Library Ties

Well, let’s say the adventure has started right from the start. We were on two different flights to Chicago from Indianapolis. 17 on one flight and 10 on another flight. I was in the second group and we were doing just fine until our flight was delayed and they projected us landing in Chicago at 9:11pm and our flight from Chicago was scheduled to leave at 9:05pm. The flight to China got delayed until 9:20, but it was still going to be cutting it really close. We landed at Chicago at 9:10, waited 10 minutes to get the gate to the door, and then we all bolted. I was getting text from our C.L.A.S.S. leaders Jim to RUN….(and make sure no one was loosing their Joy!)…but RUN. We barely made it, but all 10 of us got on board for the flight to China.

The flight to China was long….really long! I know I slept some, I read some, I watched part of a movie, and I talked to some of the people on our tour some. We landed, went through customs, and then met our tour guide Daniel. He is a stitch. I think we’re going to learn a lot from him. Like Beijing has 5 million cars and 20 million people that live there. He said they cleared the streets for us. Of course at 1:00am, traffic isn’t bad!

So, we’re all checked into the hotel. We’re suppose to be resting because at 7am we’re getting a wake-up call. I, of course, and wide awake. I had thought I could setup a little wireless network in my room so I could post these from my iPad, but that doesn’t seem to be working right. We did find some Wifi tonight (Day 2), so these may be sporadic until we get to our next hotel in Shanghi on Monday (I think it has wireless!). Tomorrow we visit the Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace! Daniel says we’re in for lots of walking!

Beijing Airport

Daniel – our tour guide!

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So the adventure begins. We’ve checked through security and our group of 27 is ready to head to Chicago. We’re on two different flights to the Windy City, but then from there we’re all on the same flight from Chicago to Beijing. It’s a 13.5 hour flight going over the north pole. We’ll land at 11:30pm in Beijing on Friday night. (That should be 11:30am on Friday Indiana time. They are about 12 hours ahead of us!) The longest I’ve ever been on a flight is about 4 hours, so this will certainly top that! I’ve got my iPad loaded with books and movies to keep my entertained during the flight – hopefully.

Tags:   C.L.A.S.S.7 Comments

The lights are finally off and the library is ready to take a few months off while the students are off playing (and reading, too, I hope!).  We’ll see quite a few “new” things when we return in August as our library is under construction this summer and will be expanding!  Yeah!  But, that’s for another post.

One of the things I like best about summer is there is time to reflect a bit.  So, thinking back a bit, one of the things I’ve been thinking about are some of the online tools we have been purchasing.  We’ve have a subscription as a district to World Book Online (K-12) for as long as I’ve been there.  It has been our main database at the elementary level for a while.  We’ve also had TeachingBooks.net for several years as a resource for our teachers.  I’m excited that TeachingBooks.net moved into our state databases this year.  But, in the last couple of years we’ve really focused some of our dollars towards online databases geared toward elementary students.

• PebbleGo – Animal Database and Earth and Science Database is amazing for our little guys.  K-2 absolutely love it.  Simple text, easy to navigate, sound and video, etc.  We use it for literacy stations in the classroom as well as for research.  The database comes from Capstone’s Pebble books, so there is a great connection to the printed books as well.
• We just added a subscription for next year for Rosen’s PowerKids Life Science database.  This seems to be perfect fit for our 3rd & 4th graders.  The database focuses on science resources and is one that matched our State Standards well.  I think our upper grades will get a lot of use out of it.  Our subscription just got started, so haven’t had time yet to try it with kids.  However, we are looking forward to doing that in August!
• Grolier Online – We recently add Grolier Online for our building, too.  Grolier just redesigned their entire interface.  You can read more about the new features here.  The new interface divides the resources up by grade levels, lots of interactive videos, and they have several databases.  We’re pretty found of the Amazing Animals as we’ve used that in the print version for years.  Grolier also includes reading levels (Lexiles) of the articles in the results from a search.  As our teachers will be getting mounted projectors next year in the classrooms, I could see a lot of the resources in Grolier Online being helpful to them.

We’ve been adding some eBooks to our Destiny catalog, but we’re just now exploring what we can do there.  I’m sure we’ll be adding more next year.  We’ve also got two online tools to bring digital books to our kids, too.

• myOn Reader - It has over 1200 books available for students to read.  Students take a interest survey and a reading level assessment to establish a Lexile.  They help guide students towards books the might like to read online.  I wrote about myOn in a previous post here.
• BookFlix – We’ve had BookFlix from Scholastic for about 3 years now.  It has a variety of non-fiction and fiction books pared together.  A great combination for our students to compare and contrast the differences between non-fiction and fiction books.

