Annual library report

I just finished my 2012 Annual Library Report!
My first, actually. I blogged about my intentions to do this last year, in my opening past for this blog.
I have passed the report on to my "line manager", the Assistant Head Secondary - Diploma Programme and all library staff, and he will share it with my Principal and Heads of Subschool. It was 8 pages long and included the following:
Resources
Print (including statistics of new resources); sharing resources of the local library service; digital (ebook, mp3 audiobooks, ipad apps); management of digital resources (Follettshelf); other digital resources (online curriculum guides - Libguides, including statistics of access); multimedia resources (Clickview and Discovery Education)  including statistics of use; databases; periodicals (including ejournals); stocktaking overview.
Learning and teaching
Reading promotion - library visits, circulation statistics, Book Week, author visits, book fairs; AIS Libraries and professional learning - the contribution of library staff to pd initiatives such as Teacher Inquiry Groups, the 2012 Library Team Inquiry into ipads (report);  the library's contribution to school goals (regional PD provider;ICT integration).
The physical environment. Achievements and challenges.
Staffing.Achievements and challenges.

Students as curators

Image courtesy Anglicans ablaze.

Today I had my first Year 12 class sign in to our new collaborative curation space in Mightybell. We called it Year 12 Belonging and the intention is for students to select the best resources they can find for this area of study and share them here. It will also be a place for students to share their writing for this task. I showed students how to add and use the bookmarklet (Mightybell works best in Firefox or Chrome).

We established the following protocols for work in the site:
1. Authenticating and exercising judgement when selecting resources to post. this is an essential part of curation. I explained we didn't want everything they can find, but the BEST they can find. We want this to be the BEST website on Belonging. Here is Joyce Valenza's wiki about curation.
2. After posting a resource, students should go in to comment and justify why they selected it.
3. Attribution - I have modelled this in my examples on the site for a website and an image, hyperlinking the name of the creator/site back to the source and explained that this is not to be confused with referencing in the formal sense, it's about using the work of others ethically.

I also talked to the class about this being an opportunity for students to create a positive academic digital footprint for themselves (the site is closed, but we may open it up later), as opposed to their social footprint (Facebook etc), and the value of this.

I'm really excited about the opportunity this gave me for an authentic relevant context for some valuable learning and teaching. And that this arose as a result of my colleague's inspiration by Joyce Valenza's presentation at Hands on Literacy 2012 conference last Satuday. And that she is infecting others with her enthusiasm. Just me isn't enough!!

Hands on Literacy 2012 conference, November 17, Singapore

Almost 300 delegates; 46 workshop presenters; two amazing keynotes and a great team effort. It was fantastic to network with colleagues from all over Asia and to be joined by librarians from The School Library Association of Victoria and elsewhere in Australia.
Workshops  catered for early years through to Diploma/senior years; catered for mainstream English to ESL and Special Needs; and of course Libraries.

 
Joyce Valenza as keynote cast a broad net of issues facing librarians and educators in a networked world - transliteracy and the need to be literate across different media; digital citizenship; the world of web 2.0 tools for active and engaged learners; digital curation and student-curators as well as educator-curators. What a generous and inspiring role model she is. Here is a link to her presentation.

Two things have happened this week in response to Joyce's presentation.

• 1. I have finally curated my favourite links in my Personal Learning Network, using a tool mentioned by Joyce - Bundlr. Here it is - My PLN.  I chose Bundlr because it has the layout I want to use to access my contacts, and also because it is social. So Denise in the Junior Library here is going to start one too, and as we share common professional interests, we can easily share what we find and like.

• 2. On Monday morning a colleague enthusiastically asked me to help her senior English class with a collaborative curation tool they could use to curate resources for their English task. Not all curation tools are collaborative, and again I used one recommended by Joyce - Mightybell. (our site is closed). She has enthused her colleagues in the English faculty, and now others want to join in.

I was really excited about this because I had tried earlier in the year to set up an online reading/responding space for my senior students using Ning. It didn't take off, despite my presentations and encouragement of faculty. One thing I learnt from this was that it's not about my timing, it's about my colleagues' timing.

 One of our Committee's goals was to provide a strong library strand for our ISLN network members. So,  two library-based keynotes that have broad teacher appeal, and a strong response to call-for-papers that addressed the uses of ICT, ways to engage boys (and girls) with reading, information literacy, library design, curation.
Here's a link to the programme.

Judy O'Connell's "Digital curation" presentation provided an excellent close to the conference, sweeping her audience to the future of web 3.0, the semantic web and grounded them with a conclusion that was a call-for-action - to embrace opportunities for new ways of engaging with learning technologies, the re-invention of learning.

 

Image courtesy Dimitrios journeys.

 Here is a link to Judy's presentation.

Selecting and evaluating web 2.0 tools for the classroom

Our PLN Teacher Inquiry Group now has the task of selecting a web 2.0 tool to use in the classroom with their students. From the 2012 Personal Learning Network Program, our group will select a web 2.0 tool that they can apply to their current curriculum and evaluate the outcomes.

But how to selecting the right tool for the task? How do we evaluate web 2.0 tools?

Here are some resources I found that are helpful for this:

Web 2.0 tool evaluation criteria

Checklist for selecting the best web 2.0 tool

Visual blooms of Web 2.0 tools

Webtools4u2use

Checklist for evaluating a web 2.0 tool

100 helpful tools for every kind of learner

Web 2.0 tools in the information search process

To be, or not to be...for my PLN inquiry group

I thought I would share just a couple of my favorite networks, to explain why I love social media for professional learning and the spread and reach it gives me.

10 reasons for educational professionals to use twitter. I found this through Twitter!!

Scoop.it and other curation tools that target your interests. I follow these:
Jude O'Connell. Social networking for information professionals.

Adrienne Michetti's blog: ICT and Learning. School stuff, right!

School Library Association of Victoria's blog - keeping touch with library and education news from home - Bright Ideas

LinkedIn professional network - I really like the contributions of Karen Bonanno, who was until recently the Executive Officer of the Australian School Library Association.

Library2.0 network

That's just a few. That said, I go cold for weeks sometimes, depending on what's happening. I dip in when I can.

Have you found a network that inspires you? Please share in the comments below?
Linda


(thanks Jude for the cool image!)

Our Teacher Inquiry Group - the PLN 2012

 Our school has implemented  Teacher Inquiry Groups for practice-based professional development this year. Teachers were invited to volunteer and nominate a topic for inquiry and many were activated.I am enjoying leading  a group exploring social networking as a tool for professional development and web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in the 2012 Personal Learning Network programme facilitated by the State Library of Victoria.

The guiding questions for our inquiry are:

1.How can web 2.0 tools support and inspire student learning?

2. How can social media facilitate my professional growth?

3. As we engage in a new digital environment, what matters of global citizenship are important to my students and myself?

We will meet every 3 or 4 weeks to review and discuss our progress and the tools explored. Each group member has created a blog and will write a post after each session, perhaps even more. So will I.

So, what are my hopes and expectations for this group? Essentially, I hope that after this 12 week programme, these teachers will come to

• appreciate the power of social networking to inform and inspire their practice; make some enduring professional contacts through tools like Twitter, Ning, blogging.
• sustain a curiosity for the power of the internet, social networking and web 2.0 tools in education.
• discover new tools for their classrooms and try them out.
• 
  

  continue to be reflective, collaborative practitioners.