The Librain

Well, I toyed with calling this post “Dumb and Dumber”, but decided against it! Some of you may know that I have been struggling with my health for some time. I was off work last year for some months and am now managing to get in every day, which is great. However, my illness has resulted in me losing my voice for about the last eighteen months. I can only speak in a breathy whisper and cannot project my voice at all. This is very difficult for a school librarian. No, we don’t merely sit behind a desk stamping out the occasional book! In my school, I was just beginning to develop some classes teaching research skills and supporting reading development work before I was absent. This has been extremely difficult to pick nup again in my present circumstances.

Also, without a strong voice, I have felt unable to speak in other ways. I have neglected this blog and have not written much or communicated with many of my friends – I cannot really use the phone either! As you can imagine, this is very frustrating and annoying – particularly for someone like me who loves to talk.

It has been difficult to watch classes coming in to the Library and know that I cannot engage with the students in the way I would like. In my first couple of years, I was beginning to develop some nice teaching materials and plans to use with them. So, I got to thinking about how I could at least try to do some of the teaching again, whilst being careful not to strain my voice until the therapy I am having starts to have an effect.

One thing that was very successful with our students was using a wiki to engage them in writing about their reading development. I decided that I would try to introduce this to our Year 7 and 8 students. I had made a PowerPoint a couple of years ago and wondered if I could manage to use this to present to the classes. Then, I had a brainwave – why not record my commentary and play it back to each class? That way, I would only have to do this once and I would be able to re-use it as many times as I liked. Also, I would be able to do the recording at home in peace and quiet and take my time over it.

I know there is a function on PowerPoint itself to record a commentary, but I like to do things a bit differently. One of the ideas I have had throughout this new job is that I try to model examples of Web2.0 tools in my own teaching so that our staff and students can see them being used in practical situations. I have already used VoiceThread to do online presentations and I thought that our students would quite like it, so I used it to record my comments on each slide. In the lesson, I showed the class where I had the VoiceThread embedded in the Library Online website, then I ran it as a presentation. Our students are generally great and they showed such patience in listening to my strange voice. And they were allowed to giggle a bit!

Anyway, here it is:

Introduction to the wiki on VoiceThread (I can’t seem to embed it at the moment, for some reason!)

The Future of Reading was the title of the Literacy Forum held at the Education Show on Friday 5th March. It was a very enjoyable and informative day – giving me plenty to think about as I plan the development of our new library!

It seems clear that we are at a cusp in terms of formats – just as the scroll gave way to the book, maybe we are at an historic moment when digital versions will take over from printed paper. Maybe not! There is a lot of discussion not only about this but whether we are also seeing the beginning of the demise of libraries.

One of the reasons that I wanted to go along to the forum, run by the National Literacy Association, was that the NLA is going to write a manifesto for reading as a result of the discussions. I feared that the “librarian’s voice” might be drowned out if some of us were not prepared to speak out about our role. Well, it became clear that the few librarians in the room were stroppy enough to make themselves heard!

Anyway, what were the most memorable things for me about the day? There were some great speakers, including David Crystal, Aidan Chambers, Chris Meade, Dave Whyley, Wendy Cooling, Michael Rosen and many more. What they all had in common was a passion for reading, some even showed a similar passion for libraries, a few even mentioned librarians too!

The wonderful Aidan Chambers, past President of the School Library Association, talked about reading as a function of power: those in power deciding how reading is taught and promoting certain kinds of reading as worthy. Having worked in many challenging schools before coming to this one, so much of what he said about current education being based on “economic function” resonated with me. He feels that those in power deliberately prevent students from attaining higher level reading skills as high literacy would lead to thinking! Politicians ignore the research about reading and the impact of libraries, even though it shows how reading and the use of libraries can improve student attainment.

It was wonderful to hear Aidan’s affirmation of the importance of libraries and librarians – telling us to judge a town or a school by the quality of the library and those who manage it!

Aidan and many of the other speakers also talked to us about e-books and other digital texts. Like me, they had found e-book readers easy to use – even for those of us who were brought up with print – “People of the Book” rather than “People of the Screen”. There were interesting discussions about the ability to publish digitally – thus opening up the world of self-publishing to all. Both Chris Mead and Dave Whyley, working with different projects, asked us to look beyond paper-based reading and look at multi-platforms – laptops, e-readers, mobiles – thinking about the words rather than the paper. I also enjoyed thinking about how digital publishing enables collaboration and media-mixing.

Wendy Cooling enticed us with wonderful picture books – reminding us all that children need the wonderful language and illustrations to develop their reading. Adults can also enjoy them too – judging by the reactions of the audience!