There are a lot of great products out there for elementary kids.  I’m so excited to see the resources we have and know we’ll continue to rely on them more and more each year!

Tags:   BookFlix · Grolier Online · myOn · PebbleGo · PowerKids Life Science · TeachingBooks.net · World Book Online1 Comment

I’ve had the pleasure to write about my principal on multiple occasions over the last several years…in this blog, in School Library Monthly, and even once he and I headed to Colorado to present to their state school library conference.  It is amazing the way a school library program can grow and develop when you have an administrator who “gets it”.

One of the things I often comment about is that school librarians have that unique role where they have the global perspective.  They see everything that happens in the school and the way those dynamics all work — much like a principal does.  We really have more in common with a principal than a classroom teacher — maybe even a bit more than we’d like to admit.  I think when you find a librarian and a principal who both understand that, it can form a connection that leads to great things for the library program and for the entire school.

Over the last seven years, our library program has grown and flourished.  Our principal very quickly “got it”, and from that day forward has been our biggest fan.  He has made sure to help us work towards creating an amazing library program.  He might tell you he hasn’t done a thing, but in reality what I think he did which was so great for our library program (and our school) was he created a culture where we always wanted to improve.  We always were moving that bar and jumping just a little bit higher.  The status quo was never a word or phrase we used.  We would celebrate our success, evaluate our failures, and always be thinking about how to make them both better the next time around.

The Vision of our school is 100%!  We want 100% of our kids doing the right thing and treating people right.  We want 100% of our kids doing and turning in their homework.  We want 100% of our kids to be reading on grade level.  We want 100% of our kids to pass the state standardized test.  Back to that first staff meeting, as we were thinking about our vision we were trying to think of what percentage our goals might be.  We tossed our numbers of 85% / 95% percentages.  I mean 100% is going to really be tough.  So as we’re brainstorming out loud, he says ok let’s say we’re going to get 90% of our kids to pass.  He had us turn our paper over and said, “Now write down the 10% of the kids we’re not going to worry about!”  It quickly became clear that wasn’t going to work.  We have to worry about 100% of them and we want 100% of them to be successful.  We’re still working reaching that vision each and every day, but I think there is no doubt that he gave us all 100% of himself.

Today was pretty difficult last day of school as we had to say goodbye.  Our principal is headed to new adventures with a new school outside our district.  I wish him well and am excited for him as I know this change is a great opportunity for him and his family.   At our last staff meeting today he went around and personally told each one of us something about us that brought him joy.  I’ll be honest, I was like everyone else with my sunglasses on to try and kind of disguise the tears.  Next year will be different without him there.  But, I know the lessons he taught us as he guided our building will be there for many, many years to come!  I think that’s the joy he brought to us!

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Well the school year is almost to the end.  As is typical time has gotten away from me and my postings on the blog are a little farther between than I might have liked.

But, none the less I am excited about a new opportunity coming in August.  Last week I was asked the by the AASL 2011 Conference Committee to be part of a book discussion on Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. In “The Shallows,” Carr asks the question: “As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?” Carr then describes throughout the book how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind” — from the alphabet, to maps, to the printing press, the clock and the computer. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store and share information can reroute our neural pathways.  A preview of “The Shallows” is available via the AASL conference website.

As we wrap up the end of the school year, order a print copy, check one out from the library, or download the book to your favorite eReader.  Its a great read during the summer months!  Then, starting August 10th on the AASL Conference Ning we’ll begin a weekly discussion of the book. I was honored for the conference committee to ask me to help facilitate this discussion, and I am really looking forward to the conversations ahead!  We’ll finish our discussions right in time to head to Minneapolis!

Here’s the link to the official press release here.

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In the March/April 2011 issue of Knowledge Quest, the theme focused on Reversing Readicide.  In the magazine, I had the priviledge to interview Malbert B. Smith III, President of MetaMetrics and co-founder of the Lexile Framework for Reading.  The interview was an opportunity to understand a little more about the Framework and talk about the role a school library should and could play with the system.

Earlier this month, there was a post on the Lexile Blog highlighting two of the most important pieces from the article.  We’ve all heard the horror stories of school libraries that had to be organized by a leveling system or students who have been required to read only in their level no matter whether the content was interesting or appropriate.  But, what does the co-creator of Lexlie think about stories like that.

Malbert said, “We do not find it necessary to reorganize a library by Lexile range or level.  Today,  a number of computer catalog providers offer Lexile measures to help guide students to the right reading materials – without actually having to rearrange those materials by Lexile level.”

He also went on to say, “A student should be able to choose what he or she wants to read, regardless of whether that book or article is in his or her recommended Lexile range.”

