Share and celebrate: Professional development from SLAV

The School Library Association of Victoria has released its professional development offerings for the year. Celebrating 50 years of the Association, you are invited to come share and celebrate all things library. This year’s professional development offerings are diverse and stimulating and there is  something to suit everyone.

Highlights include:

  • Personal Learning Network: Learning through sharing course,
  • Open the door to inquiry and
  • Make, share, do: active online learning featuring US teacher librarian guru Joyce Valenza in person.

To avoid disappointment it is advised that you complete the form and send it back to SLAV as soon as possible.

Best educational wikis of 2009

The very kind Helen Boelens pointed Bright Ideas to the Wikispaces blog that lists a number of award winning educational wikis.

best wikis 2009

The winner and the two runners up from the Edublogs Best Educational Wikis of 2009 category are featured:

The Wikispaces blog also has tips and tricks on getting the best out of your Wikispaces wiki.

Feature wiki – Our Lady of Mercy College Heidelberg – information wiki

Our Lady of Mercy College, Heidelberg, teacher librarian Michael Jongen was inspired to introduce social media tools into the school library after hearing Will Richardson at a School Library Association of Victoria professional development day in 2009. Michael explains:

I work at OLMC Library as a teacher librarian. As part of my Professional Learning Plan for 2009 I was asked by Tricia Sweeney, Head of Library, to look at Web 2.0 and its applications in teaching and learning.

In March 2009 I attended a SLAV conference entitled Perspectives on Learning featuring Will Richardsonfrom the United States.  Will is a leading educator in the understanding and implementation of Web 2.0 strategies in schools. He argues that

‘Learning in the 21st century is all about networks and the connections we can make to other learners and teachers both in our communities and around the globe. But being literate in this new learning environment requires more than knowing how to read and write, it requires us to edit, publish, collaborate, create and connect in the process of building our own personal learning spaces’

Inspired by Will I decided to blog and work with the teachers at my school and make them aware of Web 2.0 and its potential for learning.  I started a Library Web 2.0 Wiki page on the School Portal where I explored some of the issues, tools and personalities raised by him in his keynote address and in his featured workshop. I feel that my role has been to inform, collaborate and apply, and I looked at practical examples of how social media can be incorporated into assessment or used for communication.

OLMC wiki

Tricia and I had another discussion and we decided to set up an information wiki. With the new school year just starting we will promote the wiki through our Years 7 and 8 reading programmes.

The appraisal of my year’s self learning project was on using Web 2.0 in the classroom and it was agreed that my goal in 2010 is to work in the classroom with teachers and students more often by using practical web 2.0 applications in assessment and presentation.

It is wonderful to hear that the SLAV conference held less than a year ago has had such a positive and practical impact on Michael and Our Lady of Mercy College teachers and students. Congratulations and well done Michael. Thank you to Tricia for supporting his endeavours to introduce social media to the school.

The OLMC information wiki is the first of the resources that Michael has developed that Bright Ideas will feature. I’m sure we’ll all look forward to experiencing his other efforts.

Learning from the Extremes by Charles Leadbeater and Annika Wong

Learning from the Extremes is a  recently released white paper by Annika Wong and WeThink: mass innovation, not mass production author Charles Leadbeater.

A two page executive summary of this important 40 page document that focuses on schools and learning has also been released and covers these main points:

  1. Improve school:  essential but not enough
  2. Reinventing school: cracking the code
  3. Supplement school: invest in families and communities
  4. Transformational innovation: a new logic to learning

The main points relate to the thoughts that schools that are collaborating and creatively using technology are the way to go, however, reinvented schools are not enough if families and communities do not value learning.  Learning must also take place outside of the school and include parents and the community. Specific programs that ‘pull families and children to learning by making it attractive, productive and relevant’ are applauded.

The authors advocate ‘new, low-cost models for learning’ and a massive shift in education policy. They conclude:

Governments should continue to look to the very best school systems to guide improvement strategies. But increasingly they should also look to social entrepreneurs working at the extremes who may well create the low-cost, mass, participatory models of learning that will be needed in the future.

