B. C. AND ITS PEOPLE: 1858- 2008 (The Vancouver Sun, 19 Nov 2008, Page A1)

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B. C. AND ITS PEOPLE: 1858- 2008

The Vancouver Sun
19 Nov 2008

read more... Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper Front Page

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ME on the Multi-vendor Display:

This year's multi-vendor display, organized as usual by Jonathan Lillow from Knowbuddy/Saunders, was accompanied by a new Chapters Wednesday morning session and in-service by our Maryann; by all accounts it was a success with too little time in half a day to get to everything. Hope you got to have the lunch which is particularly good there.

In reflecting on my short time on the floor at the Firefighters' Hall and at Chapters (I was juggling teaching a class in SLAIS at UBC as well as a meeting of Metro-area TL Consultants and a workshop after school on Thursday), I decided that I have still a finely-honed "library eye."

In the olden days, teacher-librarians had "library ear" that was inflamed by noise, as often evidenced by the stereotypical shhushhing! This sense is still important -- the screaming of the security gate will bring our vestigial "library ear" into play, and despite our understanding that learning is social, sometimes it is simply just too social! And I would draw on "library ear" (some might call this eavesdropping but I saw it as part of my job to be attuned to the real needs of the students who sought out the library) if I thought a student was in distress, sad or conflicted -- these ones were sometimes in need of a little chat with a sympathetic or "motherly" adult, and in serious cases, I might put a word in the ear of his or her counsellor. My "ear" dealt with light counselling only.

I once heard about a TL who had "library lung," although I have never seen any literature on this affliction. I sometimes wondered if I had "library allergies" -- dust, decaying books, keyboards in constant use that I never knew whose job it was to clean them, sick kids with books -- but I am not conscious of any change in my health, for better or worse, now that I am steadily ensconced in an air-conditioned and windowless cubicle.

So what is "library eye"? First, it's the capacity to scan the space quickly and see that five grade 8 boys suddenly convening around one computer means a call for instant intervention. It's seeing bookshelves that need straightening. It's spotting poor shelving and less-than-optimal visual merchandising. It's seeing the escalating interest in one hot new book ... and buying more. It's seeing the bargains when you are out shopping on the weekend, the book you know belongs with an upcoming unit or that is likely to have some real appeal to one or more students. It's certainly the ability to see a book and know where it would fit in your collection or your annual plan for collection development.

But I have a new dimension for "library eye" as your TL consultant. Deprived as I am of much of the fun of book-shopping, I take my advisory role very seriously and love to "shop" vicariously. I really appreciated the newer TLs at the multi-vendor who took me along to browse and buy at Chapters: what do you think I need, Moira, they would say? Old skilled "library eye" enjoyed this a lot, but -- because she-with-a-highly-developed-library-eye tries not to miss the big-picture -- was also attending to the natural "gaggles" of TLs in deep conversation ... in the bargain section, in the children's section, in the non-fiction.

In thinking about what was going on, I caught wind of a whole new selection tool. We shop with reviews in mind, with curriculum needs, with peer reviews ... but when have we ever used the "book squabble" as a tool? Two of our seasoned TLs (secondary) were disputing how many copies of a bargain book each would take, in the ever-so-charming way of TLs: "No, you take three, I'll take two. It would work with this unit or that unit," and so on. Eventually they agreed how to split the pile ... and then all the books were gone.

Aha! Clearly this was more than a bargain. I advanced upon Chapters Accounts Manager Anne-Marie who had hosted our early-morning session. Yes, she could bring together enough copies for all the other secondary school libraries and arrange for them to arrive at our nearby store or the Oakridge Coles Books for pick-up, which constituted a little consolation book-shopping for me. Elementary libraries received The World of Stories in September, so I needed to do something for "the secondaries." The deal was made; I have paid. These have arrived. The Great Migrations: From the Earliest Humans to the Age of Globalization (London, UK: Quercus, 2008) by author/historian Dr John Haywood includes accounts of 50 human migrations, many of which can be linked to social studies curriculum, including all secondary grades. The book begins:

Migration is one of the defining characteristics of the human race. No other species has ever ranged so far and colonized so many different environments .... Human migration has also been incessant, with the numbers of people on the move increasing constantly, keeping step with the growth of the human population. It is its ceaseless nature that makes migration one of the great driving forces of work history, spreading technology and ideas, and creating and destroying nations and empires. The importance of misgrations as agents of historical change has long been recognized. Migrations, both real and legendary, form essential components of many national identities .... Migrations both promote diversification of human cultures and provide the means for the transfer of information and technologies between cultures.

