Meetings, Meetings, Meetings ...

When not addressing email build-ups and answering phone messages, I can be found in meetings! These are some meetings I think worthy of news release:

SLRCCC (School Library Resource Centre Consultative Committee) - we met this week with alternate chair, the ever-witty Associate Superintendent Laurie Anderson, presiding. Perhaps the most important announcement is that, with one more wording change to include the VPL and DPAC partners to the four years of discussions of the Role document, it's ready for sharing! You may remember this as an on-going challenge for us, clarifying the role and responsibilities of the teacher-librarian, as recommended by the Haycock Report. We should have had champagne. Thanks, Colleen, from SFU for sharing the online guides and resources of the SFU library system. Students come not knowing about databases, thinking google is all you need for searching, you say? Not Vancouver students, surely! No, I don't think so.

NEWS FLASH! While he claims he demanded a recount, I can't believe it! Gino Bondi has been "elected" by VASSA as the alternate rep to SLRCCC ... as if we weren't getting lively enough. Should we tell him it's his turn to bring the champagne?

Library Design Task Force - teacher reps met this week to review the mandate and consider the issues that might suggest we need to be more closely attached to matters pertaining to Facilities. We discussed "moving collections" where this results from upgrades, new construction, refurbishing, renovation, closures, windfall funding, and loss. We will convene later in March as Library Facilities and consider recommendations for guidelines and policy.

Bookworks - and elsewhere, I attended a number of meetings where there was a refrain calling for a return to the emphasis on Canadian writers in schools, and Canadian literature in the curriculum and on the shelves -- a recurrent theme, in fact, through several meetings I have attended in the last month. And how did the Renaissance begin except with a few voices?

Meeting Yvette: I have made the point at meetings such as these and anywhere else anyone will listen that we need to demand a return to Canadian spelling. I am amazed that we have allowed Microsoft to poach our language ... counseling? councilor? Since when? And how do we teach the "double the final consonant when adding a vowel-ending suffix" rule? I just don't know why we have allowed this ... and I was grateful to meet like-minded Vancouver educator Yvette yesterday who brought up exactly this point. Can we launch the campaign to make this district a Canadian-only spelling zone?

ACEIT - now what would I be doing working with the Ministry of Education and representatives of various career/trades educators, you might ask! Me too! I met my new Ministry friend Rodger Hargreaves through the confidence of co-worker Carole -- the task she believed me equal to, to teach the reps from around the province how to use a wiki. The tool was great: Wikispaces can be made public or private and has a parallel discussion page. More on this tool to follow ... but let me say this: Val H hasn't been getting much sleep since I told her about it. All her wikis are now moved over from pbwiki. This is a free tool and the upgrade is FREE for educators. Have a look ...