The T/L Weekly Special Report

Helping Colleagues Shift to Inquiry

2012-01-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

Shift Your Classroom: Small Strategic Steps

Article by Guest Blogger on Tom Van der Ark's Getting Smart

“Shift Your Classroom: Small Strategic Steps” by Shelley Wright first appeared at the group blog Voices from the Learning Revolution, supported by Powerful Learning Practice LLC.

"I’ve come to describe my shifted classroom as an inquiry-driven, project-based, tech-embedded environment. But that’s not where I started ...." Check out four recommended strategic steps to start the shift slowly.

From RT@physicstweet, with thanks.

Teen Reading - That's Whazzup!

2012-01-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

What Teens Are Really Reading: A librarian’s informal survey uncovers the hottest YA fiction

From School Library Journal: January 1, 2012 | Karen McCoy's Top 20 Lists

For the Love of Reading

2012-01-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

Three recent articles place value on fostering the love of story and reading:

Ontario's children drastically losing love of reading, study finds

More schools need teacher/librarians

Ottawa Citizen, December 13, 2011: Matthew Pearson

Despite rising standardized test scores, a new study suggests the joy of reading among grade schoolers has dropped drastically over the past decade. The People for Education report found the percentage of students in Grade 3 who report they like to read has declined by almost a third, from 76 per cent in 1998/99 to only 50 per cent in 2010/2011. Read more ...

Dear Governor: Lobby to Save a Love of Reading

New York Times, January 20, 2012: Anne Stone and Jeff Nichols

In his recent State of the State address, Governor Cuomo said he wants to be an advocate for children. Let him lobby to protect their natural curiosity and love of learning from the onslaught of anti-intellectual, ends-oriented teaching practices forced on our educators by over-emphasis on standardized tests.

@tlspecial, 1/9/12 9:45 PM help kids read

LiterateOwl, January 10, 2012

RT @skrashen: To help children in rdg: (a) make school day longer, or (b) invest in libraries & TLs? bit.ly/yBnEn9 #bctla #bctf #bced

Studies show that children who do not do well on reading tests often have little access to books. Studies also show that increasing access to books through libraries increases how much reading children do, and more reading results in better reading, spelling, grammar, writing, and a larger vocabulary.

Thanks, Al, for the RT and blogpost.

If you believe in the power of story and reading, you too may want to "follow" Stephen Krashen: @skrashen

Two Gifts for Reading with Technology

2011-12-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here is an interactive picture book created by Pixar animator William Joyce that is as delightful for adults as it is engaging for children. Check out this trailer for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore:

Go here for more information and to purchase the App for your iPad for $4.99.

After sharing this with your children, I am sure they will also enjoy Goodnight iPad by Ann Droyd. You can view this youtube version (below) or why not just get the book.

JOyful Learning, JO Learning Commons

2011-12-15T08:40:00.001-08:00

Joyful Learning, JO Learning Commons, a set on Flickr.

These photos were taken in a half-hour time period on December 14, 2011, and represent concurrent sessions during a single block of class time.

HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY!

Reading Gift Suggestions From Blogs and VPL

2011-12-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

From Chalk & Talk Blog, December 2010

Getting Kids Reading Blog:

NYT's Top 10 Picture Books for 2011

Every Canadian in grade one gets a free picture book in October (well, December but what a perfect book this year for the Christmas/Winter Break).

Story Snoops Blog: Judge a book by more than its cover

The StorySnoops are a group of San Francisco-based parents who seek to engender the love of reading in their children. This is a parent-to-parent selection tool. Share this with parents: Let [the Story Snoops] take the guess work out of buying [YA Lit] with some ideas for young readers on your [seasonal buying] list. [They’ve] organized the holiday list by age and gender, with books [they] loved this year. [They] define Tweens as kids aged roughly 9-12, and Teens are 12 and up.

NOTE: Just make sure they shop at Kidsbooks for advice on our great Canadian offerings as well.

See also VPL Lists:

For Kids and Teens
For Adults: New and Popular, Fiction & Literature, and VPL Recommends

Top 20 Children's Books of 2011

2011-12-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

Watch this blog 100 Scope Notes: Children's Literature News and Reviews over the next four days as two American teacher-librarians review their Top 20 Children's Books of 2011.

As usual, I would ask, are there Canadian titles you would add? I await your Comments.

Delivery of eBooks: The Distribution Platform

2011-12-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

When exploring eBook options, teacher-librarians are interested in the platform for distribution, its cost, and added and hidden costs of selecting, providing, and building the e-collection.

OverDrive is an American company that is, by its own description, "a leading full-service digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, and other digital content. [They] deliver secure management, DRM protection, and download fulfillment services for publishers, libraries, schools, and retailers--serving millions of end users globally."

VPL uses OverDrive. At this time, I am unaware of any school district in BC offering eBooks using OverDrive but would like to hear about their experiences, if there are any such districts. Equitable delivery of eBooks for Vancouver's and other districts' school libraries would mean looking at district and/or provincial licensing for student access. Students who are equipped with their own devices would most assuredly need good materials to read if the devices are to tap into meaningful learning opportunities. Do they buy these themselves and download them from Amazon? Or are they expected to mine the internet for free things to read and learn? Does the new Plan for BC education take into account the costs of the needed resources and include the need for investment and for centralization to achieve cost-efficiencies in the purchase of these resources?

A recent blog post by The Librarian in Black identified one interesting aspect of the OverDrive platform, that being equitable access: OverDrive Has Different eBook Catalogs for Different Libraries.

At an eBook conference offered by YourSchoolLibrary, Australian teacher-librarians worried about OverDrive's capacity to offer Australian content suited for children and young adults. We too would be concerned about its content delivery of Canadian reading materials suited to our students. We would be concerned about the price and the price paid for failing to deliver good literature and resources. And across the province, we surely would be concerned that schools had the same range of choice for reading.

Great Tools

2011-12-11T19:22:00.001-08:00

WebTools4U2Use: A wiki for teacher-librarians to learn about cool new web tools. See how they can be used in school library programs. Share ideas and success stories. Nominated for 2010 Edublog Awards, Best Educational Wiki.

iPad Academy: iPad Starter Set. iPad Academy helps you to get more out of the iPad and turn your iPad into a practical and purposeful tool with tips and tutorials, as well as recommendations for apps and accessories.

Search for eBooks: Free eBook Search Engine. Here is a service dedicated to helping you find free ebooks. When you find an ebook on Search EBooks, you can view a preview of it, download, or grab an embed code without ever leaving the search results page.

A Media Specialists' Guide to the Internet - because you'll never know when you'll need a cybrarian. Here is a megalist for teacher-librarians and it's growing, with over 160 sites listed.

What is Digital Curation?

Have I seen it called Web 3.0? Try the Dilbert Interpretation. Then read Valenza's Curation is the New Search Tool and Content Curation. Or how about Curation, The Musical!

Curation Tools: Start an online publication today.

paper.li - an online newspaper of tweets, facebook, Google+ and other content sources; it monitors your sources and updates itself automatically. Here's a local example: Tim Winkelmans, BC Ministry of Education eLearning Manager offers edtechbc Daily (from Twitter #edtechbc)
scoop.it - an online magazine; examples are Visual Revolution and Everything iPads, online mags from Andrea Zeitz, noted in last week's blog posts.
Curated mags about school libraries and learning commons: Re-branding School Libraries and Learning Commons and School Libraries Around the World -- 21st C Libraries in K-12 Schools

Advent: Calendar of Fun Things for Xmas

2011-12-06T22:59:00.001-08:00

Fun!

Free website - Powered By Wix.com

Everything iPads

2011-12-05T09:51:00.001-08:00

Andrea Zeitz, mentioned below as the Roberts VP who curates Visual Revolution, also curates Everything iPads. Check this out too. Very helpful for those of us exploring the possibilities.

IASL 2011: If the Future is Now

2011-12-04T21:58:00.000-08:00

Lyn Hay's IASL2011 Closing Keynote

View more presentations from Lyn Hay

PLUS: Here are three more pieces by Lyn Hay:

an interesting press release today from Charles Sturt University (New South Wales) featuring Lyn Hay:
Calling top teachers into the school library
Blog post: Content curation and the power of collective intelligence
Hay curates using Scoop.it: Student Learning Through School Libraries

Globe & Mail Does Educational Technologies in Canadian Classrooms

2011-12-03T14:43:00.001-08:00

Top 10 Digital Tools

iPads are In, Cursive is Out (and other trends)

Do 'Flipped' Classrooms Get a Pass or Fail?

Timeline: Classroom Technology from Papyrus to iPads

Survey: Is Technology a Boon or Burden in the Classroom?

Video: How One Teacher Uses Smartboards to entice students to be 'part of the show.'

AND MORE ...

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and iPads and More

2011-12-03T13:49:00.001-08:00

Have you seen the Langwitches Blog? Blogger Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano is a digital technology and 21st C Learning specialist. While this is not Tolisano's blog, I love her Bloom (Revised) for iPads chart included with some others here. And while you are poking around in her magical array of resources and tools for use with iPads and blogging, why not add a Comment about other worthwhile features you have found there?

FLOCABULARY Free Trial

2011-12-03T13:34:00.001-08:00

The Daring Librarian is one very cool TL blog to watch. Gwynneth Jones "dares to fight for transliteracy, libraries, and ed tech educators everywhere." Her most recent post offers some fantastic educational blogs: "My Edublog Nominations." I have also signed up for a free trial because she recommends Flocabulary (check here for the special deal) and will share this with my colleagues as a possible very inexpensive annually subscribed resource. Check out her blog for so much more. Am adding Gwynneth's DL blog to my bloglist. Wonder why I took so long to get her on board!

Visual -- Revolution

2011-12-02T23:02:00.001-08:00

I'm a subscriber to this tech-savvy administrator's curated collection, Visual Revolution: Learning and Leading Through Educational Technology and the Arts. It's lovely, Andrea, and thought-provoking, all that it promises to be.

Deep Googling With a Mac Bias

2011-12-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

Created by: HackCollege

IdeaPaint

2011-11-28T18:34:00.001-08:00

Do I have the wall for IdeaPaint! Check out this media option tweeted by Lisa Domeier of Surrey this weekend. Like Lisa, I love it.

One Librarian Responds to eBooks Issues

2011-11-28T18:06:00.001-08:00

Agnostic, Maybe: The Every Increasing Disappointment with eBooks

Curmudgeon or Realist? Schools aren't rushing into the e-fiction frenzy as the sands of the publishing field are shifting. Are your students asking for these or bringing in their devices for loading? Are your iPad users stocked with good resources for reading? Do you think our students own e-readers or would seek these over hot new books in print format? Are your students reading Google Books or books from Project Gutenberg? Are these suited to the needs of our struggling readers? If not, where do we find the range of resources that is inclusive of the reading needs of our students who might not want to read the classics? Do we like e-pub or do we see value in pdf access? Do we look at annual subscriptions to lists we set or do we purchase e-books? What platform (as in Overdrive) would we use for signing out e-books? Do we want to assist our classroom colleagues in providing access to "class sets" or "sets of titles" of e-books for traditional or lit circle approaches to novel studies? Loads of questions. Do we create a discussion group? Or do we let the sands settle? There is certainly a lot of homework and research to be done ... but that's where we TLs excel. Your Comments appreciated.

Thoughts about iPads and School Libraries

2011-11-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I love everything about the iPad I have, including that it is mine to add to -- my books, my apps, etc. It is mine for capturing photos, checking the internet when I am in a wi-fi environment or I tether it to my phone (it becomes a personal hotspot or "router" for the iPad), and I can take notes ... although not in the range of formats or with the same speed as I can when I use my laptop. In this role, I think it suffices but I prefer my laptop. I love the fact that I was forced to take Typing in high school ... I think and compose and edit at about the same speed as I input.

Anyone finding greater value in having iPads in school libraries than laptops? I have been fairly adamant that we need laptops, not iPads, at least at first. My sense of things, certainly for us in secondary schools, is that we need "production" devices, not "consumer" devices. While production is possible in the iPad/tablet mode, I think it is terribly constrained. You need retrieval and processing apps, some of which cost money (one problem with the iPad) as the student personalizes his/her learning, and all of which are "lost" when device is wiped.

Also, your views please on keyboarding: Is it a dying requirement? Are we down to poking and thumbing? Or should we be supporting our students' capacities to "think and write" with keyboarding in the digital environment?

The market for and resources for e-reading are limited to Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and other online FREE resources until we acquire either a platform like the expensive and cumbersome Overdrive and various titles or a subscription collection like Orca's. I also think iPads and similar devices are "personal" and do not appeal to those who like to personalize (that is, download info and apps) but then have to return the device.

And is it just me or do our students seem delighted with the reading of print materials that are engaging, not new titles, graphic novels, Guinness Books, etc.? While I strongly support the need to have reading resources for our reluctant ones and our iPad or device-driven programs, I am daily reminded of the students who simply love books.

Your views please? I haven't found any TL who answers they would rather have iPads than laptops, at least as the initial workhorse device.

I am hoping I am not behind the times when I stand up to my colleagues who have insisted I need android and iPad devices! Nice to have the choice but I simply think they don't understand what we do in the school library / learning commons. Or is such thinking simply sacrilege in our new focus on and drive for 21st Century Learning? Who else is asking the questions?

Can you believe it's November already?

2011-11-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm back! In the world of teacher-librarians and support for their work, typically it is the months of June, September, and October that are the busiest. I have had to put blogging aside as I have been spun into dramatic changes for us here in Vancouver. Lucky me! While last year was challenging as I recovered from "the Italian ankle" and the effects of being surplussed from full-time consulting for Vancouver's school libraries due to cutbacks 30+ years into my teaching career, then taking on the busiest year ever for the summer school program I have worked with for nine years, this school year has new and different and exciting challenges.

Trying to find the time both to transform a school library into a dynamic Learning Commons in a new-to-me school here and to support the work of 109 other busy school libraries as the district's TL mentor is -- well, it's exhausting and somewhat schizophrenic. One day at John Oliver, the next at the school board. There are few of us who don't value our good fortune to be amongst a community of nearly 150 full- or part-time teacher-librarians and to be supported in our work by a core group of district librarians, technicians, and clerical staff who enable our systems, reading, media, information, and digital programs to be delivered effectively in schools. There are huge changes under way as we move into new models of delivery in the face of severe restraint and a certain impatience to get on with educational change. I am proud that, despite our provincial job action that constrains our meetings and communications with administrators as the BCTF bargains for recognition of the value of our work as educators, our teacher-librarians have risen to the challenge and are demonstrating the remarkable professionalism that ensures good programs for our students.

During five day-long October Update sessions at John Oliver Secondary's new Learning Commons and the annual two-day multi-vendor display in November, we grappled with new technologies and new ideas, as well as ways to work together collaboratively to promote technology integration, cost-efficiencies in acquisitions, and inquiry-based learning. Our secondary TLs also looked more deeply at graphic novels as a means of promoting reading and building on student interests.

Many of us attended the BCTLA's "Reaching Out" annual conference in Burnaby where Doug Johnson provided the keynote address. Our Sylvia presented her elementary Learning Commons model. Inquiry-based learning was BIG this year at the conference. The food was amazing. Burnaby TLs did an amazing job in creating such a dynamic and timely focus and array of workshops. On the Saturday, Chapter Councillors from around the province met for a second day at Burnaby Mountain Secondary with the BCTLA Executive ... we are pictured above with BCTF President Susan Lambert, our special guest -- to grapple with key issues and developments in school libraries and learning commons.

But that was not all of it. Lucky as I feel for having been spun into this hectic year, it was truly exciting as well to have had our international workshop debut with "A Discussion About Crossing Borders: Dewey Level School Library Collections?" Presenting at the annual AASL "Turning the Page" Conference of 3000 TLs in Minneapolis, Minnesota, near the upper reaches of the Mississippi River., was an amazing experience for BCTLA President Heather Daly, Washington State Library Media Specialists Association President Craig Seasholes, and me. The city is lovely and we really enjoyed the big blue skies, as well as time to do some "blue sky" thinking. Minneapolis is honeycombed by miles of "skyways" that make it easy to crisscross the city without ever going outside, and the airport is very very close to the Mall of America, making a late flight out almost a necessity. Minneapolis is the headquarters of Target. And we were even happier to have arrived safely in Minneapolis -- even if it was amidst many emergency vehicles -- after being delayed circling the airport with flaps that never did fully deploy. I think we had a Sully!

The Hell's Kitchen jazz bar and restaurant was a great recommendation and we also loved the Brit's Pub.

There was even a bar-wagon that drove around the streets, believe it or not. Oh yes, and if you didn't recognize the pose, that's Mary (Tyler Moore, for the younger readers) saying hello from downtown Minneapolis in the photo at the outset of this post!

