Question: What Do I Need to Be Doing to Lead the Media Center into the Future?
The definition/description of our job as librarians seems to be constantly "under contruction." Are we librarians? Media specialsists? Teacher librarians? Each title conjurs up something slightly different, and the fact that we can't settle on one title seems to indicate we haven't decided what our role in the future will look like. How can we? Ever changing technology challenges our vision of the future every day. We will still be acting in a supportive role for teachers and students in order to create effective and lifelong learners, but we must now see ourselves as leaders and advocates for teachers and students. Using the media center, we must offer ways to help teach students the necessary skils to be productive members of our society.
How do we become leaders? By being on the forefront of the trends in education and the needs of the community. Woolls describes a professional librarian as a future thinker and a visionary who develops specific long range goals for the media center. Students need to be seen as both local and global members of society, and planning needs to reflect this concept. By being a member of a professional organization, librarians can stay informed about new issues, trends and technology that will facilitate meeting the goals of the media center.
Leaders are advocates for learners, and librarians must be advocates for their media centers as learning centers. What is it that we do? How are we doing it? Transparency, according to Doug Johnson and Will Richardson, is a key component. Richardson links transparency with leadership. Show what you are doing to help students learn, with your successes and failures and struggles for all to see and help, but be out there! Do not hide. Move foward, visibly, and people will follow. Johnson believes transparency develops trust, and a leader must be trustworthy. Transparency is a wonderful way to advocate for your library program. Showing your budget, calendar, goals, statistics, expressing your educational opinions and opening the doors to your media center will go a long way to answering the questions of how you are spending your time and money. Being transparent will probably spark some heated discussions, but when you suggest new ideas or expenditures, people will know what you're about. Again, your vision for the media center (and the students) will be clear. Haranda and Yoshina's article gives a good tool for assessing library teaching methods that can be used to show how your vision is being met.
Joyce Valenza describes this as being "fierce," being right in the forefront of education, and being a leader by supporting students and teachers in ways they didn't know were available. One of the ways that struck me was how much of a learner I was going to have to be, as well as a leader. I find this daunting, the continually modeling of learning new technology and educational concepts. Good to know, according to Joyce, I can be BETA, but I must also be my own trainer. Doesn't it seem a bit contridictory that I don't have to know it all, but I will never, it seems, know enough?
Am I going to lead by, as Seth Godin says, by being a guide through almost endless amounts of data? Is the entire point of the library of the future, as he thinks, a massive data bank? Will I be a golden retriever? I think this is too narrow of a vision for the role I will play, especially as a school librarian. I will be more of a border collie, gathering groups together, helping them move in a collectively agreed on direction.
So leadership involves transparency, self-education, being willing to take risks, have a clear vision and advocate for your media center. Because at the heart of it all, we are resposible for helping shape the future leaders.
Podcast CYA Nov. 2, 2011 "Six Picture Books"
I chose this podcast because I thought it might help me pick out some books for my granddaughter (age 4 and under), and I was not disappointed. "If Rocks Could Sing: A Discovered Alphabet" by Leslie McGuirk was the first book reviewed, and most people gave it high praise. The book used rocks that the author had collected over the years that looked like particular letters. For example, a rock that resembled the letter "V" also stood for the word "valentine," and the rocks would be shown "kissing." The reviewers thought that children would start using their imaginations with other objects around them. "Perfect Square" by Michael Hall also got high praise. Good for storytime or one on one reading, the story follows all the things that happen to the main character, a square piece of paper. Lots of vocabulary building in the verbs used (the square is folded, shredded, etc) on each day of the week. There's counting and colors used as part of the story. They saw this book as full of learning possibilities. Highest praise went to "Press Here" by Herve Tullet and "Shout! Shout it Out!" by Denise Fleming. Both books were described as highly interactive, good for group readings. These books were very appealing to one reviewer's children (which I appreciated hearing). Two books were not well regarded. "A Suitcase Surprise for Mommy" by Cat Cora and "This Plus That: Life's Little Equations" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, were both described as not well illustrated and either too specific in theme or too "cutesy" for the reviewers' tastes (although they acknowledge that the latter book was favorably reviewed professionally). I think I will check out "Press Here" and "Shout! Shout it Out!" at the library before I purchase one, but I have a good list to use.
Bob Sprankle "Happy Thanksgiving! Please Pass the Purpose" Nov. 24, 2011
First of all, why is this man blogging on Thanksgiving Day?
Sprankle is reflecting on what he's thankful for, and he decides one thing is his after school Tech Club that meets once a week. He's thankful for not so much the club (which runs itself with minimal guidance from adults), but the fact that the club is more interested in developing a purpose than talking about technology. The club talks about local issues (homelessness in the community) as well as global issues (school supplies in Africa), then decides which technologies would be best to address these issues. Sprankle wonders how many librarians approach technology use the same way. Find the technology that supports the purpose rather than shaping the need around a particular technology. Technology integration should be driven by purpose, not the bells and whistles of apps or hardware. I find this blog comforting because I feel, as I read some of our assignments, that technology is driving the way, and what, we teach.
Larry Ferlazzo "Why Teachers Shouldn't Blog...and Why I Do" Feb. 25, 2011
Ferlazzo starts with a incident describing a teacher's complaint in her blog about how some of her students (unnamed) were "lazy" and "annoying." His main criticism of teachers' blogging, of course, is not being professional. The purpose of his blogs is sharing, reflecting, challenging and celebrating teaching. He also now starts sharing it with students: "sharing what I write about my students with my students is a clear indication that I really do think about them when I am not in school, that I valued what they say and think, and that I am proud and want to tell others about them." Of course I am reminded of the power of transparency.
Teacher 2.0 "You Matter" Sept 7, 2011
Boy, did I need this post! I am feeling that I have no skills at all and that I have no skills to offer the students of today (technology wise). This post reminded me I have skills that are just as, if not more, important. Asked to list what they are good at, and a few mentioned their tech skills, but most teachers described skills such as enthusiam, leadership, motivation, respect for others, making connections with people, and creating a "joyful learning community." Those I have, and those will make me successful.
LM_NET
Connie Williams (Aug. 30, 2011) was calling for librarians to contact both Senators to ask them to support the SKILLS ACT - Senate Bill 1328), and to ask as many people as possible to do the same because the quantity of responses is what Congress responds to. This reflects what Woolls was describing in Chp. 15 as part of being leaders through political channels. I need to find out more about this, and keep current on future legislative action through ALA.
Naomi Bates (Nov. 15, 2011) gives a link for a good video to teach students the basic principles of avoiding plagiarism. The video is produced by Common Craft (http://www.commoncraft.com/) and contains a catelogue of instructional videos. You must pay to use them ($159 for an individual to use for a year; $2000 for a school population of 2500 to 20,000), but you can use them in the classroom and/or library. The video comes with a full transcript. The sample I viewed seemed very professional as well as entertaining.
Danielle Dunn (Nov. 1, 2011) gave a link to her presentation at the 2011 AASL Conference on how to use Google apps for advocating for your library:(https://sites.google.com/site/advocatingwithgappsaasl2011/home)
This slideshow gave a tremendous amount of information in 20 slides that I will download. I feel this can give me some ammunition in interviews as well as guidelines after I am hired to keep the media center relevent to all.
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