Michael Rosen also talked about the political aspects of literacy, recounting some of his experiences as Children’s Laureate when meeting with politicians. He feels that the present situation is discriminatory in that children who come from homes where parents read to them and they are surrounded with books, have a head start over children who do not have these advantages. He saw reading fiction as reduced to “facticity” – with teachers using worksheets and asking fact-based questions, rather than engaging children with whole stories and whole books.

In the afternoon, we moved into workshops – I looked at technology and the future of literacy. Our questions were:

1) How can we get teachers more involved in using technology?

2) What will happen if we don’t?

As you would expect, if you know me, I could not resist the opportunity to offer the librarian’s help is modelling the use of technology with students. Certainly, I have done this myself quite often – using exciting web-based services with students and helping the teachers to become more confident – using a wiki for example. I also have an e-reader that I have demonstrated to staff and students. I see the school librarian as a leader in this area – if we are not prepared to learn about new technologies and use them with our teachers and students, then our libraries will almost certainly become backwaters – not what any of us would wish!

This has become a very long post, so I must finish with David Crystal’s summary. He talked about us reaching a time of change, but that we needed to find balance. The word “transliteracy” came up again – not worrying about the object (a printed book), but the words on whatever format we might find them. To achieve a reading culture we need to give children time – to read and to be read aloud to. David also mentioned the importance of libraries – but I did feel that someone needs to educate him further on the role of librarians – he seems to see libraries merely as rooms of resources!

All in all, a very thought-provoking day. There was far more said than I have room to write about here – not least all the great projects that people are working on around the country. Let’s hope that the NLA manifesto comes out with some strong words about the role of the library and librarian!

Despite our “Big Freeze” here in the UK and the dark & gloomy short days of the Winter months, I have good reasons to be feeling very positive and optimistic about one tiny school library! Reading about wider issues with public libraries in particular, the blogosphere is all a-Twitter about this issue at the moment, you could be feeling that we are at the beginning of the end for libraries. But our library at Dixie is at the beginning of the beginning. We have created a lovely space and are improving the book collection by leaps and bounds. Now we have to get the Library used – for reading development work, for information literacy teaching, for encouraging the use of new and developing technologies.

So, from next week we are bringing in classes from Years 6 to 8 for one English lesson per week to support reading development. This is nothing new, of course. This kind of work is the meat and drink of school libraries. But it is new in my school. Yes, classes were occasionally brought into the old Library and I know that teachers did their best to enthuse about books and reading. Now they have a new element – not just an improving collection to choose from, but an experienced and knowledgeable…… Librarian! I passionately believe that we are the key element in developing reading for pleasure in schools and improving literacy. So let’s see what happens!

Other teachers are also starting to talk to me about using the Library and Librarian to help improve student’s learning. The key issues, as seem to be the case in most schools, are the:

• Cut-and-paste culture amongst students
• Quality of homework/coursework produced
• Lack of resource lists and referencing
• Plagiarism
• Lack of ability to select and evaluate information

Again, none of this is new or startling, but having a Librarian in post is new in our school. Teachers are beginning to talk to me about how I can help them and so I feel optimistic that I can make a difference….

….and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

I found this amazing video – great use of Animoto – on Judy O’Connell’s blog and am embedding it here – partly because I want to share it but also as a way of reminding myself of it to use in school at an appropriate moment!

A more difficult day for me this one. I dipped in and out of the course all day and switched between various things that I needed to do in the library. I read Judy O’Connell’s blog regularly, so I already had an idea about her presentation. I continue to be in awe of the things that she does. But it is obvious that she is enabled to work on a different level to most of us in the UK as she has a huge library (we can see it developing on her blog), she has staff and as a teacher-librarian she is able to have her own classes.

Anyway, I will carry on following her as I pick up so many ideas from influential librarians like her!

David’s presentation, and the live session, was really amazing. I now know that I love something that has the human voice as well as a visual presentation! Although this kind of media center would not be possible or very appropriate in my present school, it was wonderful to see the things that are possible elsewhere.

Also, I must admit that I find I am still able to be awed by the power of technology! Whereas students have grown up with this, and so very rarely get that wow factor, I say “Wow” all of the time. From someone who used a dip-pen then later a sliderule at school to this…

…truly awesome!

I am writing this with my laptop on my knee after everyone else has gone to bed – just about the only time I can find on a Saturday! I did sneak two hours this afternoon to work through presentations and discussions, but I think that the time zones have an effect as it was very quiet.