Heather and I spent the first two days at Treasure Mountain #17 at the huge (over 2500 students) and very new Park Central Senior High School in Osseo, Minnesota, in the company of about 60 TLs, district, and academic leaders from around North America. Marc Crompton, TL from St George's, joined us to make up the Western Canadian contingent. With Dr David Loertscher leading the way, accompanied by Drs Ross Todd, Joyce Valenza, Jamie McKenzie, and many others, we admit to being utterly overwhelmed by the pace of those two days. While I have more detail to follow in a subsequent blog, suffice it to say, I couldn't keep up with the notes and will have to review everything in the virtual re-play.

But it was the AASL Conference itself that really blew us away. If we in BC are grappling with the information and knowledge demands of the 21st century, there are those who are getting ready for the 22nd. Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, had the lead keynote position; he pondered the dramatic effects the internet is having on our thinking. Yes, we do need to keep the books and the quiet places. Mimi Ito, closing keynote, pondered the dramatic effects new ways of engaging with technology by means of social media might have, based on the research of the Digital Youth Project, on teaching and learning. She was brilliant.

Two workshops in particular that I attended have left me wondering how to bring "the word" to BC. Both presenters were excited with the idea of summer institutes in BC. It's nice to be from a place to which people want to come. I will blog about these and more conference highlights in subsequent posts.

AND finally I met Dr Barbara Stripling! Barbara has been the Director of School Libraries for New York City and is moving into academe. We have communicated over several years about the building of our BCTLA Points of Inquiry model; as many of you will know, she is the generous and supportive creator of one of many information / inquiry models, the one around which we built the Points model. She is running for President of the American Library Association, the "mother" of the AASL, which, if she wins, will give teacher-librarianship a key location in the world of libraries and a new "national" voice to speak for the important future of school libraries ad learning commons in preparing our young people for the information and reading demands of the 21st century. Oh, lucky me, meeting Barbara as well. I had always thought a trip to New York to meet with Barbara and talk about school libraries would be perfect! However, Minnesota was just fine.

And so now it is November.

Great Comics and Graphic Novels Blog

2011-11-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Adventures in Genre! Comics and Graphic Novels

See Post:

Junk Food is Bad For You, but Junk Reading is Good for You By Stephen Krashen and Joanne Ujiie from Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 1,3:5-12, 2005

E-Books for Children? Not Too Much Happening

2011-11-20T13:55:00.001-08:00

New York Times, November 20, 2011

For Their Children, Many E-Book Readers Insist on Paper

Matt Richtel and Julie Bosman

8 Tech Trends for TLs and Ts

2011-06-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Harvard Education Letter

Dave Saltman (27:3, May/June 2011) describes changing roles for TLs:

If the Dewey decimal system is the first thing that comes to mind when the subject of school libraries comes up, it’s time to reboot.

The school library—and the job of the librarian—have both morphed into something that most adults these days would hardly recognize. Helping kids find books to read is only part of the job, say those on the profession’s leading edge. Today, a major mission of the librarian, aka media specialist, is to teach students digital literacy by showing them how to use the Internet to efficiently find, organize, and share information with peers.

For the eight tech trends, read Saltman's article.

Thanks for CASL Awards

2011-06-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

On Friday, May 27, at the 2011 CLA Conference in Halifax, CASL presented me with the Angela Thacker Memorial Award. My thanks were carried to the conference by Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort, recipient of the Follett-International Teacher-librarian of the Year Award, and shared, as follows:

In thinking about how to say thank you for this award, it was necessary to do some serious research. Being something of an expert in inquiry, as TLs are, I sought advice from colleagues who had worked as TLs during Angela B. Thacker’s time in school libraries and was re-directed to the expert Liz Austrom, formerly a District Principal for Library Services in Vancouver, now retired. What were the qualities of Angela and her work that would lead to the creation of such an award? I asked. Liz was clearly a fan.

Formidable, Liz said, a very strong presence, a force to be reckoned with. She spoke her mind, spoke directly, but with such good manners that, should you disagree, you were always at a loss because she had said it so nicely.
Angela knew everything about school libraries, a shining light who got the excitement going. When she was in charge of library services in West Vancouver, they were the best-funded in Canada. Her work in West Vancouver set a standard that generated respect for the work and thus enabled other districts to move ahead.
She was the President of the BCTLA and the CSLA; she was a founding member of the ATLC (now CASL).
Angela was always looking for ways to make things better and for better ways to keep TLs moving forward. As Angela moved forward, she pulled others in her wake. She just kept going and going and going.

Surely, I thought, working with this Angela B. Thacker must have been a little like tailing Haley’s Comet. Even as I compare some of what I bring to the field to the qualities exemplified by Angela -- maybe a certain obsessiveness and unrelenting focus, certainly a strong sense that we must move forward, and a tendency to use the words “school library” in every second sentence! -- I am struck by the powerful message about the importance of relationships in what we do.

I am fortunate to work within the most supportive of professional learning communities, the teacher-librarians in Vancouver and in British Columbia.I have been well introduced to the field by truly excellent role models and lucky to have had fantastic opportunities to travel to hear and work with some of the biggest names in provincial, national, and international school library contexts. I always hope that the excitement about learning and moving ahead in school libraries, in partnership with others in our schools, as well as the drive to provide new and improved services and resources for teachers and students, has been shared. TLs are, like Angela, always so gracious, so appreciative of work done to support their work.

I do believe that we have moved ahead, despite setbacks here in BC, that we are seeing glimpses of the light now and will soon be taking our rightful place in the provincial conversations about education reform grounded in collaboration and in meaningful teaching for the love of reading and the pursuit of inquiry, the integration of technology including new tools and resources, and learning to learn.

In a recent post to his blog The Culture of Yes, West Vancouver Superintendent Chris Kennedy, an influential voice in the provincial conversations about change, wrote that, as we move forward, “teacher librarians are more important than ever.” He said that his experience has been that, “next to the principal, the teacher-librarian is often key in moving the learning agenda forward. In schools that are moving forward, it is very often the teacher-librarian, working side-by-side with teachers on staff, who find new ways of working with students. ... As we lament that little change has taken place, or how slow the change has been, many teacher-librarians have transformed what they do to stay relevant and ahead of the curve. [Many] are seeing their roles ... 'as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.'"

Couple Chris’s vision with the recent political development, the BCTF’s winning their years-long challenge under the Charter of Rights that had sought to reverse the 2001 Liberal government’s stripping of language and ratios that had, amongst other dreadful effects, undertaken a deliberate and intended outcome of reducing the numbers of TLs in BC schools. Add in that the judge expressly declared an expectation of remediation within a year, and you can see there is reason for hope for restoration of TLs and strong school library programs in BC schools. We have been working hard to make sure our TLs are ready.

On this hopeful note, I wish to end by thanking CASL for its important work in supporting the very different struggles to keep school libraries alive and strong across Canada and, in particular today, for honouring me with this Award which Judith Comfort is gratefully accepting for me. In speaking with Liz Austrom, I found myself incredulous and incredibly honoured to think that in some small way, by comparison, I have been enabled to follow the very significant and clearly hewn path laid down by the formidable Angela B. Thacker.

Thank you again.

Thanks, too, to our brilliant leader, BCTLA President Heather Daly, herself a winner of the Margaret B. Scott Award, for her kind comments in the In Circulation blog. With permission, here is Heather's acceptance speech:

Thank you so much for the honour of naming me the 2011 recipient of the Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit. It sincerely means so much to me.

My first experience with the Canadian Association for School Libraries was in 2004, at the CLA conference which was held that year in Victoria. I believe my first introduction—in person—to what was then called the Canadian School Library Association was actually at the awards ceremony at that conference, which took the form of a luncheon held in the Victoria Fairmont Empress hotel.

The amazing Lillian Carefoot from Nanaimo, BC, was the recipient of the Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit that year. Her acceptance speech, in which she talked about the role of the teacher-librarian, inspired and had a huge influence on me. Lillian also handed out stickers in the shape of turtles, in honour of the amazing Margaret B. Scott and her “Turtle Club”, which celebrated teacher-librarians who were not afraid to “stick their necks out”.

One of the loveliest notes that I have received since it was announced that I had received the 2011 award was from BC legend Donald Hamilton, who received the Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit in 1988. He said, “welcome to the Club”, meaning the Margaret B. Scott Club and he also said that, “the list of members in this august group reads like a history book on school librarianship in Canada. I am humbled when I consider all the people who helped me and who gave so much to an idea that seems to losing its flavour. I hope that you can stick your neck out”.

On that note, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize all of the teacher-librarians and library technicians who every day ARE doing just that, from coast to coast to coast. From Prince Edward Island to here in BC and everywhere north, south, and in between, we are PROVING that our role is critical and needed.

I hope that the recent BC Supreme Court challenge win that could ultimately restore the contractual teacher-librarian to student ratio in BC and therefore, restore teacher-librarians to every school in the province, and the very significant positive media coverage about the closure of school libraries in Windsor, Ontario, are signs that the tide is at long last, finally turning.

Following the 2004 awards ceremony at which Lillian gave the speech that meant so much to me, I attended the last AGM of the Canadian School Library Association at which the Canadian Association for School Libraries, CASL, was born. I am sorry that I can’t be with you today, for what I hope will NOT be the final AGM for an association that was launched with such promise just seven years ago.

CASL has played an integral role in building a national network between—in particular—the territorial and provincial teacher-librarian and school library associations. I know this networking will continue, no matter what happens, and I wish to thank the current members of the CASL Executive—Linda, Diana, Richard, Dianne, Wendy and Cindy—and all of the members of the CASL Publications Team, for everything that they have done to build and promote teacher-librarianship in Canada.

Finally, thank you to Judith Comfort, both for accepting this award on my behalf, and for exemplifying what a school library program can look like in the 21st-Century when it is being developed by a superb teacher-librarian. We are very lucky here in Coquitlam School District.

Thank you so much!

Judith Comfort's speech can be found in her blog on the BC Teacher-Librarians' ning.

"Closing Libraries is Child Abuse"

2011-05-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Catch the 8-minute audio clip (first on Part II of the program) on the closure of libraries in the LA Unifed School District and in the UK from last night's As It Happens (CBC Radio). UK author and playwright Alan Bennett calls such closures "child abuse."

VESTA's Nan, thanks for bringing this clip to my attention and sharing. How do you like my blog? Catch up on more library news here!

"Libraries Face Growing Demand for e-Books"

Janet Steffenhagen's Report Card blog, May 24, examines the struggles and complications that delivering e-books provides for both libraries and publishing companies. Interesting dimension of this consideration: "The most popular titles feature romance and passion, including Harlequin Romance."

Read more: Click here.

So Who Thinks Books Are So Over?

2011-05-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

In Chicago, they are "buried treasure," under, not over!

Now that's some investment in libraries and reading!

Students Demand Change ...

2011-05-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

... in their education. Enough of the now-tired youtube used in countless professional development sessions, A Vision of K-12 Students Today. Show me just one educator who hasn't seen this already!

Here's one great brand-new vision of K-12 learning that is BY students:

Seems, from a TL's perspective, as though a Learning Commons would be perfect for this kind of learner.

See Change? Yes, Yes, Yes!

2011-05-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

This post from West Van's Chief Learning Officer, Superintendent Chris Kennedy, in his blog Culture of Yes, frames a way of being a TL and of being a valued member of the school-based team intent on creating a learning culture; it is a frame that is built on solid foundations like inquiry-based learning, support for technology integration with teaching and learning, and smart understandings about capacity-building.

TLs can no longer be fitted neatly into "the box" that has all too often been incorrectly perceived as CKI/CKO and book exchanges; we are the instructional partners whose skills for building information literacy through inquiry and support for multiple literacies are shared collaboratively and, as blogger Seth Godin and Kennedy emphasize, have never been more important.

In a week of dreadful stories about American and Canadian school districts (see links in earlier posts) where TLs face "inquisitions," the chopping block, and ill-informed commentary, there has also been a strong vote via CBC of support for our work in schools. In such a week, we have seen examples of school districts where clearly no-one has done the homework on school libraries or any thinking about how to support change as Kennedy has done as he describes the kind of professional learning partnerships that enables collaborative K-12 enactment of C21L.

Thanks from all TLs. What is fun here is that the blog post had been re-tweeted outside of our BC educational conversations within two hours. Such support is so important and can make a difference. More voices like Kennedy's will turn the tide so we can "see change," yes indeed!

Read My Take on [Teacher-] Librarians by Chris Kennedy (Culture of Yes, May 23, 2011) which I have re-posted in full, including images, with permission:

Kennedy writes:

From my recent Slideshare presentations, I have had a number of questions about what my thinking is about the role of teacher-librarians? Here is the slide that has generated some discussion on this and the one I use to explain how we, in West Vancouver, are trying to support digital literacy and move forward with inquiry-based learning:

We don’t have the ‘middle layer’ of support for our schools that some districts have; we have no district coordinators, helping teachers, district support teachers or other similar positions that many, particularly larger districts, have to support the work of the teacher and schools.

In part because of size, and in part because of vision, we have made commitments around school-based staffing; thus, we are required to develop a model to support digital literacy and other innovative learning relying on the work in schools with limited outside support.

I call this the “Just in Time” solution, where we have principals and vice-principals who are learning leaders. Regardless of their technology skills, they know their pedagogy and find ways to connect learning goals to technology and, more importantly, provide leadership around curriculum and assessment. We have also been overt in recent years with our postings and our hirings — having digital skills is an expectation for new principals and vice-prinicpals. They are our first circle of support, and we need to continue to support them to lead the learning (including digital learning).

Teacher-librarians are our second circle of support. In a recent interview with Dr. Paul Shaker on Your Education Matters, I said that as we move forward “teacher librarians are more important than ever.” My experience has been that next to the principal, the teacher-librarian is often key in moving the learning agenda forward. In schools that are moving forward, it is very often the teacher-librarian, working side-by-side with teachers on staff, who find new ways of working with students.

The third ring of the “Just-in-Time” solution is key staff members; they are formal leaders like secondary curriculum coordinators, or informal leaders who have an influence on staff, who are able to help in the moment to support digital literacy. Teachers cannot wait for a workshop in six weeks, when they are stuck now; they rely on our network of staff — formal leaders, teacher-librarians, and key teacher leaders — all working together.

I saw the power of the teacher-librarian working with Gordon Powell (click on his name to check out his great blog), when I began my teaching career at McRoberts Secondary in Richmond, and then later in Port Coquitlam, as Principal at Riverside Secondary working with Sue Kilpatrick and Ron Haselhan, who simply “got it” in their roles supporting and working with teachers and students. I am hardly an expert on teacher-librarians, but I have now seen first-hand — in three school districts — the important leadership role they play.

My thanks to Moira Ekdahl, a teacher-librarian from Vancouver and a recent winner of the CLA Angela Thacker Memorial Award who, in her recent post here, did a much more articulate job of pulling together my thoughts around teacher-librarians. On the topic of library transformation, the BC Teacher Librarians Association have a wonderful document: The Points of Inquiry.

As we lament that little change has taken place, or how slow the change has been, many teacher-librarians have transformed what they do to stay relevant and ahead of the curve. We have many who are seeing their roles, as Seth Godin does, “as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario” (Later, in this post, Seth stole my line about librarians being more important than ever).

Finally, one more place worth reading on the topic is Gino Bondi, Principal at John Oliver in Vancouver, and the work they are doing on a Learning Commons. Thanks to Gino and Moira, Building a Learning Commons, is now on my summer reading list.

And I need to thank authors Carol Koechlin and David V. Loertscher for their direct and immediate support for the Learning Commons projects here in BC. What a team!

On Education Reform

2011-05-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am adding the TeachPaperless blog to my bloglist. His most recent post Face to Facebook: 5 Thoughts on Education Reform provides food for serious thought.

Also adding thoughtful Nicholas Carr's Rough Type blog after reading the Amazon 2-chapter "sample" of his book What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains: The Shallows and then downloading it to read on my new iPhone. His most recent blogposts are about e-textbooks and recent studies of their use in schools: Zero tolerance for print and e-textbooks flunk an early test.

Will add the findingDulcinea blog by Mark Moran of Dulcinea Media, and suggest you check this "Dirty Little Secrets of Search Skills of the Lost Generation" post:

We realize that most classroom teachers generally lack the time and experience required to teach intensive online research skills, and thus school librarians play a critical role in preparing students to succeed in the current marketplace. Yet around the world, many school librarian positions are coming under the axe as school boards begin to consider next year's budgets.

Conversely, we've come across hundreds of schools with very strong library programs that anchor a true 21st century curriculum that teaches students the skills they'll need to succeed in the workforce. We're encouraged that our presentation on teaching Web research skills has been downloaded 21,000 times in four months, and is being taught as part of the curriculum at colleges of education and library science. Students who learn these skills will become the eventual political and business leaders of our world; students who don't will continue to get tripped up by scammers who finagle a high position in Google's search results.

