school. Very different from the "let's all make using technology a goal" approach which leaves most of us disoriented and lacking truly useful tools and techniques.
"...they were in control." Students in control = empowered learners. This is surely what we're trying to achieve as we create virtual learning centers.
A student is "...always responsible for his/her work agenda..." This is a real pedagogical change. Technology might introduce different tools while allowing the same approach to teaching, but Nellen is making a sea change by orienting the technology in such a way as to allow students to proceed through tasks at their own pace and in the order they choose to do them.
"After my first class posted their first assignments on the Web, I proudly announced their existence on a few listservs. " Again, practical, easy-to-use advice on making technology a value-added investment; that is, without web publishing and listservs, the particular experience he describes would not have been possible.
"The sage on the stage in the first scenario has become the guide by the side in the second scenario." Man oh man! I'm going to use those terms to convince our forward-thinking but technologically suspicious Head of school that we need to begin bringing teachers 'round to student-centered, technology-enhanced global learning.