Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A Wiki Creation

Yesterday I created my own Wiki.
Why?
To create databases of helpful sites and resources that I may use when I do take on the role of Teacher Librarian.
It wasn't too difficult. I think Wikispaces seems to be fairly raliable as recommended by one of the Teacher Librarians on OZTL_Net.
I hope to collect as many resources and links as possible.
I will use my blog for professional readings and reflections on learning and my wiki as a practical hands-on site.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Part C - A Critical Synthesis Monica Brown 11413480 ETL 401 ASS 2

Part C
Task: A Critical Synthesis of your reflection on how your view of the role of the teacher librarian may have changed during the subject. This should include examples captured from your personal blog and from your contribution to and reading of the ETL 401 forum. (about 750 words)


My view of the Teacher Librarian when I first began this course was a very simplistic one. It was drawn from my dealings with Teacher Librarians as a student and as a classroom teacher. A Teacher Librarian was someone who:
* introduced new books to children and fostered a love of reading.
* covered, catalogued and shelved books.
* processed borrowings and returns.
* was used for RFF.

On completion of my first semester, I now view the role of the Teacher Librarian as a unique and Multi-faceted one.
It encompasses :
* The Advocate role (both of their unique role and in the promotion of lifelong learning)
* The Colloborative (not only with Principals, staff and students but also the wider school community and other Teacher Librarians) and the Curriculum Leadership role
* The Instructional Technologist role
* The Library Management role
* The Instructional role
* The Information specialist role
* The Information literacy role
(Adapted from the Summary of the Association for Teacher -librarianship, list of professional competencies for Teacher Librarians from Blog post entitled: The changing role of the Teacher Librarian in the Twenty-first Century).(Brown, 2009, June 3)


The areas that I feel my views have most changed include the Advocate role, The Instructional Technologist role, The Information Specialist role and the Information Literacy role.

The Advocate Role of the Teacher Librarian:
As I have never held the position of Teacher Librarian I have gained a greater insight into the importance of Advocacy in the role of the Teacher Librarian. I see that it is the Teacher Librarian's role to inform others, especially Principals and Classroom Teachers of their unique role and usefulness to the entire school community. Elizabeth Mackinnon (2009, Mar 29), in the sub - Forum:Topic 2, comments on how a positive view of the Teacher Librarian may be achieved by referring to the Odberg reading, stating that there are three ways TLs can ensure this respect; clear communication, developing professional credibility and working ‘to advance school goals.’ ( p 16).

The Instructional Technologist Role of the Teacher Librarian:

At the beginning of this Semester I was overwhelmed by the technology involved in the role of Teacher Librarian and I had very little knowledge of technology other than creative word processsing, publishing and the use of powerpoints. I expressed thoughts of the role of the Teacher Librarian and the use of technology when reflecting on Residential School, "I now realise that the Teacher Librarian has to be the most Technologically 'savvy' and able to resource the latest information for all users within the school community." (Brown, 2009, Feb. 24)

Further participation in Forums and drawing conclusions from readings to add to my blog revealed that technology had brought many changes to the role of the Teacher Librarian. Through the Subject ETL 503 I have gained even more enlightenment into not only the use of technological resources within the school library but also in the Teacher Librarian's role in selecting, deselecting and evaluating these resources.

I have a greater understanding of how technology may be used by the Teacher Librarian to enhance Information Literacy both now and in the future such as remixing Library Collections for Digital Youth. In my blog entry entitled "YPulse and the Digital age" ( May 22nd, 2009), I reflected on a reading regarding a summit that was exploring the future of content. It introduced some of the Web 2.0 tools that may be used to improve the delivery of content to learners and advocacy of the use of social networking sites as a way for Teacher Librarians to connect with students.

The Information Specialist and Information Literacy roles:
As a classroom teacher I now realise that I have seen only a small fraction of what the role of the Teacher Librarian encompasses. After joining OZTL_NET I reflected in my blog “What we teach and do” ( Brown, 2009, May 26) on a post which had reiterated the importance of teaching Information Literacy and emphasising the importance of the unique role of the Teacher librarian:
“ Instruction in Information literacy during training is important for the TL......Whilst classroom teachers who are placed in the TL role without qualifications may be literate..........they do not have the expertise in the use of Boolean Strategies for effective searching databases.....or actually teaching students a research framework or note-taking skills....and much more”.