As well, I take great liberty in sharing Moran's response to the recent CBC poll on teacher-librarians and their role in teaching students to think critically about what they are learning:
I write this as a former corporate lawyer, a former executive officer and general counsel of a pioneering Internet advertising firm that had 1,200 employees in 29 countries; and now as the founder of a company whose mission is to help librarians and teachers teach students how to use the Internet effectively.

I now travel the world, meeting with school administrators, teachers and librarians to discuss how the needs of students are changing dramatically. Based on my extensive life experience, it is my view that library media specialists have the most critical role in the entire educational system - and they must be a significant presence in students lives beginning in first grade.

Without adequate media literacy training, kids will not succeed in a 21st-century workplace. The "old school" ways of communicating won't cut it; I've mastered those, and yet now spend each day re-learning how to communicate effectively in this new world order.

Students at many elite schools are learning critical 21st century skills while librarians are eliminated from budget-stressed school districts. The result is what a University College of London study called a "new divide," with students who have access to librarians "taking the prize of better grades" while those who don't have access to school librarians showing up at college beyond hope, having "already developed an ingrained coping behaviour: they have learned to 'get by' with Google."

This new divide is only going to widen and leave many students hopelessly lost in the past, while others fully embrace the future.

On which side of this divide will your students fall?

And finally, I share the marvels of Twitter: I like this denverpost.com news story cited on Ian Jukes' 21st Century Fluency blog, tweeted via @davidloertscher re-tweeting tweet via @leecrockett (DVL's Posting to Twitter: "Ian Jukes on technology and reading. Clever tech use boosts deep understanding - http://bit.ly/mQQrCv via @leecrockett"). Did you follow me?

In short, the news story is "Technology helps make language click," by Kevin Simpson; he writes,
[Educator and literacy coach Elizabeth] Kennedy loves the range of digital tools that teachers can use to advance literacy — the Web, its blogs, the seemingly boundless information superhighway. And yet, she begins the class by asking kids a calculated question: What's the strongest reading and writing tool you have with you? "Our brain!" comes the response.
Nice!
Twitterjab from cheeky friend watching hockey game on Sunday: Put the book down, Ekdahl! I will -- when there's a plot twist in this 0-0 game, Canucks v San Jose! This blog-as-twitter recounting by the way is a deliberate misuse of blog to demonstrate immediacy and capacity of social networking on a horribly rainy Sunday afternoon to share info and commentary amongst friends and experts.

CBC's Q & Globe and Mail: Why not to discard the librarians

2011-05-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

CBC Radio's Q: Jian Gomeshi spends the first three minutes of the podcast on May 18, 2011, in a spirited defence of the importance of teacher-librarians

Globe & Mail -- "Don't discard the librarians," Opinion piece by Ian Brown, May 20, 2011

In his extensive piece outlining good reasons to preserve libraries, school, academic, and public, Ian Brown also describes the shortsighted intentions of public educators and others making the case that there is no need in the 21st century, given Google and Wikipedia, to preserve "the physical spaces and flesh-and-blood librarians [who, in fact,] seem to be more necessary than ever."

Librarians are "knowledge concierges," writes Brown, who help citizens and students navigate the complex morasses of information, increasingly digital; they know the knowledge cues, manage data and the people who make up the community of learners who assemble in the places that are libraries to find information and to relish the "lovely lonely longing" experience "that found solace" in the vast collection that is a library; they assess omissions in the collections and information and teach skills for information literacy in order to connect seekers to the "affiliations" (eg: subscription databases) that ensure efficient and effective access to reliable information. They know that, while "information is abstract, ... the mind is ultimately physical, human."

Perhaps, Brown suggests, it is "digital technocracy's strange distrust of human beings sitting in a public room while communally enjoying the freedom of their own minds." Even as some educators see the end of the lab in schools, see that we are moving to a place whereall learners have their own personal digital devices and communities of real as well as virtual learning, there are those who would limit the learning and confine the learner to that which has been gathered -- often alone -- from Google and Wikipedia. There is growth in the popularity of these misguided concepts, as the spate of recent news articles would suggest -- and and there is economy for cash-strapped institutions who portray libraries as luxuries in the 21st century. Yet, seeking to eliminate the library is destroying a keystone of democracy, the one that embodies freedom of information.

"A motto is said to have been inscribed on [the wall of the ancient library at Alexandria]: the place of the cure of the soul. According to one theory, Julius Caesar burned it to the ground by accident, when he set the Egyptian fleet alight. He was trying to destroy what he thought was an enemy."

Don’t discard the librarians - The Globe and Mail

Interrogating Teaching with Technology: Contexts & Concepts

2011-05-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

Just watched CBC Documentary Are We Digital Dummies? and have downloaded (to Kobo app on new iPhone) Nicholas Carr's What the Internet is doing to our Brains: The Shallows, finalist for the General Non-fiction Category of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. Why? In one segment of the documentary, viewers are challenged to count how many times the white team passes the ball. There was a point where I lost track. The ball seemed to move to a "white" player behind the "black" player. Fixed as I was on the ball and the count, it was only when the narrator reviewed the action that I realized that my tricky brain had missed completely what had really happened. What my brain had blocked out, what a complex system the brain is, what just might be reason to interrogate accepted thinking about concepts like multi-tasking -- well, sometimes you need these AHA! moments to remember that, as we wade into new new areas with technology, we do need to be taking reality checks and depth soundings as we advance.

LAUSD Doubts that Seasoned Teacher-Librarians Can Teach

2011-05-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

By Beverly Goldberg, "US & World News," American Libraries Magazine, May 18, 2011

“There’s no better use of limited funds than paying attorneys to harass educators who’ve devoted their lives to helping our children,” Bennett Tramer of Santa Monica, California, said in a letter published May 17 in the Los Angeles Times. A tongue-in-cheek response to the May 13 Hector Tobar column, “The Disgraceful Interrogation of L.A. School Librarians,” the letter concluded: “I also applaud the valuable presence of armed police officers at the hearings; you never know when a librarian will pull out a book and start reading." Read more ...

LAUSD Doubts that Seasoned Teacher-Librarians Can Teach

Read also LA Times Letters to the Editor for letters in support of the teacher-librarians who find themselves inexplicably accused of the crime of not being real teachers!

For your critical consideration: If TLs (mostly women) are viewed as non-essential in education because they are being replaced by Google and Wikipedia, their jobs have been lost to young men and to the valuing of technology skills over teaching and learning, reading and the requisite skills for thinking critically about information, and over caring about kids. Could it be that gender is the real issue here? ME

Behind student success, an LAUSD librarian

2011-05-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

Rosemarie Bernier, an LAUSD teacher-librarian facing layoff, teaches students to go beyond textbooks and "learn to stand on the shoulders of the great scientists, philosophers and mathematicians." Read more ...

Behind student success, an LAUSD librarian

Layoffs, Interrogations for TLs in CA

2011-05-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

For Your Information (file: Believe it or not!)

Another update on the "inquisition" of LA Unified School District's fully qualified TLs appeared today in School Library Journal (May 17, 2011, by Lauren Barack):

Layoffs, Interrogations: L.A. School Librarians Under Fire

A Library is Many Things (2) - The Learning Commons

2011-05-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

From the desk of the lead administrator for Learning Commons Gino Bondi here in the Vancouver school district, this post to his Learning The Now blog:

Our Learning Commons: One “How To” for 21st Century Learning

John Oliver Secondary School, under the leadership of administrator Bondi working with department head Janice Smith and a learning design team that has included teachers of art, tech studies, and technology and me in a supporting role, has taken its first dramatic steps to embracing and enhancing the centrality of the school library as the hub of support for new ways of teaching and learning. Ever articulate and doing the homework, Bondi is making the sound case. And others are responding ... be sure to read the comments.

Thanks are due, too, to Dr David Loertscher of San Jose State University and associate, Toronto-based Carol Koechlin, for their direct support for development of a Learning Commons model here in Vancouver as, when called upon to advise, they responded immediately and sent the book to which Gino refers. Has your administrator got his/hers yet?

A Library is Many Things (1)

2011-05-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Bob Moore, VSB administrator, for sending me this one: in a blog entitled Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving a Wider Audience is a collection of letters from notable people that include E.B. White, Isaac Asimov, and Dr Seuss. At the request of the public librarian anticipating the opening of a new public library in 1971, 97 children's authors and others wrote notes that invited the children of Troy, Michigan, to the wonderful worlds of reading and libraries. This treasured collection is posted as "A Library is Many Things."

For many of our children here in Vancouver, the love of a library and reading is engendered in their experiences in our school libraries; this joy extends naturally to a lifelong love of reading and learning as well as a deeply-held respect for all libraries as a powerful resource for ensuring our belief that educated and informed citizens are essential to building and sustaining democratic societies. In forty years since these letters were written, a lot has changed ... in libraries and in the world beyond. What endures is the principle that takes form as a centre from which learning and reading emanates in whatever new forms these take -- and good stories well told.

School-library cuts a miscommunication problem

2011-05-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

NEWS FLASH: VOTE NOW

A CBC COMMUNITY NEWS POLL asks, School libraries: How important are they to learning and critical thinking? Should school boards cut other programs before they close libraries and layoff librarians? Why or why not? How important are school libraries to learning and developing critical thinking?

Since posting the poll yesterday, respondents have shown a heavy (89%) leaning to "extremely important." Vote now.

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I for one am quite certain that, when Sir Ken Robinson calls for the return of creativity to education, he would agree that now is the exactly right time for creative leadership. Teacher-librarians are grateful to those who can think "outside the box" created for us by the accountability agenda, administrators who see the possibilities for powerful partnerships amongst educators, including teacher-librarians as agents of change, as key to creating and empowering meaningful learning in schools. The capacity of teacher-librarians to empower reading and learning in schools is seriously impaired when those who make staffing decisions have narrow interpretations of what literacy is and a fixation on the tools, not the processes, of learning. They "box in" reading and learning and constrain the "big picture" re-thinking in ways that may, in fact, have the exact opposite effect of what they seek to achieve.

Information literacy is a term educators use to describe the skills students need to find and use good information in the digital age. But principals probed in the People for Education survey didn't see the term in the same way when asked about their school's information literacy strategy. Instead, they talked about their school's strategy to improve reading and writing test scores (Montreal Gazette).

Prompting this blogpost has been a flurry of articles from Eastern Canada and elsewhere about the news of cuts to school libraries, as well as the dreadful and unimaginable developments for teacher-librarians in California (see earlier post about weeping).

Read more from Montreal Gazette, May 16, 2011, by Jordan Press:

School-library cuts a miscommunication problem, education group says

The future of the (school) library

2011-05-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin's blog has much to say about the future of public libraries. What he says is equally as true for us in school libraries, in my humble opinion. Writes Godin, "We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime."

It's Not All About the Technology ...

2011-05-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

Great blog post from Elisa Carlson, Director of Instruction working with their Innovative Learning Designs Project in Surrey, BC: It's not all about the technology. And how right she is: if it doesn't land in all classrooms and if it isn't accessible to every child, if it doesn't start with the teaching and learning, it won't be reform at all.

I've said this before, The answer to educational reform is not a single word or a product name. Yes, Elisa, I love the quotes you have selected from David Warlick:

“21st century learning has nothing to do with iPads, iPod Touches, or any piece of technology. The only thing that is one to one that we should be concerned with is equitable access to rigorous, relevant, and irresistible learning experiences that reflect and harness the times, environment, and ultimate goals of the learning.”

Twenty-first century learning, continues Warlick, “…is an experience that is responsive. Learners are not simply passive vessels to be filled. They are players within a game that plays back. It is inquiry fueled. It provokes conversations that factor in the learner’s identity and measures his standing. It inspires the personal investment of time and skill. ..and it is guided by safely made mistakes.”

In just a few minutes I start with a group of Vancouver TLs on just this topic. It's all about the complex notion of ACCESS. 21st C teaching and learning is grounded in inquiry. Thanks for this, Elisa.

G&M: The Librarians' fight for survival

2011-05-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

Globe and Mail Education

Librarians fight for a role in a digital world

By KATE HAMMER, EDUCATION REPORTER— From Monday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, May 16, 2011 1:00AM EDT

On Saturdays I blog -- and tweet

2011-05-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

I used to blog religiously on Saturday mornings.  While not quite so religious about this any more, I have blogged (sometimes unrelentingly) since I started four years ago as the TL consultant for the Vancouver School Board. My thought is now that, while it was first about mentoring the local TL community, my blogging is bigger than that, bigger than Vancouver but always reflective of the threads and currents of discourse that impact our work and our place in teacher-librarianship in Vancouver. There is so much to know, in practical and professional terms, so much to think about and share, and to be engaged in with others. From resources to relevant videos to new tools and educational commentary, I have blogged on.

There is a flow of tweets today from the UBC Northern Voice 2011 blogging conference (#nv). Seems like interesting stuff and a pretty young crowd. But their blogs contain interesting content -- way too many other tweeting conference attendees simply emit messages, like "This is great stuff," so you never know what the stuff of the conference or un-conference has been. I must have missed the brochure, but then mentors miss at least half of what is going on.  It's good there are VSB people there (@maryakem and @audreyvan) so we will undoubtedly get the feedback.

On becoming a member of the Twittyverse, I have to say what intrigues me is that it is something of a flat community. There are the active ones, the incomprehensible ones, the profound ones, the straight communicators of news, the political ones, and the lurkers. It's a good place to start, lurking, by the way. And linking -- you have to click onto some of the "bittlies" to get at the meat of Twitter.

One to follow is Superintendent Chris Kennedy (West Vancouver) who blogs at The Culture of Yes, contributes to the discourse frequently, and comments on the nature of the conversation on Twitter @chrkennedy. You would add him to your watchlist on Twitter. Kennedy describes the conversations that include all committed educators. Administrators, superintendents, trustees, teachers -- geographically disbursed -- share ideas and information both openly and privately without the barriers that hierarchical positioning within workplace sites and bureaucracies can create.  That's what I mean by "flat." You share others' news as re-tweets, or openly add to the commentary on topics or in groups identified by hashtags (#). You get to follow and assess what others think is important enough to share. I am not seeing too much of the frivolous daily activity stuff, like, "Went shopping today" or "Just finished breakfast" that newcomers might expect to find.

Kennedy gets teacher-librarians and their role in relation to inquiry-based learning and leadership for change. Librarians, he suggests, are more important than ever. Working collaboratively with teachers, they bring a different and important skill set to the instructional conversation that helps make sense of information.  He gets the importance of teaching for information literacy and for learning to be information literate. Tech-savvy administrators and TLs have powerful potential to engage and support teachers shifting into optimal pedagogical participation in the new digital environments.  In the blog post "It's not the tools, it's the team" is a slide presentation Leading and Energizing Learning given to Ontario superintendents: check slide 15. In his recent half-hour Your Education Matters broadcast with Dr Paul Shaker at UBC, TLs are included as is discussion of inquiry, inquiry-based learning, and the significance of teacher professional judgement. Arlene Anderson's important groundwork with Points of Inquiry at Rockridge is included. In his role as West Van's Chief Learning Officer, he sees that we are moving beyond technology-as-place (that is, the lab); soon every child will have his or her own personal device, and thus a new learning space. Students will engage in real-world or authentic publishing; literacy is reading and writing a blog, for example.

In direct "tweets" with Chris, I have appreciated his vision that sees TLs as worthy lead partners with admin in the move to digital literacy. Schools moving ahead with digital literacy have strong teacher-librarians and dynamic and responsive school library programs. I for one am happy to have his voice in the provincial conversation.

2011 May YEM from SFU Education on Vimeo.

In Vancouver, we have a small but active community of educational tweeters. I have a watchlist and I follow trustees @janebouey, @lombardimike, @pattibacchus. I follow administrator @gmbondi and teacher colleagues @solitaryvox, @zzsu, @aaronmueller, @physicstweet.  I follow VSB tweeters like our superintendent @myphronesis, our district librarian @maryakem and our new District Principal for Learning Technologies @audreyvan. In fact, I follow over 50 tweeters and about that many follow me. And so I have been lured from the lurking -- I feel bound to have profound tweets occasionally! No time for conferences -- too busy with my social networking on Saturdays.

Read this and weep!

2011-05-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

When I heard about the infamous rubber rooms (reassignment centres) in New York City, the places that hundreds of suspended teachers had to report every day, some for years, to do nothing, at a reported cost of $ 30 million a year, I thought there could have been nothing crazier.

NYC to close 'rubber rooms' for teachers in trouble

New York City and its teachers union agreed this week to shut down so-called "rubber rooms," reassignment centers where hundreds of suspended teachers go each school day instead of the classroom while their cases are pending. The teachers can sit for years and do nothing while still getting paid.

