Booked Inn

From 1991 to 2002 I was an active committee member of the Australian Library & Information Association (ALIA) – and gladly gave up many hours of personal time to attend School Libraries Section (NSW Group) meetings, ALIA NSW Branch meetings and national ALIA Renewal meetings – only leaving when I returned to classroom teaching in 2003. (Sadly for the local School Libraries Section, it did not survive the “renewal” program of ALIA, or the retirements of many of its committee. Try as we did, we couldn’t tempt too many new/young TLs to commit to advocacy from a professional association stance.)

What other strategies can TLs can use now, to make sure that we do have the ongoing/evolving support of “politicians, unions, and professional associations”? Yes, of course every student in Australia deserves equity, but has recent Australian research demonstrated that it really is the “services of a professional qualified teacher librarian” in NSW that increases student achievement of outcomes? What else can NSW TLs and their professional associations do to convince other states’ powers-that-be that they need trained teacher-librarians in every interstate school?

As I said a previous post, NSW TLs can (and do) at least send messages via our actions in schools to the people making the decisions about NSW schools. Furthermore, we can make presentations at annual NSW DET and ASLA NSW conferences, (as I have been doing these past three years since returning to teacher-librarianship – so far no interstate invitations, but I’m willing to travel). The whole point of evidence-based practice is so we can actually prove that TLs make value-added contributions to our students’ educations. Then, hopefully, we find ways to bring those successes to the attention of the other states’ stakeholders, demonstrating that they are missing out on a crucial human resource: a trained TL.

Something very dramatic does need to happen to alter the current state of play. If the advocacy load should not be on the already-overburdened NSW TL, how will the politicians and unions suddenly be convinced to take up advocacy on our behalf, especially if we decide we are simply too over-burdened to do it ourselves?

We can blow a lot of hot air their way, sure, and write lots of letters and blog entries – and the other states can gnash their teeth in jealous misery – but it is solid action research that is going to provide the evidence for change. We have a prime minister bequeathing grants for new BER school libraries – all over NSW – over the next two years. Isn’t that a strong sign of someone noticing the work of NSW TLs? (Why wasn’t the money shunted into other types of buildings?)

NSW TLs do need to commit ourselves to proving that these promising, current efforts are going to be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that’s more advocacy work for us. A lot more.

The annual National Simultaneous Storytime is almost upon us again! 27th May, 11.00am. Our school had so much fun with “Arthur” last year, and we are sure the students will enjoy this year’s picture book, “Pete the sheep” by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.

I just received an email from ALIA containing a link to a downloadable “Pete the sheep” PowerPoint presentation. (We’ll be able to use it to christen our new interactive whiteboard!) HarperCollins Publishers Australia has organised for “Pete the sheep” to be available as a PowerPoint presentation for NSS participants to assist with large storytime readings of the book.

Register on ALIA’s site to access the PowerPoint file. The email also contained a link to some promotional “Pete the sheep” blackline activity sheets, drawn by Bruce Whatley himself, and these are also downloadable from the National Simultaneous Storytime site. Bruce is to be a special guest at Shoalhaven Libraries’ Storytime in Nowra, for those in that vicinity.

Mmmm. How can we top that? Well, one of our teachers lives on a farm, and we are now wondering if she has a friendly sheep she can bring to school on the day?

I have organised a wiki activity page based on the picture book, Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell, which is the book being used for the upcoming ALIA National Simultaneous Reading Day on Wednesday 21st May at 11.00 am (Term Two, Week 5). A group of nearby Priority Schools Programs (PSP) schools have recently formed a professional network, to prepare for our forthcoming interactive whiteboards. The Penrith Reading Project: Books from Birth (another local PSP initiative, containing different local schools), has also been invited to join us for the reading.

My colleague, Kerrie Mead, and I have been brainstorming possible activities to support Simultaneous Reading Day. Here’s what a draft of what we plan to present to the staff of our own school on Monday, and we’ll be making the material available online – as a blog and wiki – for the other schools. (An email today tells me that the ALIA site offers even more activities, many downloadable.)

On Wednesday 21st May 2008, at 11.00 am, children all over Australia will be reading, listening to and commenting on the same story at the same time. The featured book is Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell.

