Many happy returns

Returns

Just when I thought I’d finished with the blue paint and textured gel medium, I spent the weekend preparing, painting and varnishing a set of small MDF letters (from Spotlight) to match the circulation desk revamped signage – and to dress up the new Returns box. Not that it needed a lot of dressing up:

Lion and Returns box
The full story of the library lion is HERE!

I’ve read a lot of controversial comments about these BER-standard Returns boxes. Lots of schools seem to be very concerned about student safety when the box is emptied. A platform inside lowers automatically under the mass of returned books, and the lid is quite heavy. However, I never had the thought that the box in our library would be used every lesson. I had planned that, when borrowing recommences in 2011, students would continue to return their books in a pile at the circulation desk each library session – and that the lockable box is simply there for one-off returns, when no one is available to return items immediately through OASIS Library. I think the box is rather cool! And now, even cooler!

As for the “Just Back In!” boxes, these are my yet-to-be-shelved books. The divided interior of each box provides compartments for sorting. “Just Back In!” came courtesy of one of the schools in Kevin Hennah’s presentation on shoestring library makeovers, and when I first used the signage in the old library, it provided an immediate release of pent-up guilt. Suddenly, books didn’t have to be shelved (too) immediately, because the borrowers often perceive them as “Hot” titles and highly worthy of borrowing before anyone can actually re-shelve them!

Just back in
“Just back in!”

STOP PRESS: The picture book, “A rat in a stripy sock” by Frances Watts & David Francis, is very popular at out school. When I bought the book, the shop gave me a free rat-in-a-stripy-sock toy, and our rat and his colourful balloons (painted styrofoam balls and Fimo clay “nozzles”) now hang from the rafters of our new school library:

Rat in a stripy sock

Thoughts from a ladder

I was undercoating a large wall of the school library today, and it was hard work. The undercoat is a high quality, very thick type, made to cover tricky porous stuff such as the wood panelling with which this portable library is lined. Hungry, hungry wood, and the oil base of the undercoat means that cleanup is going to be messy and, umm, turpsy. I was up on the ladder most of the day, using a brush rather than risk clogging up the roller I need for tomorrow’s two paint coats, so I had lots of time to ponder things.

I had a steady stream of observers, several of whom wanted to ask if I’d heard the news that “Kevin Rudd is giving out library upgrades” – and therefore was all my shoestring renovating for naught?

“Aha!” I said, several times. “That’s why I secured all my MDF letters on the walls with nails, not glue!” If the collection is moving to a new venue somedaysoon, then my renovations are coming too.

Another colleague asked tonight, on Facebook if spending in education should mean more teachers, not buildings?

Mmmmm. I suggested that if she could see the irreparable leaks in the cramped portable library I work in, and its threadbare green carpet, and rickety shelves (that tremble when I hurry to answer the telephone), maybe she’d vote “new building”, not more teachers?

We do some amazing work in this library, but a purpose-built venue, with modern fittings would be even more amazing. With or without my current renovation enhancements. This type of stuff – ie. earmarking tied government grants – always needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Not everyone needs the same things. In any case, if the Federal goverment suddenly gave my school extra teachers, we’d have nowhere to put them, or their classes!

So yes, I’d say “I’ll take the new library!”… If one is ever offered.

Similary, another colleage wondered why many Australian schools don’t have a web page for their library, even when the school itself has an Internet presence.

I created our school’s website in 2002 and 2003, or rather, I headed the committee to decide what needed to be on it, and did the HTML that made the site work. But this was before I was the school’s teacher-librarian. We ended up putting in some images of Book Week displays on a library page, but not much else. The school web site is quite extensive, but desperately in need of updating.

Since moving into the library in 2007, I’ve also created a school library wiki site, where we publish jointly constructed texts created during library sessions, but I simply haven’t had the time to brainstorm an actual library web page.

When I’ve talked to my teacher and student library users over the years, they’ve described access to OASIS Library as the most valued aspect – and, since the end of 2007, all NSW DET OASIS schools can access their library’s catalogue online, via the teacher portal or Kidspace, and can even do so at home.

So there’s still never been much of a burning need to create a dedicated “web page” for the school library. I guess we could add opening hours, etc. When our interactive whiteboard (IWB) arrives in a few weeks I can imagine other urgent uses for one. But this blog site usually has the links I use with students on any given day. Not to mention my shoestring makeover progress reports.

But yes, maybe I do need a “library web page”… But first, I have to stir this can of green paint. At least it’ll match our fraying carpet.