But I was wrong. Just when you think you have heard everything, along comes something even crazier. This most recent "inquisition" of teachers and teacher-librarians who have received RIF notices (Reduction in Force) in the Los Angeles Unified School District is quite beyond the pale.
Read Hector Tobar in the LA Times: The disgraceful interrogation of LA school librarians (May 13, 2011)

Then read MizzMurphy's The Library is Not a Fruit blog: Settle in. It's a long one. (May 9, 2011)

This situation is so appalling that it almost makes a layoff or surplus or reassignment notice due to the chronic underfunding of education here in BC seem a kindness. Whoever went into teacher-librarianship imagining such egregious and disrespectful treatment at the hands of the employer and its attorneys. MizzMurphy, know that, when we get over the incredulity at how bad things can be of late for some of our neighbouring teaching brothers and sisters, our hearts are breaking for you and your TL colleagues. Shame on LAUSD.

More Chilling News Today

2011-05-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

Chilling plot to eliminate school libraries has been under way since 2001, newly released evidence shows. Teachers are still being laid off and school district staff and resources are still being cut under these Draconian measures in which, it turns out, the provincial government intentionally sought to strip the best aspects of our education system from BC children and eliminate jobs to garner Machiavellian savings at the cost to our youngest citizens and public sector educators and support workers.

Check the links in Janet Steffenhagen's Report Card blog, Motivation for BC class size / composition changes in 2002 (May 10, 2011) for the email correspondence used in evidence in the recent Charter challenge:

The BCTF has provided the following background documents that were entered as evidence during the trial over Bills 27 and 28 (which removed from contract the BCTF's ability to negotiate class size, composition and specialst teacher ratios) ....

We specialist teachers await the remediation, the restoration of our ranks, the 25% of TLs and school library services lost in 10 years. Take your response to the ballot box, West Siders.

The Beguiling

2011-05-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Langley TL Joanie, for this great recommendation. This Toronto-based comic store The Beguiling has lists of titles of graphic novels you can order that are developed by their avid comic-reading staff for your particular audience.

A Chillin' Place: Why I Need My High School Library

2011-05-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

TED Talk and Latest Possibilities for e-books

2011-05-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

The Power of Words

2011-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

How do online content specialists spin their magic?

What Turnitin.com Has to Say For Itself

2011-05-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

From Mind/Shift: How We Will Learn, May 2, 2011, by Audrey Watters: How the Internet Affects Plagiarism.

The Future of Print

2011-05-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

21 Interesting e-books for kids, a blog posting from Big Think / Dangerously Irrelevant (Scott McLeod, co-creator of the video "Did You Know? Shift Happens"), May 2, 2011. Amazing stuff, but is this really "a glimpse into what the future of children’s publishing is going to look like"?

Intelligent Investing

2011-05-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

From Forbes.com:

Young Learners Need Librarians,
Not Just Google

Mark Moran, 03.22.10, 03:00 PM EDT

The ubiquity and ease of Google searches could make kids' minds go soft without the ability to critique or contextualize the answers.

A year ago The New York Times presented a multimedia, packaged gift to school librarians everywhere. With its profile of Brooklyn, N.Y., school librarian Stephanie Rosalia, at long last, a major newspaper had chronicled the 21st century school librarian’s role as Web curator and information literacy specialist.

The article made the Times’ "most e-mailed" list for days and was featured on more than 100 blogs, as educators and parents everywhere recognized the need for media specialists to guide students. Read more ....

Collection an incendiary read (The Vancouver Sun, 23 Apr 2011, Page C7)

2011-04-24T08:06:00.001-07:00

Zsuzsi is a Friend of VSB School Libraries. Congratulations on your new collection, and thanks for your help with the presentation to our Board in support of our work and our place in schools during this and last year's budget presentations. Parent/authors have a special place in our programs.

Collection an incendiary read
BY CandaCe Fertile Candace Fertile teaches at Camosun College in Victoria.
The Vancouver Sun
23 Apr 2011
Vancouver seems to be breeding fabulous short fiction writers at a zippy pace, and Zsuzsi Gartner’s second collection, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, is even more incendiary than her first, All the Anxious Girls on Earth. Yes, I’m a fan of...read more...

Thank you!

2011-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Meredyth, for comment posted to last blog entry and many others, especially TL colleagues, for notes of congratulation. For those who haven't heard, I had the pleasure of opening my email this week to find that I have been awarded the Angela Thacker Award in which CASL (national body for TLs, a ) recognizes leadership in the field demonstrated in publications, productions or professional development activities that deal with topics relevant to teacher-librarianship and/or information literacy. What an honour. From everything I have heard, Angela was remarkable. Thank you to nominators Parungao and Zubke, and thank you to selection committee of CASL for this recognition.

My thanks, too, to VSB Board Chair Patti Bacchus whose tweet I just read and to Trustee Mike Lombardi, Gino Bondi, administrator extraordinaire @JO, and Aaron Mueller, ever encouraging, whose re-tweets I do so much appreciate. Being a member of the VSB Tweeps Team @VSB39 is always educational but reading "RT @pattibacchus: Congrats to @VSB39's Moira Ekdahl @tlspecial the 2011 CASL Angela Thacker Mem.Award recipient! #bced Long time coming" is really special. Your support for teachers' and teacher-librarians' work, Gino, Mike, and Patti, really makes a difference. Right, Aaron?

I would like to congratulate Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort for her winning the CLA/CASL's Follett-International TL of the Year Award; Judith joins an amazing group of TLs from across Canada in receiving this recognition, including our own Michele Farquharson, Pat Parungao, Mary Locke, and Karen Cordiner. And congratulations are due to Heather Daly, for leading BC's TLs into another year as President of the BCTLA. We are all inspired by your commitment as well as your visionary and dedicated leadership.

I'm sure Judith will agree that such honours in April are a wonderful way to end a bleak winter and begin to anticipate Spring which can't be far behind! There are more good things coming for BC TLs, I just know it. Can't you feel it, an end to the "10-year winter"? The Supreme Court decision which finds for the BCTF in the Charter challenge around Bills 26 and 27 which stripped our hard-won ratios and numbers for class size and composition and thus, our rights to representation, bodes well for a return to a system where educators can set aside the fight to speak for what's best for our students and return to a focus on building the capacity of schools and school libraries to deliver quality education.

The new Ning is gathering our rank and file; thanks, Arlene Anderson, for giving us a place to meet and share. Need an invite? Contact a member of the BCTLA Executive. We rise again!

Poor Mark Hasiuk - Wrong Again!

2011-04-20T00:16:00.000-07:00

In his most recent attack on our beleaguered Social Responsibility Team, Mark Hasiuk of The Vancouver Courier ("Vancouver school bureaucrats unleash bizarre theories on race and culture: Budget cuts spare ‘Diversity Team", April 19, 2011) tries again to target the good work being done by our respected teacher colleagues. Their work enables many students to thrive and succeed who might otherwise not; I can think of no educator who could support Hasiuk's position. That includes me, the district librarian he refers to in his concocted account of the removal of books. No such thing ever happened, in a district that annually celebrates Freedom to Read Week in February, nor would it, and it is upsetting to think that there are people who, perhaps because the system didn't offer opportunities to learn to think critically about issues and the importance of corroborating evidence, might just believe him.

Here is what Suzanne Hall, District Librarian in Maple Ridge, wrote in response to one of Hasiuk's attacks on the same target: You, sir, are remarkably misinformed! Teacher-librarian Moira Ekdahl of the Vancouver School District has clearly refuted your claims about book-banning in her blog. This letter was published! Here is what she is sending in response to this most recent attack:

Dear editor:

Mr. Hasiuk’s latest misinformed, misleading rant about the Diversity Team certainly proves how important their work is. Again, his column reflects a lack of background knowledge, selective hearing, and the arrogance needed to make personal attacks. Why is his reaction so personal? Since much of the Team’s work is aimed at preventing all three of those faults, I am left to wonder: feeling threatened by a broader perspective, Mr. Hasiuk?

Suzanne Hall, District Librarian
District Facilitator: Mentoring
Chair of Professional Development Committee, M.R.T.A.

My full response to his last articles was posted during Spring Break in the Reader Soapbox section online. "Vancouver’s teacher-librarians keep books in student hands: School libraries do not ban books, have plenty of works by Dickens" (March 23, 2011). How insulting is that to be put into the soapbox category when you want to set the record straight and are a most credible source! Forgive me -- soapbox, did you say?

VSB TL Cecil Baird sent a letter on behalf of the VTLA that was edited and published on March 23: Teacher librarians enjoy autonomy. While I take this section from Cecil's longer letter, the letter clearly indicated teacher-librarians are not under any mandate to remove books! I don't think Hasiuk gets the "autonomy" part or the need we feel to ensure all students find themselves and people like themselves fairly portrayed within accounts and images they encounter in our schools and curriculum and resources and the particular attachment teacher-librarians have for freedom of expression. The last blast took place during Freedom to Read Week. Cecil wrote,

Teacher Librarians in Vancouver have a great deal of autonomy and defend freedom to read as a major tenet of literacy. In my experience, there are actually few books removed from shelves, which is testament to the fact that we are getting it right. Nothing gets weeded from the fiction shelves of my school's library that doesn't contain inappropriate content, meaning works that are not sensitive to genders, sexual orientation, or cultures, or that are not damaged beyond repair .... Teacher Librarians choose materials based on a wide set of criteria including quality, appropriateness to curriculum, and reader interest.

To say more, there is a cultural aspect beyond your own worldview that must be considered when making these decisions. Thanks to the VSB team for their consultations. Nothing is mandated by them, and we defer to their expertise in cases where we are unfamiliar with the subject area ....

Cecil Baird, Co-President, Vancouver Teacher-librarians' Association

Read also Steve Mulligan's letter to the editor, Diversity Team Saves Lives (March 23).

The Vancouver Courier editor Barry Link did contact me to let me know he does include my blog address so I know that inquirying readers could find the truth if they could find the soapbox. Some besides our own district readers actually did, as Suzanne's response would indicate.

Did I forget anything? No, except thanks again, Team, for what you do for us and for our students.

TED: David Christian's Big History

2011-04-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

In 18 minutes, San Diego State History professor David Christian gives an engaging talk with amazing graphics that describes the big history of our planet from Big Bang to today in terms of complexity and Goldilocks moments (just-right conditions). He also announces the intention to create for high school students, with Bill Gates and his own Humanities colleagues, a free online syllabus of our beautiful planet's history to protect the planet for their grandchildren . Be sure to check this out ...

... and share with Science department colleagues.

BCTLA Spring Conference

2011-04-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday morning and we are a group of 30 teacher-librarians representing the whole province, assembled for professional purposes, joyful at the recent announcement of the results of the BCTF's Charter Challenge that affords prospects of improvements in working and learning conditions and, in particular, the return of the stripped language that will ensure restoration of teacher-librarians in BC public schools, 1 for every 702 students. The key tenet of our plan for the next three years, announces President Heather Daly, was accomplished in just three days since the Plan was developed. She is clearly moved by the hopefulness and by the prospect of an end to our fiercely fought battle to ensure children had access to quality literature and digital resources, as well as instruction from a qualified teacher-librarian.

Arlene Anderson, TL, West Vancouver, our Pro D chair, is leading our group forward with social media for teacher-librarians, her direction empowered now by the recent development (Arlene working with Jeff Yasinchuk from the Kootenays) of the BC Teacher-librarians' Ning. We are discussing how schools and TLs are working with the rapidly changing nature of our resources, including anticipation of the place and impact of e-books, e-texts, and associated devices. As "curators of information," TLs can explore replacing textbooks with multiple sources of information available in print and online, including subscription resources.

Discussion has ended. Now we are frantically searching the ning -- gotta go -- I'm losing ground! Working collaboratively with Suzanne (Maple Ridge district librarian) and Gwen (Vancouver), we raced through the ning-search and trounced first over the finish line, then went back to "sabotage" the others by creating groups and signing up new numbers. It's not about correct answers but about getting to understand how the ning works. Very very cool, and tons of potential for provincial TLs and professional growth.

Next is the envisioning process: for those of us who will find ourselves still working in school libraries in 2016, what will TLs be doing? what will TLs still be doing, and what will be new in the role? how prepared are TLs for the "21C change" that is engulfing education?

Top Ten Alternatives to Traditional Textbooks

2011-04-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Alive and well, I return to the "big chair" after two weeks of lollygagging in paradise. It was time to jump into action to prepare for an early Tuesday-morning session with John Oliver educators looking for alternatives to teaching from textbooks. With help from Jacob Martens and Maryann Kempthorne on Monday, the "top ten" alternatives were developed. These recommendations are not specific software suggestions or "apps" -- they are resources or tools and strategies for finding and/or creating resources.

You can go to the TL Special Wiki (Inquiry-based Learning page, found in right-hand sidebar) to see where JO teachers were looking Beyond Textbooks (pptx) on April 5. You may have other ideas or recommendations. Feel free to add comments and ideas to the page or to use the powerpoint. Discoveries, discussion, and queries would fit well with this posting to the TL Wiki. You can request access to the wiki for purposes of posting, and you don't have to be a teacher-librarian either.

PSSST! Over Here for the Truth ...

2011-03-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

... about Vancouver's School Libraries

Recognize that any click on the link in this paragraph will represent a reader to The Courier, thus contributing to its online presence, and will likely be used as data to try to attract advertising dollars. Go here if you can't find the print version. The latest salvo into the midst of our Vancouver School District Learning Services Team, as well as intrusion into a school library and retrieval of the retirement considerations of a career teacher-librarian, can be found here: "District Diversity Team costs $762,495: Teacher-librarians react to school book-banning effort" (The Vancouver Courier, Mar 16, 2011, EW09).

Thanks to Mark Hasiuk of The Courier and also to some well-placed and supportive tweeting, my blog readership more than doubled last week! May consider advertising dollars myself soon. Thanks too to stay-home VSB mom Julia who affirms my belief that Vancouver parents participate as models of the value of social responsibility and critical thinking -- that is, they do the research and corroborate the facts before believing everything printed in newspapers. As we say to the kids, just because it's in print doesn't make it true.

Hasiuk gets the situation all wrong and he does this on purpose; his opinion piece is riddled with misconstruction and error. For example, in this article:

He attempts to pit teacher-librarians against the Social Responsibility Team composed of teacher-mentors and managers. This is not something we TLs feel at all comfortable with, nor are we comforted by this sudden convenient profession of support for school libraries.
He deliberately plays with figures -- when you teach full-time, are experienced, and have a master's degree and then you also teach a night school class and/or summer school, you get paid over scale because you work all the time. Two days a week of work as an educator at the VSB or in a classroom costs the same, no matter which master's level, highly experienced teacher does it.
Bible stories get weeded in the same way as other material; they do not occupy sacred space. If they are not circulating well or are not aligned with curriculum, if they are worn or damaged, they go. An overabundance of Christian picture books that appear to be simple fictional storybooks are not the same as The Bible or stories in the Bible. Informational and reference books on Christianity, including The Bible as a primary source document, and materials from or about other world religions abound in VSB collections. Students learn about their own and other cultures, including religious or spiritual beliefs. Some books that are Bible stories do, in fact, exist at Carleton ... I checked using our web-based catalogue, the same library management automated system as is used to check availability of materials at the VPL.
And as I work here at the VSB Ed Centre on the same floor as The SR Team, we talked -- quite literally in passing, shaking our heads while en route to the photocopier -- about how we could use this "tale told ... full of sound and fury" to advantage. Let's collaborate: our district, a flagship for diversity initiatives, should create a more current, home-made checklist or set of guidelines to identify anti-racist materials that could be recommended by TLs and Social Responsibility educators for use in classrooms and for selection for school libraries. We could update the MARBLES Bibiliography (where this stands for Multicultural, Anti-Racist Book Loving EducatorS) of Canadian books recommended for classrooms or school libraries. We should, in my view, be sending our materials and experts to the States!

Who can find fault with any of that? Well, the truth is, when you do a half-baked investigation to support a pre-determined thesis and additionally to construct a situation that is expressly aligned with ultra-conservative views, nothing anyone says will correct the direction of the story or clarify the account.

Further, it is contrary to the teachers' code of ethics and standards of behaviour; it is not acceptable for one group of teachers to actively participate in lobbying to place greater value on its services over another group. In an earlier blog, I allude to Philip Pullman's term for this; he calls it a "bidding culture" and it is often created as part of the neo-liberal agenda to force choices that cut funding to public services. All teachers deplore the bidding culture and are cautioned against engaging in it.

