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

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?

Back in for a while ...

... After a Month on the Road

There's a lovely fresh and lighter look at Van Horne. This was our last stop on the city tour of school libraries. I think the photos are the best thing I've blogged so far and am well aware they are inspiring a much-needed energy to "lighten up" and weed the "dead stuff" in these stressful times in the VSB's annus horribilis. When times get tough, TLs weed (and get weeded, but that's another not-so-light story)!

Way to go, Dorothy, and assistant/mentors Maryann (who has a vested interest as a VH Kindergarten mother), Linda, Wendy, and Sylvia. Lots was done and learned in a very short period of time as Dorothy has only been there since January.


I won't be showing any photos of the cubicle that's waiting for me after our month of May Update sessions for Vancouver TLs. Know that my piles were only slightly less than these that were waiting for Maryann:

Here (below) am I with Renee, Primary Lit Consultant, down in Library Services as we are getting ready for our presentation at the online international conference on Reading, called YSL4 (YourSchoolLibrary, 4th event):

Our Session is to be an informal one. We are posting an emerging discussion called Reading the Word and the World: Shared Perspectives on Guiding Readers to Quality Literature. Do TLs have key points they want to see included? Why, yes they do. I'll be using our School Libraries and Literacies document you have seen in its finished form at the Updates. And nothing says I can't draw from comments received on my blog! (We learned it's okay to start sentences with And, But, or Because ... but that's never been a problem with the conventions of blog-writing, in my view.)My next appearance, while flying between outpourings of brilliance in the conference seesions I am attending and the discussions and upcoming interviews, will be at the same conference as a moderator for Stephen Krashen. Ain't I the important person!

Secondary TLs Make Appearance at SFU

I am dreadfully sorry I didn't take a single picture at SFU Bennett Library this week with most of the secondary TLs in attendance to hear the Writing expert (also named Renee) from the SFU Learning Commons identify the Top Ten Things Students Need to Know How to Do To Succeed with Academic Reading and Writing, a nice follow-up to last year's session about Academic Research. This team will be with us and some of our academic secondary department head colleagues at UBC later in June. We were delighted and send profuse thanks to Hope (my invitation said, There's Hope at SFU) and the team of librarians and we are quite convinced our colleagues will be greatly pleased with this session.

I am also sorry to say I don't have pictures of the annual year-end secondary dinner and gabfest, this time at Vita Bella restaurant in Burnaby. It was perhaps the loudest EVER! Who knew that they who apparently specialize in "shushing" could be so readily and enthusiastically influenced by Italian style and gusto. I think I needed that special night out with my specialist friends.

Bye for now ... won't likely be here at my usual blogspot next week as I am off to Edmonton to talk about Inquiry with Ross Todd, David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, Sandi Zwaan, and more. Mmmm-hmmm. That's ME, important! We are going to be discussing our papers in relation to School Libraries as Learning Commons. Heather from Coquitlam and our Pat are going to be there too ... but I still can't say why Pat is coming!

Thanks, everyone. We saw TLs from all but about six of our school libraries at these sessions. That's amazing professionalism and dedication to currency and planning, eh? But that's what is so great about our TL community.

PSSSSTTTT: Be sure to check out the next blog and take 20 minutes or so to poke around in the TED site, if you have never been there before. Sir Ken Robinson's talks (this one is new and there is one from 2008) are amongst the most thought-provoking for us TLs as promoters of inquiry-based learning.

News From IASL Conference in Berkeley

Blogging IASL: Impossible

... Until Now, Given the Pace of the 8 days

Oh my! Say that very long and ever so softly with awe in your voice -- that's what they say, apparently, down South when what they mean is, ohmygawd, can you believe it! There cannot possibly be another thing to say about school libraries. I have so much to relay that I will have to do it in installments.

Day 1 of my trip to the "Lambeth for School Libraries" was long; it included two cab rides, a two-hour bus ride across the border, a less than two-hour flight from Bellingham, the airport transporter, BART with transfer, and finally an unexpected late evening 1.5 mile downhill hike from the Clark Kerr Conference Centre to the student dining hall for dinner. I had made it just by 6 pm in time for the first scheduled dinner only to find there was no dinner. Yes, there was some kind of glitch with food services for the first few days so meals -- including breakfast and coffee -- until Sunday would involve this downhill/uphill walk.

(If you want a much cheaper way to go to some American destinations, by the way, be sure to check out Allegiant Air -- and the Quick Shuttle for $25 takes you right to Bellingham Airport. Thanks for this tip, Meredyth!)


