Category Archives: News

Share Your COVID-19 School Library Experience

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From the team at Students Need School Libraries –

COVID-19. It changed Term 1, 2020. It changed the way students and school staff approach Term 2, 2020. It changed the way we view education. It changed the world. What it didn’t change was the need for school libraries run by a qualified and passionate school library team.

We want to know and share what school libraries or school library teams have been focusing on during this COVID crisis. It might look a little different from the usual, but it’s even more important during this time of change and upheaval.

The Task: We want to know what you, as a library staff member or library team, have been focusing on during this COVID crisis.

The Goal: To continue sharing the word about the importance of school libraries and school library staff. Schools are blessed to have you. And the schools without you are probably wishing they did have you right about now.

What you would need to do: Take 5 minutes to respond to the questions below or write a short paragraph about how your school library is responding to the COVID crisis and email it to blog@studentsneedschoollibraries.org.au Anyone involved in school libraries in any way is welcome to respond, from school library staff to parents or students, authors running virtual visits or publishers providing access to resources.

We will feature responses on the Students Need School Libraries Website and social media pages and we hope to share the stories around the world in collaboration with our international colleagues. We hope we can rally around each together during this time to support each other, our students, school staff and the wider community. Please let us know if you have any other ideas you would like to share.

Snapshot of a School Library during COVID-19.

  1. What has been the focus for your school library/ role during the COVID-19 crisis?
  2. What major tasks have you achieved?
  3. What has been the result for staff and/or students?
  4. What other information would you like readers to know?
  • Do you give permission for this information to be shared beyond the Students Need School Libraries website and social media, for example in an articles for a school library journal? Yes/No/I’d need to be contacted first
  • Would you like this posted anonymously: Yes/No. If no, please answer the questions below.
    • Your role/s:
    • Your school:

You can find more information here. https://studentsneedschoollibraries.org.au/blog/share-your-covid-19-school-library-experience/

NEW! Discussion Forum

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SLAV have started a Discussion Forum where members can share and discuss ideas and resources. To start off, we have created four threads that respond to the current crisis. They are:

Online learning resources
Safety precautions in school libraries
Tasks for working remotely
Wide reading lessons online

We have also created an open forum that allows you to pose a question, on any topic, to the SLAV Community.

The Discussion Forum can be accessed via the link below. The system will prompt you to sign in with your SLAV member username (the email address we have for you in our system) and the password you have set.

Once in the forum it is just a matter of replying to one of the threads to start sharing and contributing.

You can tick a box to receive emails about new posts. Join the Discussion Forum HERE.

Online resources

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During this time, there are many lists being shared that can help you find quality resources to support online learning in your school.  We look for institutions that we know produce reliable and authentic information, and are collating a page of links to resources, guides and useful information HERE for ease of access. We will continue to update this page as we find new resources to share.

 

Professional Learning Resource Round Up

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As we all respond to the directives and guidelines in relation to COVID – 19 our association is working hard to ensure we are doing all we can to support our members.

With some schools needing to close for indefinite periods of time there may be a need for your school library staff to indicate ways they are exploring professional learning during a period of school closure or changed operations.

To assist, we have created this post, listing a range of professional learning opportunities made available to members.

A range of presentations from past Professional Learning Events can be accessed via the SLAV Member Login page HERE.

Over the past two years we have created podcasts of all of our Reading Forum events as well recording a selection of presentations given at our major conferences. These podcasts are available to anyone online and can be accessed HERE.

Synergy is our online, research based, journal. The most recent edition of the journal is closed to members only but all other editions of the journal are made freely available in light of the Associations interest in being collegiate and supportive of the wider professional community. We encourage you to explore the wealth of information from current and past editions HERE. 

Digital issues of our publication – FYI – can be accessed HERE. 

As a SLAV member, you also have access to resources from the International Association of School Librarianship through our partner membership status. There are some wonderful resources to be accessed on the IASL website and we encourage you to find time to explore them. Login details are available on our Member Login page.

Finally, a word on our 2020 Professional Learning Calendar. As we advised in our most recent newsletter we are doing all we can to ensure we are keeping our members and presenters safe, and are responding to guidelines and directives accordingly.

Events – cancellations and postponements

Our March 23 conference has been cancelled.

The IB workshop to be held in conjunction with DATTA Vic at Kardinia College on April 16 has been cancelled.