Let me state, as I did unequivocally on the phone during the interview with Hasiuk, there is tremendous respect for the work done by our VSB SR Team. Hasiuk was not encouraged to make a pitch in the interests of TLs over this Team's. My suggestion? Of course you can let The Courier know how you feel about the use of lies and omission to create a "horsefeathers" editorial, but might I suggest you do it by slow mail. This is least consistent with the intended purpose of such writing, that being to draw more advertisers through evidence of a substantial readership. In your letter, tell them about your dissatisfaction with the level of journalism and the integrity of this writer; ask them not to deliver the paper any more.
Continue to search the social media networks for alternative versions of the truth. The interactive or Comments feature is the real strength of this blogging tool, so please use the opportunity to get involved in the discussion here too. While I do admit to having editorial control, so far everything has been supportive of the work done by teachers and by those who are intent on making school a better, safe, inclusive place for kids ... and their teachers as well.

And finally, a personal message, stated emphatically: Mr Hasiuk, quit this mindless and insensitive campaign. I am very direct and generally don't "bristle." If I failed to send the message of complete negation at your allegation of book-banning and at your obvious unwillingness to discern weeding or de-selecting from book-banning (although you were clear about this when we talked), please hear that message now. Similarly, get the message that there is considerable support for our Social Responsibility Team, that teachers deplore the idea that, in the seemingly unending "million cuts" that have characterized public education under the Liberals, any one group would be chosen for elimination over another; please hear the buzz of irritation coming from here. That this purports to be any kind of printable educational commentary, well that's simply ridiculous.

Needless to say, I have greatly appreciated how much Mr Hasiuk has done for my readership numbers. Thanks, Suzanne, for the word I needed: it's all horsefeathers, and from me, he'd get a D for this stuff! Sounds as though we'd be in agreement.

Thank you, readers, for coming here today. Please share this with others who may be concerned at those who would foist their singular views on a diverse and caring system. Further, from a legal perspective and perhaps most importantly, Mr Hasiuk might acknowledge the forward-thinking Vancouver School District for its work in the areas of social responsibility and diversit. He might recognize that, in a post-Azmi Jubran v. North Vancouver School District context, school districts have the obligation to be pro-active on racism, homophobia and other forms of harassment and discrimination in the school system. Most people are calling for more of this work, not less. It’s hardly a misplaced priority.

With Permission, District Librarian Suzanne Responds:

2011-03-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

Any Bets on Whether She Gets Printed?

To the Editor [of The Vancouver Courier]:

Mark Hasiuk has done it again [see next post for link to Hasiuk's most recent column and for the real story about what's happening in VSB school libraries], writing another attention-seeking column short on both comprehension and compassion. He describes being “harshly” (though justly, I might add) criticized by teacher-librarians for his previous column on book banning, an unfounded and ridiculous personal opinion piece masquerading as journalism. His latest column shows his true goal all along: to attack and demean the work of the Diversity Team.

Truly, it is hard to imagine how anyone could begrudge time and attention given to developing school cultures that make all students feel safe and valued. To supporting and protecting our most vulnerable students. To preventing child abuse. To combating racism, sexism, and homophobia. In short, to teaching the skills and attitudes needed to function peaceably and effectively in our multicultural and democratic society.

So I ask myself about Mr. Hasiuk’s hidden agenda and ulterior motives. Why is he singling out and belittling the educators whose programs are designed to create strong citizens and to prevent our students – the community’s children – from suffering, unsupported and alone? Who does benefit from that?

Suzanne Hall
District Librarian, Maple Ridge
District Facilitator: Mentoring
Chair of Professional Development Committee, M.R.T.A.

PS: Since you [Editor, Courier] completely edited out the main point of my previous letter (reminder: has the man actually read any children’s literature – classic or modern - within the last four decades?), I will also be publishing this letter through my own channels of communication. That way, if you do happen to publish this, the readers I can reach on my own can compare versions. Thought it was fair to let you know.

Things that go TWEET in the night!

2011-03-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia Past and Present: Read about Wikipedia then and now, by Lee Crockett in The 21st Century Fluency Project, with links to The Pew Report on Wikipedia.

Amazing photos before and after the tsunami (hover over aerial photos to see the devastation) from ABC News: Japan Earthquake.

Book banning column 'outrageous and unfounded'

2011-03-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Suzanne Hall, TL Consultant, Maple Ridge, Michael Katz, publisher, Tradewind Books, and author Joan Betty Stuchner, for your Letters to the Editor - All is good!

And we at the BCTLA and here at the TL Special Weekly blog are tweeting and blogging your incredulity that such a thing could happen in Vancouver schools. Rest assured, we don't believe in censorship either. Did you see my post Vancouver Schools Celebrate Freedom to Read Week (March 4, this blog) for the real story?

Fair Comment on Khan and Gates? Yes, indeed.

2011-03-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Joe Bower, from Red Deer for this for the love of learning blog post which exemplifies the kind of critical thinking we need to see more of amongst lead educators for technology:

Khan Academy: Improving school by changing nothing

Writes Bower:

Sixty years of research tells us that we don't internalize knowledge by simply being told to do so. Real learning is constructed from the inside while interacting with others. While examining technology with a constructivist's lens, we must discriminate between the prolific and poor uses of technology.

Far from being transformative or revolutionary, the Khan Academy is an ingenious way of improving school without changing a thing.

Turning on the Power: Twitterverse and Blogosphere, Anyone There?

2011-03-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Read this, I dare you! It's an invitation to respond to social media in their own contexts to optimize their power to make a difference and, in this case, to wrestle with who gets to tell a story and ensure it gets told with authority.

What has made the relatively new and emerging social media environments so powerful has unquestionably been the capacity they create for rivetting communities to issues and for creating and staging political impact, positive or negative. We have seen the effects as citizen journalists publish to youtube or as Julian Assange et al created Wikileaks. From the excitement of the flashmob to the shock of the new revolutions and global disasters, we are able to view and read about amazing examples of the flexing of the power of social media networks. No longer is the news a matter of what those with positions of power over information decide is important for us the public to know. Now we are seeing the blowback from tweeps and bloggers when organizations try to leverage issues for disaster for profile or share of audience or users: "Self-promoting Bing tweet has Twitter world sputtering," The Province (2011 March 13 A2, see post following).

With the shift in the relationship of readers/viewers to information comes an emerging sense of the efficacy of the reader/viewer, from passive consumer to creative, constructive agent choosing from an overwhelming body of sources of information not only who he or she wants to "read" and read/view with, what content to read and/or view (and believe), what ethical values are acceptable, and also how or whether he or she will participate and respond to the sources, including the traditional ones.

So the true marvel of social media is what it has done to shift the locus of power from those who traditionally had authority for information to new groups beginning to sense and activate their own strengths in relation to the new locus.  It's not just about the creators of the information but about how the audience or readers choose to use their greater understanding of a new relationship to the power of information.  That shifted relationship and the emerging political capacity of social media are optimized when users exercise their critical responsibility to assess what is worthwhile, that is, what is worth reading, what is worth passing along, and what is worth acting on. Because sometimes, just sometimes, it is important to recognize just exactly how powerful social media has been and can be in pulling the focus to where the group agrees it needs to be, not on where those who have customarily had the power over the focus might, in their considered view, feel it needs to be or not be.

Why am I telling you this?  Last week, I tweeted and blogged a local concern.  I believe in the revolution and the power of the social media networks that I participate in. I wanted to shape in my terms a response to an article in our local newspaper that incorrectly suggested book-banning is alive and well in the Vancouver school district where I work. Scratch the surface a little and you may get a whiff of something else here, but my response is simple:  not to worry, students, staff, parents, and others. There is no book-banning going on and I have the authority to say just that.

The trouble is, I just can't get the newspaper to publish my response. It's a tricky thing. I am well aware, and am reminded by a number of email correspondents, that I need to reduce my piece to 150 words if I want it published.  People willing to do that did just that.  But I have the authority for a body of information that illuminates the considerable gaps in the logic of the original account and I want a fair claim on the space it takes to fix that account. The editor explains that, in a few weeks, my longer clarification will appear in a hard-to-find Reader Soapbox section of the online version of the newspaper.

Those who know me will agree, I am not used to being dismissed or silenced! And I have a hard enough time with authority asserted for authority's sake, that is, authority that I do not understand or respect or authority that doesn't acknowledge the possibility that someone with authority for the information can set the record straight.

How do we, the social media network, shape this in our own terms? Here's where you came in, blogosphere and twittyverse. Our blog posts and tweets take place in a very public venue; that is, we can publish which is amazing to me and I love it -- the unleashing of the writer in his/her own terms makes for some very honest and illuminating writing.

For some or all of this, what we educators write is shared with a pretty interesting cross-section of the educational and related other communities. Where else do you get to chat with, follow, and be followed by administrators, superintendents, the National Film Board, writers' groups, and colleagues within and outside the school district? It's very cool. It's "gr8" to have a group that reads deeply enough and thinks about the political possibilities when what is tweeted or blogged is intended as social commentary or an invitation to engage in political action. Consider how the Twittyverse responded to Bing's crass use of the high-magnitude global disaster and its thousands of victims in Japan to engage in an appeal lightly disguised as fund-raising for victims of the Japanese earthquake disaster but clearly a blatant and unconscionable promotion that saw an opportunity in the isaster to draw tweeps to its search engine services; this, said the Twittyverse, is a no-go.

My blog of the real story was re-tweeted by several district authorities and colleagues who, in their various roles, are recognized as worth following and are regular participants in the educational discussions I like to follow and contribute to lightly; the uptake however was minimal. Daily digested tweets for the day didn't pick this up for sharing ... except for the BCTLA.  Emails to listservs brought more direct responses, all supportive, although they are not accessible to the public. Last week, in my circles, what gained most traction were the re-tweets of links to articles about tools, resources, and events.

Ironically, in Freedom to Read week, when those leaders in the field of technology integration with teaching and learning were offered an opportunity to respond to a story that involved reading about the capricious use of facts to support a flimsy premise that impugned the work of credible educators, there was little evidence they are reading and thinking about how they can shift the story and readers from the base in traditional media to their own places, responding to it in their own terms and in their own spaces.

Self-promoting Bing tweet has Twitter world sputtering (The Province, 13 Mar 2011, Page A3)

2011-03-13T15:52:00.001-07:00

Self-promoting Bing tweet has Twitter world sputtering
BY KATIE MERCER STAFF REPORTER
The Province
13 Mar 2011

Microsoft sparked outrage on Twitter Saturday after attempting to use the devastation in Japan in what was perceived to be a ploy to promote its Bing search engine. Early Saturday, the company tweeted: “How can you #SupportJapan —...read more...

Tech Tags: The Province newspaper News

BC Book Prize short lists announced

2011-03-11T08:17:00.001-08:00

BC Book Prize short lists announced
BY TRACY SHERLOCK
The Vancouver Sun, p D7
11 Mar 2011

The 27th Annual BC Book Prize short lists were announced Thursday by the West Coast Book Prize Society in a news release. The nominees will collectively receive $ 14,000 in cash prizes, and the winners will be announced on April 21. Some of the...read more...

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper MOVIES

Vancouver Schools Celebrate Freedom to Read

2011-03-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

Despite incendiary allegations in an article published this week in The Vancouver Courier newspaper, let me state unequivocally at the outset of my commentary that there is no flagging, removing, or banning of books going on in Vancouver schools.

And I am very proud of that fact.

I and others at the VSB Ed Centre Learning Services division work collaboratively with teacher-librarians and teachers to ensure we support and create a dynamic, responsive reading culture where students have a wide range of choice to read quality print and online resources for information and interest, with attention to their different cultural and social backgrounds, their abilities and skills.

That said, the first lesson in media literacy is that you don't need to believe everything you read, that it is important to critically examine the foundations upon which any argument is made. The use of incendiary tone and masterful literary allusion cannot be allowed to mask shoddy groundwork that amounts to an unpleasant blast "signifying nothing," built as it is on the fabricated account of banning and removal, very poor research, and obfuscated, questionable intent.

Teacher perspective: he should have done his homework. Oh, and some of these alleged bureaucrats are members of our local teachers' unions.

Here is my response, sent to The Courier yesterday for their consideration for publication, not as a letter but as an opinion piece to offset the dismal piece by their writer. I love blogging -- it's my decision to publish!

Freedom to Read Week:
VSB Celebrates Reading – not Banning – Books

Ironically, exactly as Mark Hasiuk was working himself up into a lather over the deplorable conditions in Vancouver schools where strict compliance with the forcible removal and banning of classical literature and other worthwhile books is overseen by The Group of 6 Bureaucrats (Vancouver school bureaucrats target children’s literature: ‘Diversity’ guidelines threaten classics, The Vancouver Courier, Feb 28), Canadians celebrated Freedom to Read Week (Feb 20-26).

In the US, Americans concerned with freedom to read promote awareness of the issues during Banned Books Week in the Fall, but Canadians celebrate the freedom to read, no less in Vancouver schools than elsewhere, as we head into the light of Spring. The theme of this year’s Freedom to Read Week event, sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts and the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council, is Yes/Oui. The Councils’ views are grounded in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects the rights of Canadians to the fundamental freedoms of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including the freedom to read as part of that precious heritage. For more information, check out the website (http://www.freedomtoread.ca/) or find them on Facebook or Twitter.

I am sorry Mr Hasiuk didn’t get back to me as he had indicated he would by email last week when he inquired about a list of “flagged or removed” books to support the thesis of his article. Had he called, I would have enjoyed telling him it was Freedom to Read Week, and it would have taken me mere seconds to check our web-based catalogue and reassure him that over 100 copies of the original Charles Dickens version of Oliver Twist have resolutely remained propped on shelves in 109 Vancouver elementary and secondary school libraries, with countless additional versions of graphic, easy, abridged, re-told, adapted and other iterations of this wonderful story as well, such that there is little excuse for any child not to have access to the joy of an age-appropriate or ability-considerate Dickensian tale told here in Vancouver. It would take a little longer to get information on how frequently students take this particular title out.

Another quick check of our district’s online school library catalogue would have allayed Mr Hasiuk’s fears about works by Twain, Alger, Carroll, Lewis, and Dahl. I would have enjoyed telling him about our district’s reading culture where 1.7 million items circulated amongst our 60 000 students and staff in the ten months, September to June, making us the 10th largest circulating library system in the province. Empty bookshelves are a goal, not a dilemma, here in Vancouver school libraries! It means our students are reading lots.

As the teacher-librarian who works with those Mr Hasiuk terms our district “bureaucrats” and with the district’s teacher consultants, I was surprised to see the American checklist, copyright 1998, which, in no particular order, lists criteria for selection. The checklist was provided simply as an example of how criteria are used for selection of materials, and yes, how criteria may be used for de-selection (or weeding). I can assure you there are more recent guidelines for selection of resources for BC classrooms and school libraries, including Evaluating, Selecting, and Acquiring Resources (formerly a BC Ministry of Education document, revised 2008, for Educational Resource Acquisition Consortium / ERAC - search VSB Webcat for pdf version) which asks reviewers to consider 13 different social aspects of the work to “identify potentially ... offensive elements in content or presentation and to highlight [the ways] resources support pro-social attitudes and promote diversity and human rights.” Again, this is available online through the Vancouver web-based catalogue which I could easily have shared, had Mr Hasiuk called to continue his research as he had indicated he would.

Mr Hasiuk needs to understand that books are selected in Vancouver for their quality, their appeal to particular groups of readers, and their match with curriculum and inquiry needs. Qualified teacher-librarians are resource experts in their schools; they learn how to select and de-select materials according to accepted criteria. While they appreciate materials recommended by district experts, including members of the Social Responsibility team, as teachers, they have the rights and the responsibility to give thorough consideration of all materials provided to students; while the Ministry provides lists of prescribed resources for use in subject areas, other lists of resources are recommended, not mandated, for use in classrooms or school libraries. Whatever the reviewing process, the final decision to acquire and use the suggested resources rests on the educator’s autonomous assessment of its suitability for a particular educational purpose, including reading enjoyment. One important criterion in the search for depth in our school library collections is the principle that it is important to strive to provide every child with opportunities to read and learn about others like him/herself.

Finally, commitment to freedom to read and access to information is real here in Vancouver; no books are removed from shelves and no orders are issued to have them removed unless the materials contravene the district policies posted online, including, for example, VSB Policy IIAD on Hate Literature. Should members of the public or other staff find materials offensive, they may pursue a rigorous Challenge process which is articulated in VSB Policy KLB on Public Complaints.

It is a great source of pride to me that I have lived, parented, taught, and worked in a city and a school district that are both diverse and so accepting of the range of differences that reflect the Canadian – the human – experience. Fear not for the reading well-being of Vancouver’s children. The agenda here is simply to ensure that very good books are in very good hands.

Moira Ekdahl
Teacher-librarian and TL Mentor, Vancouver School Board

YSL6: Advocacy, Evidence and Image

2011-03-02T07:15:00.000-08:00

School libraries are not a luxury item -- they are essential to learning.