Murphy’s Laws of school book fairs

I think I’ve finally recovered from our Book Fair week; the whole school had directed a lot of energy at our annual Grandparents’ Day. Although my only contact with the grandparents this year was in the crush of the Book Fair, there were numerous events throughout the school, all well attended. Once again many of the staff observed that, these days, most of us are older than the average grandparent of a primary school student. Sigh…

As I was attempting to close up the Book Fair cabinets on Thursday morning, I had a last-minute request from a parent who’d been waiting on an automated payment to be made into her account so she could buy some books. Luckily, I’d mastered the art of EFTPOS this year, although the transaction ate into my morning preparations!

At the exact same time:

* a tech guy arrived to re-image two testy OASIS Enquiry kiosk terminals

* the locksmith turned up to repair both main entry doors to the library (they both jammed at the same time yesterday, effectively locking me out of the Book Fair (my Principal congratulated me on my excellent security practices: every window was also locked tight when he tried to gain entry via the burglars’ route, and…

before the desks and chairs could be restored to their usual arrangement…

* my first class turned up for the morning. Accompanied by a casual relief teacher, clutching English worksheets on procedural texts. Could I help model some recipes?

For the briefest moment, I almost hyperventilated. I wanted to run screaming from the room. (Ah, but we do have a Library Rule: “Please walk in the library”.)

“Yes, of course! I know just the resources we need” I said.

I reached for three big books in close proximity: one with recipes, one with science experiments and one with handicraft procedures. You know, it was the best team-taught, impromptu lesson I’ve done in ages!

Barely settling down in the staff room for coffee, I received a frantic message: the Book Fair men were here for the cabinets! Back to the library. And where was that recharging cord for the EFTPOS machine?

I realised today that I’d actually put together the following little piece last year, and it’s still quite valid.

Murphy’s Laws of School Book Fairs

1. First sale of the day – an 80 cent pencil – will inevitably be countered by a crisp $50 note.

2. If you put a signature on the item’s price sticker at a school book fair, in an attempt to prevent shoplifting, the child will inevitably have a single ten cent coin to pay for a $10 item. Or even a $25 item. (These students have expensive tastes. And a totally unrealistic idea of the value of money. They also believe that if you keep buying items that give you change, you’ll never run out of money.)

3. If a student hands you a bunch of 16 shiny $1 coins, and it looks like he raided Mum’s money box, he probably did. (And why was he so desperate to purchase a personal burglar alarm, anyway?)

4. If someone sees you sneaking a look at the EFTPOS machine manual, they’ll suddenly demand you test it out on their card. (“Please do use the Ready Teller across the road please, these instructions are too obscure, okay?”)

5. Of course, you’re supposed to charge up the EFTPOS machine the night before.

6. Stationery is still way more exciting than books, even on Day 3 of a Book Fair.

7. Tired teachers only make addition errors in front of the parents, not little students, who wouldn’t notice anyway.

8. Today’s grandparents are younger than most of the teachers. (Welcome to the middle ages.) But they are quite generous (Ka-ching! Ka-ching! – sound of cash register).

9. A major computer system changeover shall occur on the same day as the takings of the annual Book Fair must be finalised. It will also be the last day of term, and only one day before a public holiday. (We had to do a set of tasks to prepare for conversion to OASIS Thin Client in 2007 – seems like only yesterday, or decades ago.)

10. The final tearful request for a $1 scented eraser will be announced precisely ten minutes after the van, full of all the cabinets of product, leaves the school grounds. (A prediction: just you see if I’m right.)

If memory serves, I was.

Was it worth it? Sure, why not? Especially with 30% of sales being returned to us in books – some even being just-announced CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) Awards shortlisted titles. But Thursday morning was a great example of a day that some people would see as a string of disasters, but others think of as a typical day in a school library. In some perverse way, it was fun and rewarding.

Feedback: good. Regrets: bad

Today I received lots of encouraging feedback on yesterday afternoon’s staff meeting about blogs, wikis and OASIS Web enquiry, so I’m feeling a lot bouncier than last night.

I will be ensuring to revisit the wiki pages with each class group that comes into the library. The more often the teachers see their students reacting positively with wikis and blogs the more I hope they see the same potential in Web 2.0 as I do.

A few people from outside of the school asked me today what handout I used. It was one I conjured up myself yesterday. It’s expressed as layman-ish as possible – and I hope I didn’t send anyone off in a wrong tangent with incorrect descriptions. Please let me know if you find the glossary useful. (It’s not alphabetical; rather it’s more chronological. I hope. Going from “Most likely to be known about” to “Huh? What’s that?”)

Blogs & wikis vs websites

Email: electronic letter writing. Advanced users attach files and graphics. You can “cc” (carbon copy) to others of your choosing.