At 11:00 am we could:

* Gather in the hall and listen to the story en masse: one reader, readers from a single group (class, Student Representative Council members, captains and prefects, teachers, parents or __________________ ).

* Gather in three groups (Early Stage 1 and Stage 1; Stage 2; Stage 3) in the hall, upstairs area and library and read the story as above.

Before the day: (in class, at Stage meeting, at assemblies)

* Let the students know about it – the purpose of the exercise, the significance of this kind of literary activity, how it might be the same/different in each school. (Great Circle Time material!)

* Familiarise your students with the text. (See ideas below.)

* Outline how the event will be held – ask for ideas which the students think might improve the plan and let us know before the day!

* Promote the event in the school newsletter.

* Signage around the school for parents and students.

* Check out the official ALIA page, and links to free blackline activity sheets.

* Supplement our resources with official posters and the link to Era Publications.

After the event:

* Ask your students for feedback – eg. The best thing was… ; I didn’t expect that to happen; next time… , etc.

* Tell the PSP committee what you really think.

Some ideas to familarise your students in all the wonderful ways you know how to capture their imagination! (Our school has rounded up several copies of the Arthur picture book, a big book version, two sequels and an Arthur hand puppet.)

Early Stage 1/Stage 1:

Who is in the story? Where does it take place? (eg. Paint Arthur or your pet, write a list, make a shop diagram, role play, add a pet image to the wiki.)

What is Arthur’s problem? How does he try to solve it? (eg. Feelings barometer, descriptive writing, pet ownership graph, alliterative pet adjectives for the wiki – perfect pup, quaint quarrion, timid tabby.)

Pets need… – but what might pets want?

If I was a pet I’d like to be a ………………………. because …………………………

Interactive learning objects from TaLe (click on Primary and use search engine).

Stage 2:

Any or all of the above, plus

Descriptor matrix (eg. “Purple, spotty, three-headed wombat”) – and then create it.

Research – eg. Which animals are the most difficult to keep as pets and why? What is the best dog breed for (type of person/situation)? Who is the most famous pet and why?

Extend-a-story – eg. What other pets could Arthur have imitated and what would he have done? Write a new version of the story. Compare this book with the similarly-themed Edward the emu by Sheena Knowles and Rod Clement.

The perfect pet for ………………….. would be a …………………… because.

Stage 3:

As above, plus

“Unpack” the form of the story (repetition, chorusing, types of words used).

What are the conventions of picture books? Examine favourites from home and the school library to discover similarities/differences. Write and illustrate your own picture book.

Read the story with your buddy (Buddy Classes – pairs of students from different stages) and ask them some prepared questions about it.

What is the moral of the story? What is a moral? what is the point of stories with morals? What other moral stories (and traditional fables) do you know? Which ones make good sense… or not?

Check out the interactive Stage 3 learning objects from TaLe (click on Primary and use search engine).

I promised to get back to Monday’s professional development day with Jamie McKenzie. I’m finding it quite tricky to “report back” on an event, which offered so many seeds for further (and deeper) thought, without it sounding like I’m doing a cursory summary of the guest speaker’s main points – which are covered so much better in the “virtual handouts” Jamie has supplied on his official website(s). And it’s ironic that I’m now attempting to synthesise synthesis, think deeply about deep questions, authentically evaluate authentic evaluation and deconstruct the valuable elements of deconstruction!

It was certainly reassuring to be reminded that numerous aspects of the above elements have already become embedded into my teaching style over recent decades; the day certainly highlighted the need for all educators to be explicit about why we do certain things, to remind ourselves why these strategies work, and not to get too dismayed when it (often) appears that there are never enough opportunities to use them. It doesn’t matter how many of these days I go to, there are always be new ideas to try, ideas to scoff at (that I sometimes end up trying anyway, somewhere further along the track), and ideas I already use and now have additional confirmation that, yes, they really are worthwhile, and noteworthy.