Further discussion is invited at http://www.getideas.org

In the next few decades hundreds of millions of young, poor families will migrate to cities in the developing world
in search of work and opportunity. Education provides them with a shared sense of hope. Many will be the first
generation in their family to go to school. It is vital the hopes they invest are not disappointed.
Ingrained Failure
Yet even in the developed world, education systems that were established more than a century ago still underperform,
mainly because they fail to reach and motivate large portions of the population. These ingrained
problems of low aspiration and achievement among the most disinvested communities in the developed world
are proving resistant to traditional treatment.
The Four Strategies
This report outlines four basic strategies governments in the developing and developed world can pursue to
meet these challenges: improve, reinvent, supplement, and transform.
1 Improve School: Essential but not Enough
The most obvious strategy is to spread and improve schools. By 2015 most eligible children will have a place at
a primary school. The lesson from high-performing school systems like Finland is that to get good results you
have to attract, train, and motivate good teachers and provide them with good facilities to work in.
Today, though, too much schooling in the developing world delivers too little learning. There are high rates of
teacher absence, high drop-out rates among poorer children, pupils repeating years in large numbers, high
failure rates in final exams, and low progression to further education and training. More children are going
to school for longer but too many are not learning enough. Even in parts of the developed world sustained
investment in schools and teachers has not led to expected improvements in educational outcomes.
School improvement on its own will not be enough to meet the need for learning. Relying solely on this route will
take too long. Governments must turn to more innovative strategies that will come from outside the traditional
school system.
2 Reinventing School: Cracking the Code
Different kinds of schools are needed to teach new skills in new ways. Around the world innovators such as
the Lumiar Institute in Brazil, charter schools in the United States, and independent schools in Sweden are
reinventing school. They use technology more creatively and provide more personalized, collaborative,
creative, and problem-focused learning, in schools that have as many informal spaces for learning as they
have classrooms.
3 Supplement School: Invest in Families and Communities
Even reinvented schools, however, may not be enough to change cultures in communities where formal learning
is not valued. Families and communities have a huge bearing on whether children are ready to learn at school.
Executive Summary
© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 2 of 4
That is why innovation beyond the classroom is vital to supplement schools. The Harlem Children’s Zone and
the preschool play groups run by Pratham in India are prime examples of social innovation to promote learning in
communities, outside schools, and often without formal teachers.
4 Transformational Innovation: a New Logic to Learning
However, to get learning to the hundreds of millions who want it in the developing world, transformational
innovation will be needed. Transformational innovation will create new ways to learn, new skills, in new ways,
outside formal school.
Transformational innovation is being pioneered by social entrepreneurs such as Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the
Wall and the Barefoot College in India, the Sistema in Venezuela, the Center for Digital Inclusion in Brazil, and
many others.
These programmes: pull families and children to learning by making it attractive, productive, and relevant;
often rely on peer-to-peer learning rather than formal teachers; create spaces for learning where they are
needed rather than using schools; and start learning from challenges that people face rather than from a formal
curriculum. The test of these approaches is whether they get useful knowledge into the hands of people who
need it rather than exam pass rates.
From Improvement to Innovation
To make learning effective in the future, to teach the skills children will need, on the scale they will be needed
(especially in the developing world), will require disruptive innovation to create new low-cost, mass models for
learning. Even relying on good schools will not be enough.
This means there will have to be a wholesale shift of emphasis in education policies.
School improvement is still a vital goal. But more emphasis will need to be put on innovation that supplements
school, reinvents it, and transforms learning by making it available in new ways, often using technology.
The chief policy aim in the 20th century was to spread access to and improve the quality of schooling. In the
future it will be vital to encourage entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation in education, to find new and more
effective approaches to learning.
Learning from the Extremes
That kind of disruptive innovation may well not come from the best schools. It is much more likely to come
from social entrepreneurs often seeking to meet huge need but without the resources for traditional solutions:
teachers, text books, and schools. Disruptive innovation invariably starts in the margins rather than the
mainstream.
Governments should continue to look to the very best school systems to guide improvement strategies. But
increasingly they should also look to social entrepreneurs working at the extremes who may well create the lowcost,
mass, participatory models of learning that will be needed in the future.
To join the dialog about this paper, go to www.getideas.org

