Thank you!

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!

Time for Some Professional Reading ...

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. 

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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.

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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.

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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. 

Testing, used properly, can lay the groundwork for success for all (The Vancouver Sun, 18 Mar 2009, Page A11)

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... better still, so can lots of reading! This blog post allows me to expound on my thoughts exactly on assessment for learning in school libraries, whether you like it or not!

Geoff Johnson, a frequent educational editorial contributor to The Vancouver Sun Op Ed page, is a former colleague from my very first years in New Westminster as a teacher of English. In light of the comments of some of our colleagues that emerged from the recent BCTF AGM, I do very much appreciate the perspective from which Geoff's article (below) comes.

In schools, we teach children and everything we do is about building their chances of success. And aren't you glad that we teacher-librarians work in the best place in the school to stimulate the love of words, that we don't have to administer spelling tests, for example, or deal with zeroes and speculate on curricular dumbing-down -- rather, we know that assessment for learning (AFL) in our space means knowing each child well enough that you have no difficulty finding "just the right book for just the right child at just the right time."

Please read Meredyth`s lateliteracy blog this week (Teacher-librarians, April 4) as she describes the delight with which she viewed our Pam of Waverly in a frenzy of matching books and kids. To my Literacy colleagues I do need to ask, can you see it? Are there those places where you see classrooms committed to reading by using the school library program and you know that success in that building hinges on the relationships that have been developed to promote the love and culture of reading. Thanks, Meredyth, for this description. Oh, and for posting the very cool poster of Obama in the library.

Thanks, Meredyth, for this description of our super-colleague. Oh, and for posting the very cool poster of Obama in the library which I am blatantly borrowing because he belongs here too.

We know, and would love someone like Geoff Johnson to write about this phenomenon called school library, where reading improves with reading, and reading also improves spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing ... well, Krashen argues this best, and I am preaching to the converted here! But for all the Ministry-driven rhetoric about improving literacy and student achievement, it still amazes me that decades of research correlating strong school library programs and student success, as well as free voluntary reading and student success, are ignored as we continue to face erosion of our capacity to administer the treatment that works best. Did I see a report that literacy scores are down, Mr Gorman? Stephen Krashen has something to say about that. Hello, is there anyone over there?

I am reminded of Krashen`s question: What, he asked metaphorically, if there was a country experiencing a drought and famine, and the experts deemed that the children there needed painful and expensive surgery? Everyone would say, no, feed them! Similarly, children don’t need painful and expensive intensive phonics programs (and perhaps I can add, more testing), they need books!

If you need to re-read about Krashen and his work, check my summary of his talk at the IASL conference in Berkeley this summer (Fall 2008 Bookmark, pp 10-11). And, Geoff, you were there in New West when Hooked on Books was what drove our instruction in English. I'll be in touch! Read Geoff Johnson (Sun, 18 March 2009) below ... .

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Testing, used properly, can lay the groundwork for success for all
BY GEOFF JOHNSON
The Vancouver Sun
18 Mar 2009

It was 1968 and like every “ newbie” teacher in New South Wales, Australia, I was subject to inspection by a state-appointed inspector. And I wasn’t doing well. Grade 12 English in those days still included the teaching of spelling — thought to be an...read more...

Related:
Assessment for learning not â€�dumbing down’

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper Opinion

A Month on the Pro D Circuit

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The End of a 9-Day Conference?

For some of us, it has just begun. It was hard to get into the Transforming School Libraries Online Conference, to find the time to stay current on the presentations, and to learn our ways around. We will be in much better shape for the next one, I can assure you. Occasionally as I popped in an out of places, I virtually ran into people I knew. Thankfully, the conference will remain "up" for us to poke around and consider the artifacts for a month or two longer, and I found some fascinating things.

