John Seely Brown, author of a New Culture of Learning (one to add to your bookshelf) speaks here to Steve Hargadon at the World Maker Faire 2012 about the ‘wonders’ and value of a Maker culture – pointing out the value of ‘using our entire body to understand the world’.
While teacher librarians and school library services continue to adapt to the needs of their students and school community in response to student learning needs, the future is not always rosy. We have been given comprehensive evidence that in Australia there is indeed a crisis in school librarianship, and that we need to be talking about it.
This was the topic of my short presentation for ALIA BIennial Sydney 2012, which only touched broadly on the actual content of the paper submitted.
If we recognise that there are many forces at play within schools that impact on provision of library and information services, then we have some idea as to why school libraries are caught up in that potential crisis of budgeting as schools continue to adapt to 21st century learning needs. It is when competing constraints are in operation that school librarianship inevitably comes under scrutiny, resulting in adaptations and changes that can have long-term implications.
6.6 It is indisputable that the value of teacher librarians’ work has been eroded over the years and undervalued by many in the community, be it by colleagues, principals, parents or those in the wider school community.
School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in 21st Century Australia
Perhaps one of the most disheartening conversations that have emerged in recent times has been in relation to the leadership and staffing of a school library. Many have noted the shift that can take place in a school where teacher librarianship is sufficiently undervalued, so that teaching staff are appointed to “run‟ a school library, with little or no qualifications in the field appropriate to the nature of the services that a school and its students deserves. Conversely, staff may be appointed who may have a library qualification, but who are not teachers.
6.7 The profession has unfortunately been subject to the many competing priorities that school principals find themselves contending with in an environment in which education budgets are ever stretched.
School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in 21st Century Australia
The Australian Government Inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarianship provided us with a substantial review that indicates the vital need to continue the conversation about what a teacher librarian is, does, and can do into the future. (Inquiry Report, 6.17). This conversation (i.e. research activities and professional development opportunities) will ensure that individuals, groups and organizations will be better placed to continue advocacy on behalf of the profession.
A good place to gain an overview of the influences in this conversation is in the Learning in a Changing World (2010) series, which addresses how the learning environment and the services to support it are evolving. The series presents the core areas for teacher librarians and school leaders to consider for 21st century learning: the digital world, virtual worlds, curriculum integration, resourcing, and the physical environment. This series highlights key themes that contribute to the ongoing conversation:
1. Successful learning for 21st century students is shaped by the digital environments within society and in our schools
a. Learning involves connecting, communicating and collaborating in multimodal environments
b. Rate of technology change is accelerating as it a teacher‟s responsibility to facilitating learning in current and emerging digital environments
c. Resources are being managed with better technology tools and refined digital integration
d. Curriculum innovation depends on integration with digital and multimodal approaches to learning
2. The scholarship of teaching is influenced and shaped by digital environments
a. Models of learning are being developed that accommodate multimodal learning environments
b. Mobile devices and virtual environments are essential components of learning
c. Learning theories are responding to creative, cognitive and meta-cognitive engagement with literacy and information needs that have emerged as a result of digital environments.
d. Curriculum innovation depends on adopting a teaching and learning approach that is flexible, student-centered, and incorporates a range of tools and devices for digital connectivity
3. School libraries need to respond to a 21st century information ecology
a. Literacy and research frameworks need to be developed to respond to the unique developments in digital environments
b. Action-based research needs to drive the decision-making cycle
c. Guided enquiry is an essential tool for curriculum integration
d. The school library is a virtual and physical learning commons for whole-school library services
4. The teacher librarian must be a curriculum leader with responsibility for supporting whole school learning frameworks that meet challenges that the digital context has created
a. The teacher librarian leads information provision in their schools, with an increasingly strong focus on digital resources and environments
b. The teacher librarian designs the learning environment of the library to respond to the pedagogic and technologic changes in learning and teaching taking place
c. School libraries are hubs of professional development and collaborative action
d. The teacher librarian leads the ethical and responsible use of resources underpinned by the mix-and-match environment of creativity, literacy and knowledge activities that digital environments have fostered.
Working the crisis!
Teacher librarians are already acknowledged as being creative and wholly competent in the traditional literacy and information literacy aspects of their role as well as in all dimensions of the technology/mobile enhanced learning environment. Despite this, the challenges facing schooling and schools today continues to promote or erode the “status‟ of the teacher librarian and the school library depending on a variety of critical circumstances.
