NCSLMA 2011: A Love Story

The dates for this year's NCSLMA's annual conference have been on the books forever, but it wasn't until tonight that I started to really get excited about this year's event.

In part, this is because the schedule of sessions was just released today and it is AMAZING.  Not only are there some great people presenting (including the fantabulous Gwyneth Jones as our keynote speaker), but the presentations themselves look meaty and relevant in today's school library environment/education climate. For me, THIS is just what the doctor ordered.  As I head into a year in which the expectations for my contribution and impact are higher than ever, but the support I receive (financially and otherwise) is at its lowest point on record, my professional soul is starving for camaraderie and nourishment.  It's early enough in the year that I'm still energized and excited, but I need to feed off the combined strength of my colleagues to keep the momentum going.  Seriously, I need this.  And I suspect I'm not alone.

My excitement also stems from the fact that this event will mark the official unveiling of NCSLMA's new website, which I designed and co-created with an uber-fabulous colleague and friend (who really needs a library blog so I can link to it).  This Extreme Makeover: Website Edition came about because our long-time webmaster decided to step down from the position and, simply put, nobody else stepped up to the plate.  So, in the spirit of turning lemons into lemonade, we decided to ignore the fact that we both already have entirely too much to do and create the website of our dreams.  That is to say, one that was still packed with all the great info our old site had, but that also offers spaces for professional learning, collaboration and member contribution.   There's still a long way to go, but the foundation is pretty much finished and we went "live" a few nights ago.  The reaction has been wonderfully positive, but now I'm chomping at the bit to add the final and most important touch: the contributions of our members.  What I want most is for this to become a dynamic and living resource where librarians from across the state share and grow as a result of our combined knowledge and strength.

If there's one thing I know for certain, it's that now, more than ever, we need each other.  Together, we are stronger and better than even the very best of us is alone.  Conference and, hopefully, our website are opportunities for us to lean on, learn from and grow as a result of our combined knowledge, enthusiasm and strength.  Every day, I am grateful for the opportunities I have to connect with my friends in library land, whether it's through twitter, this blog or face to face, I'm convinced that THAT connection is the key to my success - or at least longevity.  And listen, I know... times are tough and monies for professional development are pretty much non-existent.  Still, I deeply hope that everyone reading this will make professional development and connecting with colleagues a priority this year.  It's times like this in which that connection is most important. 

And if you're in NC, get your hiney to conference.  Seriously.

Librarians Are Ready, Are You?

Having not been able to shake the "I had no idea librarians could do this!?" reaction I received at last week's Teaching Fellows Conference, I decided to create a flyer that I could share with program administrators at both the K-12 and collegiate levels - something flashy and fun that might, if nothing else, plant the seed that school librarians are more than just book hoarding shushers.

Making these flyers is always fun.  However, the entire time I was putting this one together, I was keenly aware of the fact that I was once a classroom teacher who thought school librarians were irrelevant - until someone proved me wrong. During my ten years in the classroom, I worked with 4 different school librarians at 3 different schools - add those numbers together and it might double the number of times I took my own students to the library during my entire tenure as a classroom teacher. To this day, I have no idea if the librarians at my schools wanted to collaborate with me. While I knew they were all smart, funny and charming people,  I couldn't tell you if they were master teachers, technology innovators or even reading pied pipers.  They may very well have been all of those things too, but if they were, I didn't know it.

Looking back on it now, I can see several possible reasons why I didn't get the message that, as a profession, school librarians were not only capable of working with me, but they also very much wanted to.

1. Teacher Isolation:  As a classroom teacher, I was deeply entrenched in my own world.  I spent so much time worrying about what was happening inside my classroom, I sometimes forgot there was a world spinning outside of it.
2. Teacher Education #Fail:  If my own teacher education program emphasized instructional partnerships of any kind, I forgot to sign up for that class.  Collaborating with other professionals was not a skill that I was taught in teacher school.
3. Librarian #Fail: This message was not being sent by the school librarians I worked with.  Or if it was, not very effectively.

Whatever the reason, however, the bottom line is I had no idea I could and should be working with school librarians - and a result, regardless of how great I was, my students missed out.


Again, it all boils down to this: I was once a classroom teacher who thought school librarians were irrelevant - until someone proved me wrong.  No flyer, regardless of how fabulous it is, will change the minds of those who see us as outdated and ineffective. For me, it wasn't until a dear friend of mine decided to leave the classroom and wander into the library that I started to think about school librarianship differently.  What's more, it wasn't until he started to share with me the things he was doing with teachers/students that I began to see myself in that role.

As much as this graphic is a love letter to new teachers and principals (and anyone one else who might see it), it's also a reminder to those of us who live in libraryland already:  Just about all of us will encounter someone this year who believes, for whatever reason, that school librarians are irrelevent.  Are you and your practice ready to prove them wrong?