In conclusion, I believe that Michael Stephens' 3 essential duties of librarians and the broad themes of the Melbourne Unconference in 2007 in my post entitled "Reading - The Australian Journal VOL57 No.1, 2008" may also be applied to sum up the essential roles of Teacher Librarians : Learning to learn,
Adapting to change and embracing change, Scanning the horizon, Empowering users
and Unblocking information. (Brown, 2009, June 7th)

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Statement on teacher librarian qualifications - ASLA - Adopted: November 1994 - Amended: February 2009

Retrieved : May 24th, 2009

The role of the TL is a unique and Multi dimensional one.


In topic 2 for ETL401 we were asked to look at the following document as a starting point to examining the role of the TL.


The statement by ASLA on Teacher Librarian qualifications indicates the TL role and emphasises the importance of qualifications for a TL.

Summary of Statement:
• Teacher librarians support and implement the vision of their school communities through advocating and building effective library and information services and programs that contribute to the development of lifelong learners.
• A teacher librarian is defined as one who holds recognised teaching qualifications and qualifications in librarianship, defined as eligibility for Associate (i.e. professional) membership for the Australian Library and Information Association [ALIA]. Within the broad fields of education and librarianship, teacher librarians are uniquely qualified. This is valuable because curriculum knowledge and pedagogy are combined with library and information management knowledge and skills.
• The nature of teacher librarianship and library and information services is constantly developing. Educational research and new understandings impact on curricula, teaching, learning and digital technologies. Therefore, continuing professional learning for teacher librarians is essential to maintain a current library and information service for the school.
• As a member of a school’s teaching team, the teacher librarian has a role in the planning, implementation and evaluation of educational policies, curricula, outcomes and programs, with particular reference to the development of students’ information literacy.
• Courses in teacher librarianship emphasise the unique, integrated nature of the role. These qualifications ensure that the teacher librarian is both an educator and an information manager with integrated understandings from both of the areas.
A qualified teacher librarian will:
• develop a deep understanding of suitable pedagogies with relevance to learning styles;
• model excellent teaching practice and guide teachers with curriculum implementation through collaborative practice;
• model and develop information strategies to improve student learning outcomes;
• evaluate student learning in relation to library programs and information services to inform and improve professional practice;
• establish policies and procedures for efficient school library management;
• use best practices in library and database management to manage the diverse range of information resources including the online environment to maximise accessibility and relevance;
• adhere to standards in cataloguing, metadata application and database retrieval systems.

Reading - The Australian Library Journal Vol 57 No.1, 2008

Over the long weeekend I thought I would do some reading. I opened up my free copy of the Australian Library Journal that I had received by joining ALIA.
I particularly enjoyed the fist article entitled Reaching Higher and Looking out.
Michael Stephens' 3 essential duties of librarians caught my eye:
* Learn to learn
* Adapt to change
* Scan the horizon
The broad themes of the the Melbourne Unconferencein 2007 were also mentioned(these were based on Library 2.0):
* Embracing change
* Empowering users
* Unblocking information.
The concepts of the unconference came from Open Source Technology and were based on the principles that:
* Whoever comes are the right people
* Whenever it starts is the right time
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen
* When it's over, it's over.

I think I could use these for defining the role of the TL and what I have learned so far. Very interesting!!!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

What Can Teacher Librarians do to Manage Change?