Listservs: one post of an email can be received by all people subscribing to the listserv, even though you’ve posted to the one address. Unable to change content of an email once people on the list have received it. Set up and administered by a “list owner”. Send automated commands to an email address to join or quit a listserv.

Electronic bulletin board services (BBS): Similar to a listserv, but you can see everyone’s responses on a web page (click heading to see contents of an entry). Can often edit your replies after the fact, or view them as threaded responses, following a discussion with many participants. An example of a mailing list archive is at: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/schoollibraries/listserv/possummagic07/maillist.html

Websites: text and images on a particular theme or topic, presented in “pages” with clickable links that lead to other pages in the site – but also other Internet sites, forming a “web” of interrelated information. Commercial or hobby-related. When used with students it’s important to use judgement re accuracy, editing, validity of site publisher, date of upload, frequency of revisions (“What’s new?”), etc. Requires knowledge of HTML or web design software, such as Dreamweaver, plus uploading software (eg. Fetch). Our school website (est. intranet 2002; Internet 2004) deliberately does not have too many bells and whistles and is at: http://www.penrith-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/

Web 2.0 is the next, new wave of interactive Internet services and web tools (all-inclusive when designing/uploading), including:

Blogs: similar to online diary entries, but ease of uploading, editing and dating of new text entries and images means blogs may replace many websites. Blog is short for Web Log. Can specify other individuals to contribute (can be moderated or not) plus encourages feedback comments from general public or nominated groups (can be moderated, edited, or not). Our school is currently participating in a book rap in blog form at: http://rapblog.edublogs.org/

RSS feed: Automated updates (eg. via email) of nominated blog contents, so you know immediately when new entries have been posted. RSS feed won’t show later corrections by the list owner though. For people who want info coming to them, not browsing the net at their leisure. The RSS acronym has multiple meanings including:

· Really Simple Syndication

· Rich Site Summary

· RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary.

Wikis: scrapbook-style entries of text and images, but ease of uploading, editing and dating of new entries means wikis may replace many websites. Can specify other individuals to contribute (original versions can be restored if owner disagrees with changes) plus encourages feedback comments from general public or nominated groups (can be moderated, edited or not). “Wiki” comes from the Hawaiian word, “wiki wiki” meaning, “Quick!” Our school’s wiki (est. 2007) is at: http://penrithpslibrary.pbwiki.com

Why Web 2.0?

I’m exhausted.

Nursing a vague headache yesterday, I found myself eagerly agreeing to do a quick overview of wikis for the teachers at this afternoon’s staff meeting.

On Friday, I’d boasted joyfully how quickly the wiki (short for“wiki wiki”; Hawaiian for “quick”) page I made for a Stage 1 class had come together. Ten minutes, I reckon! They’d written a jointly-constructed recount about last Monday’s in-school Chinese New Year celebrations – and even I was surprised how easy it was to pick up their Word document, add a photo image, upload the information and do a print out. Over the weekend, I even adjusted a few more images, and uploaded them, for the Stage 1 classes to see this week during library lessons. Similarly, we all were surprised by the ease with which S1K English and I added one more word to the final draft (“mask”, to match the mask artwork now displayed) on Monday morning. And what fun this morning to see that we’d had many recent visitors… from New Zealand, country NSW, Queensland, California and Normandy – all just minutes earlier than our current visit with SIC English!

Anyway, I prepared a short spiel on Web 2.0 (eg. wikis, blogs, social networking websites, RSS feeds, etc) and made sure that our school’s customised OASIS Web enquiry page, and its hotlinks to our school website and the library wiki pages, were able to be easily accessed on the school’s laptop computer and data projector. This required, of course, a quickie revamp of the school website (which had a few annoying dead links from an unsuccessful attempt at adding the weekly school newsletter last year), changing the dates on key pages, adding hotlinks to the wiki pages at various places, and making sure the templates still worked. This, in turn, required that my library clerical and I find our hastily-written page of FTP uploading instructions which I distinctly remembered asking her to “file carefully” about two years – and a computer upgrade or two – ago.

Found them!

Needless to say, my vague headache of yesterday returned to haunt me all day. Every time we tried to find a moment alone – just us and the FTP software – we’d be interrupted by a library class, a stray borrower or three, the photocopier breaking down, recess, requests for books, lesson preparation, shelving, first-half lunch duty in the library, the phone (inevitably a bookseller), or incoming introductions on the Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge book rap and/or its associated rap blog. All in a day’s work.

As I said, I’m exhausted – and by 3.15 pm I was due to commence my talk.

