knitting librarian

Teens’ Knowledge of History, Literature Is Very Poor – 3/3/2008 2:05:00 PM - School Library Journal

This posting made me go and download the 24-page report Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now to read.

One of the comments that struck me was “almost 20% of 1200 respondents to a national telephone survey do not know who our enemy was in World War II”—primarily because of a particularly embarassing situation that happened to me when I was a senior in high school. (Humiliation alert!)

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in the Florida Keys. I wanted to work on my tan and stayed at the pool while the rest of my family had a late afternoon nap. I was the only person left poolside. Not long after, a man showed up and was chit-chatting with me. He struck up the conversation by asking if I was on my honeymoon. (I told him no, I was still in high school and implied I was jailbait.)

He went on to complain about our education system—legitimately, as you’ll soon see! He said something along the lines of, “Who won World War II?” and having never taken a history class that went beyond reconstruction but not wanting to look like the cultural illiterate I was, I responded, “Did anyone really win?” (Answer a question with a question, classic avoidance!) Instead of realizing I was a dumb blonde, he jumped all over that, “Exactly!” (I honestly don’t remember much else about that conversation other than thinking he was an easy con.)

The other thing education-related thing I remember from that trip was that I was to memorize Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy for my English class. I’d forgotten my book and needed to go buy one while we were on our vacation. We picked up a copy of Hamlet and a Key Lime pie in the same shopping trip.

When I went to college, as electives I took both a 20th century US and 20th century world history class. At the end of the world history course, I went up to the professor and thanked him and told him that I’d never had a class that went past reconstruction and I appreciated his class. He laughed at me. Even so, those were two of my favorite general education courses and probably influenced my choice to minor in history in college. I had to be sure I wasn’t caught like that again. I also bought E. D. Hirsch’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy to help ensure that I became a more aware adult than I was teenager.

I hope fewer students graduate from my old high school not knowing the answer to that stranger’s question than did twenty years ago! At the very least, I hope I’ve given them the skills to find the answer if they don’t know it!

Three Steps to Eliminating Teacher Technophobia | 21st Century Connections

This article really got me thinking about what else I can do to help my faculty meet student needs in their classrooms. There was a time when I did collect weblinks and dutifully put them on webpages divided by subject area. Recently I’ve been in the habit of cutting and pasting useful links to the appropriate teachers and discarding my list. Perhaps I need to revise/revisit that thinking.

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way we can work this into the library grant proposal we’re working on. We missed a meeting last week because of a snow day—but at this point I think it’s a good thing. I’ve been a brainstorming fool since that missed meeting: thinking of all of the things I’d do with that money if I were the king queen of the grant budget!

Some of the things I’ve sent off to be added to the list:

I personally would love to see adoption of and training district-wide on the Big6 problem solving (and research) model. There is a Little3 version for elementary level. Many districts and states have adopted the Big6 and connected it to their information literacy and technology curriculum. (from the Big6 website)
” What is the Big6™?
Developed by educators Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, the Big6 is the most widely-known and widely-used approach to teaching information and technology skills in the world. The Big6 is an information and technology literacy model and curriculum, implemented in thousands of schools – K through higher education. Some people call the Big6 an information problem-solving strategy because with the Big6, students are able to handle any problem, assignment, decision or task.”

I’d also like to see an integrated information literacy curriculum and standards adopted by the Board so that teachers are compelled to work with librarians rather than using only the computer lab for research. West Chester School District was recognized by the state recently for their program. There may be other programs closer that are exemplary as well, but this is one I read about this fall.

Reading Renaissance training for any teacher where Accelerated Reader is used would probably be beneficial so that the program is implemented uniformly across the district.

Toni Buzzeo does workshops on Collaborating to Meet Standards and has written books for both primary and secondary level teachers.

For me personally, I’d like more detailed training on how I can assist with assessments and help to identify skills that I can work with teachers and students to ensure that students are meeting assessment anchors and achieving. PSLA (PA School Librarians Association) has developed a multi-year training on assessment and the librarian’s role in assessment. I’ve attended two presentations and I expect this topic will be addressed at the PSLA conference in the spring.

One of our language arts teachers has been requesting that all teachers in our building learn about the various resources in PowerLibrary (already on the list below) so that they know what is available to them to support the curriculum and to their students. In the middle of typing this email, I spent 20 minutes with a student who was having problems finding high-quality photos for a project for music class. We used the AP Multimedia Photo Archive and he was really pleased with the resulting photos. “Man, that is awesome! What was the name of that site again? I’m gonna keep using it.” It’s great when kids realize that the Deep Web is better than the free web!

Those are my thoughts at this point. I’ll keep thinking.