YSL6: James Henri and Sandra Lee are bringing us yet another timely, provocative, and important opportunity to learn in a dynamic, interactive, asynchronous, global online context how to work for advancement of school libraries.

Sign up now for Your School Library's sixth online professional development conference, March 4 - 18, to work with such BIG names in the field as Gary Hartzell, Stephen Krashen, Buffy Hamilton, and Keith Curry Lance and more, always including our own BC BIG names, to develop strategies to help administrators, colleagues, parents, and others understand the value of the school library for student learning.

Click here for more information about YSL and the conference and for registration; be sure to take advantage of the district or BCTLA promotional discount.

Working/Learning Conditions

2011-03-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

BCTLA's Bookmark - 29th Annual Working and Learning Conditions Report

BCTF Press Release, March 1, 2011:

Chronic underfunding is creating severe inequities in school libraries, report finds

A decade of underfunding has compelled teacher-librarians and parents across BC to become fundraisers for their children’s school libraries, together raising more than $1.2 million to purchase books and electronic learning resources in 2009–10.

That’s only one of the worrisome facts reported in the BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association 29th annual survey of working and learning conditions in public school libraries.

While most schools raised up to $3,000 last year for library resources alone, 24 schools raised between $5,000 and $10,000, and one school was able to raise an astonishing $50,000. These figures point to the growing inequities between public schools in low-income neighbourhoods and those in affluent areas.

“Equity of opportunity to learn is fundamental to a democratic public education system, so this report serves to ring the alarm bells that one of our key principles is threatened by the chronic underfunding of schools and their library services,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert. “Here is concrete evidence of the importance of teachers being able to negotiate teaching and learning conditions with the employer. These issues will be of vital importance as we go to the bargaining table this spring.”

Heather Daly, president of the BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association, noted that as a group, teacher-librarians have been the hardest hit since the cuts began in 2001. “We have lost 25% of all teacher-librarian positions across BC,” she said. “Despite tremendous challenges, our members are continuing to serve students well, running creative programs, hosting reading clubs, and providing crucial expertise for children growing up in an information society.”

Both Lambert and Daly called on premier-designate Christy Clark to read the report and listen to the voices of teacher-librarians, whose services are so important to students’ success at school and in their future careers. Here is a sampling of the comments contained in the report:

“We have no money for books. Zero. We have a [Parent Advisory Council] that is already stretched to its limits trying to replace our unsafe playground.” “I feel so lucky that this school has wealthy clientele, and parents who can and do assist with book fairs, as well as total teacher support.” “Libraries feed democracy and give students a safe place to figure out who they are and who they will be. Libraries have always been for me a place of solace and I fear that we are losing ourselves as we continue to cut funds and staffing to libraries in the province.”

Guest Blogger: Anthony Horowitz

2011-03-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Anthony Horowitz

Dear Mr Horowitz: In the UK, your fellow authors Pullman and Rosen are lobbying for the reclamation of school libraries in British schools. Perhaps, just perhaps, the deplorable reading skills and lack of reading interest of the young people in the UK today noted in your blog post are directly related to the absence of or under-investment in school libraries and teacher-librarians. Our students love your books, by the way!

Yours truly,
Moira

Serendipitous Event - Guest Author Akemi Eddy

2011-02-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Serendipity 2011

GRAPHIC NOVEL EXTRAVAGANZA

With Matt Holm, Raina Telgemeier, Gene Yang, Aaron Renier, Jason Shiga and Valerie Wyatt

Saturday, February 26, 2011, at UBC

Report from guest author Akemi Eddy begins, Wow! What a fabulous event!

The program began in the wee hours of the morning with a continental breakfast, book buying and author autographing. After settling into our seats, we were welcomed by the witty chairperson of the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable, Shannon Ozirny who appeared throughout the day in captioned frames in the comic tradition.

Matt Holm (illustrator of Baby Mouse) presented first, engaging the audience with photos and stories of his childhood which included sister Jennifer Holm (author of Baby Mouse). His presentation culminated with an audience member helping Matt create a sketch of “Pirate Mouse.” Be sure to keep an eye out for Jennifer and Matt’s new series, Squish.

Raina Telgemeier was up next with some not-so-fond childhood memories of dental mishaps and corrections upon which her graphic novel Smile is loosely based. Raina demonstrated her artistic talent by showing us how she captures feelings in her illustrations.

Finishing off the morning was Gene Yang, author/illustrator of American Born Chinese. After introducing himself as Computer teacher by day, graphic novelist by night, Jason entertained us with his frank, honest, hilarious demeanor. He concluded his presentation by demonstrating how he has successfully used the comic format to teach Math concepts to his secondary students.

Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga hosted a limited seating, lunchtime, hands-on workshop.

Valerie Wyatt, 2010 Information Book Award winner for How to Build Your Own Country, concluded the presentations with a Canadian perspective on authoring and publishing.

The day ended with a casual, fun-filled panel of the authors/illustrators mediated by Katherine Shoemaker.

If you missed the Graphic Novel Extravaganza, next year’s theme for Serendipity is Asian Books for Children on Saturday, February 25, 2012. Paul Yee is a confirmed speaker at this event.

Also, the annual Illustrators’ Breakfast will be on Saturday, October 15, 2011, at the Mueum of Anthropology in conjunction with the opening of the temporary exhibit Hiroshima.

Thank you to Moira for the opportunity to attend … it was serendipitous!

And this News Flash, just in from the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable: Oscar Win!
Saturday's Serendipity 2011 on the Graphic Novel was an eye-opening event, especially for those who dont follow graphic novels. It was a fine introduction to the art involved in creating these books. The graphic artists/cartoonists worked their magic before our very eyes (one participant went away with her own Matt Holm drawn-to-order illustration) and the presenters shared the various routes they took as writer/artists on their way to creating their books. We learned about mini-comics in the world of the graphic artists. The closing panel offered interesting interplay among the artists. As the saying goes, you had to be there.
And, we were also treated to Shannon Ozirny in rare form as MC for the program, wittily turned out in black and white, providing a frame or two and a speech balloon or two.

Here's a fitting, and serendipitous link for us, following the Graphic Novel Event: an item from a comic book site, noting Sean Tan's Oscar award. Yes!

(There are a few interesting links within the article, too, if you click on the accompanying URL. In addition, the Comic Book Resources site has news, reviews, videos and blogs, etc. for those of you pursuing graphic novels, etc.).
Sean Tan wins the Oscar for Lost Thing
Australian creator Shaun Tan's wordless graphic novels have brought him considerable acclaim, including the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist, and the French edition of his graphic novel The Arrival won the Angoulme International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic Book.

Now he has another award to add to his growing collection: The Lost Thing, co-directed by Tan and based on his book of the same name, won this year's Oscar for Best Short Film (Animated).
In an interview before the awards ceremony, Tan told School Library Journal's Chelsey Philpot that Australian producer Sophie Bryne approached him after The Lost Thing won an award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and proposed making it into a short film. After a bit of persuasion, Tan agreed, and he started what would become a nine-year process: The film was begun in 2001 and finally finished in 2010.

And he's already thinking ahead to the next film: Tan told SLJ that while he was in LA for the Oscar ceremony, he would be meeting with some people about making a feature-length film of another of his books, The Arrival.
AND FROM THE HERALD SUN (MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA)

This link is to a more conventional source the Australian newspaper in Sean Tan's home city, Melbourne ... a little story with a photo of Sean Tan holding his Oscar. Roundtablers who enjoyed Sean Tan at a VCLR Illustrators' Breakfast a couple of years ago will enjoy seeing his face once again.
SEAN TAN WINS THE OSCAR FOR BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

Liaising on Steampunk, Black-clad Librarians, and More

2011-02-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

Ever at work for the betterment of school libraries and for a deeper understanding of the scope and nature of our work, I ventured out this weekend to the BCTF New Teachers' Conference in Richmond in my Liaison Chair role for the BCTLA. And in addition to liaising, I do try to stay on top of the discourse, particularly active at the moment, on the BCTLA Forum.

In conversation with Ilona from the Writers' Festival on Saturday morning, I learned of a genre of fiction called Steampunk -- turns out it's not new. You gotta love Wikipedia for its ready answers, not only compact and definitive but also more deeply interpretive than anything you are likely to find elsewhere online. So would Edward Scissorhands and The Polar Express be steampunk film? Can you offer any examples of YA or Children's Lit in the genre?
The deep and prolonged professional conversations about copyright, viewing rights, e-books, and more are taking over the BCTLA Forum. Have you joined yet, by the way? Membership is going up, a good thing in the very year we are going to need to keep in touch. For sure, you will want to get online and plunge into the Forum. Non-district email required.

If you are pondering the drive for e-books and e-readers, check out this great blog from California public librarian Sarah Houghton-Jan, named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker as a Trendspotter in 2009, and her "properly opinionated" trend-capture Librarianinblack.net (LiB) blog, introduced for my consideration by TL Lisa to the BCTLA Forum discussion. In particular, the discussion focussed on her alarm-sounding post about Overdrive and Harper-Collins and her outraged call for the eBook Revolution. (Can't help but relate to the call for revolution and her level of ire -- given most recent political developments here at home! But that's another blogpost, right?)

It's in perusing Houghton-Jan's blog that I encounter, for the second time in two days, the weird term steampunk. Houghton-Jan, the LiB, offers a YA-based steampunk "description of a library from a user’s perspective, an excerpt from the most excellent steampunk teen novel Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld. This book is the second in the series that started with Leviathan. (Westerfeld’s website is really quite nicely designed incidentally, and properly steampunky of course)." See "What Steampunk Has to Teach Us About User Experience." (Jan 24, 2011)

[Click here for a review of and trailer for Westerfeld's Behemoth and Leviathan: DBRL Teen site.]
Houghton-Jan asks librarian-readers to read the Westerfeld excerpt and think about how users of your (school) library may interpret the policies and procedures, environment, services, workflow, and the resources, including access to both print and digital, as barriers, how libraries have intimidation factors that we ignore at our own peril. She believes that changes can be made immediately and the only way to go is "one step at a time." What step will you take this week?

Librarians as Learning Specialists

2011-02-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

If you want to hone your "21st Century" understandings about schools and begin to transform the teaching and learning capacity of your school library into a Learning Commons, you must go immediately to Amazon and order Librarians as Learning Specialists: Meeting the Learning Imperative for the 21st Century (A. Zmuda & V.H. Harada, Libraries Unlimited, 2008). Regularly $40 USD, you will see that there is a discounted price and also a less expensive Kindle version. Maybe now is the time to treat yourself to an e-reader device to enter the e-reading environment as well. (Think of this as a direction for library improvement and use your own or school-based Pro D funds or your library's "slush" account; you can share the device and this book with your administrator and others as a collaborative Pro D tool and experience.)

THIS BOOK IS NOT JUST FOR TEACHER-LIBRARIANS

-- IT IS ALSO FOR ADMINISTRATORS!

In realizing that Vancouver has no clear blueprint for schools and teacher-librarians to design and construct Learning Commons for new and existing schools here in 21st-century Vancouver, I am in the process of gathering the building blocks, plans, evidence of the value, and any "blue sky" thinking to add compelling depth and colour to the design and to compile the definitive website.

It is in this on-going context that I have begun to read Zmuda and Harada, supported with a Foreword from Wiggins. I have finished Chapter 1 and want to share the following snippets with you:

I am a big believer in the importance of libraries with windows. Writes Wiggins in his Foreword,

The [school library resource centre, or LRC] is more than just a space or resource .... It is a window into how well the entire staff understands learning and honors best practice. If the staff understands how people learn, then the [LRC] is a hub of core activity. If the school is committed to long-term mission-related goals, teachers and learning specialists constantly work together. (xi)

Zmuda and Harada make the powerful case that the advent of 21st century learning is also the time for learning specialists to move from the margins to the centre of learning, to leadership roles that move schools forward. They believe that "what happens in the library is at the heart of the work of the school because it brings the world to the local community, inspires the curiosity and imagination of students, and brings people together to explore and communicate ideas." (xiii)

The words of Dr Ross Todd invite TLs, administrators, and teachers to re-vision the role of the school library in the educational community and in the learning opportunities we all create to engage our students in learning:

The hallmark of a school library in the 21st century is not its collections, its system, its technology, its staffing, its buildings, but its actions and evidences that show that it makes a real difference to student learning, that it contributes in tangible and significant ways to the development of meaning making and constructing knowledge. (xii)

I have finished Chapter 1 on creating whole-school commitment to a common purpose and to instructional adjustment to achieve the common goal. I have reviewed Todd's 10 Learning Principles for School Libraries(2007), "Working for Knowledge Construction: Transformational Leadership" and have reconsidered the underpinning views of such leading educators as John Dewey, Michael Fullan, and Mel Levine. I am firmly hooked on this book.

But just imagine my surprise when I looked at sample school library mission statements from Canada, the US, and Australia. The only example from Canada reads, "Gladstone School Library Resource Centre is dedicated to creating a safe atmosphere that fosters self-esteem, creativity, and enthusiasm for reading and lifelong learning." Whoo-hoo! I remember the call to give permission for its use but I hadn't thought about this since.

This Gladstone statement, by the way, derived from the exercise of creating the school's Mission Statement that the principal had undertaken with the staff. A search of the school's website shows a nuts-and-bolts approach has overtaken its messages now. I remember how galvanizing it was for us to all be on the same page in relation to our students, kind of like the thesis statement in an essay that keeps your writing on track. As I read the next three chapters on the role of the TL, instructional design, and robust assessment, I am sure you can understand that I have wholly connected on a quite personal level as well as a professional one and will read for deep understanding, with the key idea that a mission-based approach that works requires a school's staff, including its TL, to:

... know how students learn and how different students learn differently, how children acquire language and how to support language development, how to organize a curriculum that builds on students' prior knowledge and experiences, how to assess what students know and how they are learning, how to diagnose and meet the needs of struggling students, how to use a range of teaching strategies, how to motivate students and how to work collaboratively with parents and peers to reinforce learning at home and school.

Freedom to Read Week / Yes Oui

2011-02-24T23:36:00.000-08:00

Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day. Free speech on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read. Thank goodness we read in Vancouver and not in places where this right is taken away. Yay!!! This is ...

FREEDOM TO READ WEEK

And in other news, from Field Agent Mark at Cunningham, a great source of relevant and thought-provoking readings for you to share: Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google by Mark Moran (Forbes.com 3/22/10). Do share this as, you see, my sharing it with you is preaching to the converted. We get it. My blog is not solely for TLs. The District's Digital Library is not solely the property of the school library. The work we TLs do supports every teacher and child in the school -- the books, databases, media collection, digital tools and resources, as well as our expertise -- all are for supporting teaching and learning in classrooms and at home. We do not own the books and online resources -- they are not library resources but learning resources.

Why do I need to say this, you ask? Stay tuned.

Wikipedia: The world according to men (The Vancouver Sun, 22 Feb 2011, Page A15)

2011-02-22T06:24:00.001-08:00

Yes, Katherine! I too asked the gender question in December blog post, "21st Century Learning Hype Cycle and Gender." You go, girl! It's not that I mind so much as that I worry; critical questions we teacher-librarians and other educators and social/media analysts might expect informed readers to ask, questions about whose perspectives these entries (or any online information source) are, whose capacity to access and shape the media these represent, and whose interests these serve or fail to serve are lost in the frenzy of the unrelenting search for quick and "satisficing" or good-enough answers. Read on ...

Wikipedia: The world according to men
BY KATHERINE GOVIER Katherine Govier’s latest novel, The Ghost Brush, HarperCollins. ca, tells the story of Oei, daughter of the great Japanese printmaker Hokusai and a great artist in her own right.
The Vancouver Sun
22 Feb 2011
We were treated to the news last week, via the New York Times, that Wikipedia, increasingly the go-to reference for historical and contemporary general knowledge, has a dark secret. It is chiefly written by 25-year-old males. Help us and save us. It’s...read more...

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper ISSUES & IDEAS

On Google vs Textbooks, iPad vs Kindle, and More

2011-02-22T06:20:00.000-08:00

From Campus Technology, a site that just might have light to shed on the path ahead for K-12, as it should. Try these articles:

Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook?
By Dian Schaffhauser 02/16/11
Read about the Digital Bookshelf Project to provide alternative "texts" for first year Psychology students at UOhio.

Blackboard Launches Free Web-Based Course Platform
By Dian Schaffhauser 02/10/11

Evaluating the iPad for Education
By Bridget McCrae 02/02/11
McCrae offers comparative review of e-reading functionality as well as classroom and other learning considerations, all boding well for the multipurpose tablet as a tool with shelf life.