We got there! And I hope I was suitably enthusiastic. However, I’m still rather concerned I didn’t “sell” the idea of the wiki well enough. Several staff members reserved their judgement, wondering aloud why all the wiki material can’t just be “put on the website like all other schools do” And who is ultimately responsible for a school’s web presence? And what parts of a school newsletter should be for public consumption via the World Wide Web? Good questions!

I tried to convey that writing website pages with HTML code (I really don’t know FrontPage or Dreamweaver well enough to use them with students, and I feel one needs an inservice course to use them efficiently) and then uploading the files with FTP (and using the secret password) really is rather dry. And that using wikis and blogs are far more interactive, creative and stimulating for students – and quick enough to get great results in just one lesson. But I’m not sure I convinced enough people.

Several teachers, however, seemed quite excited by the possibilities of being able to launch up colourful, online scrapbooks of texts and images for sharing on home computers. So… we’ll see what happens…

Early days, yet. Still.

Penrith PS logo

If you feed them…

Okay, I’ve accepted the ALIA challenge to hold a Library Lovers’ morning tea in the school library tomorrow. The staff who are on the social committee have really put themselves out, helping me to plan a Recess feast of heart-shaped Valentine edibles in the library for the teachers and other school workers.

I plan to have the library’s Internet computers set up, alternatively, to show: this blog; OASIS Web enquiry; the Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge book rap page; and the Library wiki pages. Newly-laminated articles about OASIS Web enquiry, a print out of its home page (and how to find the My applications hyperlink on the Teacher portal page); more from Side-by-Side newspaper and Scan professional journal (including one from me), have already been pinned to a display board by the front door.

Aha! Nothing like a well-fed, captive audience!

At point of need…

Dragon and lion dancers

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).

Re-orientation week

It’s been over a week since my last post, but I’ve probably been censoring myself a bit, since there hasn’t been too much new Web 2.0 or techie angles in the school library yet, it only being Week 2 of Term 1. I’ve had a few ideas of things to post, but were they worthy of even mentioning? I mean, do you really care that each class had a stimulating discussion about plastic vs recyclable library bags?

It’s been a week of promotion: especially as to how the teacher-librarian can be a direct influence on the teachers’ class programs – I’ve avoided the “service” word there, remembering numerous discussions with Ross J Todd over the years on his stance about teacher-librarians’ roles.

As each class has arrived for their first library lesson for the year, accompanied by their teachers, I’ve also used the opportunities, wherever possible, to: mention the upcoming Book Rap (Stage 1 and the intensive language class); demonstrate this blog (and our hopes for future school and statewide uses for students preparing blog and wiki entries); direct everyone’s attention to the presence of OASIS Web enquiry; talk about environmentally friendly library bags; title pages in workbooks – and whether we’ll even need workbooks when the interactive whiteboard arrives (eventually); and our/my aim for 100% participation in the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge… The list goes on.

A fun week, but rather uneventful. And next week, borrowing starts. (I hope I can work out the new system for printing out borrower barcodes in Thin Client.)

It’s about time

The theme of today was definitely… time.

1. All morning, getting ready for work today, I was racking my brain to remember how to generate the calendar in OASIS Library. A chore I haven’t had to do since early 1997. I knew I’d remember when the time came to do it – and I did – but there still some moments of self-doubt.

2. The school day commenced with a staff meeting in the library. Naturally, when I happened to glance up at the clock, it was totally wrong. The battery had run flat during the vacation. I saw quite a few colleagues do double takes of their own.

3. It finally became really obvious that, as of today, I still hadn’t set the time stamp preferences properly here on Edublogs. It didn’t matter too much last week; when on holidays, every day blurs into the other. My attempts to get it adjusted this afternoon caused today’s comment writers some confusion. (My penpal in the USA, a fellow science fiction fan is always impressed when she gets my emails with tomorrow’s date on them. I just say to her, “See? Time travel really is possible!”) Hey everyone, thanks so much for the comments and emails! I hope I find the time to post something useful/interesting/exciting every day.

4. It’s actually a blessing that I can’t seem to find any way to change the dates on already-posted blog entries and comments on Edublogs. I once found a way to do it on my other blog page at Blogger – and now that I can post-date articles there – I no longer rush to post before midnight. Then I get lazy and forget to post at all.

5. Whew! I had put the draft Term One library timetable in a safe place last year. I found it, too.

6. I just realised how Tardis-like this blog’s About page picture appears. Spooky!

7. Time to get back to work on preparations for tomorrow.

8. You know, I do have an actual Tardis image around here somewhere…

Tardis