Humour -- and a sense that I was here for a reason not yet clear to me -- was going to be my salvation as I hiked downhill that late Friday only to find that the early arrivals had moved on, opting instead for something a little more upscale than the student dining hall... but as with everything this trip, I wandered off onto Telegraph Street and found them after several blocks and one corner quite by serendipity -- one man (James Henri himself) and six women stood out as different from other restaurants I perused from the street! We sauntered back, well fed and too tired to notice the terribly spartan conditions of student housing. I was alone in a huge suite in a section where no others had been boarded, seemingly with no roommate ...

Day 2 began officially after the morning hike for breakfast and coffee; 70 of us boarded a bus boarded a bus bound for the upper regions of the Napa Valley. No commercial winery tour for this group! I rode up with Ray Doiron whom I had taken my first TL course with, Marlene, as well as Diane Oberg and Jennifer Branch (now I could put faces to the names I had cited so frequently), and my new friends, Barbara McNeil, a hot new name in Canadian school libraries from the University of Regina, and Patricia Carmichael, library ambassador of extremely good humour, from Toowoomba in Queensland.

The track into the hills got narrower and narrower. There were places where I thought the headlines the next day might read, "Busload of tourists topple in bus off the mountains of the Upper Napa," but our driver was amazing, delivering us in fine form to the private O'Shaughnessy Winery on a road not even on the maps. Atop the mountain we found a fabulous Spanish style building with many patios and Blanche Woolls, with family, set to host our tour of the winery and lunch. Turns out this winery belongs to Blanche's son and his wife and is not often open for groups -- this was a very special event indeed.

Needless to say, the winery was amazing ... and so was the lunch. I ate with a lovely group from around the world in the formal dining room located in mountain tunnel where the barrels were stored, right next to the wine library (yes, that's where they store the special collection!) ... these wines were sold only to fine dining establishments and to collectors. And they were served liberally so I can assure you, despite the chilled air of the tunnel, they warmed our spirits which were already delighted with the day.




The food was also fantastic ... steak, green salad, potato salad made with olives, artisan breads, pastries... with views of the hills, vineyards, lavendar, and courtyard fountain ... and everywhere beautiful and tasteful art. Oh my!

The bus tour resumed, descended the precipitous mountain track ... but this trip seemed shorter and hotter returning than going!

Our next stop was for tea and the tour of the Bessie Chin School Library at Redwood High School in Larkspur, Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate, TL Thomas Kaun hosting, with cold drinks, iced tea and goodies. The space was spectacular, large with lots of visibility and lots of corners for reading or for assistants to work with students; floor-to-ceiling windows opened onto a lovely courtyard; student art identified the topics of Dewey and captured the essence of important authors, including Margaret Atwood.

Rumours of the demise of school libraries in California are exaggerated ... but not all counties fund libraries as substantially as this one with its collection of over 33 000 titles and over 100 magazines. Check here for more information about staffing, services, and technology and for pictures.

We were back in time to hike down for a late-ish dinner! Those of us lucky enough to go on the Napa Valley excursion decide that what they say about trips to Vegas should go for Napa; the late arrivals and the IASL Executive who attended meetings instead were clearly better off not knowing what a wonderful day they had missed.

Day 3 of the IASL Conference:
Sunday Preconference Sessions and Welcome Reception/Awards Dinner

School library research "giant" David Loertscher and California TL/PhD student Doug Achterman have considered whether or not Teacher-librarians can compete with Google and argue that indeed we can.

Two models for doing business are worthy of consideration in the educational context. The Microsoft model would suggest, "If we build it, they will come." Conversely, the Google model is grounded on the notion, "If they build it, they will use it." The first model centres on the organization itself with skills that are specific to the program while the other is client-centred and inquiry-based, requiring skills for lifelong learning.

School libraries are presently based, Loertscher and Achterman contend, on the same principles as the Microsoft model of controlled learning but need to move to become places where educators and students build their own learning spaces and take responsibility for learning there, the Google model. "It is time to reinvent so that everyone wins." We would begin by having everyone create an iGoogle page!

Loertscher and Achterman presented the concept of the school library as the new "learning commons," a place that belongs to everyone and no one, that is overseen by the TL and that is the hub of the learning community. Other school specialists work there in partnerships that move good ideas to classrooms, showcase best practice, and facilitate the use of new instructional strategies. In this new learning community, the focus is on the users' needs and wants and would see flexible scheduling, just-in-time teaching, learning to learn with content, and books kids want to read.