Haywood looks at different patterns of migration and the recent work of geneticists which is linking different populations to their likely origins. Can't wait to find out about my own dual Celtic and Norman or Roman (or so my dear old dad would claim -- ) roots. Thanks, Virginia and Susan, for putting this onto the secondary shelves.

"Library eye" was also taken as ever by Paul Yee's recently revised Saltwater City (Douglas & McIntyre, 2006), a book I consider to be a "must-have" for every Vancouver school library. I mean "eye" was forced to look at page 145 as one TL said, "Guess which one is me?" One little girl stood out -- she doesn't appear to be paying attention! Who couldn't resist picking her, and you would have chosen correctly -- the one who appears not to be paying attention is in fact our secondary TL colleague and she is actually reacting to Paul Yee's (behind her) pulling her pony tail! Your guess?

Have a great weekend, everyone. I love the rainy weekends when I have several good books going. I can't read fast enough -- LeCarré's new A Most Wanted Man, my half-finished Follett historical fiction World Without End which I'm not so enamoured of, and the borrowed copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which I have discovered has another TL-colleague on the waitlist. Where to start?!!

Oh, DEAR ... and so we read!

Thank you, Minister Bond.
Education Report: 2008 October 31

and this Gold Star is also for Steve Mulligan for

drive-by readings at FIVE schools

on National School Library Day

and for his on-going attentiveness to school libraries --

Thank you, Steve, from all district TLs.

Vancouver schools took part in DEAR on October 27 National School Library Day with enthusiasm. Our Trustees and BCSSTA office staff read at 11 am, Education Minister Bond read at 11 am, colleagues at Learning Services and MLST were observed reading and eating "School Libraries: The Heart of Literacy" chocolate bars , and staff at The Vancouver Sun read too.

October 28, The Vancouver Sun:

Here's a "snapshot" of what you could have observed in our schools:

• Van Horne experienced a rare silence throughout the school
  
• Henderson featured some readers dressed as favourite storybook characters
  
• Trudeau readers with painted faces listening attentively as firefighters read to them
  
• Tillicum's “the reading train” ran down the entire central hallway, complete with whistle stops and loads of book-talking


• Mt Pleasant kicked off One Book, One Class for November and Steve Mulligan did two readings


• Weir's guest readers included Maryann Kempthorne, Angela Brown, Gary Little, Denise North, Steve Mulligan, and VPL children's librarian, Noreen Ma


• Carr students camped out and read in tents; Steve Mulligan appeared here too for a reading!
  
• Moberly invited Wally Oppal; see the picture with Wally Oppal (see blog, October 27) in the blog archives for October 27
  
• Gladstone has silent reading every morning; they read again in the afternoon and teachers were seen nibbling the same chocolate bars as were featured here in Learning Services and elsewhere (but then a student at Gladstone had designed them, so that made it okay to eat chocolate!)
  
• Tupper students got their heads into the brand new school library books
  
• Templeton stopped everything from 10:30 - 10:50 am, as agreed by Staff Committee, and it worked so well that a number of teachers will be incorporating a stop and read on a more regular basis

What's new?

Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable Hycroft Event - November 12, 6-9 pm, 1489 Macrae Avenue, just east of 16th and Granville. Light refreshments after the presentations. Street parking only.

Special Guest Kathy Stinson plus BC authors and illustrators will be presenting their
new children's books

BCTLA Forum posting by Val H this week has generated a flurry of commentary. Read: "Flip This Library: School Libraries Need a Revolution/School libraries need a revolution, not evolution," by David Loertscher in School Library Journal, 11/1/2008. The article begs the question, so how might this look?

My new Australian friend, Patricia Carmichael, whom I met at the IASL Conference, is presently working on her PhD at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. To see how this might look read a summary of a program that offers one version of a program that incorporates the notion of "learning commons" click here and scroll down to the last summary. Consider also that our local university libraries both have Learning Commons within their campus academic library programs.