Free resources for teachers from Cybraryman

Jerry Blumengarten (also known online as Cybraryman1) is an educator with over 30 years experience. What began as a Middle School library page has developed into a site with lots of resources including a list of blogs and nings that address the future of education.

There is also a list of music sites and links to websites by music teachers (have not come across many of these) as well as links for the following subjects:

This site is definitely worth a look to help identify some great new resources.

Wallwisher

Wallwisher is quite a useful tool for both classroom teaching and feedback from whole school professional development/staff meetings.

wallwisher-screenshot-700

Anything you can do with Post It notes can be replicated in Wallwisher. Tom Barrett (@tombarrett) provides some great examples of how Wallwisher can be used in the classroom.

Wallwisher

Wallwisher seems like it could be another very useful and easy to use tool.

Australia Series professional learning

The Australia Series is a professional learning opportunity that has been developed by Steve Hargadon and a group of Australian educators.

Providing free access to online professional learning and conferencing via Elluminate, all sessions will be held in Australian-friendly times and offer topics that are relevant to Australian teachers.

Accessed via the LearnCentral Australia Series group, the aim is to have (at least) weekly Elluminate sessions. If you join the LearnCentral Australia Series group, you can join discussions, add your own events and see what other events are planned and use links provided to enter the Elluminate sessions.  Of course you do not have to ‘attend’ all scheduled sessions. You can select sessions that are relevant or appeal to you and those that fit into your schedule. (Remember to keep a note of all sessions ‘attended’ for teacher registration purposes.)

Australia series

This professional learning resource is highly recommended and is freely available to all Australian educators. (Please note you will need to have Java installed on the computer you are using as well as a headset for communication in Elluminate).

Read more about LearnCentral and Elluminate.

It’s not about the tools, it’s about the skills

Author of the wonderful award winning Langwitches blog Silvia Tolisano (Twitter name is @langwitches), has written a must-read post. Looking at the advent of Web 2.0 and the way it is perceived by parents, Tolisano addresses the skills developed and used by students in using tools such as blogs, creating podcasts and adding to wikis rather than the tools themselves. To read this post, go to Silvia’s blog now!

Horizon Report 2010

The 2010 Horizon Report has been released. If you are new to the Horizon Report, it looks at the future impacts of technologies on teaching and learning.

The six technologies to watch that have been chosen for this year’s report are:

Near term (within 12 months)

  • Mobile computing
  • Open content

Second adoption (2-3 years)

  • Electronic books
  • Simple augmented reality

Far term (4-5 years)

  • Gesture-based computing
  • Visual data analysis

Of particular note to school libraries is possibly mobile computing and electronic books. The Horizon Report adds that:

  • Network-capable devices that students are already carrying, are already established on many campuses, although before we see widespread use, concerns about privacy, classroom management, and access will need to be addressed. At the same time, the opportunity is great; virtually all higher education students carry some form of mobile device, and the cellular network that supports their connectivity continues to grow. An increasing number of faculty and instructional technology staff are experimenting with the possibilities for collaboration and communication offered by mobile computing. Devices from smart phones to netbooks are portable tools for productivity, learning, and communication, offering an increasing range of activities fully supported by applications designed especially for mobiles.
  • Electronic books have been available in some form for nearly four decades, but the past twelve months have seen a dramatic upswing in their acceptance and use. Convenient and capable electronic reading devices combine the activities of acquiring, storing, reading, and annotating digital books, making it very easy to collect and carry hundreds of volumes in a space smaller than a single paperback book. Already in the mainstream of consumer use, electronic books are appearing on campuses with increasing frequency. Thanks to a number of pilot programs, much is already known about student preferences with regards to the various platforms available. Electronic books promise to reduce costs, save students from carrying pounds of textbooks, and contribute to the environmental efforts of paper conscious campuses.

