Platypus otherwise known as watermole

My comparison of free wikis (work in progress)

I've worked with wikis for almost every class in the MLIS program and they have all been hosted at PBwiki, but I was curious whether or not it was the best choice (for my purposes) or just the popular choice in the program and amongst the Library Learning 2.0 crowd. I started with Wikipedia's entry on wiki farms. I immediately ruled out subscription hosting sites which left:


BluWiki
ClearWiki
EditThis.info
GROU.PS SuperWiki
Hive Wiki
Intodit
MyFreeWiki
Netcipia
Uwiki.com seems to still be a work in progress the wiki is here.
Wikia
Wikihost.org
Wiki-site.com
Wiki Spot
Wikkii
WikyBlog.com

This is a good reference to using the engine that most of these wikifarms use.

Still reviewing these sites. . .

This is a great article that deflates some of the hype around wikis.

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

Thanks Chad!

Testing Pixelpipe

So I should be able to update my status and write blog posts to multiple sites from my phone with this app.

Tiger Girl

Sky@Catherine's birthday

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Library Service Class

We had a great time this week!

Giving red blood cells for the blood drive

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Notes on Ch. 12-15 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

"Like other levels of the model, however, it is easy to spend an inordinate amount of time on direct services and ignore the information infrastructure and the four central program elements." So true.

I'd like to get students to do reading advisory through our catalog. I imagine a catalog that is Amazon like in that it will list reviews by students of the books that are held in the library.

I'd also like to work on business and national partnerships.

If my number one problem is lack of support staff, I need to create job descriptions of each of the things that could be delegated.

Six principles of collection development:

1. The collection of the library media center must be appropriate for the community a school draws from.
2. A plan to build a curricular-oriented collection with the accompanying policies, staff expertise, and realistic budgeting practices is in place.
3. An acquisition system that matches curricular priorities is in place.
a. How do you select your materials? Mostly I try to get feedback from others, then I try to see gaps in our collection that need to be filled, finally I try to get books that have received awards.
b. How do you prioritize your purchases? Text books first - then texts found in the bibliographies of text books, then faculty requests, then student requests.
c. How do you keep track of spending in terms of curricular support? I don't. This is an area for growth.
4. Each type of media included in the library media center is considered a system consisting of the materials, the accompanying equipment, the support staff, and facilities, among other concerns.
5. Collections in single schools are constantly changing to meet current needs.
6. Collections reflect democratic ideas, intellectual freedom, and cultural diversity.

I need to review the collection policy made in the past and develop a collection mapping plan using the model on pg. 210.

I'd like to create the Experimental Learning Commons and one of the first steps will be creating the Teacher Respite area-- both physically and virtually.

We covered a lot of evaluation in the management class and I have been to a Balanced Scorecard seminar, so much of the last chapter was a review.

Notes on Ch. 7-11 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

1. How often does collaborative planning take place in a normal school day? Well I know it isn't 50%, that is for sure! "Many groups may come to the LMC to work on projects of which the library media specialist has only cursory knowledge and in which there is very little planning invested" This is the case the majority of time right now.

2. What is the spread of collaborative planning throughout the faculty? Wow, I already did one of the suggestions before I reached this question. I do plan on talking with administration about patterns I see. One of the most obvious patterns was that most of the teachers who have not collaborated at all are math and science teachers. A surprising pattern was that many of the teachers who have not collaborated with me are the senior teachers on the staff. This makes me wonder if they have had bad experiences in the past, or their perceptions of the LMC are just more entrenched. It could also mean that these are the teachers who don't need to bring their class into the library as way to take a break from the class room.

3. What type of teachers plan with the library media specialist? Two of the teachers who collaborate the most with me are very far on the constructivist side of the continuum. The other two are closer to the behaviorist side but are close to center I would think. While subject matter may be an indicator for teachers who are less likely to collaborate, it doesn't seem to be an indicator of those who collaborate the most- Religion, English, History, and Science are all represented by high collaboration.

4. What subject areas seem to be affected the most and the least by collaborative efforts? Math is clearly the least collaborative subject and History closely followed by English and Religion is the most collaborative subject. I like the idea of having P.E. and Math collaborate in the library using spreadsheets.

5. What organizational factors seem to encourage/discourage collaborative planning? One of our English teachers habitually comes to the library to do his grading--I could also use this time to create a collaboration with him. It is very difficult to get out of the library if no one is available to take my place since the library always has students in it. Not having a support staff means that if I leave, the library closes-- this is just not an option, so most of the time I am bound to the library.

"Collaborative planning with teachers and students (during a constructivist project) is the most powerful link between the library media program and raising academic achievement."-- I'll be making this my mantra.

I'm starting to see why I was balking at the idea of an LMC that was open to students at any time without class appointments. "For example, Mr. Smith's students were disruptive, lost, and confused. The library media specialist and teacher plan to spend 10 minutes before the next LMC time to make sure that students understand their project before they are turned loose in the LMC." It was this disruptive, lost, and confused behavior that I was trying to avoid. One class like this is difficult enough. Now imagine three classes in the library at the same time and none of the teachers had planned with the librarian ahead of time. This happened to me multiple times during my 1st year, before I complained enough to stop that practice from happening. I'm completely happy to have students from multiple classes droping in when they have time, when they (and I) know what they are working on!

"Both teachers and administrators must realize and support the notion that preplanned learning activities deserve the best treatment in the learning laboratory."-- I need to make this planning my first priority.