You can read the entire article from KQ online. It was really a great experience to talk with Malbert and school libraries and Lexiles.  Hopefully this article dispels some of the misconception on how the two should work together!

Tags:   AASL · American Association of School Librarians · Knowledge Quest · Lexiles · Malbert Smith IIIComments Off

Last week I traveled to Chicago to attend the CEO Symposium.  Organized by ASAE – The Center for Association Leadership, this two day workshop focuses on associations along with the roles of the CEO (Chief Elected Officer) and CSO (Chief Staff Officer).  This intense training was created by Tecker Consultants, LLC — Glenn Tecker along with his colleagues, Paul Meyer and Leigh Wintz.

Many years ago, AASL began sending both the President-Elect and the Executive Director, Julie Walker, to this training together.  The design of the workshop provides for lots of talking, discussion, and sharing between the CEO and CSO.  While Julie has attended before, she told me that each new President-Elect has a different perspective and the conversations are always rich and useful.  There are still a few more months (thank goodness!) with Nancy Everhart as the President of AASL, so I have a little while to ponder and think how the training might be useful during my term!

There were all types of associations at this conference.  The group is kept small — 100-150 — so that you really get a chance to interact with the presenters and attendees.  AASL has had Paul Meyers come and work with us during out strategic planning several times since I’ve been on the board.  His insight has help guide AASL through some pretty heavy topics and come out with a plan and course of action.  So, to have three of the Tecker group leading it was pretty amazing!

In talking with other Past-Presidents, I had been told this was one of the best professional development sessions you’ll attend as President of AASL.  I certainly would have to agree.  For someone who is learning about our organization, you’ll find that much of how the board operates, deliberates, and make decisions is based off this training.  Sometimes with associations, you can come off and on the Board so fast you don’t really get an understanding of how and why it operates the way it does.  This training really is great for the President-Elect to really see there is research and thought behind how the organization operates.

I can only share my experiences, but in the years I’ve been on the Board I’ve seen a real focus on being strategic from the AASL.  We could spend a lot of time in managing the association, but we don’t.  Instead we focus most of our time on the big issues surround the field and how we as an organization can help move it forward.

My two days in Chicago this last week were amazing.  My hope is that I can use some of what I learned to help continue to move AASL and our field forward during my year as President.  I’m still kind of thinking through a “theme” for my year, but I keep coming back to this word – engaging!

• I want us to engage the AASL membership to get active and involved!
• I want us to engage our AASL leadership to help accomplish the work of the association and move AASL and the the field forward.
• I want us to engage in our schools to become leaders within our buildings.  We all have those teacher leaders in our buildings who are respected for what they do and how they do it!  I think as school librarians we should be right there at the top of that list!

But, I know that a lot of what I learned, I can take back and use in my school.  A lot of what I learned in how to work with people, how to thinking strategically, and how to evaluate our effectiveness can work at my school and school library just as well as it will work for AASL.  Anytime I talk with someone who asks why I’m involved in the profession I can give them two quick reasons:

• I feel obligated to give back to a field that has given so much to me.
• Every committee, meeting, conversation, interaction, etc. that I have had in working in AASL, I learn something new that I can transfer back to my day to day job.

So, I can hardly wait to see what all I have to learn in the months ahead.    I’m certain that with all the opportunities to work with many of you, I will be learning a lot!

Tags:   AASL · American Association of School Librarians · CEO/CSO Symposium · conferences · Professional Development · Reflection · school libraries4 Comments

April is always such a great month!  There is spring break, of course, which is always good to have a little time to relax and rest up as we gear up for the end of the year!  Then there is the weather which begins to turn from the cold (at least here in Indiana)  towards the warmer side and we get some blast of sunshine!!!  The flowers are beginning to pop out of the ground and all around there are signs that winter has finally past (I hope!).

But another reason that I like the month of April is the celebration of National School Library Month!  Our PTO always brings us a little snack to share; our principal always brings in lunch for us one day; and my favorite part – all the letters from the kids.  Several of our teachers ask their students to write a letter to the library and tell them what they like the most.  Some of my favorites from this year talked about author visit with Sarah Weeks, or comments about the “hard work” we do to keep the library working.  Probably my favorite letter started out with an apology about their overdue book that she was just sure would be coming back as soon as she could find it!

We’re celebrating in the library with a reading contest to see which class can read the most minutes with our new digitized collection of books – myOn reader.  The kids are really engaged in this contest and it is going to be a close race I think!  We’ll have the voting for our state book award – The Young Hoosier Book Award –this month, too.   Besides that, we’ll continue with classes in working on projects and other activities.  April is going to be a busy month!