The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win (2008, Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow), co-authored by David Loertscher and Toronto educators Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan, further develops the model of the school library as learning commons. It's hot off the press and worth the investment. Five lucky TLs will get a copy in September.

So with my first session, I am already challenged to reconceptualize our school libraries as the learning commons. We are, in fact, behind the local universities where just such changes have been implemented. Excuse my big-picture thinking and perhaps heretical considerations, but could we possibly be more than we are already? Could we be more available (virtual) and accessible? Could we work collaboratively with special educators, classroom teachers, administrators, counsellors, and online learning to offer better ways to support students developing as independent learners? Do we allow students to undertake independent learning? Already I am pale and feeling the heat. Like a frail southern "magnolia," I found myself whispering, Oh my!

In the afternoon, this awe-struck conference "newbie" met Debbie Abilock (she of Noodletools, spyder, and Knowledge Quest fame) and California TL Marilyn Kimura. Their session, "Seeding the Oyster: Leadership Through Dialogue," builds in discussion as an advocacy tool that enhances the creation of learning communities that support literacy and collaboration. "As you learn discussion, reflection, and facilitation skills, you will see how nurturing inquiry and intellectual dispositions can see your leadership in the school community," they promised. Discussion group formats such as the Socratic seminar, the Literary Club, and professional book clubs -- aided by picture books and wikki stix -- gave us ample opportunity during the three-hour session to hone our leadership-through-dialogue skills. Much of what we did reinforced the kinds of things we have talked about with Lit Circles, by the way. For more information about The Literacies,these and other strategies, check out the many ideas and links on Debbie's Noodletools Literacies page.

I am thankful too for meeting the IASL Research Award winner Dr Marcia Mardis who had purchased a coffee pot which she shared as the afternoon proved challenging to those who had been up since 6 am and who weren't used to hiking for their coffee. Have I mentioned my addiction before? Yay for Marcia!

Of great significance for Canadian Teacher-librarians was the new Award given at the Sunday evening dinner to Ray Doiron and Marlene Asselin for their work in the area of Technology Innovation with the creation of a ning called iBrary. Check out the members of the ning -- you do know some of them -- just don't ask me what one is! Picture shows Ray accepting the award, Marlene and James Henri, presenter, looking on ... I am not in this picture! We newbies tended to sit further back ... "hatching" new ideas like Gigglewiki and calls to Oprah.


Here's what Marlene's PhD student and Prime Minister's Award-winning teacher Maryam Moayeri had to say on hearing about the award:

Congrats to Ray & Marlene
Congratulations to Marlene & Ray on receiving the inaugural International Association of School Librarianship Technology Innovation Award for their development of iBrary. How cool that we all had a part in it by providing the content through our blog entries, comments, videos, and photos. Yay for 2.0! Double yay for Marlene & Ray. The award will be presented in Berkeley in August and I am thrilled I will be there to see you receive it.

Too exhausted to think about the lack of comfort in my accommodations, although I briefly debated how to get some air into the overly-warm ground-level room, I wedged a chair against the door and fell soundly asleep. I awoke at 3:30 am to discover the chair had been moved ... and someone was apparently in the other room. Then I discovered I would have a roommate as out of the room came a person ... Irenya Kryzanauskiene from Lithuania, rumoured to have faced countless obstacles, including a flight cancelled in Germany and further delays in LA, had finally arrived. My little trip paled beside her journey to tell the story of a struggle for recognition of the importance of school library programs and professional qualifications where school librarians are mostly not teachers. My admiration for her courage and tenacity would grow over the next days. Every night, Irenya and her translator worked together practicing her pronunciations and presentation until well after midnight to prepare her to deliver her paper in English.

While discovering I had a roommate was something of a shock, little was going to keep me from resting ... it was, after all, Stephen Krashen in the morning. Fortunately, for the first time, I wasn't going to have to hike for that essential cup of coffee!

Stephen Krashen ... Do Libraries Matter?

Day 4: Keynote speaker Stephen Krashen and more ...



In her introduction, Blanche Woolls noted Stephen Krashen's significant finding that "children are more likely to read if they have something to read." Dr Krashen spoke to an appreciative audience and it was delightful to find he is something of a comedian -- as well as a man I could admire for his clarity on the subject of reading. He began, there are three things that keep the mind supple: bilingualism, reading, and coffee! We were fortunate that coffee was being served, I thought.