It has been interesting to read what others are doing, although I don’t feel that I have personally found much that is totally new to me so far. What is different is the ability some people have to use new technologies in their schools, either because they are teacher-librarians or because of the ethos of their particular school. So, I have heard of wikis etc before and have tried some of the tools myself, but not had much opportunity to use them in a teaching context – apart from the wiki I used at NCTC.

My present school is a very academic one and I am not sure as yet when I will be able to start encouraging the use of Web2.0. I did try with one department and gave them a detailed list and offered help – but there was no response.

I am supposed to be getting involved in ICT development in the school, when I have got the new library up and running – so maybe I will get more chance then.

|What I have tried out today is VoiceThread – this laptop has a microphone, so I was able to add some voice comments to someone else’s presentation. I would like to make one myself, so may try this out soon. Not sure what I will do as yet.

Well, I am having such a lot of fun! In fact I don’t think that I have enjoyed myself so much (in the professional sense, of course) since the early days of learning about computers. I remember the awed fascination that I had back in the early 80s for things like Prestel and the Domesday Project. It seemed amazing that we could “talk” to people around the world on our monitors and “walk” around rooms in 3D.

So… what has got me so excited? Well, a number of things.

1. Writing a collaborative document on Google Docs. Some of us are going to the CILIP Summit on School Libraries next week. So, I thought that it would be a good thing for the school librarians to share thoughts and ideas. We could have done this by email, but I thought that it would be much more interesting to do it by adding to a joint document. And so it has proved. I might be a bit sad, but it seems so clever and fascinating to edit the words whilst watching other people’s thought appear on the screen.
2. Playing around with our college portal. We are using RM’s Kaleidos and I have been trying for some time to think about how I could use it to help students access not only our resources in the LRC but link these with materials and information in the wider sense. I am only just beginning, but I was trying to find ways to attract students to the LRC’s pages. Some of the answer might be using widgets. So I have had a look at Google Gadgets – BTW this is not an extended advert for Google! What I have done is put widgets for football and cricket scores on the LRC page, works of art on the LRC’s Art page, RSS feeds about the latest Science news on the LRC’s Science page and a virtual aquarium on the LRC Student Helper page (this is the most popular). Each page that I am making to support subjects has appropriate widgets – it is such fun selecting them. I now want to explore what else I can add to get the college community to look at our pages. This is not silly stuff, apart from the aquarium and even that could be said to be soothing, I have a serious plan behind this.
3. Thinking about the balance between our website and the portal. I have said quite a bit about this already. But when it is so easy to edit a blog, wiki or the portal (less so), why am I continuing with our LRC website? Particularly when I cannot find enough time to develop it properly? I will continue to think about this over the Spring and Summer. I can quickly add links that I want to bookmark to Del.icio.us – but do I have a limit on this? Not sure.
4. Trying out a wiki with students. I have finally found the right teacher and the right (I hope) group to try this with. It is such a new idea in our college. But I hope that it will motivate our students better than doing individual essays. We are trying to get them working in teams with a mildly competitive ethos. We award each team points for how well they have worked during each lesson and I have made a league table on the wiki. Also, I now have a really good way of encouraging original writing rather than cut-and-paste and proper citation and referencing. As their work will be “published”, they have to do it properly. Well, let’s see how it goes.

Let the fun begin!

Well it is while since I last posted – various pressures have prevented me. Anyway, thanks to those librarians who have been sending me links to have a look at and think about.

And there is so much to think about!

So, today’s top thing is:

What is the role of the Librarian in today’s school library and maybe tomorrow’s?

I read this post “So just what should librarians be teaching?” from Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog. It is interesting to see how he discusses the different roles of the school library:

1. Reading Skills
2. Information Literacy
3. Technology Skills

He tries to work out the different balances that could be made between these areas. The diagrams clearly show his ideas.

In the UK, most school library staff do not have teaching qualifications, although most of us do teach. We may also think in different ways to the teacher-librarians in the US, Australia, etc. However, I have, over the years, tried to think more and more as an educator. I do try to balance out these differing roles – with varying degrees of success.

Some challenges are brought about by my own expertise/lack of expertise or my own skills and preferences – for example: I feel confident when helping students to choose books and have created a reading programme for our students, but would be less confident in actually teaching reading. I am happy to listen to students read and love “waving and raving”, but would not begin to know how to teach phonics. Is the teaching of reading the role of the school librarian? I am not sure.

I am looking more and more at how we can use the data held on the school systems such as SIMs in conjunction with our own Library Management Systems. How can we use our students’ reading levels to help them better? Do our schools even test students regularly so that we can measure our contribution to their reading development?