1) Managing Change at a Personal and Professional Level:
* develop a professional growth plan through: web sites created by teacher-librarians that contain resources and information on authors, discussion groups,can be involved in continuing education in order to learn effective ways to use technology in their teaching, to access new resources, and to collaborate and communicate with peers outside the classroom.
* seek and develop administrative support by demonstrating the educational needs of students and staff.
* becomes a trusted part of the school staff to be effective by:becoming involved in the school ie. participating in school committee activities and extracurricular social gatherings. Teacher-librarians must know three things about their school: the current teaching practices, the culture of the school and the teachers’ skills, knowledge and attitudes.
* to work with teachers, technology coordinators and administrators to create a team in the school. An action plan outlining the specific needs of the school, how technology will extend resources, and how it will facilitate resource sharing can be developed through this partnership (Bens, 1999). They can assist the computer teacher to think creatively about technology and its educational use in the school. Teacher-librarians can provide lists of web sites geared to a season, a special holiday or a theme. They can also acquire valuable information regarding school library and technology issues. They can help provide training that is school-based on professional development days or during after school workshops. The teacher-librarian who is trained on the use of the Internet, e-mail, and web site evaluation can be a mentor to the staff.
2) Managing Change at the School System Level:
* become a policy maker.Teacher-librarians should try to locate all relevant policies and procedures and decide whether they meet the needs of a twenty-first century school. The teacher-librarian should reflect on how change has affected the library and existing policies should be reviewed for their timeliness:
Student technology use, including the acceptable use of computers

§ Faculty technology use, including acceptable use of computers

§ Circulation issues

§ Copyright and new technology issues

§ Personnel hiring

§ Personnel evaluation

§ Facility use

§ Acquisition of materials

§ Access of materials (Repman & Downs, 1999, pp.9-10).

Library Resource centers and teacher-librarians are really at a crossroads. They are called on to play an increasingly important role in information literacy and electronic information retrieval, analysis, and synthesis. The teacher-librarian must become a technology role model and leader. Failure of the library Resource Center to meet this new mandate and failure of teacher-librarians to embrace the challenge of this new role will inevitably lead to obsolescence. (Bens, 1999).

The Changing Role of the Teacher-Librarian in the Twenty-first Century

Summary of Article:

“There is one role in education that has been forced to keep up with changes brought about by the information age, computers and the changes in society” (Baumbach, 1995, p. 248). That role is the one of the teacher-librarian, whose job is becoming more important.

New technologies bring many opportunities and challenges to school libraries and teacher-librarians.

“Teacher-librarians have come along way from the time when they were considered caretakers of the book collection. Now they are information providers, consultants, curriculum activists, instructional designers, instructional leaders, production specialists and most important, teachers” (Kreiser and Horton, 1992, p. 313).

It is predicted that by the year 2010, ninety percent of all jobs will be computer related and that by the year 2020, twenty percent of the working force will be collecting sixty percent of all the wages (Bens, 1999). Educators must ask themselves what kinds of skills are needed for students to be prepared for these employment trends. These jobs will require critical thinking, higher order thinking and inquiry skills. Teaching information literacy skills becomes a high priority.

The use of resource-based learning materials such as the Internet and CD-ROMS are necessary elements to increase the learning achievement of the student (Mendrinos, 1994). Resource-based learning is adaptable to individuals, groups or cooperative learning situations. Resource-base learning integrates both cognitive and physical tools of information literacy within the curriculum. Teacher-librarians are at the forefront of helping teachers use resource-based learning in their classrooms.

Technology has brought many changes to education in the past 10 years and technological literacy is listed as one of the goals of the Common Essential Learnings, which is a component of the Core Curriculum. The goals of technological literacy are the following:

*
To develop a contemporary view of technology
*
To develop understanding that technology both shapes and is shaped by society
*
To develop students’ appreciation of the value and limitations of technology within society
*
To provide opportunities for students’ active involvement in decision-making related to technological developments (Sask. Ed., 1992).

The teacher-librarian is important in helping students develop these skills.

Teacher-librarians can also help students to acquire other goals listed as Common Essential Learnings. The Critical and Creative Thinking CEL is developed when students select and evaluate information. A teacher-librarian can teach the following goals of Critical and Creative Thinking:

*
To contribute to development of “strong sense” critical and creative thinkers
*
To develop an understanding of how knowledge is created, evaluated, refined and changed within subject areas
*
To promote both intuitive, imaginative thought and the ability to evaluate ideas, processes, experiences and objects in meaningful contexts
*
To enable students to think for themselves, to recognize the limits of individual reflection and the need to contribute to and build upon mutual understandings (Sask. Ed., 1992)

Through the use of technology and resource-based learning, a teacher-librarian can teach the goals for the CEL of Communication. One of the goals of Communication is to enable students to use language for differing purposes and audiences. Personal and Social Values can also be enhanced by developing students’ abilities to work together in cooperative learning groups and other grouping practices using technology. The CEL that can most strongly be supported by a teacher-librarian is Independent Learning, which lists the following goals:

*
To support the development of a positive disposition to life long-learning
*
To develop students’ abilities to meet their own learning needs
*
To develop students’ abilities to access knowledge (Sask. Ed., 1992).

