Library Ties

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!

Tags:   author visit · Sarah WeeksComments Off

Jan McGee, Elizabeth Dumas (LASL President) and Carl Harvey.

Last week I had the pleasure to head down to Louisiana and spend a few days at the Louisiana Library Association.  The Louisiana Association of School Librarians is the state affiliate to American Association of School Librarians (AASL).  LASL is a division of the Louisiana Library Association.

One of my favorite parts of being President-Elect of AASL is that I get a chance to represent the association at some of the state conferences.  Many years ago the AASL Board votes to start a rotation so that the AASL President (President-Elects and Past-Presidents) would visit the various state conferences on a consistent basis.  Earlier this year I visited Nevada and the other state on my list this year was Louisiana!  The goal of the program was to help build and reinforce the connection between our affiliates with AASL.

The reason I enjoy it so much is the people.  Over the 2 1/2 days I was there, I got a chance to meet some amazing librarians doing some amazing things.  LASL is luckily to have quite a dedicated group at the helm of their organization.  They ran a wonderful conference.  I had the honor to present a couple of sessions – Engaging the Profession and 21st Century Skills are Elementary.  It was great to share some of the things AASL is working on.  Even more exciting is that we’ll be back in LA for ALA this summer in New Orleans.

Besides the time I was sharing in front of the group, I got time to sit back in the audience and enjoy of the session they offered.  There were some wonderful session such as Skyping with an Author and What to Read Next after  Percy Jackson with some great tech connections.   You can see some of the resources on the LASL wiki!  I also had the chance to attend their awards reception and the author luncheon with Wendelin Van Draanen who is an amazing presenter.

Carl Harvey and author Wendelin Van Draanen

But, as I said before the people are what makes these conference so wonderful.  The little chats and conversations in the hallways, before and after sessions, or at the meal functions were certainly the highlight for me.  I came back for ideas I can use in my own library as well as feedback for AASL, too.  I’d also like to thank LASL for the newest addition to my tie collection.  Its wonderful!  Thank you to all the great librarians in Louisiana for a great visit!  Looking forward to being back there in June!!!

Tags:   AASL · American Association of School Librarians · conferences · LASL · Library Media Programs · Professional Development · Reflection · school librarians · school libraries · school library media programsComments Off

There was so much amazing stuff from Thursday and Friday at the Follett Software Users Conference last week that it has taken me a little while to process it all.   Not to mention, I just didn’t have time to write in Chicago as it was happening.  Now that I’m “Back Home again in Indiana” I’ve had a chance to sit down and write a little bit about the rest of the conference.

Don Tapscott – Keynote

The highlight of the conference I think for me was the keynote by Don Tapscott.  He said, “We have the best education the 18^th century could provide.”  He said it is time for us to think of a new model.  We need to move to collaborative learning.  Kids need to learn how to reinvent their knowledge base multiple times in your lifetime.  We need kids that can solve problems, put things in context, and love learning.  Work and learning are the same thing for the future.  He said it was not about technology, but rather a change in the how a teacher interacts with their students.

Social Media in Education

If you haven’t checked out all the amazing things Shannon McClintock Miller is doing at her school, you are missing out.  Shannon is the District Librarian at Van Meter Community School in Iowa.  She shared a plethora of ideas and tools for using social media in school.  You can check out her presentation here.  I got a few minutes to chat with Shannon and she is an amazing librarian!

Advocacy

Mary Barbee from Georgia and Connie Williams from California shared some ideas and thoughts about advocacy.  A couple of things that really stuck with me is: What do you see when you come in the front door?  Is it a list of rules or a place of possibilities?  How can we make the library an inviting place where our users want to come and can feel a part of it?  Mary also had a wonderful walk through checklist that administrators could use to see what their library should have!  What a great idea!  Connie had a quote that I really liked, “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. – Antonine de Saint-Exuperty.  What do you contemplate the possibilities are for your library?  We have to create the vision and then work to make it happen!

Free Digital Resources

Ann Sheehan brought together a list of online tools that were free to access.   There were many I knew about, but the list contained many I hadn’t seen before.   Some of my favorites from the list are:

• Eduscapes – http://www.eduscapes.com
• Thinkfinity – http://www.thinkfinity.org
• Free Federal Resources for Education Excellence – http://free.ed.gov

What’s Next with Destiny!