My main purpose of starting up this blog was to reassure myself that it was the little, but purposeful, strategies we use in our teaching that can promote good – often excellent – results. The degree of planning and collaboration can vary, and when we are deep into a unit of work, it’s easy to forget that we are using them. So often, we launch into a unit with no pre-testing, or the end of term rushes up and blurs opportunities for authentic evaluation and formative assessment (Jamie mentioned that such assessment is “to enlighten, not frighten”), but when we do make the time to ensure it happens, the results can be very rewarding.. for the educators, their students and the school community.

Even more ironic, though, is that – among the brief notes (I didn’t have to take, because Jamie had given us all the URLs we needed) in front of me right now – I see that I have scrawled, under the “Strategies” heading, the point “4. Avoid heroics”. Now I’m writing this blog entry under a banner headline that promotes this site as “heroic adventures in teacher-librarianship”.

As I think I recall saying in my first few blog entries, on a day to day basis, we often overlook the amazing things we, as educators, do every day. Often, when I’m mentioning various parts of my day to others, it’s only then that it starts to crystalise how, or why, or when, certain elements were particularly effective/successful/innovative or worth repeating, testing, gathering evidence, or simply sharing.

Say these things around the PSP (Priorities Schools Programs) committee and one ends up chairing a sharing session for parents. Say these things around the editor of Scan and one ends up writing an article, sharing the ideas and findings with a much wider audience than the usual local group of teaching colleagues. Say these things too often around certain people and one can end up presenting panels at seminars!

I guess the important thing here is the sharing. Educators become educators for good reasons, and it was interesting that Jamie mentioned several times that – for quite a while – the so-called “digital literacy” and “computer literacy” buzzwords of one revolutionary information delivery service derailed us (temporarily) from the things that effective educators have always done well (ie. the titles of Jamie’s sessions on the day):

* “questions of import: wondering, pondering and comprehending

* authentic learning and assessment

* smart use of ICT

* quality teaching and learning: moves, tactics and strategies that inspire, challenge and engage

* embracing complexity: making sense of a confounding world.”

Jamie suggested many more strategies on Monday for us to try out, to test, and to incorporate. By osmosis, and also by design, some more of these shall no doubt permeate into my daily teaching, and those I’m already doing shall hopefully be strengthened – sometimes simply by highlighting them, and/or making them more explicit.

Well, I starting typing this on a Wednesday, and now it’s Thursday already. There are other gems I could share but, as I said, Jamie’s website talks about them far more effectively. Finding the time to focus on all, or even some, of the above, is sometimes difficult. Not focusing on them is worse. The collaboration opportunities for teachers to work with their teacher-librarians and other support staff become more vital than ever. In Australia, we are fortunate that the profession of teacher-librarianship continues to be valued (by many stakeholders), and it’s a profession that is ever-evolving; I hope we don’t ever have to go into battle mode to save it. (Again.)

Between the end of school yesterday, and arriving home, a colleague and I attending a meeting of Penrith Reading Project: Books from Birth, sharing our ideas and experiences about whole-school reading picnics, and how the numerous schools in our group might approach the upcoming ALIA National Simultaneous Reading Day, featuring the picture book Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell. Using several points from Jamie’s sessions earlier in the week, we have come up with some fantastic, highly practical activities – which have quality teaching and learning embedded in them.

Just wait till you see the new wiki page we have planned for all the participating schools to dabble with in the next few weeks! (You just knew I was going to mention the word “wiki” eventually, didn’t you?) Roll on 21st May!

Our whole school community has just celebrated their love of reading this afternoon with our quarterly reading picnic – a great sight to behold: 400 students, their teachers, students’ parents and toddler siblings, spread out in groups scattered throughout the school playground, enjoying books and nibblies in a wonderful picnic atmosphere.

These celebrations have become an end-of-term tradition here over recent years, and they are so effective at bringing a community together with a literacy focus. This term we has an emphasis on procedural writing as our reading matter, with student-made recipes collected in a school cookbook, and baskets of commercial picture books, School Magazine issues and recipe books. There was also a quiz about bizarre foods, with prizes for successfully completed entries.

The last of my Wilfrid book rap groups had an opportunity to finish off their elderly resident outlines yesterday – it was frantic here last week, with Book Fair and Grandparents’ Day – and I’ve just taken digital photos of their work, which I’ll add to the rap blog’s Gallery tonight.