Some other important points made by the report are

  • Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
  • Institutions increasingly focus more narrowly on key goals, as a result of shrinking budgets in the present economic climate. Across the board, institutions are looking for ways to control costs while still providing a high quality of service. Schools are challenged by the need to support a steady — or growing — number of students with fewer resources and staff than before. In this atmosphere, it is critical for information and media professionals to emphasize the importance of continuing research into emerging technologies as a means to achieve key institutional goals. As one example, knowing the facts about shifting server- and network intensive infrastructure, such as email or media streaming, off campus in the current climate might present the opportunity to generate considerable annual savings.
  • New scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching continue to emerge but appropriate
    metrics for evaluating them increasingly and far too often lag behind.

It must be noted that currently Higher Education authorities in the US are not promoting the Kindle due to its limitations for blind and vision impaired students. Thanks to Helen Boelens for this article.

The Future of the Library, yet again

One of my personal gurus, US teacher librarian (Library Media Specialist) Dr Joyce Valenza has written an important post about the future of libraries.

Seth Godin, a marketing wunderkind has turned his attention to libraries. And he doesn’t like what he sees. Dr Valenza explains:

Seth Godin and Mike Eisenberg and me on the Future of the Library

January 9, 2010
I am a huge fan of Seth Godin.

Seth . . .

  • writes the most popular marketing blog in the world;
  • is the author of the bestselling marketing books of the last decade;
  • speaks to large groups on marketing, new media and what’s next;
  • and is the founder of Squidoo.com, a fast-growing recommendation website.

Seth’s brief blog post this morning on the Future of the Library certainly got my attention:

What should libraries do to become relevant in the digital age?

They can’t survive as community-funded repositories for books that individuals don’t want to own (or for reference books we can’t afford to own.) More librarians are telling me (unhappily) that the number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals. That’s not a long-term strategy, nor is it particularly an uplifting use of our tax dollars.

Here’s my proposal: train people to take intellectual initiative.

Once again, the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books. What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.

Clearly we haven’t marketed our own message effectively.  Today’s leading expert on marketing, and many others, need to know that job one, for most of us (I HOPE), IS being:

leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.

Is Seth saying that we need librarians, but not traditional libraries?

(Make sure you click on the survive link above to see that Seth read Robin’s brilliant post in her CCHS Learning Commons about steps necessary for school library survival.)

We need to make sure that folks who matter get the memo that we are not about circulation alone and that circulation itself is happening online.  (And that some of those reference books and ebooks are available–nearly invisibly–through library-funded databases.)

And that they get the memo that describes the many ways librarians address literacy and equity each and every day.

That they get the memo that physical libraries are evolving to become learning commons or libratories.  (See Library as domestic metaphor and My 2.0 Day.)

That we find multiple ways to show what the school library of today looks like in action.  (See 14 Ways K12 Librarians Can Teach Social Media.)

We haven’t done our job to market ourselves and our programs.  People don’t know what they look like because we haven’t shared loudly enough.

It may also be that some libraries aren’t yet there.

In case you were sleeping, over the past two years, stuff happened.  Big stuff.  Stuff we should have led. I’ve been watching as other professionals in education grabbed turf we should have grabbed or tred together.

It reached the surface this spring with the Twitter discussion on librarians as social media specialists.

The game has changed dramatically.  The changes we talk about are not bandwagons. They represent profound changes in the way we do business, the way we do libraries, the way we must educate.

Teacher librarians, as information and communication specialists must lead change in their buildings and districts or face irrelevancy.

Something Darwinian is underway.  Adaptation is essential.  And if we are to thrive, leadership is essential.