Why are Teacher-Librarians Catalysts for Change?

The movement away from the use of basal textbooks, the increased concern for learning styles, the explosion of information, advances in instructional and informational technologies, advocacy for cooperative learning and collaborative teaching are factors that increase the complexity in planning for instruction. These factors bring a need for teamwork with a teacher-librarian (Donham van Deusen, 1996). There is no one better able to bring about change than a teacher-librarian working in partnership with school administration, classroom teachers and students. “Few educators are as prepared to navigate the massive amounts of information streaming into schools or to teach others how to do so than the school media specialists. Some are definitely seizing the day” (Harrington-Lueker, 1992, p. 45).

Summary of The Association for Teacher-librarianship in Canada list of professional competencies for teacher-librarians:

The Collaborative and The Curriculum Leadership Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Instructional Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Instructional Technologist Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Library Management Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Information Specialist Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Advocate Role of the Teacher-librarian
The Information Literacy Role of the Teacher-librarian

Challenges Facing Teacher-Librarians
There are many challenges facing teacher-librarians as they strive to develop their multifaceted role. They must ask themselves the following questions:

§ Are you familiar with the many emerging technologies?

§ Are you fully aware of the potential the emerging technologies have for schools?

§ Are you ready to provide the leadership necessary to take full advantage of these and other information programs? (Assiniboine South School Division, 1996).

It is also important for teacher-librarians to keep up with developments in following fields:

§ Telecommunications

§ Information storage and retrieval

§ Computer applications

§ Instructional design (Assiniboine South School Division, 1996).

1) A challenge exists for classroom teachers to alter their perceptions of teacher-librarians and what they do.
2) Traditionally, school libraries have been vulnerable to budget cuts. This is another challenge facing teacher-librarians.
3) A further issue facing teacher-librarians in Saskatchewan is access to library courses.
4) Many are handling technology in addition to their traditional responsibilities. “Some teacher-librarians have jumped enthusiastically into becoming “Cyberians”, others find that it takes away from what they enjoy most about being a librarian (Harrington-Lueker, 1997, p.49). They all don’t have “the ability to deal with the software and hardware.
5) Teacher-librarians are expected to have technological expertise, and to share that expertise with teachers as well as students.

The NSW Teachers Federation's view on the role of the TL

The role of the Teacher-Librarian in the school community as seen by the Teacher's Federation

Teacher Librarians
I. POSITION

The Teacher-Librarian is the school's information and resource specialist, with professional qualifications in (a) education, and (b) information science/librarianship.

The Teacher-Librarian is responsible to the Principal for (a) initiating and participating in the teaching of information literacy in the context of the total curriculum, and (b) managing the school's information resources and services to facilitate learning/teaching.


II. PROFESSIONAL ROLE

1. The Teacher-Librarian has a professional involvement in the learning and teaching program of the school by collaborating with teachers in curriculum development, implementation and evaluation.
2. The Teacher-Librarian initiates and cooperates in programs to ensure that students become discerning users of information to enable them to achieve the learning outcomes specified in the schools education programs.
3. The Teacher-Librarian has key role in the school's information technology program.
4. The Teacher-Librarian provides experiences to encourage reading.
5. The Teacher-Librarian develops, organises and manages information resources which meet the educational, cultural and recreational needs of students and the professional needs of teachers.
6. The Teacher-Librarian facilitates access to external sources of information.
7. The Teacher-Librarian is responsible for all library management, including:

1. devising and implementing systems for efficient library operation to ensure optimum user access to information resources;
2. preparing and administering the library budget;
3. training and supervising the library staff;
4. evaluating and reporting on library programmes.