It’s been a busy end-of-term. While the rest of the staff were at the student disco, I presented the Wilfrid rap blog and wiki pages to a group of our parents on Tuesday night and they were surprised/enthused/fascinated at how we had harnessed the capabilities of Web 2.0 to share such meaningful learning and teaching, especially that their children had been communicating with students all over Australia and even Vietnam. While preparing my talk, I re-read the early introductory messages again this week, and it was a great reminder at how far the groups of rappers and their teachers had come in such a short time!

We are always looking for opportunities to improve community involvement in school life and promoting our website, blog and wiki URLs for parents to access at home will go a long way to fostering such involvement.

Next term’s reading picnic coincides with ALIA’s simultaneous reading of the picture book, Arthur. We have big plans for that one. Watch this space!

A teacher-librarian colleague recently said, on a listserv, “I think we need to be a bit more open with what’s happening in our schools in relation to the library.  As we are all aware, we’re pretty isolated because we have no-one else in a similar position at the school.”

While I agree wholeheartedly that teacher-librians do need to be prepared for those feelings of isolation when things get grim, there are certainly already many effective avenues we can go to for support: professional associations (ASLA NSW and ALIA); “Scan” articles left in key locations around the school; other professional literature; ringing the School Libraries and Information Literacy unit (NSW DET); networking with local TLs and valued, like-minded staff members; and input (and a sympathetic ear) from the Teacher’s Federation contact person. Etc.

When I was doing my teacher-librarian retraining in 1990 at University of Technology Sydney (UTS, Kuring-gai), there was a lot of emphasis on TLs being proactive (thanks Ross J Todd, Barbara Poston-Anderson, Jill Buckley, Michelle Ellis and Joyce Kirk).

I often read horror stories on the teacher-librarian listservs – about TLs not being appreciated - but I can honestly say that, of the eight or nine long-term Principals I’ve had over my teaching career, they’ve either already been staunch or open-minded supporters of the school library (and the teacher-librarian), or else I’ve helped to educate them into being supportive. I once proved to myself - in a large school - that the effective way to the Principal’s ear was through the executive staff – one by one… until they were all on-side. My side. My proactive message, proudly modelled for all to see in collaboratively planned and negotiated lessons every week, eventually won through – because it wasn’t ever only me repeating the mantra of what was to be the TL’s desired contribution. (And I shocked even myself, turning a “non negotiable timetable set in stone with no team teaching” into a fully cooperative timetable after only one full year at the school).

And if I’ve somehow led a charmed life and simply fluked it into good schools with good Principals my whole career, I apologise. I reckon I’ve made plenty of lemonade out of my piles of lemons over the years.

Since when have Principals been the enemy? (So much for the old stereotype of the Principal married to a teacher-librarian.) I think that it’s great that Principals swap notes about what their TLs do. Because surely no one is going to be convinced to downgrade their TL’s contribution - on the whim of another Principal’s misguided opinion –  if the whole staff at a school hold that TL and their work in high regard. Surely, even the most stubborn, unconvinced staff can be won over, person by person, if you have to.

The poster also mentioned TLs being used as ”dogsbodies”. A few times, as TL, I’ve been delegated a job that might be considered a dogsbody’s job. Current case in point: distributing The School Magazine to teachers every month, which no one else wanted to do any more. I made it my special duty last year (and this year): mentioning exciting ways to use it in staff meetings, finding the links to class programs, printing out free online guidebooks, and (even) making teachers feel a bit guilty for not using the resource wisely.

Custodian of the school web site? Suddenly the school library became the hub where all material for the web site is generated and maintained, and integrated into collaborative planned and/or taught lessons in the library.

I know of other TLs who have inherited Stewart House Rep, SRC Coordinator, School Yearbook Editor, School Historical Artefacts Cupboard Custodian, Chess Club, or Choir – and each can become either an intrinsic joy of the job, or an unwanted albatross, depending on the way you look at that glass: half full, or half empty.

