IdeaPaint

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.

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?

District Technology Day: Questions of Access

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

First Annual "Bridging the Gap" with UBC and SFU

I wish now I had taken out my camera as I had intended to the VSB's first Bridging the Gap morning for secondary academic teachers and teacher-leaders. There we were, 34 Vancouver educators from 14 of our high schools and the VLN online learning school, 4 teacher-consultants, and 4 academic librarians in Lillooet Room, a large meeting room that is one of the original spaces of what remains of the core of the old Main Library at UBC in what is now the amazing new I.K. Barber Learning Centre. We had entered through the Chapman Learning Commons on the 3rd floor into a lovely "clubby" atmosphere with vaulted ceilings, high arched windows, newly refinished beams, comfy furnishings, and the great sense of returning to a place of higher learning which has been revitalized and yet remains rooted in the past.

Thanks to Chris Ball (Head, UBC Education Library) and Hope Power (Liaison Librarian for Education and Political Science, SFU) for their work in identifying for our group the ways we can better prepare our graduates for the demands of first-year university; to Renee McCallum (the W Project, writing support, SFU's Learning Commons) who identified the writing needs of high school graduates to better meet the demands of first-year; and to Simon Neame (Assistant Director, Ike Barber Learning Centre) for creating a sense of the possibilities for K-12 of both Learning Commons and digitization initiatives. Pam Hansen, Jacob Martens and I focused on how the VSB Learning Services can support teachers in this work.

All responses we have received were positive. There was general agreement that we needed to do the same thing next year.

Wisdoms from the Treasure Mountain Summit

Pat Parungao, Canada's TL of the Year 2010

with Dr Ross Todd at Treasure Mountain, Edmonton

Here are some of the key points from the keynote evening at Treasure Mountain, a think-tank for practicing Canadian TLs and school library researchers held in Edmonton in conjunction with the Canadian Library Association Conference. Pat Parungao, Heather Daly, Coquitlam consultant and president, BCTLA, Richard Beaudry in his capacity as Past President of CASL and Joanie Probskie, both from Langley, also attended.

Dr Ross Todd gave us the global picture, from countries like Portugal and Sweden, where school libraries are now mandated, and Australia where stimulus money is being used to build school libraries and where a national inquiry is under way into school libraries to the decimation of school library programs in the US. The digital divide is clearer and enhanced by these "ends" of service to students.

For Todd, there are three critical issues:


Vision:

The vision of a school library as "learning or knowledge commons" -- a shared space for all that enables deep knowledge outcomes and thus intellectual agency through accessible resources, including a teacher-librarian -- is an empowering one for young minds. In a flexible, dynamic, 24/7 learning centre, young learners find the help, digital and print resources and tools to create, produce, and share knowledge. By providing opportunities for students and teachers to engage in discovery and inquiry learning in an environment that is safe and that offers opportunities for deep reading, collaboration, creativity, cooperation, and intellectual play, TLs are supported both within and beyond the school as they guide and awaken minds and enable intellectual development, agency, and empowerment.


Engagement:

The primary focus of such a re-visioned school learning commons to build the capacity for creative and critical engagement. There is a shift in the instructional role, from helping people "find stuff" to doing something with the found information. The LC is a centre for learning innovation. The LC is a place, space, and mindset for staff and students in a school. Engagement is social, academic, and intellectual where children become part of a "thinking conversation" (Knodt).


Evidence:

The questions for us are these: How do we immerse our young learners in learning that enables them to develop their sense of self and a sense of the future? How can we be a key part of their learning to develop intellectual, personal, and socio-cultural agency? And how can we provide evidence to district decision-makers, administrators, teachers, and students that what we are proposing and, in some cases, already doing, works? The opportunities lie in the rich leadership TLs offer beyond the traditional imparting of information literacy, in designing learning partnerships that enable TLs to guide teachers and students to develop capabilities that are resource-base, thinking-based, and knowledge-based, that are personal and interpersonal, and that are about reading to learn and learning management.

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.

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.