Our May Masterclass in conjunction with LMERC – Powering Learning: Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives has been moved to September 4.

Our May 29 Conference – School Libraries: Powering Primary has been moved to September 14.

The National Education Summit on August 28 and 29 at MCEC, a strand of which we are a partner in providing, has been postponed to a later date yet to be announced.

All other Reading Forums, Workshops and Masterclasses

The remainder of our program are events that are to be held in school venues. At present we are continuing to plan and offer these events on the understanding that a decision will be made a month to two weeks out from each as to whether they are to go ahead. As it is very difficult to know exactly where we will be in two months’ time this approach is hopefully the best response in unknown times.

If you have any queries about this, please contact the SLAV office on 0477 439 593 or email slav@slav.org.au

We encourage all members to stay in touch with each other in these challenging times. Our branch structure is an excellent source of local support.  We encourage you to reach out and offer collegiate advice wherever you can and to ask if you need help or assistance. Our social media platforms can also be a source of connection. Please do reach out, we are open to assisting you in any way we can.

In the news – building perspective

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maps

Studying the news and gaining perspective on an incident or event from another person’s point of view is a valuable learning experience.  Whether it be politics or sport, it is possible to help students see through another set of eyes by reading the news as it is presented in another country.  Here are some useful tools for the purpose:

Newspaper Map

Read news from a local perspective with links to more than 10,000 newspapers in over 130 countries.  Beautifully visual, simply to select a newspaper from its location on a world map and read it with the assistance of Google Translate.  Excellent for foreign language students and for anyone seeking to gain an understanding of the culture of another country.  See how nuclear energy features in European newspapers, for instance, compared to Australian newspapers.

Museum- Today’s Front Pages

Newseum displays the front pages of more than 2,000 newspapers worldwide on its website each day.  They are in their original, unedited form.  Access by gallery, list or location on a world map.  Functionality on the site is quite granular with the ability to sort by world region, then name of paper or country.  Translate function is accessible by using the link to website and using Google Translate.

OnlineNewspapers.com

A beautifully clean and fast site, OnlineNewspapers.com also includes online magazines with links to free worldwide magazines on a broad range of subjects.  Newspaper websites can be searched by country or region and are very quickly retrieved.  A few dead links seems to indicate a lack of maintenance on the site but it’s still a very useful resource.

ipl2 – Newspapers & Magazines

Organised as a basic database, the user starts at the international and regional level, drills down to country level, then can use the city index to locate a specific newspaper.  Less visual than other sites, it is still easy to use and reveals an amazing range of world news.

Newspapers are under attack with the rise of blogging and alternative news tools but they are still an effective tool for expanding a student’s perspective and providing opportunities for discussion.  Take time to explore.

 

EdTechCrew podcast says ‘Farewell’

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edtechcrew

Since their first podcast as the EdTechCrew seven years ago, Tony Richards (@itmadesimple) and Darrel Branson (@ictguy) have opened the eyes of educators to the possibilities of ICT integration into the classroom.  I say ‘educators’ and not ‘Victorian educators’ because over the course of the 250 episodes of EdTechCrew, Tony and Darrel have woven together a worldwide network of listeners, collaborators and conversations from the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada as well as Australia-wide and places in between.

Having mentioned them in a recent post on recommended Australian education podcasts, it is now disappointing to report that EdTechCrew Podcast 250 was the farewell presentation from this great team.  Darrel and Tony have a chemistry that many would envy in their ability to share news, ideas and discussions in such an easy going manner.  Their individual expertise has not been worn as a badge of honour but has been used to build a community of learners who are now better able to bring about the transition to technology integration in the classroom.

Over the past seven years we’ve listened to the rain on the roof of Darrel’s Mildura shed-studio, felt the summer heat and listened to the crickets while hearing of his growing family and his changes of career along the way.  Tony has also shared the growth of his family, moved house and been stuck with dodgy internet.  He now resides in beautiful Ocean Grove but clocks up numerous air-miles consulting around the country, most recently with the support of his number on trialer, Patrick.  In the meantime the weekly podcasts have rarely skipped a beat.

Straddling both the primary and secondary sectors, with no discrimination between Government, Catholic or Independent schools, Tony and Darrel have been an example of what can be achieved through an open approach to education.  Distance was no barrier as they used the technology available to create a podcast from their locations at opposite ends of the state.