Egypt: The Terror of Free Information, The Promise for Higher Education
By Trent Batson 02/16/11

Writes Batson, "Choosing the autocratic/control face of ICT and not the freedom/democratizing face may not serve us very well at all."

District Technology Day: Questions of Access

2011-02-20T17:53:00.000-08:00

The annual District Technology Day began with a plenary of District and student "experts" on teaching and learning supported by technology and was enhanced by a fantastic brunch and many different workshops on blogging, wikis, social media, Wolfram Alpha, video use, digital storytelling, Prezi, and more.

Epic Wins and Reading ... Teen Features in a Digital World

Stealing the opening plenary show were Digital Immersion students Ben and Laks. Ben, a self-admitted internet addict, was a confident speaker who both charmed and worried an auditorium full of teachers; up to 15 hours a day on the internet "absorbing" its truths, he told us confidentially, assuaged his thirst for knowledge; while emerging from a learning experience deep in the net often gave him the feeling of "the epic win," Ben conceded that the social aspects of schooling were important.

Hmm! I wondered about Googling for The Truth. I couldn't help comparing this young man's deep fascination with the "epic win" with Csíkszentmihályi's notion of "the flow," the state that takes over during the search for and production of knowledge or creative expression, a journey that takes the seeker into "the zone" or "the groove."   He was ready for inquiry-based learning.

But it was young Laks who shared her view of the important aspects of digital schooling, whose love of books and reading was clearly paramount -- "We should visit libraries more often," she said -- after all, she told us, you can't do anything if you can't read! I think I know which two Vancouver TLs can take credit for stoking some of her enthusiasm. Here's one young woman already launched into Inquiry in both the reading and learning contexts.

Mmmm-hmmm! The mouths of babes were a compelling first dimension to the morning plenary.

Access: Not Such a Simple Concept

Dr Jordan Tinney spoke about the significance of access in educational contexts being transformed by technology, making the second dimensional connection to what Michele and I were going to talk about; we were going to be "on" today, on the same page, the button, the mark!

Access -- not such a simple concept, in fact.  I was prepared with the slides and Michele with the activity to share the complexities of access with the group of more than 40 who attended our workshop. Access begins simply enough as the notion of providing tools and resources to find and work with information in an age where that is expanding exponentially. The Information Age is characterized by

rapidly changing tools,
increasing numbers of resources created by the digitization of text, image, and artefact,
more demands for users to be critical, creative, communicative, and collaborative consumers of the information,
evidence of the needs for skills for lifelong learning where citizens are able to apply what they learn to do in the workplace, post-secondary institutions, and life.

Access becomes a far more complex and essential consideration as more technology is delivered into our system. Resources are no longer simply the textbook; they come in multiple formats, print, digital, and human/expert. Tools, no longer simply the pen or word-processing packages, are complex, having multiple iterations, purposes, and applications. Students and their teachers are learners who need support -- in classrooms and in professional development -- for both physical and intellectual access to these; they need support and time to learn to transform information into knowledge, to share and store (or curate, as Stephen Lamb, quoting Maryann Kempthorne, told us) the resources that increasingly they will create as well as consume. Teachers need support in effectively integrating technology with teaching and learning.

In classrooms that strive to move beyond the textbook, in school libraries, in the hours during and beyond the school day, educators will be seeking to have access even as they work to redress the imbalances that enable some students to have more access than others. The resources, tools, and information found "in the communities" of functionality -- educational, local, global -- are at once universal, national, social, and personal; they need to be equitably distributed, current, accurate, age-appropriate; they need to reflect the wide range of interests, skills, and abilities of our students. There needs to be freedom to make personal and pedagogical choices amongst resources and tools, to read and learn widely and deeply, to participate in a culture of reading both for pleasure and for information.

Finally, to optimize the value of tools and resources, the system needs to be able to provide flexible access:

to a school library as the "hub" of learning, re-designed as the Learning Commons in schools,
to the expertise and services of teacher-librarians as learning specialists whose work is to support access in this broadest sense,
to production facilities that enable new possibilities for products and learning,
to technology in differentiated instructional and learning configurations,
to tools, including software and adaptive hardware for special needs students,
to real and virtual resources and services, 24/7.

These were important links to the workshop Michele and I would be doing on the Inquiry-based approach to reading and learning, the Points of Inquiry model which supports teaching and learning for deep understanding and which is enabled by access to the services of TLs as learning specialists as well as to technology tools and all kinds of resources.

But, while the District Technology Day plenary had provided some lovely connections for our workshop around access, the need to be perfectly ready and to begin seamlessly can so easily be disjarred WHEN YOU CAN'T GET ACCESS TO THE WIRELESS INTERNET! I had spent two hours the day before getting set up. I have never developed a smooth recovery from the initial disappointment and stress of the bad start you get when things don't work as they should! Thanks, Michele, for your unflappable enthusiasm and capacity for flexible delivery.

Off my game, I failed to utter a single tweet! For those of you interested in the site-based Twitter discourse, check it out: #39edtech. I have tweeted THANKS ("sent a tweet-out") today to the many TLs who attended Tech Day and who gave workshops: Michele, Frances, Denise, Fred, and Aaron were presenting. Thanks also to tech-keen others, like Sylvia, who presented at or attended the Livingstone SmartBoard Academy. And thanks, Patsy and Audrey at the helm as key organizers of the event which was all very good.

Here's the link to the TL Special Wiki and our Presentation, with the sources and tools:

C21L & Inquiry-based Learning: Start with the Teaching & Learning

Lines blur between adult and teen novels (The Vancouver Sun, 19 Feb 2011, Page D6)

2011-02-19T13:58:00.001-08:00

An article in today's Vancouver Sun features Vancouver children's and YA author Melanie Jackson, friend to school libraries and reading and a co-worker at the school district's Ed Centre; here is an excerpt:

[Melanie's book] Fast Slide was named a Best of 2010 book by Resource Links magazine.

In her other recent book No Way Out, the main character, 15-year-old Sam Jellicoe, is sent against his wishes to live with his mother and new stepfather in Winnipeg. He’s in a department store when a gunman takes hostages, locks the doors and shuts off all the power.

“ He has to figure a way out and stay safe,” Jackson said. “ He’s on his own and no one can help him.

Way to go, Melanie! Melanie is available for local author readings. See recent flyer.

Lines blur between adult and teen novels
TRACY SHERLOCK
The Vancouver Sun
19 Feb 2011
Books such as Harry Potter, The Book Thief or The Hunger Games have crossed the traditional lines between teen and adult fiction, something some literary types say is a bit of a trend. Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing at Raincoast Books,...read more...

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper WEEKEND REVIEW BOOKS

Time for Some Professional Reading ...

2011-02-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

Did you read Charlie Naylor's 21st Century Learning: Widening the frame of focus and debate: A BCTF research discussion paper yet? We are thrilled to have the BCTLA Points of Inquiry document both cited and quoted. And if you are really attentive to details in reading Charlie’s paper, you will recognize the work that Sylvia has been involved in at Livingstone and the citation that includes her name.

In particular, Charlie heralds the ways in which education K-12 is being transformed by technology but cautions us to attend to the ways in which the messages about 21st Century Learning are being shaped. They are steeped in some old understandings, such as de-schooling, and do not attend to such 21st C educational priorities such as social justice and sustainability or give credit to the many places that change is already under way in our schools.

________________________

Here are two documents that are must-reads -- certainly the latter is a must-scan -- as your school plans for technology and 21st Century learning:

From Ed Leadership this month, an issue entitled "Teaching Screenagers": A technology plan that works. Guess what, you have to start with the teaching and learning ... then you select the the toys and tools that work best to achieve best practice. Any plan that is founded on a brand name or a product is doomed to fail.

The EL article above alludes to the North Carolina IMPACT media and technology integration approach which is fantastic. It's a huge read at 347 pages but my quick review was that it would be worth spending some time on its important ideas. In his Introduction to the document, Chairman of the NC State Board of Education Howard N. Lee writes:

We know that school library media and instructional technology programs are the foundation of a 21st Century education. The access to information that these programs afford makes the difference between the textbook-bound classroom of the past and the far-reaching, resource-based curriculum of today and tomorrow. Research tells us that instructional technology, used appropriately, results in higher test scores. It is remarkably effective in sparking student interest, increasing motivation, and raising self-esteem, thus positively impacting student achievement. Research also tells us that a school library media center that provides up-to-date, accurate, and attractive resources managed by a professional school library media coordinator who collaborates with teachers to augment and enhance classroom instruction also results in increased test scores, especially in reading. IMPACT reflects both the reality of this research and the commitment to assuring that every teacher and student has the academic and personal advantage of access to these high quality programs.

_________________________

Feeling a need for some research on reading, literacy, and second language learning? Thanks, Drs Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson, for the wonderfully deep Eduscapes site and these links on The School Library Media Specialist site to the significant work of Stephen Krashen.

________________________

The 2011 Horizon Report produced annually by the New Media Consortium (That's Larry Johnson again) and Educause has just been released. Here is one of many discussions of what are the 6 Top Trends in Technology identified in the Report.

... Some Technology Research ...

Useful tools and resources to review and share:

I am liking this Comox Valley English teacher Tara Colborne's blog for her Grade 11s. Share this with colleagues. And I couldn't agree more about the usefulness of blogging as a tool for reading and writing. Here's an article from Ed Week: Tech Tools Boost Literacy.
WebList (create a list of URLs, images, documents, videos at a single web address to share with friends, students, colleagues) which I think has tons of instructional value. Register to keep your discrete lists available. Here's a great example: Copyright-friendly Images

The E-Book Directory for fine literature from around the world: see the right-hand sidebar for links to YA and Children's Lit.

Online Maps - a definitive list of map sources available online, from the Library at Carleton University, including this one that is the subject of much tweeting this weekend: Show/MappingWorlds. You select a subject from the top menu and watch the countries on the map change their size. Instead of land mass, the size of each country will represent the data for that subject --both its share of the total and absolute value.

... and Some Professional Development

Here's hoping we will see you at:

District Technology Day Supporting Learning Through Technology on Friday, February 18. It's at JO (8:30 to 1:30, $15) and will feature several workshops with and for TLs, including Denise doing Prezi, Aaron doing Social Media, Frances doing Blogging with Jacob (secondary science and literacy mentor) and Pawan (primary teacher and former literacy mentor), and Michele and I on Points of Inquiry as the impetus for building the school-wide plan for technology integration with teaching and learning. Yep, that's right: Michele is BACK! Looking forward to seeing you there.

REGISTER NOW: Supporting Learning Through Technology

Winter Tonic: All Wrapped Up ... February 22 at Van Tech. Keynote Dr Eric Myers from SLAIS at UBC will discuss Social Networking. Cheriee is presenting Book Trailers; Pat, Human Libraries; as usual, expect Adult Reads, and more. There will be a Q & A panel for new TLs. If you can`t find the registration form, contact Mark at Cunningham. Send $40 to Jan at False Creek (includes VTLA membership) - $20 for out-of-district registrants.

YSL6: School Library Advocacy: Evidence and Image / March 4 to 18 / Check for information here. The list of speakers includes BIG names, like Gary Hartzell, Keith Curry Lance, Stephen Krashen, and Buffy Hamilton.

Where Willinsky Meets Wesch:

2011-02-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Wondering where John Willinsky is now? Try Stanford Faculty of Education.

Tuck into a classic before you travel (The Province, 06 Feb 2011, Page D9)

2011-02-06T09:50:00.001-08:00

I hold a deep fascination for how literature builds historical and geographical understanding, as well as motivation not only to read more but also to travel. Guess I should be re-reading Michener's Hawaii and am perusing the copy of Lonely Planet's Hawaii lent from the Parungao household. Can't wait for Spring Break, can you?

Tuck into a classic before you travel

From The Province, 06 Feb 2011

By Vancouver-based writers Rick Cropp and Barbara Braidwood.

Pat Conroy’s newest book, My Reading Life, arrived yesterday. Conroy, a travel writer and limner of the modern coast and islands of Georgia and South Carolina is one of the rightful heirs of famed travel writer Margaret Mitchell. Her post War of...read more...

Tech Tags: The Province newspaper Travel Talk

Recipes for Taking a Break to Ponder School Libraries

2011-02-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

Teacher-librarians are not uni-dimensional beings. I have found them to be an extremely gracious community. I rarely attend meetings or go for visits that there isn't tea and goodies served for our discussions. Similarly, at our meetings of the School Library Resource Centre Consultative Committee, I have tried to uphold the gracious, although this is not always an area of giftednesss when working under the pressure of time. This week, at our SLRCCC meeting, I served home-made cookies to the surprise of my TL colleagues who were unaware of this aspect of my being.

Here are two absolutely foundational cookie recipes that I share as one who brought up two children in the belief that good cookies are what every child deserves when growing up:

Basic Oatmeal Cookies

Cream together: 1 c margarine (or butter), I c (or less) white sugar, 1 c (or less) brown sugar.

Beat in: 2 eggs, 2 t vanilla.

Add and mix well: 1 t vanilla, 1 t bkg powder, 1 t baking soda, ¼ t salt, 2 c flour, 2c oatmeal.

You can also add: 1 c choc or butterscotch chips OR raisins OR gum drops OR Smarties OR chopped dried apricots OR dried cranberries OR chopped nuts.

Drop on sheet. Bake 350° F 11-12 mins.

NOTES: My most recent adaptation has dried cranberries AND chopped pecans. Served recently to critical acclaim at SLRCCC meeting, January 31! Deemed delicious, with requests for recipe. I suggest you make the recipe exactly as given above and then experiment with sugar, additions, etc., thereafter.

I use a small ice cream scoop to make substantial cookies and bake them longer. Depending on how long you bake these, they can be soft-centred and chewy or crisp. I prefer the slightly chewy version. Everything freezes fantastically, including the dough. I sometimes double the recipe BUT it exceeds the capacity of my old mixmaster so be prepared to assemble everything in a very large bowl.

Molasses Ginger Snap Cookies

Cream together: ¾ c margarine, 1 C sugar, ¼ c molasses, 1 egg.

Add and mix well: 2 C flour, 1 t baking soda, ¼ t salt, 1 t each of cinnamon, cloves, ginger

Form into balls. Roll in sugar. Place wide apart on slightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake 375° F 8-10 mins, where 8 is chewy and 10 is crisp. These have not been reviewed by the SLRCCC committee members.

When offered to colleagues, board visitors, parent groups, student teachers, committee meetings when advancing the case for school libraries as the hubs of teaching and learning or for school-wide discussions about planning for technology integration with teaching and learning supported by the school library, you will surely make headway!

The Tyee – BC Librarians Rescue Teens!

2011-01-31T12:01:00.000-08:00

The Tyee – BC Librarians Rescue Teens!

Standing on Principles - Who Spoke Up for Libraries This Week?

2011-01-28T11:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Vancouver's leading digital administrator Gino Bondi, for your Learning the Now "Points of Inquiry" blog post this week which puts life and humour into the concept of school libraries as learning commons. He gets it! Yahoo. His tweeps have responded.

Thanks, BCTF President Susan Lambert, who, when speaking to the Representative Assembly on Friday, held up our Points of Inquiry graphic and document as one example of how BC educators are moving ahead with 21st Century learning. There was decidedly more clarity in Susan's speech than this photo would reveal.

Thanks, Charlie Naylor, for the superb discussion paper 21st century learning— Widening the frame of focus and debate: A BCTF Research discussion paper (see Executive Summary or complete document) in which he lauds the engaging and empowering capacity of technology in classrooms but also contextualizes 21st Century Learning in 50 years of educational thinking and cautions us to examine initiatives as much for what is there as for what is not there, including attention to 21st Century concerns with sustainability and social justice. Thanks for including the BCTLA's Points of Inquiry work.

And thanks to Anqelique Crowther in our Vancouver School District's Communications department for forwarding the article that prompts deeper considerations in this week's blog posting. Angelique is an avid daily reader of The Guardian, a strong supporter of libraries, and an invaluable district asset!

Here is the great article from Friday's The Guardian that links to both a contextualizing article ("Too precious to destroy") and to the full-text speech Leave the Libraries Alone (both from blog False Economy), passionately delivered by author Philip Pullman in defence of the 20 of 43 Oxfordshire public libraries at risk of being closed. From Oxford he scans other libraries, those of his childhood in Battersea and Wales as well as those such as Alexandria doomed by the ignorant of history. He deplores "the bidding culture" of today that pits one group against another for the ever-diminishing pool of funds. By extension, what Pullman says is true for every library -- be it public, academic, special, or school -- that new-think and forces of market fundamentalism have put at risk.