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But first, you just have to listen to and watch this beautiful international/global video version of the song Stand By Me where, performing together but in vastly separate stages, are artists from around the world. There is a youtube version of this, but the original and other songs performed on the global stage and the articulation of a vision of peace through music are found on the Playing for Change website. I found this, as I wandered through information about various conference presenters, on Edmonton TL Arlene Lipkewich's short-lived blog. She challenged her students to consider the youtube version (both blog and youtube are Web 2.0 tools) and the way in which it was created.

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As I started to say, some of us were just a little overwhelmed by arriving just-in-time at the very complicated Sosius platform and the various places and formats in which information and conversations were happening. I really enjoyed Arlene's voicethread presentation on various Technologies for Learning, old and new. In this Web 2.0 presentation, we looked at how hardware, software, and 'webware' can be used for both teacher and student learning. Now there remains no evidence I attended the session as I didn't actually log in, just observed and kept an eye on the discussions ... but you will find others we know there, like Pat from Gladstone and Karen from Victoria too.

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Arriving at a presentation a few days late didn't matter as participation was asynchronous. Notice that some of the participants in this discussion presented themselves in text and others used audio features. This was my first ever voicethread discussion; I think it offered a great learning opportunity for many of the conference attendees and you will see and hear their learning as they go along. While this is ultimately a long presentation and discussion, it is really interesting: how might this format be useful for working with teachers as well as students?

I also participated in a regional meeting of the westcoast conference attendees using a webtool new to me called Mobee. Needless to say, it cannot be accessed through our district filters as it is a chat program, or so we discovered at the TL Studio this week ... but you can enter the chat rooms at home using any chat tool. That is, you don't have to be using the same tool. I don't chat much but my gmail has chat capacity, so in I went to the "tsl" (transforming school libraries) chat room for a fun two hours of library-chatting one evening. James Henri and Sandra Lee were there too. I will have to go back as there were some fantastic "library" videos added to the discussion wall.

Not all the sessions are accessible from the outside but I am happy to be able to show you some of the tools being used for TL discussions and professional growth. Another open-access site within the conference is Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort's online consideration of the seamless and blended nature of collaboration between Ts and TLs at bestlibrary for online learning support, both for Ts and for students.

I also went to Anne Robinson's Librain blog of the online conference. Anne is in the UK. I think you will find lots here to think about from Anne's report and I see no need to repeat, only to recommend you peruse her discussions of the event at this link. Thanks, Anne, for this.

Does social networking produce cognitive side effects?

Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind

Posted to IASL listserv by Gerald Brown, Winnipeg, from The Guardian (U.K.), Feb. 2

British physiologist Lady Susan Greenfield warns that social-network sites risk infantilizing the 21st-century mind, leaving it characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize, and a shaky sense of identity. Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, told the House of Lords that children's experiences on social-networking sites "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance ...."

Here is the audio link to Lady Greenfield speaking on social networking and your health.

BCTF Conference for New/er Teachers

What? These don't look "new/er" to you?

I stopped by the Radisson Hotel to see how Janet, Katharine, and Michele were doing in their presentation at the BCTF New/er Teachers' Conference about the ways they could collaborate with TLs. Put on out in Richmond on Friday, Val H was on duty for the provincial association at the BCTLA table. I scored lunch which was fantastic. So was this presentation. Thanks to all for the work that went into the session, as well as the commitment, to promoting collaboration with our teacher-colleagues to create meaningful learning experiences and enjoyable learning communities.


Did you know?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is 40 years old!

From Twitter / School Library Journal: "Librarians and other educators are encouraged to download an activity kit,which includes a free commemorative 40th anniversary poster featuring classroom activities on the back, and a booklet with cross-curricular lesson plans, booklists, and arts and crafts projects such as a make your own Very Hungry Caterpillar mobile."

Posted from IASL: Manitoba - Brown / Stinson

And that, dear collagues, was quite a month of professional development, wasn't it! Don't worry if you couldn't keep the pace. I never quite caught up to the pace. Needless to say, we all have lots to learn. We can perhaps claim ground as leaders in modelling teachers-as-lifelong-learners!

See you next week.