School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) members are familiar with Tony through his involvement in the Web Elements Engaged Project and presentations at numerous conferences.  The EdTechCrew Diigo Group, through which the community have shared recommended resources will remain active.

Thank you Tony (@itmadesimple) and Darrel (@ictguy) and good luck with the activities that are now demanding your closer attention.  You’ve left a rich resource of 250 podcasts.  I encourage every educator to take time and listen, you’ll learn to much.

SLAV and ALIA collaborate on Bendigo conference

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The newly refurbished Bendigo Branch Library of the Goldfields Library Services was recently the venue for a joint conference of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV).  See Rhonda’s Flickr album for further images.

Held on 1 May, the conference entitled Together we are stronger in building communities, was an opportunity for regional library professionals to participate in professional learning within their own community with presenters and topics largely related to the local region.

Use of the #slavconf Twitter hashtag which has become familiar to SLAV professional learning events, was embraced by delegates who used it to share ideas and resources with the broader community of followers. Some of the significant tweets from the conference provided a shapshot into the day.

The opening of the conference

Collaboration and resource sharing including the changing nature of libraries

Tania Berry’s presentation on Makerspaces

Digital Citizenship from the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation

The day was evidence of successful collaboration between school and public library sectors and augers well for future partnerships to benefit regional members in particular.

Presenters notes will be available online when the new SLAV website is launched at the next professional learning event, a SLAV/State Library of Victoria seminar, on 16 May.

 

PLN Plus – be the change you want to see

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Kelly Gardiner, Online Learning Manager at the State Library of Victoria, is a well-known voice in the VicPLN community, particularly in relation to professional learning for educators and librarians. This post introduces the guiding questions that underpin the new PLN+ course, beginning on the 11th March.

We’ve been wondering: what’s the next logical step for people who’ve done the VicPLN course?

Last year, we found out. With support from AITSL, we carried out some research into impacts of the VicPLN courses. Many of you participated in that. The thing is that a startling number of people report that the course changes their practice. And once that’s happened, what do they do?

They – you  – start to enact whatever changes seem most needed in your immediate world or beyond. It might be changes to the way you do your work, the way you collaborate with colleagues, the interactions with students, simple process or system fixes, big initiatives.

It’s about leading change.

Now, we’re not all Joan of Arc.

But it seemed clear to us that after the initial PLN courses, people then need the skills, tools and resources to enable them to enact the kinds of change they want to see – in their workplace, in their classroom or library, in the wider school community, in professional networks, in disciplines, or the broader systems and structures.

How do you become an advocate for literacy or simply for more resources? How do you collaborate to create new professional networks or share ideas or raise funds? How do you involve the wider community in learning? How do you create programs that pass on what you’ve learned to students?

How do you define what you want to do, attract support, design and manage projects?

How do you keep on learning, when you have so much to do already?

And what does that mean about our VicPLN network – what do you need from it now?

We can’t promise to answer all of those huge questions in a few weeks. But let’s make a start, shall we?

If you’d like to take part in the course (and maybe change the world just a bit) you can find out more here or email learning@slv.vic.gov.au  to book a place.

PLN Plus March 2014

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In March the State Library of Victoria will begin a new kind of PLN program, PLN Plus.

PLN Plus is designed for teacher librarians and educators who want to find out how to effect change in their schools and learning communities. The program will run for four weeks and will involve a group project where participants work with like minded people on a passion project – what is the one thing you would change if you could? It could be a practical endeavour like getting your school blogging, or look beyond to setting up TeachMeet-style programs and community building.

Each week participants will be introduced to relevant new tools and online environments and also have the opportunity to engage with inspiring educators and librarians who have made change happen in their schools and broader communities. We will also discuss theories and research that inform the concept of networked learning and key trends in education looking to the future.

You can register to take part in this course, but numbers are limited. For more information visit the State Library of Victoria website, PLN Plus page.

Welcome 2014

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Hopefully you’ve had a restful and rejuvenating holiday season and are ready for a new cohort of students in your classrooms and libraries.

Here at Bright Ideas we’re looking forward to introducing you to new topics and voices this year to help inspire you and your students as you engage with thinking and technology.

As always, we love to hear your feedback and ideas, so let us know if there’s an issue or subject you’d like us to look into or if you’d like to write something for us.

We’re looking at some fascinating projects in the next few weeks, including details of the upcoming PLN Plus program in March, so stay tuned and welcome back.

Image credit © Red Letter Press