James Henri suggested revolution to us in August; we need to focus on the teachers, he said, and if we see that the learning that takes place in school libraries is integrally tied to the needs of 21st century learners, we need to find ways that it can evolve with our leadership to better support the learning styles, experiences, and interests of our educational community, including teachers and students. We need to explore ways of building our programs on the "google" concept ... if they build it (the program, the curriculum, the learning landscapes), they will use it. What we have built needs to be carefully considered for nudging along the continuum or we risk being rendered obsolete.

Remember, we are at the start of a revolution and the outcome will be uncertain and it will be stressful along the way. But we most assuredly need to ask ourselves, is what we have been doing working? Is it the best way to serve our educational communities?

Multi-vendor Display and Chapters Workshop

This year's event seemed a great success. Those of us who enjoyed Chapters/Starbucks hospitality had a great opportunity to shop in "gaggles" and hone in on the real bargain-price items, as well as hot new reads for students. Maryann's workshop provided plenty of direction for program and collection building. There were more secondary resources than last year and will be more next year too. Wednesday seemed busier than Thursday, but everyone seemed to be very focussed and deeply occupied with that most challenging part of our job, shopping!

Workshop with Judith Comfort

A few of us "secondary types" spent late Thursday afternoon at Churchill with Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort exploring the possibilities of her approach to technology integration, a strategy she calls multi-level resource-based online learning. Click here and check out some of the Teaching Activities. The group is going to try some out together ... stay tuned for how we do. And thanks, Judith, for a very interesting afternoon. We were a keen audience.

7 from Greg Smith's Social Studies "Top Ten" List

Being Victorian. Welcome to Victoria BC circa 1858-1914! Visit this great new site with an innovative format and written for Social Studies

Green Learning. Comprehensive, fun and free lessons aligned to the BC curriculum and designed to help students participate in their own learning regarding today’s complex energy and environmental issues.

History of Quebec. Get to know La Belle Province a little better. This site has all the information plus great self scoring tests and tutorials.

History Wire. HW invites your perspectives, stories and opinions on the relevance of history in understanding current events, the importance of history education and much more.

Law Courts Education travels BC. The Law Courts Education Society of BC will hold 6 regional law workshops for teachers in early 2009. Kelowna, Prince George, Surrey, Coquitlam, Vancouver and Victoria. Contact Marylou Leung at marylou.leung@lawcourtsed.ca or call 604-660-9874 to attend.

Online Publishing for Social Studies Teachers. Check out Judith Comfort’s site on why, what and how to publish as well as a portal to other great Social Studies resources.

Women in World History. This unique site is full of information and resources to help you learn about women’s history in a global context.

Trudeau’s Family Games Night

Literacy Games Night

December 2007

From Alanna, Trudeau TL:

It was during the lunch hours that I noticed our students loved playing the library games, games like Scrabble, Arthur’s Library Game, Clue Junior, and so on. Even the students who were considered weak readers were able to play the games with much enthusiasm. Parents who often were in the library with their children did not interact with their children when they played these games. I realized that the parents didn’t know that many of the board games were strengthening their children’s skills in numeracy as well as reading!

I brought the idea of a Games Night to the staff, and they were all in agreement that this would be a good way of showing the parents another way they could help their children.

I met the Discovery Toys rep at the Vendor display at the Librarian’s Fall Conference in Surrey. I talked with her of my idea and asked to use some of her games. I wanted another store to also sponsor the Games Night as I didn’t want it to appear that we were endorsing any one store or product. My plan was to visit some of the smaller toy stores such as Kaboodles or Splash, but I just happened to be in Chapters when I noticed they also sold games. I talked to the manager of the Richport Chapters, and she said right away she too would love to come to the school.

Games we chose were: Scrabble Jr, Trouble, Wiz Kids, Boggle, Pictionary Jr, Brain Game, A to Z kids. and What’s Gnu.

The evening was very successful: 42 families came, 116 people, so we had to limit the families attending as we only had 7 teachers sponsors.

The school purchased all the games played that night and they were distributed to the teachers who helped and to the library, and we also started a rainy day games collection for the gym.

For more information on organizing an evening like this, check the TL Special Weekly Report on pbwiki:

Literacy Across the Curriculum, Section 5