Reading Log November First

As library media specialists, we want our media centers to be a quality place where students and teachers come to meet their learning needs.We can't make this happen if we don't promote the library and collaborate with teachers and administrators to make it the best that it can be. There are many wonderful suggestions in what librarians should be doing to promote the library which includes collaborating with the local library to receive any additional materials when teachers are having students doing various research projects, monitoring teacher projects for later collaboration, and promoting local library's age appropriate event. The con of working with the public library is that the public library may have different goals from what the school library needs, so looking carefully through the materials may be a necessity when working with the public library. At my placement, the librarian receives books from the public library that have been weeded out of the system. She goes through them and decides which ones she wants in the library and then lets the other teachers look at the rest of them. That sort of thing can be helpful, especially if you're on a tight budget.

Collaboration and monitoring teacher and student projects are especially important when considering implementing new technologies and creating workshops for teachers. We need to become comfortable with the technology and know how it works. Many teachers have little to no training in technology yet are expected to integrate it into the their lessons (Conducting Effective Staff Development Workshops). The other day, my cooperating librarian had to help a teacher put materials into Google Docs and retrieve it as well as connecting the laptop to the speakers and overhead. There's so much we can do for teachers and students that utilize 21st Century Skills and the Common Core, but we can't unless we're willing to promote ourselves and our media center.

This is what the authors explained in the article School Library Media Specialist-teacher Collaboration. In order to be seen as a valuable piece in the learning process, teacher librarians need to be a part of the curriculum, literacy, and technology development . This includes being on the committees, talking to the principal on a regular basis, and collaborating with teachers who are willing to work with the media specialist to implement technology, research, and other important learning based skills.

October 25 Reading Log

In today's education world, promoting technology, nonfiction, and research is one of the most important aspects in the classroom and library media center. As mentioned in "All aboard!: Implementing Common Core offers school librarians an opportunity to lead," the Common Core Standards are requiring that teachers implement more nonfiction into students reading. Students should be reading 70% of nonfiction by their senior year of high school and have databases to back up their reading in order to make it more solid and interactive.

This requires the library media specialist to step up into a leadership role. This includes using web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis to inform parents, students, and administrative staff for them to see what is going on in the library. Librarians also need to make the school library a place where both teachers and and students can feel safe and feel like learning can become productive and tangible. In the article "Today's School Library Media Specialist Leader," I found the list of 10 easy leadership ideas to help school librarians become leaders on their campuses to be especially helpful. Things like meeting with the principal regularly, be on curriculum development committees, and collaborating with teachers and staff are especially helpful because without becoming active in the school environment, media specialists have no hope in advocating the importance of the library in the Common Core. Time and budget may be an issue, of course, but shouldn't we at least make an effort to promote our library for the students? Even parents like the ones mentioned in Tough Mothers would be an asset to the school library. If you can get the parents in on working with the library and getting people to recognize the hard work in the library, more media specialists would have a better time integrating what students need in the library and even possibly gaining funds for the library.

Collecting data/evidence of what's being done in the library is probably the most obvious way to show what's being done in the library, but according to "Can you find the evidence-based practice in your school library?" most media specialists use circulation and other related statistics when asked to bring them. Instead, media specialists should be using statistics like how much they helped a student with research or homework, helped the student when not in class, and helping them in general. These kinds of statistics seem to be more tangible, solid, and realistic to me than just basing the library use off of circulation. After all, most books don't get checked out, but are used in the library on a consistent basis. How do you account for those books that don't show up on the circulation records?

Creating evidence, collaborating with teachers, parents, and the principal are many of the ways in which library media specialists need to help promote the library and integrate it into classrooms and teaching. School Libraries are important, and therefore should be given the proper acknowledgement that it needs. But it won't help the students if we don't even make the necessary steps to ensure its survival.

Reading Log October 18

Collection development is the act of deciding what materials will be acquired into the library. What the school library media specialist decides to incorporate into the library determines the quality of education the students will have when asked to do research and reading from their core classes. For the library media specialist, according to Betty Carter in Collection Development, the collection development plan needs to emphasize the school's mission. A magnet school might emphasize the sciences, so any extraneous books about World War II would become obsolete. This emphasizes the need for policies and procedures to emphasize consistency, define the scope and coverage of the material, and quality of the selection, among many others (Policies & Procedures). If the media center doesn't adhere to the building and district policies, then you're not meeting the mission or the needs of the district and its students.

While we need to look at what the district says to develop our collection, we also need to look at who our patrons are. For example, a children's librarian should have a good science section and reference section such as a dictionary while other sections such as religion, probably shouldn't be emphasized as much (Ostergard & Yusko, Children's Reference Sources).

It seems like a daunting task. We have to consider the polices and procedures for the building and the district as well as the students and teachers who will use the books. We also want to acquire new books that may cause interest for those who are going to be looking at them. I know I'll find many things that I'll want to get, but I also have to be aware of the budget and what is important for the school. How do we keep a fair balance between everybody?

October 11 Reading Log

What is intellectual freedom? According to the article with the same title, it's the right to seek and receive information in all formats without any kind of restrictions. This includes using technology that will help students enhance and expand their learning. Many conservative people find that these technologies disrupt student learning in a negative way. Annette Lamb says that technology can and should be used by library media specialists to enhance students' learning and push the envelope in intellectual freedom. She suggests eight rules to further intellectual freedom such as teaching students between good and bad technology (becoming more media literate) and being aware of laws in regards to students in the classroom like CIPA. This includes (as mentioned in Intellectual Freedom 101) that students' should not be denied anything because of race, religion, age or other beliefs and that we should be aware of students' confidentiality. If this is the case, then why do we have a website like Common Sense (mentioned in Fear Factor: Kids' Lit Style)? It's a site that allows parents (and teachers as well) if there's anything questionable about the book. I feel that by having this website, we're allowing parents and teachers to limit what students are able to read. If they're not allowed to read it because someone saw that it had a cuss word in it, how is this helping the student to learn and expand their knowledge? It's more like enabling adults to violate students' rights to access information. It would be better if students had educators and parents who instead discussed the topics presented so that students can understand them rather than deny them knowledge of the topics.

This includes making cuts in the school library and getting rid of library media specialists altogether (How School Budgets Affect Intellectual Freedom). How are students to become knowledgeable and literate in all forums if there isn't a media specialist to advocate for them and teach information that increases their learning? Without media specialists, sites like the Common Sense website will be used more frequently, thus hindering students' intellectual freedom rights.

There doesn't seem to be a clear answer. We can advocate and protect students' intellectual freedom, but we can only do so if we're actually in the library to help students and a supportive staff to increase knowledge and protect students' rights.