Many of the updates they talked about will come in the December update.  We’ll see a mobile app coming for Destiny (Android platform), RDA compliant for cataloging, connections with Follett Shelf, and much more.  Some of the things coming sooner are with the Standards Search they will include connections with Common Core and other national standards.  Also starting April 1^st, if you have updated to 9.9, Destiny will now have the option of the One Search feature for free!!!!!  I can’t wait to get that one set-up.

Learning Commons

Robin Cicchetti shared the transformation of Concord-Carlisle High School using the Learning Commons model.   This model focuses on the library as a place to create and share information.  It is more than just a warehouse.  The librarian is a facilitator to learning.  Space is flexible where students can work in small groups, they have an area to present and share their thoughts and ideas.  Robin’s school has gone that direction and you can learn more about that from her presentation that is linked here.

Leveled Library

My presentation was about our Leveled Library, which I refer to as my first branch library.  We were able to be proactive when it was set-up to show how the library could be a part of creating these resources for guided reading.  It also helped to prove why our main library did not need to be leveled.  We used Destiny to help leverage for data with tracking what is being used and allow teachers easy access to see what we have.

Rick Jones, Carl Harvey, and Marge Cox

But, I think my favorite thing as always about any conference is the interaction with people.  There were several dear friends at the conference and I enjoyed the chance to catch-up with them.  I met several new friends and just the interaction and conversation outside the session leads to a lot of learning, too.

I have lots of ideas swirling in my head about how what I learned could impact our library program.  Today was back to school and the normal catching up from being gone along with practice for a webinar I’m doing with Connie Williams next week.  We had our first graders in doing some writing activities that were a lot of fun, too.  But one thing my friend and mentor Marge Cox shared in her session was a challenge.  Before you get back in your routine and lose sight of the information you learned, go back this week and implement something you learned, try a new technology tool, and share what you learned.

If you weren’t able to attend, you can search the Twitter hashtag #fsc11 to see a lot of what was happening.  Looking forward to the next FSC Users Conference next year!

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This afternoon the session I attend at the FSC Users Conference focused on Professional Development.   It was more a discussion than a presentation and it was so interesting to see the different perspectives and ideas that the group.

The primary question we discussed was when does a training become professional development.  My thought is that training is just “how to” and professional takes the “how to” and then goes one step forward to “now what do I do with it.”  These learning experiences can happen one on one, small group, or even a large group.  The key part for me is making sure that anything we offer focuses more on “now what do we do with it” and less on the “how to”.

So thinking about what makes a good learning experience / professional development opportunity for an educator, here would be some thoughts that swirled in my head…

• Relevance / Purposeful – First and foremost it has to be relevant to their job.  How is this training going to make me a better educator?  How is this training going to impact what happens in my classroom every day?  The purpose has to be clear and easy to see for the attendees of any professional development.  If I can’t see the connections, I’m going to tune out before the session even starts!

• Conversation (what do we do with it?) – This one kind of overlaps the one above, but one thing that is important with professional development is not only the skill, but the conversation about how am I going to use this new skill — whether it be a teaching strategy or new piece of technology.  This goes back to the purpose again.  One of the things I’ve been doing lately is trying to provide professional development during the teachers Professional Learning Community meetings.  I was finding whole group to be difficult to schedule and it is really hard to show how something might work with all the age levels in an elementary school.  By doing them in their grade level PLCs, I have the time to focus in on exactly how it might work and look in Kdg. or 2nd grade and not be distracted by the other levels.  The conversation is more rich and focused.

• Impact – How is what I’m learning going to impact kids learning?  Big question, but one that should be in the mind of anyone planning a professional development opportunity for teachers.

• Marketing – Mentioning the word professional development to teachers can create a very quick groan from some folks.  I’ll admit up front I have an elementary background, so I tend to love themes and finding “cute” ways to entice teachers.  At the same time, you have to deliver what you promise.  Future learning opportunities will depend on the success of the last thing they attended.  So, make sure to be clever and interesting so they want to attend, but also ensure to follow through with the promises made.

• Fun – Lastly, you have to have fun!  Most of the professional development I do comes before school, after school, during the teachers prep, or other odd times.  There has to be an element of fun.  Maybe some nice chocolate on the table.  Maybe a theme and decorations.  We all have our own style, but we have to make sure to create an environment where people feel comfortable and want to be there! A little element of fun can help with that.