Krashen thought his talk should be entitled, "How Libraries Can End All Literacy Issues Forever." The most powerful tool in the literacy kit, supported by consistent research, is free voluntary reading. He referenced his study against other signficant milestones in understanding the power of reading. Daniel Fader's Hooked on Books revolutionized how educators delivered reading programs in schools and school libraries as Dr. Fader successfully demonstrated that his study of underprivileged boys given books and freed from writing reports or paying fines were better at everything -- simply be administering "books" and time for independent reading.


He referred to the 1983 work of Elley and Manghubai, "The effect of reading on second language learning" published in Reading Research Quarterly (19/1, 53-67) now known as the Fiji "Book Flood" project. Students in grades 4 and 5 were immersed in regular reading of English materials as part of their second language learning experience. This not only accelerated the development of their second language proficiency in reading and listening, but had consistent and positive effects on their proficiency in their own language as well.


The "book flood" project was replicated in 1985 in Singapore with a larger number of younger children; the results were consistent with the earlier findings: children in the study group did better than those taught by traditional methods on tests of reading comprehension, vocabulary, oral language, grammar, listening comprehension and writing. Elley noted that children exposed to a broad choice of high-interest illustrated story books, encouraged to read and share them, will learn a new language more quickly but there will also be improved competence in other language skills such as writing and control over syntax. That is, all language skills are improved by reading as opposed to learning the language from textbooks with reading programs. Additionally students do better on tests when they read, through acquisition, than when they are taught for testing. Or, literacy and language development should be pleasurable experiences, not painful ones.


Krashen then considered programs such as Accelerated Reader which put books, time to read, tests and quizzes of literal understandings together with prizes. Conservatively, he suggested, there needs to be a definitive study; but one might also conjecture that such programs are, in fact, harmful because they offer extrinsic rewards for something intrinsically pleasurable. Alfie Kohn offers this same point in his book Punish by Rewards: payment for something you like to do can "extinguish the behaviour."


Another significant study was a longitudinal one by Greaney and Clarke (1973) which showed that boys who engaged in sustained silent free reading in school continued to be readers as adults.


Krashen talked about the practice of reading aloud with children. Jim Trelease, in his book The Read-Aloud Handbook (2006, Penguin), observes the importance of what he calls the "home-run" books, the books that make a difference in a child's life with reading, be that Captain Underpants or Garfield. These are the keys into literature, into fictional expressions that portray life experiences, ethics, and more. Frank Smith adds that children read more in quiet comfortable places with lots of books, that they get the "feel" for stories from read-alouds like Charlotte's Web and Judy Blume.


It is Krashen's view that school libraries are the hottest area in language and literacy education. The better the school library, the higher the reading scores. This view is supported by the research of Lance and Loertscher and by the work of Jeff McQuillan, in his book The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions (Heinemann, 1998) which used data from the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). Unlike standardized testing, the NAEP is zero-stakes and uses only a sampling of students. Controlling for poverty, McQuillan found there were better results with better access to libraries. There is a strong correlation between access to print materials and reading scores, supporting the case for strong, well-stocked libraries.


These results are replicated in a study of 2007 NAEP scores. Researchers undertook to assess the impact of access to books on two groups of children equally poor. The one with . access to books will do better. They assessed predictors of improvement by grade 8 and found the single factor was access to books.


The PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) provides plentiful data about the students who take the test in 40 different countries. Again data indicates reading instruction is negative and the effect of poverty is overwhelming. There is more likelihood that children in high income neighbourhoods will have a qualified teacher-librarian, access to materials, reading services, and bookstores. Barbara Heyns shows that high and low income children show the same gains throughout the school year. The difference is made in summer reading where students of higher socio-economic status are closer to the library. Summer reading programs provide opportunities for two hours of reading a day, 30 minutes a day for browsing, and time for talking about what is being read. The single most popular author for young readers? R L Stine!


What, says Krashen 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!

Or, as I have often said, reading improves with reading! Motivated and enthusiastic readers will 'stretch' to read at higher levels ... we have only to look at the impact of Harry Potter to know that to be true. Wow! I can't believe that I began teaching in the days when Hooked on Books was what we knew to be true -- just how and why have we been led so far astray, and at what costs to school libraries and our students as readers today and in their adult lives? The conference continued to astound and challenge: yes, you've got it -- oh my, oh my, oh my!


Stephen's book The Power of Reading in Japanese (7th edition) was presented in appreciation of his work.