Helene Blower’s Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners:

• Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind


• Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning


• Habit 3: View problems as challenges


• Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner


• Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox


• Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage


• Habit 7: Teach/mentor others


• Habit 7 ½: Play

Being responsible for my own learning probably comes easiest to me—I suspect this is true for many of my school librarian colleagues. Because we work in isolation, it’s easy to get lost in the faculty professional development shuffle. Our district tries hard to provide development activities for all employees. Because there are so many of us and we have such diverse needs, my professional learning opportunities are limited to what’s offered to others. Frequently, I attend trainings on how to use applications that I don’t have access to (such as SASI, our student management system). Last year we had a training on reading in the content areas—much to the chagrin of some of my co-workers who attended the same training in three different locations. To learn the things I need to know to do my job effectively, I must be responsible. I’m a member of several listservs, attend trainings provided by my state organization, and someday I hope to be permitted to attend our state school librarian’s conference—our district limits the number of people in a department who are permitted to attend any one conference. I won’t permit these types of limitations from helping me to engage professionally, so I seek other avenues of learning. SLL2.0 is a perfect ProD activity for me because I’m able to do it on my own time and to learn as much as I choose. I’ll be glad to share my learning with colleagues when we have the opportunity.

The most difficult of these habits for me is viewing problems as challenges and learning opportunities. Particularly if challenges are technology-related, it is easy to become frustrated. As we continue through the 23 things, there will be more that I will have to do at home and less I can work on during my time at school. I know that some 2.0 tools like YouTube are blocked by our district’s filter. (Ironically, students can still stream video on sites like NFL.com because that’s not the site’s lone purpose.) I understand that some people in my building have been given access to override the filter and I hope I’m able to secure a username and password to do the same.

I love that Habit 7.5 is Play: each day when I pick up my son from daycare/preschool, I ask him what he did. His answer never varies, “Just play all the time.” My aunt was the education coordinator for the Head Start side of this agency. They use the Creative Curriculum. I complained to her (not that I thought that AJ wasn’t learning, but that he didn’t think he was learning anything) and she reassured me that it was important for him to think that he is playing and that learning isn’t necessarily work. So, everyday when I ask him what he did at school, I’m glad to hear his “played all the time” response, even though John and I habitually mouth the answer to one another as he’s saying it. Play is important—and he is learning!

When I read about School Library Learning 2.0 on LM_NET at the start of the school year, I was excited to delve a little deeper into the Web2.0 world. I’m already a blogger, although not a very habitual one. I use several 2.0 tools already, but I’m sure that I’m not using them to their fullest potential. I want to use them more effectively.

I believe that lifelong learning is a skill that everyone needs to be successful. I hope to instill that value in both my children and my students. I’m pleased to have found a group of like-minded individuals through the power of the Internet. We’ll be working through the 23 Things as a group and be able to support and help each other through the challenges we might face.

When I shared my professional goal with my principal, he was pleased and excited. I’ll paste that goal here so others can see what my plan is:

I will learn about Web 2.0 tools that are part of the power of the Internet. The California School Library Association has created an online tutorial called School Library Learning 2.0 which I will complete to expand my current knowledge. By nature, the Internet is now a social link. I will work with JaKay, a librarian from Albany, OR, as we go through the SLL2.0 tutorial and will discuss what we are learning and how we can use the tools with our students. I will be able to share my knowledge with students and faculty to assist them in using tools like blogs, Flickr , RSS, tagging, wikis, online productivity tools like Google Notebook, and online sources of multimedia (podcasts, YouTube, TeacherTube, eBooks.) I will blog about what I’m learning and can share those posts with you to demonstrate my knowledge and growth.
I will also be reading Teri Lesesne’s Naked Reading: What Tweens Need to Become Life-long Readers and reflecting on how I can apply her thoughts on creating readers to our students. JaKay will be reading this book with me and we will discuss it through email and/or comments on each other’s blogs. I will document that on my blog and share my plans with the administration and the Literacy Committee.

I’m looking forward to the learning and professional growth. I’m particularly excited to have a community of learners who are interested in joining me. Thanks ladies!

LM_NET is a listserv I joined in 1999. It was not the first library list I joined—I believe that was YALSA-Book, but it is the one that I use the most for staying up-to-date on technology, controversy, professional development opportunities, and for feeling connected to other school librarians who care about the profession. The group is celebrating its 15th year with the semi-retirement of it’s founding fathers, Peter Milbury and Mike Eisenberg.

I’m grateful for this community of learners—because we’re that in addition to being colleagues of sorts—for helping to answer some of my most pressing questions in the last eight years that I’ve been a member. Technology has changed in the lifespan of the group, but it has not outgrown it’s usefulness, and I believe that email is the best means of communication for a group that has been as large as 16,000 school librarians from around the globe.

It’s on lm_net that I learned of school library leaders such as Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson, and Keith Curry Lance (if I’d known who he was when he conducted his research in PA, I would have responded to his library survey, but I didn’t! Shame on me!) People like Alice Yucht help get new librarians up and running with her annual post for newbies.

I look forward to reading lm_net—and when I take a break, like I did last spring when I was on maternity leave, I miss important things like the new wiki that people can use to post all of the important attachments that still aren’t permitted in list messages.

I just wanted to take a moment to publicly (or maybe not-so-publicly, I don’t think I’m well-read in the blogosphere) thank Peter, Mike, and the whole lm_net community for all that I’ve gotten from the group over the years. In fact, I don’t know if I’d know about blogs if it weren’t for lm_net. So, thank you!