They say that teachers are most effective when we convey strategies for accomplishing tasks in explicit ways, and preferably just prior to the point of the learner(s)’ need – which is when they are most likely to be open, motivated and goal-oriented. A looming deadline probably helps as well. I don’t have any pithy, fancy quotes at hand, but it’s the style of teaching that I’ve honed through many years at PSP (Priority Schools Program), formerly DSP (Disadvantaged Schools Program) working environments, plus via my training and practical experience as a teacher-librarian.When these findings match up during my own learning, and my own readiness to learn (not to mention motivations and goals), I only cements my confidence that I’m on the right track. I wasn’t ready to learn about wikis until I was ready to teach about them. I wasn’t ready to learn about abseiling until I was ready to help students learn how to do it. I wasn’t ready to learn to ride a bicycle until – well, no need to go into that anecdote. The ducks in Centennial Park haven’t forgiven me yet.

On Sunday, knowing that Early Stage One and Stage One were to be studying Chinese New Year this week, and Stage 2 was to be studying Buildings and bridges, I went into the city with a borrowed digital camera and took lots of photographs of the Chinese New Year Festival Parade, plus assorted Sydney bridges. My intention is that we will use these images to create some wiki pages, and some group-negotiated, well-researched, descriptive captions (using SCUMPS, but more on that later). How to get the Photoshopped images available – and guarantee having access to them at school – for Monday morning’s classes, especially since I use an iMac at home and several, variable quality PCs at school, none of which seem to like my Mac-altered images or memory sticks?

The obvious answer was to upload the photographs to my Flickr account – to show them as a slideshow - and to finally learn how to shunt thematic images into special folders. It was all so much easier than I expected – so why was I so hesitant all these months/years? (We don’t have an interactive whiteboard at school yet – but I can already imagine some of the ways I will be able to use the board with students and teachers.)

The two lessons worked extremely well. I set up a Flickr slideshow on adjacent computers (Bridges – Stage Two or Chinese New Year K-2), and selected student volunteers to manipulate the mouse that would kept the slideshows progressing. I explained to the students and their teachers that we would be setting up a SCUMPS matrix (stay tuned!) on wiki pages so that groups of students could collaborate on descriptive factual writing into each of the matrix cells, which we’d then upload to the Internet at the touch of a mouse. That’s the plan, anyway. Who knows where this may lead once the students and teachers have their input?

I’d just finished patting myself on the back for accomplishing my goals, and started to head off for lunch, when a new staff member asked about looking for particular resources in the Teacher Reference section of the library. I almost set him off to the correct shelf, with a mere finger point, when I realized that, since he was suddenly at that “point of need” (and, under normal circumstances, I’d be at lunch), I’d do a quick bit of explicit teaching – and demonstrate OASIS Web enquiry for him. It was very successful, brief session, and we located better resources than if I’d relied on my memory, or the luck of random shelf-browsing. The teacher was excited about testing out remote access to from home, using the My library hyperlink on his Portal page.

Also, coincidentally, I happened to see a reference to the second annual ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association) Library Lovers promotion on the upcoming Valentine’s Day (thanks Victor over at the nswtl listserv) on the 14th February. Somehow, I managed to overlook this quirky event last year and, at first, I thought it a rather dubious connection, attempting to cash in on Valentine’s Day. But then, thinking back to my impromptu demo lesson on OASIS Web enquiry but I suddenly realised that holding a Library Lovers morning tea for the staff on Thursday will finally secure me the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the new web tool to the whole staff at once. Up until now, I’ve only been able to do a few 1:1 orientations (at point of need), but without a firm deadline – ie. my own point of need – I guess I’ve been procrastinating, and all staff members do need to know about Web enquiry.

I quickly cleared the event with the Principal, and made up the invitations on pink paper, using the graphics supplied on the ALIA website. One of the staff chuckled over her invitation, “Cool! It’ll be the only action I get on Valentine’s Day. My husband’s in Victoria this week.”

Oh – and I should point out that, yesterday, I didn’t have hyperlinks to reply upon to use my slideshows and I was trying to prevent the students scrolling into my other (very off-topic) Flickr photos. It was only in the wee hours of this morning that I realised that Flickr would permit me to quote separate URLs for themed sets! Another exciting discovery that will greatly improve today’s activities (ie. the next two batches of guinea pigs, er, students).