A list of all the things tha might build avid and capable readers in the school:
1. One community, one book (I need to start planning it for next year and make the proposal to the curriculum committee.)
2. Find out the status of our SSR program in C-blocks--coordinate visits to C-blocks to do book-talks (perhaps I could even get students from the book club to do book talks)
3. Video tape book comercials for new books that could be played during homeroom.
4. Check with the English teachers about independent reading projects-- do more planning with them on this
5. Corporate-sponsored reading motivational activities

Chapter 10 was basically expanded in the New Learning Commons and In Command-

It would be interesting to have students study the topic of "research", log their own Anomalous States of Knowledge (ASK) during a typical week and how they found the information that they needed. Then talk about the research process. The idea is that students should see the research process separate from class assignments first.

Notes on Ch. 1-6 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

Library Media Specialist Taxonomy

I want to note where I have done work on the levels in this taxonomy. I'm going to take levels 1-3 as given.

"Level 4- Spontaneous interaction and gathering: Networks respond 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to patron requests and the LMC facilities can be used by individuals and small groups with no advanced notice. . . . Spontaneous services, however, might become an excuse for a lack of planning by teachers or turn into babysitting." This is one of the things that I had to get a handle on my first year-- it is very easy for the library to turn into a room for child-care. I'm still working on our catalog being accessible 24-7. We'll be subscribing to OCLC express and I'm hoping that Koha will work better than Follett CircPlus--we'll see.

Level 5-Cursory planning. I have sent out emails suggesting ideas and websites and to get feedback. I hope I'm not percieved as a pest!

Level 6-Planned Gathering. I've created pathfinders, handouts, bloglines, and saved Google searches for teachers "A clear idea of exactly what is needed is essential if success is to be achieved." As I found out in my reference class, this is much, much more difficult than you would think. The greatest obstacle to communication is the illusion that it has occured. I've found this to be true on many occasions.

Level 7-Evangelistic outreach/advocacy. There are degrees of advocacy- Advocating to just administration, to administration and faculty, to administration, faculty and students, to parents, and to the public at large. There can be some resistence when you seek to advocate to parents and the public at large. I was surprised to find this when I was trying to promote the fact that we had received the Picturing America posters from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Level 8-Implementation of the four major programmatic elements of the LMC program. I created a strategic plan for the library in my management class, but I'm not completely satisfied with it. I know I need to expand my articulation of reading programs like SSR, Reading Motivational programs, Book Club, etc. I also want to include students in this process.

Level 9-The mature LMC program. We're not there yet, but we are getting close. This is my 2nd year as school librarian and in many ways it is like my 2nd year teaching-- I still haven't quite found my footing but it is certainly not as chaotic as the 1st year!

Level 10-Curriculum development. "Curriculum development is more than just an invitation to attend curriculum meetings; it means that the library media specialist is recognized as a colleague and contributes meaningfully to planning." Yep this is the golden ring. I'm going for it. Having worked on the curriculum committee as English Department Chair will make this easier.

Teacher Taxonomy

A rough estimate of the % of teachers working with me at each level

Level 1: 42%
Level 2: 25%
Level 3: 7%
Level 4: 10%
Level 5: 5%
Level 6: 10%
Level 7: 1%

Looking at it like this, it is very disappointing. Part of this is being a one person librarian gives me little to no time to collaborate with teachers. Part of this may also be me rating too harshly-- I'd like to give the Teacher Taxonomy to each of the instructors and have them rate the level at which they feel we are collaborating to get a better picture of this. This was a very interesting way of looking at my work with teachers. One other thing to note, when looking at the level 1 teachers, the majority are math and science teachers-- I'll know I have arrived when I get a math class into the library!

Student Taxonomy

I've had students evaluate their information literacy skills on TRAILS, but I need to develop a more generalized survey that could be given school wide. This may be a challenge when there are so many competing agendas.

Administrator Taxonomy

I'm very interested to see where my principal sees himself on this taxonomy. I'm hoping it will inspire a constructive dialog about the library media program.

Notes on The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win! Ch. 6-10

"Such projects build knowledge bases tagged by many, searchable by everyone." A quick thought about tagging- I love the idea of folksonomies, but I wish that the people who design these sites would give just a little more subtlety to tagging. Instead of just tags, imagine if you could also tag an item as a Broader item, a Narrower item, or a Related item. This to me is an example of a best practice that librarians have had forever that could be incorporated into web design. (Del.icio.us webdesigners if you're reading this, take note--great feature to add!)

Our school is using Ubd, so many of the ideas presented were familiar. Reading the material only adds weight to my conviction that I must get coverage for the library so that I can attend curriculum and planning meetings. Too much of my current work is clerical and could be done by support staff. "This includes the teacher librarian whose first responsibility is to the improvement of instruction rather than tending and managing the Open Commons. For the most part, the Open Commons is the province of support personnel under the direction of the teacher librarian."

I'm going to propose the On the Right Foot idea to our principal. I would also like to do action research based on using blogs and bloglines for a class. It makes me wonder about the idea of a paperless class-- is it possible?

Action Research in the Expermental Learning Commons sounds like a dream come true! "It takes the best theories of education and research results and applies them to a local situation." This sounds challenging, interesting, and damn fun!

"In the context of the Learning Commons we recommend that the Experimental Learning Center be the center of such research activity that informs the faculty as a whole. There is an atmosphere of collaboration in the achievement of excellence because everyone expects that this is a place in the school where experimentation is the central focus. It follows that a positive attitude toward continuous school improvement is likely to develop and be sustained across years and across faculty turnover or student demographic evolution. . . . Such a focus would go a long way in promoting the idea that everyone has a stake in school improvement rather than just isolated teachers in closed classrooms."

Some links to look at more closely:
webquest.sdsu.edu/taskonomy.html
novemberlearning.com
www.criticalthinking.org/index.cfm
http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
OfCultivatingYourPersonalLearningNetwork
weblogged.wikispaces.com/New+Internet+Literacies
cissl.scils.rutgers.edu/guided_inquiry/introduction.html
www.projectnml.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf