Interest Inventories

After a nice summer vacation, I’m back in the saddle as an elementary school librarian in Central New York. It’s been a crazy week thanks to Mandarin 3, but circulation is up and finally running.

I’ve found in my two years teaching as a librarian that motivating students to read and learn throughout the year is critical. One strategy that I’ve found to be enormously effective is to administer to all students, in the first week, an interest inventory. The inventory is a critical piece of information to the librarian over the course of the school year. First, it informs the librarians decision making process when purchasing literature. A smaller, more targeted collection does better. Second, knowing what your users want, at any level (elementary clients included), is critical to circulation and school/patron-wide reading.

I’ve found that getting a baseline of your patrons’ interests can inform purchasing for the entire school year. It also comes in quite handy when a 3rd grader is giving you a great deal of grief about your ‘boring’ collection. When disinterest spells a dislike for reading, I’m able to query the vertical file and remind them of their interests and point them to books on topics that they’ve specifically requested.

Over the course of three years I’ve boiled my inventories down to ten essential questions. I highly recommend administering an interest inventory at the commencement of each school year. You’ll see a spike in circulation and more students motivated to read books from your collection. Promise.

Day 2 Schedule BLC07

Angela McFarlane just took the stage to keynote on Day 2 of Alan November’s Building Learning Communities conference. Day one was incredibly intense, so much going on, so many meaningful live discussions that I’ve never been a part of before. I attended sessions by super Scot Ewan Macintosh, Will Richardson, and Bob Pearlman.

Will Richardson was interesting. He came off as almost being pissed off (he called it edgy in his latest post), but he wants to push us all a step further. It was a good presentation, he engaged the audience in a discussion and got them asking good questions. The audience was passionate. I was most struck by a social worker who raised her hand and admitted that she was probably the only non-educator at the conference. But, she took great interest as a parent in what Will had to say. I think that the female social worker is on to something. At some point, the conversation needs to reach parents. How about a Building Learning Communities Conference that includes just as many parents as educators?

All three presenters I went to had different content and style but gave excellent presentations. I can only hope Day 2 is just as inspiring.

Below is my schedule for Day 2:

8:15am-9:15am Keynote: Angela McFarlane
9:15am-10:00am Keynote: Mitchel Resnick

Session 4 -10:30am- 11:30am

Dr. Joyce Valenza, School Library Websites: State of the Art Information Landscapes for 21st Century Learners (CB) , Charles River West

Session 5- 11:40am- 12:40pm

Ewan McIntosh, “We’re Adopting:” An Adoption Strategy for Social Software in Education (CB) (L), Charles River West

Session 6- 1:45pm-2:45pm

Alan November, Teaching Zack Webliteracy (CT), Charles River West

Then later on at night ….

7:00 - 10:00pm, Spirit of Boston Dinner Cruise

Double Whammy

Alan November kicked off the Building Learning Communities Conference 2007 like only Alan knows how and Tim Tyson keynoted. Below are a few quick hits from Alan’s 30 minutes onstage, then Tim’s hour-long headliner.

• Workshops during conferences are an excuse for the conversations that ensue.

• Exams should include all materials and total access to information.

• Leadership makes or breaks the use of technology. Leaders need to be fearless.

• Technology is polarizing the society.

• No Child Left Behind is increasing the gap on the innovative end.

Tim Tyson-

Tim Tyson was an excellent first day presenter. He’s a principal that actually gets what education and learning need to be about. Tim’s big on having students make meaningful contributions with their work and then examining the learning that goes into such efforts.

A few quick hits from Tim:

• When you are making a contribution, you are performing at the highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy. Exemplary work deserves global distribution. It changes the nature of schoolwork. Its the definition of authentic assessment.The gift of meaningful and significant contribution. The essential question: When does meaningfulness start? When do our lives become significant?

• Dan Pink says in his book, “we’re preparing kids for a workplace that doesn’t exist today. Linear thinking is no longer sufficient. To thrive in the economy, right brain skills are essential.”We aren’t even training the Dilberts of the world anymore.

• Students believe that whats going on in school is irrelevant to their future. It’s time for significant change.

• It’s a time for new beginnings School 2.0

-authentically engaged learners
-self directed
-project driven instruction
-Relevant
-Engaged in authentic tasks, authentically engaged in knowledge work.
-Who is doing all the thinking work?

• Tyson’s greatest fear is that federally funded NCLB will work and students will be achieving at the minimum. If that happens, the whole nation will end up being left behind.

These are just my sloppy notes from the keynote. If your intererested in more, I suggest you check out the hitchikr site for BLC 2007 (thank you, Mr. Warlick) or do a search for BLC 2007 in Technorati.

More to come…

Building Learning Communities 2007

I just arrived in Boston, MA. OK, not really Boston but 10 miles out in Newton, Massachusetts. I’m in town for Alan November’s Building Learning Communities (BLC) Conference 2007. I’m a little groggy from the five hour commute from Syracuse, but I’m starting to come around.

A few minutes ago, I turned on my laptop and began perusing the BLC conference flier. Alan November’s thrown together a pretty impressive lineup: Will Richardson, Tim Tyson, Marc Prensky, Ewen Macintosh, Joyce Valenza. And that’s just to name a few. I feel lucky to be attending.