Similarly – I am happy to work with teachers on teaching research skills – particularly planning the search, thinking around the subject, developing keywords, using search engines and so on. I would not be so confident in teaching students how to write up their research, although I would like to get more involved and I would try! What is the role of the school librarian in the later stages of research? I have been sent a link on this and will return to this issue at another time. Also, I know many wonderful librarians who take Information Literacy Skills far beyond basic research – how many of us are confident that we can teach such things as “Critical Thinking” or group problem-solving and where do we go to learn how?

When I took up my present post nearly nine years ago, my ICT skills were definitely more advanced than most teachers and students. I still try to keep up with new developments and find this a very rewarding and exciting area of the job. Now, I think that more teachers are confident with their skills and many students are also. (Although many clearly are not or are over-confident!). Much of the teaching that I do in this area is on an informal ad-hoc level, rather than part of a formal teaching situation. I am learning about new technologies and am using them for my own personal and professional purposes. But, I would like more opportunities to use them with students. Where so we find the oportunities to try out new ideas?

A lot of questions here – do any of you have answers?

How do I plan for the future?

I like to think that I have always had a strong vision for what I think a school library should look like. But we are reaching a period of such rapid change. I want to think this year about where I am heading as a school librarian and what I think our LRC will look like in five years time. Is this a tall order? It may be, but I think that it is necessary or I will lose my “golden compass”!

Many years ago, in my first school job – 1982! – I made a display called “Information Explosion”. I illustrated it with newspaper headlines cut out and radiating outwards. This seems so funny now when I think that I did not even have a computer in the library at the time!

So, what can we read to help us think ahead?

The papers over the last couple of days have been full of articles about the “Google Generation” and how academics are worried about students’ information-seeking behaviours.

This one in the Guardian Education section on the 15th January – Intellectual Literacy Hour - talks about a research report which is a must-read for any school librarian:

University College London (UCL) CIBER group.(2008) Information behaviour of the researcher of the future. London: University College London. CIBER Briefing paper; 9. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf

This is the press release on the JISC website:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/01/googlegen.aspx

I have started to read the report and the following really struck a chord with me ( a precis of page 12):

“Themes for how children and young people use the internet:

• the information literacy of young people, has not improved with the widening access to technology: in fact, their apparent facility with computers disguises some worrying  problems

Haven’t all of us who have been working in school libraries for some years been talking about this for ages? Students know how to play games and make lovely PowerPoints – but actually write something in their own words?

• internet research shows that the speed of young people’s web searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority

Speed is the key here, I think and a lack of understanding about authority. This is not much better for some of our staff colleagues – how many teachers recommend students to use Wikipedia, but do not teach them how to use it properly or the check with other sources?

• young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and thus find it difficult to develop effective search strategies
• as a result, they exhibit a strong preference for expressing themselves in natural language rather than analysing which key words might be more effective

How many school librarians get the opportunity to actually teach this? Many of us do, but maybe not often enough or not to an entire year group.

• faced with a long list of search hits, young people find it difficult to assess the relevance of the materials presented and often print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them

This is despite all of the ICT teaching that they are apparently getting in schools. Is this not the “meat and drink” of a school librarian’s job?

… However, the ubiquitous use of highly branded search engines raises other issues:

• young people have unsophisticated mental maps of what the internet is, often failing to appreciate that it is a collection of networked resources from different providers
• as a result, the search engine, be that Yahoo or Google, becomes the primary brand that they associate with the internet

I recognise this easily – many students cite “Google” in bibliographies (if I can get them to make one).

• many young people do not find library-sponsored resources intuitive and therefore prefer to use Google or Yahoo instead: these offer a familiar, if simplistic solution, for their study needs

This is also somehting that I am thinking hard about. I spend ages making lists of evaluated web resources either on our VLE, the LRC’s website or in Del.icio.us. But then I turn around and see students back on Google!

Anyway – this post has been very long and I had better do some more reading from the report before I post any more thoughts…

I have spent days building Pathfinders on LRC Online for Art students in our college to help them with exams. The pages cover various art movements and have links to appropriate artists.

SO…

Some students used them as directed…

BUT…

Others just “Googled” as normal. They wanted to find images and by-passed all of the informative sites that I had tried to find.

SO…

What is the best way to support students and make the best use of my time? I gather the links first on Del.icio.us, then build pages around the themes that the teachers have asked for. Does anyone have any better suggestions for the best way to use limited time – after all, this was “just” Art. What about all of the other curricular areas that we are trying to support?