The full paper presented at ALIA2012 Biennial Conference is available here.
Image: cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by robinsoncaruso
Earlier this year I wrote a post about Hackerspaces and Makerspaces, after attending the Computers in Libraries conference in Washington. I met up with Buffy Hamilton for lunch, and as ever was inspired with the responsive way she grabs an initiative and runs with it.
So I wasn’t surprised to find Buffy writing Makerspaces, Participatory Learning, and Libraries where she ‘nailed’ the opportunity.
Now here she is, putting forward the New Chapter for 2012-2013 proposal for A Makerspace Culture of Learning at the Unquiet Library. Love it!
In a sense, this is not a new concept at all, particularly for primary schools, as kids are hands-on and experimental in their classroom experiences. What I particularly find attractive about makerspace culture is that it responds to, and perhaps acts as a counterfoil to the gamification/gaming momentum that is somehow almost seen as the only response to innovation and change in schools.
Hackerspaces and makerspaces provide outstanding opportunities for synergy in our new learning environments.
Image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Pete Prodoehl
Perhaps the answer to that question is obvious to you? Or perhaps you are wondering what exactly it is that you should wish your students to learn?
I know that teachers are passionate people, who are committed to providing students with rich learning experiences and diverse opportunities to rise to the challenges that our world provides. But this passion needs to be nurtured, and is best nurtured by drawing on the quality experiences of our peer practitioners, and quality research that is being undertaken in schools.
In speaking to a group of new post graduate students this evening, I explained that one of the avenues for supporting your own ‘passion’ is to subscribe to a new online journal for educators called SCAN (which – for my money – has always been one of the best-value journals around in print form).
What does SCAN offer?
Scan is a leading refereed journal that focuses on the interaction between information in a digital age and effective student learning. Scan offers engaging professional support for all educators.
Articles, school stories and resources about:
The new online issue of SCAN carries the article So you think they can learn? in which I urge SCAN readers to make learning visible by re-envisioning information literacy for today’s learners.
Do take the time to visit SCAN and experience the new interactive capabilities that will surely make this journal a continued leader in the field in the digital era.
Image: cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by heyjudegallery
Almost everyone I know is busy. Almost everywhere you go people seem busy. Now, the media is even talking about being busy. The ‘busy trap‘ is pretty well covered in the opinion piece from the NYTimes, which highlights the point that there is busy, and then there is busy! There is essential work and there is the other stuff – packed agendas to ‘keep busy’, which is a very different thing.
Even children are busy now, scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and extracurricular activities. They come home at the end of the day as tired as grown-ups.
As the Times article says:
The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it.
There’s the rub – when it comes to being busy, no question - I’m to blame. And as of July, the situation is going to get worse.
Why?
Starting this week I’ve started a new chapter in my work at Charles Sturt University as I take on the role of Courses Director in the Teacher Librarianship strand of the School of Information Studies, in which the main degree program is the Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship).
This is going to be exciting, challenging, and definitely a busy trap!
Image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Éole
“Like most people, you probably use Google to search most of the time. But what if you want to quickly look something up on Wikipedia? Or Youtube? Or Wolfram Alpha? Save some time with Chrome’s other built-in search engines. Here’s how!”
Thanks for this quick Youtube tutorial http://youtu.be/b3fMNi4zxSE Chris.
Lately I’ve been very busy – who isn’t these days? My kind of busy has meant less blogging and more collaborative planning and conversations.
I’m always on the lookout for flexible options for conversation spaces that are hassle free, and don’t need complex logins or software downloads. Free is also good (while it lasts!)
So effortless video meetings have become a must – and now I think having my own meeting space is also a must! I’ve tried out the new browser-based tool at Meetings.io http://meetings.io/ with a small group of people a few times, and have been very happy with the ease of communication. Works across a range of devices – nice!
New features are promised, but for now the standard features work ‘out of the box’ with the click of a button.
Better still, I have my own vanity meeting room, making it drop-dead easy to invite people to a meeting. Better still, I can find and retrieve past chat logs and files, all in one place. Apparently I can schedule new meetings and manage all my upcoming meetings, but I’ll be honest – I haven’t tried this out yet.
Overall, this is better than Google Hangout – simply because so many people still get confused by the whole Google+ meeting thing – and it’s free versus video group meetings in Skype. Other stuff is more expensive again.
Give it a go and see what you think!