Herein lie the conditions that are calculatingly constructed to create such Faustian bargains as the one identified in last week's blog, where the Humanities were to be cut in favour of the Sciences at an American university. What Pullman says could equally as passionately be applied to the school libraries so gravely at risk here at home, when we consider the 25% cuts to TL staffing in the last 10 years here in BC (20% in Vancouver), surely cause for concern. In 2008, Pullman spoke in fierce defence of a school library at risk in the UK, calling the plan to remove the program, trained staff, and non-fiction collection "virtual philistinism." He has joined Britain's Children's Laureate Michael Rosen in a campaign to save school libraries.

Thanks to Debbie Pawluk for her quick thinking in capturing the photo above and also for the invitation to submit a few school library facts for our secondary teacher colleagues to consider, published in this week's VSTA Tackboard (see page 2):

Did you know ...

When measured against the circulation of other library systems in BC, VSB school libraries are the 10th largest circulating system in the province, circulating more than the Coquitlam and West Vancouver public libraries do in a year; 1.7 million items moved in and out of 109 school libraries in just 10 months last year.
When compared to UBC, Vancouver's 55 000 students, as well as educators and families, are supported by 79 FTE TLs, 6.5 FTEs VSB support, parent volunteers, and the work of students in CS and clubs. UBC's 50 000 students are serviced by 84 Librarians, 32 managers, 163 support staff, and 29 paid students. TLs are pretty good value for the service and instructional support they give here in schools, don't you think!
There are for the first time three secondary schools with one or more blocks "closed" for service due to reduced staffing. The BCTF is clear: no teacher can do the work of a TL when he or she isn't there.
Last year alone, the ranks of Vancouver TLs were reduced by 8%.
In some Districts where Literacy is a key district goal, school libraries programs and qualified staffing are non-existent. What does this mean for students and education in BC, relatively speaking, when those districts include Nisga'a and Haida Gwaii? Do we believe in principles of equity, including that all students in BC should have equitable access, both physical and intellectual, to books and other resources and the professional expertise needed to support reading based on choice, reading for information, research, and learning to learn about information and technology? If it isn't happening close to home or in your school library, is it good enough to reassure ourselves we're okay?
In some school districts, as TLs have disappeared, support staff have continued to run the library. In Comox, there are three times more support staff working in the school libraries as there are TLs; in Abbotsford, twice as many. In Richmond, pretty close to home, secondary school libraries are run by full-time assistants and three-eighths of a TL.

No other specialist teacher group has been so deeply decimated proportionally as TLs here in BC. Who will speak up for our programs and what they mean for teachers and students? And when? Already, in some districts, who can remember and speak for the quality instructional programs enabled by qualified TLs with sufficient resources, technology, and time, when they have been and are still being reduced to book exchange and then eradicated as unnecessary or irrelevant?

Who will seek out, protect, and steward quality Canadian and local resources in the face of the globalizing agenda, and what does it mean when there is no one left to interrupt and interrogate the market forces and "philistinism" as these are increasingly dictating resource and collection un/development to ensure young British Columbians and young Canadians are given opportunities to learn about their unique place in the world? And, when we TLs are gone because no one spoke up, who will speak up for other specialist teacher groups whose support also ensures our students are taught within the world-class education system the public has come to expect? Reminds me of a poem!

Now would be a really really good time for authors, parents, teacher-colleagues, administrators, and educational leaders in districts and union offices to start speaking up on our behalf. It's time to stand up and be counted on to say, No More! No more Faustian bargains -- TLs have never been needed more than now!

Getting With the Program @JO

2011-01-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

Edu-blogger/Administrator Gino Bondi from John Oliver Secondary here in Vancouver is blogging the vision for a Learning Commons this week. How nice is that! Check out his "Points of Inquiry" post ... Learning the Now, January 26, 2011. If you are checking for Tweeps to follow, Gino is: @gmbondi.

Who else but Bondi could post a blog about Ekdahl, Machiavelli, McCarthy's darkness, life on the edge, tweeting and the Learning Commons and make the connections work! Nice work, Mr Bondi. Love that engaged enthusiasm for the work we do and can do in school libraries.

Great Start to 2011 ...

2011-01-19T20:34:00.000-08:00

The Points of Inquiry - Thanks, Kevin!

Winnipeg School Division's TL Consultant Kevin Mowat sent out the following review last week:

(Ekdahl, M., M. Farquharson, J. Robinson, L. Turner. 2010. The Points of Inquiry: A Framework for In-formation Literacy and the 21st Century Learner. Vancouver, BC: British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association.)

Good morning WSD Teacher Librarians

Framed in the publication of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2009), Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action, the works of Wiggins and McTighe, “Backward Design with the end in mind” (2005), and Barbara Stripling’s, “Using inquiry to explode myths about learning and libraries” (2004), the British Columbia Teacher Librarian’s Association (2007) has developed a framework for teaching information literacy in BC’s 21st Century educational context (p.3) - http://bctf.ca/bctla/ A scholarly work with implications for practice and well worth the read… .

Congratulations to our school library colleagues in British Columbia for this paramount document of school library pedagogy and student learning!

Thinking About 21st C Learning

2011-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

The amazing things we can know more about in our technology-enhanced teaching and learning environment via email, TED, tweets, and feeds compell the inquiring mind. Thanks to the gleaners whose deep inquiries and reflections have brought me to this body of work and this platform from which to expound my views on the value of a real and liberal education for young British Columbians:

TL Extraordinaire Mark Roberts sent me an article by George Petsko, noted American structural biologist, in defence of teaching and learning in the Arts and Humanities. Here is a blog post that links to everything you need to know about this amazing "mind" who surely must drink coffee ... follow the link to Petsko's letter to the President of UAlbany. The letter uses a humanistic lens to deliver a masterful, elegant, powerful, yet humourous cautionary statement about the eroded capacity of science and global politics when these are severed, as in the President's "Faustian bargain," from the Humanities. See also Petsko's 4-minute TED talk (2008) about the impact of the pending epidemic of neurologic disease on society.

Sir Ken Robinson's youtube response yesterday to a TwitterQ8 [#askSKR] about creativity in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines makes exactly the same point in K-12 terms ... it is a catastrophe that, during times of economic recession, the Arts suffer and the real purpose of education is defined by the economic imperative and described as a focus on Math and Science.

Snipped out of Linda Hof's Webbits for today is this article from The Guardian, "Get Creative in School With Digital Media" (Julie Nightingale, Jan 11, 2011): The highly valued skill of creativity is increasingly scarce among job applicants. But it needn't be if more schools promote creative media technology across the curriculum.

This week's Globe & Mail editorial comment by Jeffrey Simpson, "The good, the bad, and the ugly education facts," (Jan 12, 2011) discusses Canada's PISA results, notes the relative success, but identifies the declining results as a problem; Simpson offers the following commentary:

Canada spends more on health care than on all levels of education combined. And it’s education, not health care, that will light a path to a more productive future. As Canada ages, however, the public pressure to spend even more on health and less on education will intensify. The consequences of that shift for a more productive future are bad, and will get worse.

And for us in schools, consider carefully the directions we will pursue for 21st Century learning and ask the critical questions: when are economic arguments for cost-efficiencies, down-sizing, and a skilled workforce as the impetus for educational change enacted at the expense of our children's quality of life? How do we break down the silos that segment our work in secondary schools and take a stand that we are stronger when all parts work to shape the whole child who becomes the whole adult whose life and work must carry on where those like Petsko leave off?  How do we add value to the Arts and Humanities as they are essential to understandings in life as well as the sciences, such that any re-visioning of learning in our schools is framed only on such a broad and firm foundation? How do we argue, in this political and economic climate, for continued and sustained investment in education with the increased needs for investment in health care? After all, aren't our children entitled to the same full 13-year educational package which encouraged the aging baby-boomers, with educator support, to discover and explore a wide range of human learning experiences until graduation? Let's stand and be counted as opposed strongly to anything that proposes to strip young British Columbians of their full entitlement to the rich range of opportunities for learning in our real schools. See this as short-sightedness and as short-term savings, with the potential for long-term loss -- or in Robinson's terms, catastrophe.

Make sure you have a cup of coffee when you do this reading. (If you followed Petsko's TED talk, you will agree this is important.)  The binary terms that pit the education of the young against the health of the aging would suggest that a healthy school system would invest in simply keeping more senior teachers' caffeine levels up, training barristas, and perhaps including coffee as a retirement benefit and incentive, kind of like Starbucks does with its employees. Perhaps, now that there is no junk food allowed, we should be offering coffee to our students along with this healthy education as a preventitive offset to their later neurologic detrioration to enable us now to continue to invest in their education.

What's this got to do with libraries? It's amazing what we librarians come across in a day of research, don't you think? It`s important to make and build on connections. There need to be those whose critical questions keep them searching for the relationship between real and important goals and questionable means. People need time and space to read and reflect. Some libraries serve coffee and ponder barrista training.

On Creativity, Storytelling, and Sand ...

2011-01-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

In this amazing performance-art video, Ukrainian artist Kseniya Simonova uses sand, light, music, and drama to tell the story of Germany's occupation of the Ukraine during World War II:

Well worth 8 minutes and food for thinking about the possibilities within the powerful interplay of the art of digital storytelling, of passionate performance, and of meaningful integration of technology with teaching and learning.

Another Look at PISA + Interesting TED Talk

2011-01-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Another Look at PISA

Suspect this response by Dr Diane Ravitch, New York University, is true for BC as well ... it's not simply the erosion of investment in resources and specialist teachers but the persistent failure to remediate the negative effects of poverty for children that so dramatically impacts academic success.

Also, thanks Elly for bringing this this amazing TED talk by Indian educator Sugata Mitra to my attention. It's 17 minutes that will make you laugh AND think:

Mitra begins by noting that the best teachers don't go, and the best schools don't exist, where they are most needed. Further, any teacher who can be replaced by a machine should be! Based on the simple concept that children -- regardless of their socio-economic status -- learn what they want to learn, supported by Arthur C. Clarke's thinking that education happens when children have interest, Mitra puts a single computer into a collaborative "discovery" environment and leaves the children to their own devices ... with astounding results. Do take your prep to check this out for the New-Year inspiration you may be looking for. The Future of Learning for 1 billion children, predicts Mitra, will be dramatically reformed with 100 million mediators, like the grannies, 10 million self-organizing learning environments (SOLEs), 180 billion dollars, and 10 years. Bring on The Granny Cloud!

The Future of Reading

2011-01-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Good reading to get ready for 2011 in school libraries:

A series of recent LA Times articles explore new directions for reading, digital books, the publishing industry, and libraries: The future of Reading - latimes.com (Thanks for this link, Mark!)

Happy New Year!

Merry Digital Christmas

2010-12-25T13:38:00.001-08:00

Holiday Reading or Books to Buy as Gifts

2010-12-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

Open for business in the spirit of Christmas at False Creek Elementary

See the list of books recommended by Vancouver TLs on the Vancouver School Board website News feature for December.

Also, check out retired English teacher Gaby Chapman's excellent list on her website, Let Them Have Books.

Wondering about e-Readers? Great article "eReader Resources," by Heather Braun. VPL offers Overdrive audio- and e-books. And more colour devices are coming: E-Readers With Color Open Door for Pictures -- and picture books as well.

And then there was the Google e-books announcement last week; to read more about how "ebooks just got more game" from Robin Cichetti's CCHS Library Learning Commons blog, click here.

Great Websites for Kids

2010-12-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

ALA's / ALSC's Great Websites for Kids : Hundreds of links to outstanding website for children.

Eight Things Found on Twitter Today:

2010-12-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

Today, I have discovered and share with you some really cool things that flitted by on Twitter. You might just call this "parrotting" back: Check out Figment.com for promoting writing, the Tech Support package for parents, the blog that comments on the NYT article about teens, technology, and distraction, Inanimate Alice and other ways to engage kids with literature, what the US can learn from the Canadian education system, and what BC can learn from ON, one TL's secrets about getting kids to read, 21 things that will be obsolete in education in 2020, and a really interesting way of tapping into very current ideas.

Figment.com

Where Teens Come to Read and Write: Online Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

2010-12-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

Send Your Parents a Tech Support Care Package

How nice is this! Slip the one in for the next newsletter or news posting for your educational community. It's good for teachers, too, those who are contemplating the dive into teaching and learning with technology.

2010-12-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

Teens and Technology: The New York Times on Distractions (and Tools) for Learning Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

2010-12-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

PLAYBACK: Literature “Born Digital” Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

Inanimate Alice was written by Kate Pullinger, a writer and researcher in creative writing and new media at De Montfort University in the UK where she co-founded the Transliteracy Research Group. Writing on her website, Pullinger says of transliteracy that “as more people, from more fields, find the concept useful in their own work, the definition is growing and changing.”

Kate Pullinger is a BC born writer; her most recent novel is The Mistress of Nothing, reviewed in myShelfari (right-hand sidebar).

2010-12-14T08:31:00.000-08:00

'Super-librarian' figures out secret to getting kids to read - CSMonitor.com

2010-12-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the US

See pages 65 - 83 for a case study of reform in Ontario as a reflection of why Canadian systems are amongst the top (#6) of the OECD countries. It is an interesting comparison for us here in BC, especially as we consider educational reform and a new contract.

2010-12-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

Learning, Innovation & Tech: Bombs and Break-throughs:

21 Things that will become obsolete in education by 2020: list includes desks, computers, fear of Wikipedia, outsourced Pro D, and IT Departments!

2010-12-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Education Eye: Mapping Innovations

Falling behind on what's new in educational innovation? Today there are 180+ articles linked for your consideration at "the eye." A re-tweeter's goldmine.

The T/L Weekly Special Report

Helping Colleagues Shift to Inquiry

Shift Your Classroom: Small Strategic Steps

Article by Guest Blogger on Tom Van der Ark's Getting Smart

Teen Reading - That's Whazzup!

What Teens Are Really Reading: A librarian’s informal survey uncovers the hottest YA fiction

From School Library Journal: January 1, 2012 | Karen McCoy's Top 20 Lists

For the Love of Reading

Ontario's children drastically losing love of reading, study finds

More schools need teacher/librarians

Dear Governor: Lobby to Save a Love of Reading

@tlspecial, 1/9/12 9:45 PM help kids read

Two Gifts for Reading with Technology

JOyful Learning, JO Learning Commons

Reading Gift Suggestions From Blogs and VPL

Top 20 Children's Books of 2011

Delivery of eBooks: The Distribution Platform

Great Tools

Advent: Calendar of Fun Things for Xmas

Everything iPads

IASL 2011: If the Future is Now

Globe & Mail Does Educational Technologies in Canadian Classrooms

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and iPads and More

FLOCABULARY Free Trial

Visual *--* Revolution

Deep Googling With a Mac Bias

IdeaPaint

One Librarian Responds to eBooks Issues

Thoughts about iPads and School Libraries

Can you believe it's November already?

Great Comics and Graphic Novels Blog

E-Books for Children? Not Too Much Happening

8 Tech Trends for TLs and Ts

Thanks for CASL Awards

"Closing Libraries is Child Abuse"

So Who Thinks Books Are So Over?

Students Demand Change ...

See Change? Yes, Yes, Yes!

On Education Reform

CBC's Q & Globe and Mail: Why not to discard the librarians

Interrogating Teaching with Technology: Contexts & Concepts

LAUSD Doubts that Seasoned Teacher-Librarians Can Teach

Behind student success, an LAUSD librarian

Layoffs, Interrogations for TLs in CA

A Library is Many Things (2) - The Learning Commons

A Library is Many Things (1)

School-library cuts a miscommunication problem

The future of the (school) library

It's Not All About the Technology ...

G&M: The Librarians' fight for survival

Librarians fight for a role in a digital world

By KATE HAMMER, EDUCATION REPORTER— From Monday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, May 16, 2011 1:00AM EDT

On Saturdays I blog -- and tweet

Read this and weep!

More Chilling News Today

The Beguiling

A Chillin' Place: Why I Need My High School Library

TED Talk and Latest Possibilities for e-books

The Power of Words

What Turnitin.com Has to Say For Itself

The Future of Print

Intelligent Investing

From Forbes.com:

Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google

The ubiquity and ease of Google searches could make kids' minds go soft without the ability to critique or contextualize the answers.

Collection an incendiary read (The Vancouver Sun, 23 Apr 2011, Page C7)

Thank you!

Poor Mark Hasiuk - Wrong Again!

TED: David Christian's Big History

BCTLA Spring Conference

Top Ten Alternatives to Traditional Textbooks

PSSST! Over Here for the Truth ...

With Permission, District Librarian Suzanne Responds:

Things that go TWEET in the night!

Book banning column 'outrageous and unfounded'

Fair Comment on Khan and Gates? Yes, indeed.

Khan Academy: Improving school by changing nothing

Turning on the Power: Twitterverse and Blogosphere, Anyone There?

Self-promoting Bing tweet has Twitter world sputtering (The Province, 13 Mar 2011, Page A3)

Visual -- Revolution

Young Learners Need Librarians,
Not Just Google