One thing we didn’t talk about in the session, but probably is something to consider is what is the role of the school librarian in providing professional development?  For me, it is a key role we play in the building.  Its a part of being a leader is sharing.  Whether it is technology, literacy, or other talents and knowledge, we have a lot to offer and share.  We need to be a part of the team that creates the professional development plan for the building. We should be a part of the group that is presenting and sharing.  Not only is it a visible example of how the school library program plays an important part of the school, but we’re connected with tons and tons of resources and tools and we need to make sure to get that information out to teachers so it can impact kids.  For me, it is essential that the school librarian plays an active role in professional development.

Tags:   fsc11Comments Off

The first thing I attended today at the Follett Software Users Conference focused on report builder.  In this day and age, data is an important piece in telling the story of a school library.  Destiny has many created reports that are easy to run, but sometimes we want to know even more.  Report Builder gives us access to create the reports we need or want.

I’ll be honest that I’ve used Report Builder before, but I never felt like I was getting all out of it could.  There are lots of options you can choose and data fields you can pull from.  Sometimes my reports came out in these piles of stuff that wasn’t help for me (or anyone else for that matter!).  I think the biggest take away from the session was to really take a minute and think out what information do I need and making the fewest choices within Report Builder to get that information.   The Follett trainer did a great job in walking us step by step through the Report Builder explaining what each option could or couldn’t do.  I think it will make me think just a little bit more as I’m going through each step so I can make sure to get the result I want.

My other take away was I need to do a better job of sharing some of the online trainings and resources Follett has made available for Destiny.  I think those eModules could be very helpful to the librarians in our district.

As I have a feeling will become a trend for this conference, the session was also full of other questions, thoughts, and ideas from user.  Some very specific to their individual schools, but some that apply to everyone.  I think this conference is likely to be very rich in conversations about “How do you do this….” or “How can I do this….”

The conference is off to a great start!

Tags:   fsc11Comments Off

My bags are all packed and I’m ready to head to Chicago this week for the Follett Users Conference.  You can see the agenda here and the list of presenters.  It looks like it will be a great few days of learning!

This conference I’m sure will be full of new things we can do to expand our use of Destiny, but the program looks to go beyond that.  I have no doubt I’ll be coming back with ideas on how to make my library program even better!

I’ll be sharing a session called Curriculum, Collaboration and Library Connections.  We’ll be talking about our library branch – The Leveled Library!  Looking forward to sharing what we’ve accomplished at my school, but even more excited to see what I can learn from everyone else!

As with all conferences, my favorite part is going to be the people.  I know several good friends that are coming and I am soooo looking forwarding to spending time catching up.  I’m also looking forward to meeting new friends.  The conversations with old friends and new will make the conference experience even richer.

It’s going to be a great couple of days in the windy city this week!  I can hardly wait to get there!  If you aren’t able to make it to Chicago, check out the conference buzz or search the hashtag #fsc11 in Twitter.

Tags:   21st Elementary Library Program · fsc11 · librarymediaprogams · Professional DevelopmentComments Off

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been introducing our students (and teachers) to a new resource we have at our school.  myOn Reader <www.myon.com> is a new product from Capstone Digital.  The product is a collection of hundreds of digitized books.  Students can read (or have them read to them) from books on a variety of topics and levels.  Teachers have the option for them taking a short comprehension quiz at the end of the book.  There are also options for the text to be highlighted as the computer reads it to the students.  A dictionary is available for students to use while reading as well.  Beside the quiz, students can also rate and write book reviews about the titles the read, too.  The collection of online books can be accessed from any computer in the building or student can login from home to read even more.

myOn has even more features.  There is an interest survey where students let the computer know what it likes as well as a quiz to determine their Lexile reading level.  Based on that information, the computer also recommends books to the students that meet their interests and reading level.  However, students are not just limited to those books and can read any book in the database.  Teachers can also create lists of books based on their theme or classroom units of study for students to read.

My role as the librarian has been to get it set-up, give student an introductory lesson, and provide support for our teachers with the program.  I can also help make recommended lists for students based on their classroom curriculum and topics.

I’m a member of the Capstone Digital Advisory Board, and as soon as they showed us this product I knew I wanted to try it with our kids.  We’re just scratching the surface.  I’m sure once we have all the students logged in and using it, we’ll find more ways to utilize this resource.  Our students seem to really enjoy it and our teachers are up for trying this new resource that is just another way to get books into students hands.  There are lot of data options we can check to see how students and teachers are using the program, so we’re excited to get started with it.  I’m excited to see how this new tool takes off and the potential it has.

Tags:   Capstone Digital · myOn ReaderComments Off