Below is my tentative schedule for Wednesday June 18th 2007:

8:30 am Welcome to BLC 07, Alan, Salons A-E

9:00 am KEYNOTE - Dr. Tim Tyson, Moving from Personal Knowledge to Global Contribution

Session 1

10:20am- 11:20am: Alan November, Teaching Zack Webliteracy, Salons D-E

Session 2

11:30am-12:30pm: Will Richardson, New Internet Literacies for Educators, Salons G-H

Session 3

1:45- 2:45: Bob Pearlman, Designing Secondary Schools of the Future, Old Meeting House

More tomorrow!

The Circ Files - May 2007

In keeping with my recently stated pledge of posting the most circulated book in my library, I need to go back about fifteen days and tell you all about May.

May is a busy month. It’s the homestretch when it comes to circulating books in the library. June usually ends up being preempted by inventory, field trips, and closing procedures.

I made a small order to Follett’s in April and ordered a bunch of high interest picture books. When I book-talked them in early May the one that garnered the most attention was Pinkalicious by Elizabeth Kann.

Pinkalicious is about a girl who loves the color, well you probably guessed it by now, PINK!!! She’s obsessed with pink so much that one day she eats one too many pink cupcakes and they turn her body pink. The doctor prescribes a diet of all green’s to counteract her pink-ititis. Eventually she adheres to the all green diet and returns her body back to its normal state.

The First and Second Graders went crazy for Pinkalicious…. and you’d be surprised how many boys are into it too. Order it this summer for your library, it will be a hit when the 07/08 school year rolls around.

The School Librarian as a Leader

I enjoy reading my old pal Harry Tuttle’s blog. Harry has a wealth of experience in K-12 learning environments, and he’s a straight shooter. He’s been a classroom teacher, a technology coordinator, a consultant, a NYSCATE president, and now exists as an educator in residence in the academic realm. But more than anything, Harry’s practical.

Harry recently had a post that speaks to me a teacher librarian and represents a major tenet of School Library 2.0.

Tuttle writes….

“I worked with many respected teachers but these teachers did not serve as central expansion into their grade level, team, or school. Although they did fantastic technology-based learning projects with their students, the word never got out. Their brilliant learning lights were hidden behind the doors of their classrooms.

I did work with a few teacher leaders. As soon as they found out about a great technology integration application, they would tell others or bring them in to see it. The other teachers would follow the lead of the teacher.

If you are in a school, identify those teacher leaders and concentrate on them. They can become the biggest advocates for integrating technology. They can create meaningful ripples throughout the building. If you have a respected teacher who is also a teacher leader, then help that person’s light to shine brightly throughout the school.”

This philosophy is critical for the 21st century librarian. Identify the teacher leaders in your building. Create in-roads and work with them. Find creative ways to use all of your available resources and the 2.0 tools Chris Harris is pimping over there on Digital Reshift. Show what’s possible with the services that you have to offer. Like Harry says, it will create meaningful ripples.

The Circ Files- April 07

I’d like to introduce you to a new monthly feature at School Libraryland that connects readers to the most popular book of the month from the K-5 school library at my school. I’m calling it “The Circ Files.” And if you’re one of those that just cringed because the last thing you need in your life is another book review, I promise to make this short and to the point.

The wonderful M3 Report Tool (insert smirk) will assist me in gathering the data from my circulation module.

In April 2007 the most popular book in the library was, (drum roll please….)

The Ultimate Lego Book by Dorling Kindersley

Yes, Lego’s are still extremely popular and no, I’m not b.s.’ing you. This book details some of the most amazing Lego structure’s ever built. It also gives a few pointers and building strategies for kids to try when they are building. Kids love this book because they’ve either seen Lego structures like it at Disney or The Lego Store in NYC, or because they own and still play with Lego’s themselves. This book is a huge hit with boys, too!

Yep, good ole’ plastic Lego’s. Who knew?

Photo borrowed from DK

School Library 2.0

Chris Harris just sole the show with School Library 2.0. It’s day two of SLMS, and Chris Harris was easily the best speaker from the entire conference. His presentation was of great interest to me, and it should be to you too, if you work in a school library. His slides are available online, check ‘em out.

Here are some of his ideas that I’ll keep in the front of my brain when I head back to work on Monday:

>Make your library the “Intel inside.” Start making your activities noticed. If you didn’t tell people you did it, it didn’t get done.

>The Fixed vs. Flex scheduling debate was so 90’s. Library 2.0 treats the school library as a platform. We offer services 24/7 in a digital workspace.

>Create a rich library experience and make your focus happy users.

Chris rocks. ‘Nuff said.

Photo borrowed with permission from http://xkcd.com

Faces in the Crowd

I’m sitting in the Harbour Ballroom at the Doubletree in Syracuse, NY at SLMS. As I look around the room I’m seeing lots of famous faces from the field, a menage of sorts. Sitting to my right is my main man Chris Harris. Chris is on his laptop, blogging I’m sure, to the millions that read Infomancy and Digital Reshift. Welcome to Syracuse, Chris. I see Alice Yucht to my left, and it looks like she’s plugged in as well. I look forward to your presentation at lunch, Alice. Hey look, there are my cronies from library school at Syracuse U. Haven’t seen you ladies in a long time, nice to see you in person rather than on the message boards. And, I see Toni Buzzeo up near the podium about to give the keynote. Better get a new text file open.

More to come….

Word of the Day

For all of you that are sick of the most overused and over hyped idea in education- NCLB I’d like to propose a new term, and I hope it catches on and spreads like wildfire.

The new hot term is going to be pedagogical automaticity.

I want it to become big because its something that effective teachers possess. I want it to catch on because it’s something that all of us in the field should be striving towards. And I want it to catch because its such a freakin cool word to use in a conversation. Go ahead and say it.

See what I mean?