If you are looking for ideas and resources to support school libraries and school library month, look no further than the collection of materials put together by AASL.  AASL members and staff have been putting things in overdrive this month to get out some great materials.

• Check out these podcasts of school library stories from various stakeholders.  I’m honor my principal, Vince Barnes, was able to share a little bit about how he has learned about the value of school library programs.  There is a fabulous podcast from the folks in Texas as the work they are doing with the Texas PTA.   I think there are a few more to come, too.
• Professional Development – to go along with this year’s theme – Create Your Own Story – AASL offered complimentary webinars with  Nancy Dowd, Director of Marketing for the New Jersey State Library.  If you missed them live, you can watch them in the archives.
• There are some writing contests for teens this month.  Check out all the details at the link here.  Also, the winners of the Learning4Life video winners have been announced.  You can see the posted winners here.
• There are a ton of resources with tips and templates and all sorts of resources that you can use to promote School Library Month in your school at the bottom of the page, so don’t forget to check those out, too!
• AASL has also begun releasing a series of Advocacy Brochures.  Small groups of AASL members have been hard at work creating brochures for administrators, policymakers, parents, and teachers.  The administrators and parents are posted on the AASL website with more to come soon!

We still have two weeks left to go in April and I think there is at least one more project still to be unveiled.  Throw in there registration is open for the 2011 AASL Conference in Minneapolis in October, and April is turning out to be a very busy National School Library Month!  Thank you to all the AASL members and staff who have been putting in countless hours to get all these resources pulled together!

Tags:   AASL · AASL11 · School Library Month2 Comments

I first met Jeanette Larson about 6 or 7 years ago when we served on an advisory board for a publisher.  At this point, she was still working in youth services in a public library and I was near the beginnings of my career in school libraries.  Over the years, we kept in touch catching up at ALA conference and Facebook.  We even could share a few jokes (like the fact that she’s been an ALA member longer than I’ve been alive!)  Hmmm…probably I saw more humor in that one that her!  But, anyway, move forward a few years and Jeanette is now retired (although she seems pretty busy to me with consulting and writing!!).   About a year ago she posted on Facebook about her first book coming out for children!  I had eagerly been waiting to get my copy and a few weeks ago it arrived on my front door step!

The book was a collaboration with Adrienne Yorinks.  Adrienne did he fabulous illustrations for this book.  Forget pictures or paints, these quilted pictures are absolutely amazing!  They contained such detail that you almost thought they were pictures.  They fit in perfectly with the text.  My favorite parts of the book are the interweaving of the non-fiction facts about Hummingbirds with the Native folklore and stories.  The stories are short and simple to read and understand.  They would be perfect to pick and choose for a read aloud.  The nonfiction information would be perfect for a young reader doing a report.  The fact that all of this is combined into one books truly makes it a unique endeavor.

This is going to be a fun book to go back and share with students and teachers when we get back from Spring Break!  Thanks to Jeanette and Adrienne for creating such a unique books for young (and old) readers alike!

Jeanette has some activities and addition resources on her website, too! – http://www.jeanettelarson.com/Resources.htm

Tags:   Adrienne Yorinks · Hummingbirds · Jeanette Larson2 Comments

Last week was my favorite day of the entire school year!  It’s when we host our annual author visit.   This year we had the pleasure of having Sarah Weeks come to visit our school.  We’ve been prepping for her visit since January.  When we returned from winter break, we found a big package on our WNOR desk.  When we opened it, inside there were tons of Sarah Weeks’ books.  We were very excited.  Ever sense that day, we’ve been reading her books and getting ready for her visit.  We’ve interwoven her books into the curriculum where it fit, and we were so excited for her to get to North!

So, we finally got our day with Sarah.  She had actually been in Indiana for weeks.  We were one of 13 schools she was visiting, and we were near the end of her schedule.  We had a jammed packed schedule, but what a wonderful day that we had.  One of the elements I thought Sarah did so well was the ability to tailor the program to the audience.  She “tweaked” each presentation so that the content was relevant to the audience.   That’s one of the reasons that I heard great things from every group of teachers that saw her.

With the older kids she was focused on the story arch.  What shape should a story be and how do you create a story that will be interesting.  She then took one of her stories and showed how it had a great story arch!  It was really neat.  With the younger, she focused more on what an author does and how she was just like them.

Throughout the day, Sarah got a chance to share with our staff pitch-in – which was a lot of fun.  As well as every free minute she had, she was signing books.  We sold a ton of books, not to mention the library copies that all needed her signature.

It was a great day!  It was worth all the excitement leading up to the big day!  Now we just wait to see who is coming next year!

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