School library practice must adapt to complete shifts in the information and communication landscapes.  Folks who believe that Web 2.0, or whatever we next call the read/write Web, will go away are hopelessly mistaken.

Mike Eisenberg allowed me to share excerpts from a discussion we engaged in this week with Lisa Layera Brunkan. Mike wrote:

It keeps me up at night too – but to me it’s not will the librarians be in a position to be a logical choice, but rather will librarians grab the opportunity. Any librarian employed today IS in the position! They need to embrace a role that focuses on meeting people’s information needs through any and all media, systems, formats, and approaches.

Joyce helped me to see that information literacy is both using and producing information. Librarians – particularly those in schools – should be at the center of this: to ensure that students are information literate – to ensure that students are effective users and producers of information.

What we need are opportunistic librarians – using every interaction with kids, fellow teachers, parents, administrators and the public to PROVE that they are right at the center of the action – of making sure that every student is super-skilled in information seeking, use, production, and evaluation. And, also at the center of making sure that all students have access to resources, services, technologies, and networks.

You both instinctively know how to take advantage of opportunities. You see them everywhere. That’s what we need to help the librarians to see and then to know what to do with them. . .

The slow but steady attrition in the school library field is no accident. It’s not because “they don’t understand us.” It’s not because “we haven’t gotten the message out.” It’s because many programs aren’t delivering.

Many of you are out there leading change.

The revolution can happen.  And it can happen in our blogs, through our tweets, in our libraries.
It will not happen if we are asleep at the wheel.  It will not happen if we do not assume responsibility for our own retooling.

This is the year of redefinition.  Frankly, it’s definition or death.  Some of you thought I was cold when I suggested that folks lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I know many of you are out there are working hard.

But it is not about working hard. It is about working smart. It is about marketing. It is about redefining. Before it is too late.  This is the year.

Seth Godin’s post was generally addressing public libraries, but all librarians can take note and possibly take offence. As Dr Valenza states, stuff is happening. This blog is evidence of some of the kinds of wonderful stuff that is happening in school, public and academic libraries in Australia and around the world. This blog is evidence that there are many wonderful librarians and teacher librarians who have embraced change and developed what could only have been dreamed of a few years ago. The Twitter community to which I belong and contribute to is a testament to the incredibly committed professionals that are librarians and teacher librarians. They contribute so much, that I often worry that they are not having holidays, not having weekends and not having enough downtime to recover from their hectic work and personal lives. This cohort of hardworking and sharing professionals blows my mind. And many of them are from Australia. We may be only a percentage of educators, librarians and teacher librarians, but hour after hour, day after day, we are proving Seth Godin wrong. However, we need everyone to jump on board and help define the future of libraries. Be a part of the change. Drive the change. Make a difference. Enjoy the change. Enjoy the challenge. Learn. Share. Listen. Talk. Lead.

Of course to be able to implement change effectively, we need appropriate staffing and budgets in public and school libraries. Although many Web 2.0 tools are free, we need appropriately qualified and trained library staff to investigate, develop and maintain any sites that are relevant and useful to their students and staff.

Buffy Hamilton, author of the Unquiet Librarian blog has added her thoughts and collated a list of other bloggers  (including our own brilliant Jenny Luca) who have responded to Seth Godin’s post.

Seth Godin, thinker, social media expert, and marketing guru, set off a firestorm yesterday with his post, “The Future of Libraries.” While the post is directed toward public libraries, librarians from all walks of life jumped in with their responses:

Other posts include

I would love to have some comments on this issue, but let me leave you with a few quotes about change:

  • He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.  ~Harold Wilson
  • If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.  ~Mary Engelbreit
  • It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.  ~W. Edwards Deming
  • When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.  ~Victor Frankl
  • Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.  ~Robert C. Gallagher
  • Change always comes bearing gifts.  ~Price Pritchett
  • If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown
  • We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.  ~Harrison Ford
  • Our only security is our ability to change.  ~John Lilly

Any stories of change within your library and how it came about would be more than welcome.