The Herring Article

It sounds quite austere, doesn't it - "The Herring Article". For anyone not doing ETL 401, this chapter by James Herring (2007) "Teacher Librarians & The School Library" is from "Libraries In The 21st Century" edited by S. Ferguson. The information provided falls under the headings of:

• The learning and teaching context of school libraries;



• The school library mission;
  


• Standards for school libraries;



• The role of the teacher librarian;



• Information literacy in schools;



• The school library website and school intranet.
  

It's like a set of guidelines for the school teacher librarian. An extremely useful document. Every section I found interesting and packed with valuable information. I particularly liked the section on the school library website and school intranet. With the growing amount of resources available online this is one way the TL can select and group together suitable resources for students who could access them during school or outside school. As a parent and a teacher and a TL-to-be, I love the idea of teachers/faculties have their own webpages. Students would no longer to say they lost their homework/assignment sheet or didn't know when something was due, or couldn't find the info for it. Easy access - I love it!

Google Notebook

I have finally completed a thorough summary of the Herring article referred to in Topic 2 - The Role of the TL. Whew! So much information to get my head around. I had used http://bubbl.us/ for summarising info previously but it is only useful when summarising small articles. After a bit of a wander online I came upon http://www.google.com/notebook/ (Google Notebook). Very easy to use and most importantly FREE, it helps sort your info into sections with subheading and comments (notes). I'm sure it's not the only free note taking program available on the net but I found it helpful and will certainly use it again.

Another youtube video but by golly, I like this one! It could be used by a TL to educate staff on the importance of information literacy and the importance of the TL role itself. It made me realise how important the role of TLs and the school community in educating students in information literacy and how broad an area this covers. I also felt a sense of urgency that we've let this go too long. Even though schools have begun teaching ICT skills and information literacy, they are still moving too slowly. There is so much more to be done, particularly in the area of enabling students to critically evaluate websites and the information they provide.

Many thanks to Mel Grouse for drawing my attention to this!

The Instructional Role of the Information Specialist

The Instructional Role of the Information Specialist

View more presentations from Johan Koren

Cool Tools

I had been looking for some organizational tools to sort my ideas for Assignment 1 on TL roles and I came across the following:

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

This is an amazing site! It's full of free internet tools you can use for presentations, organisation, drawing, writing, mapping etc. I used http://bubbl.us/ from organisation tools which is a brainstorming tool that helps you organisation your ideas, move them around the page, save and print. It would be fabulous on a smart board with a class as well. There are heaps of other great organisers to check out as well.

Leadership

Leadership seems to come up in just about every article to do with the role of TLs and there are even whole articles devoted to the topic. In a nutshell, TLs show leadership to students, staff and parents. They provide leadership as a teacher, as an information specialist, as an instructional partner, and as a program administrator. Importantly, they need to show leadership in advocating information literacy as an essential part of students' education and in making it a whole school focus. In my opinion, this is the most important leadership that a TL must show. All TLs know how necessary information literacy is in today's society. Now we've just got to get everyone else to realise it too.

Building Resiliency - The Role of the TL

What???? I hear you ask. I came across an article on this today. Published in "School Libraries Worldwide" - July 2003, J Jones discuss research results that indicates that school media specialist can play an important role in developing resiliency in young people.

An excerpt: "Teens who are able to research and use information and other resources to solve problems are more likely to be resilient."

Full text available at www.iasl-online.org/files/july03-jones.pdf

TL Role Discussion

After reading the postings on the ETL 401 Topic 2 subforum, it seems that so many schools are not utilising their TL as well as he/she could be, or, the current TL is in a rut. As well, I wonder how many TLs continue with their professional development and are up to date on what their role could entail? I think it is a bit frustrating for some of us who are opening up to the huge possibilities available in the TL role and yet have to stand by and watch the current TL not deliver. Does that make sense?

From the readings it seems to me the TLs role is broad and varied. The role definitely changes according to particular school's needs/mission. In the readings, the same roles seem to crop up time and time again, but with different names or under different sub headings.

Herring describes the role as being multi-faceted but I don't think his diagram does it justice. In my opinion the roles interlock and cross over, a bit like a spider's web. For example, the role of "teacher" covers a huge range of things, as does the role of ïnformation specialist", and as does the role of "leader". These roles are by no means separate from each other. They weave back and forth between each other, time and again, probably much like a food web.

With this in mind, how on earth am I going to select just TWO roles to explore in Assignment One? The mind boggles....

Role of the TL Part 2

So what else does a TL do? From a term and a half in the school library (and before starting to read about it) I would have added:

• ordering fiction/non-fiction books according to interest and need
• book repair
• crowd control (at recess/lunchtime)
• checking books in/out
• gathering resources on certain topics for teachers
• Year 7/8 information skills lessons
• managing Bookclub
• working with the library assistant (who came in one day/week and was a wealth of knowledge)
• setting up the laptop/projector for teachers/classes
• working with teachers to create units of work
• finding online resources for teachers/students
• managing the library budget

So I think I had a reasonably realistic view of what a TL did. Since beginning this subject however, I have already discovered that the above is only the tip of the iceburg. There is so much more to it that this. I see already that so much more can be done with the school library. There is only one problem. I am no longer working there (back to casual teaching!)

Just to get it off my chest, I was knocked back when I applied for the position because I did not "qualify" for retraining because I was only "three year trained". And high school experience does not count unless you are teaching in one faculty for an entire year. So I am retraining on my own, completing single subjects until I have enough for a degree as I am also enrolled in the Grad. Dip of Mathematics course. I love both library and maths and still cannot choose between the two, so I decided to do both. If possible, I intend on doing another two TL subjects over the Christmas hols, so we shall see how I go.

murder in the library

murder in the library, a photo by library_mistress on Flickr.

the mystery of public libraries

the mystery of public libraries, a photo by library_mistress on Flickr.

library humour

library humour, a set by library_mistress on Flickr.

library_mistress' photostream

library_mistress' photostream on Flickr.

Check out this photostream on flickr. Library Mistress takes photos of libraries whenever she can and has heaps of library cartoons and humour. She also has a blog but unfortunately it's not in English.