I hope so.

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As the attribution information suggests, I took inspiration from Carl Harvey's work in Library Media Connection.  (Without question, there are aspects of what we do that I missed.  However, with limited space and a desire to not overwhelm my target audience with info, I tried to capture the aspects of librarianship that the future teachers I worked with last week seemed the most shocked by.) What's more, I don't think it's possible to be a librarian who creates comic style flyers and not, even subliminally, be inspired by Gwyneth Jones - so, big juicy thank yous to both those folks.

Finally, as always, everything here is licensed under creative commons so please feel free to take, share and make better to your little heart's content.

UPDATE:  

Thank you so much Donna Baumbach who transformed this flyer into a collaborative document using ThingLink!  I am unbelievably humbled and inspired!  PLEASE scoot on over to her newly created wiki and contribute to this fabulous collaborative effort!  #ihavethebestjobever

Holy Bodacious Barcodes: Using QR Codes to Extend Learning and Promote a Love of Reading

QR Codes are one of those subjects that I’ve been meaning to write about forever. To be honest, I was something of a QR Code skeptic when they were first brought to my attention last fall. To begin with, I struggled with how to make such things work in my school – where we are decidedly lacking in handheld devices and where students are not allowed to use their own smart phones during the instructional day. More importantly, however, while I couldn’t deny the QR Code’s inherent “cool factor,” the link between these 2 dimensional barcodes and student learning was to me, fuzzy at best. Then, as is so often the case, a few cosmic dominos fell - in just the right order - to make me a QR Code believer.

First, a math teacher at my school (a dear friend, muse and teaching partner extraordinaire who REALLY needs a bigger online presence), bounded into the library one day, commandeered my computer and said, “you have to see THIS!” (“This” being Steven Anderson’s post on creating a desktop QR Code station). Immediately, the wheels upstairs started to turn and it wasn’t long before I had a machine or two, some webcams and all the extension cords I would need for a QR Code revolution. The only thing missing was a REASON to do it.

That reason came a day or so later when I learned that our library had received a $6,000 grant to purchase art (visual, performance, decorative, etc) related print materials. One of the requirements of the grant was that I provide evidence of marketing the new materials to students in an innovative way – enter QR Codes! In the end, (though I didn’t plan this way) linking my QR Code experiment to a single project turned out to be incredibly beneficial.

First, it provided me with an obvious hook with which to tempt and recruit teacher collaboration. Art + technology and the offer of snacks brought several people to the table. Then, once I explained that all they needed to do was grab a stack of books and help me find some resources to either pique student interest or extend their learning, a party was born.

Secondly, it helped focus the scope of the project. Believe me, once you start creating QR Codes, it’s hard to stop. Dreaming up book + resource mash-ups for the purpose of student enrichment is positively addictive, so having a specific goal and focus helped keep me on task.

And, finally, when we were finished adorning the art books with barcode bling, it was easy to collect some data regarding what, if any, these little square labels had on students at my school. I was able to compare circ stats of books on the same/similar topics, but that were not branded with a QR Code to those that were. Surprise, surprise: those WITH the QR Codes were showed a great deal more love than those without. (About 40% more as a matter of fact). HOWEVER, the first time I saw a group of students huddled around the computer taking a 360’ tour of the Sistine Chapel that was linked (via QR Code) to a book on Michelangelo, (which they then fought to check out), I knew we’d hit on something big.

And I wasn’t the only one who knew it.

Soon students and teachers were clamoring to contribute to the QR Code fun. By the end of the year, we literally had thousands of books that are linked to additional resources via QR Code. These links include student created works like podcasts, Glogs, video book trailers, etc., but also consist of really neat resources that I’ve either stumbled across or, more frequently, that teachers/students have brought to my attention.

In fact, I started receiving so many student/teacher book+resource mash-up suggestions that I created a special bookmark to help me keep track of them. (Students take the bookmark when they checkout the book and put it in the suggestion box when they return it).

And to me, this is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to QR Codes (or any technology for that matter). I simply LOVE the idea of kids spending time in the library, exploring new ideas and checking out new material based on the opportunity for inquiry provided by the QR Code. However, when this activity is followed by a reading experience that is informed by the student’s desire to find more, new and BETTER resources to be linked to the title their reading, well… that’s when QR Codes make the switch from just being a fun fad or cool gadget to a meaningful tool that can not only extend learning but also help cultivate a love of reading in our students. 

Nuts and Bolts:
Here’s the desktop QR Code Reader I use. Again, big smooches to Steven Anderson for leading the way.
Here’s the QR Code Generator that I use. I know there are a billion others, but this is the one I landed on and I like the different options it provides.
And finally, Here's the tutorial I created and posted throughout the library for students. Obviously, it is heavily influenced by (though greatly inferior to) those created by Gwyneth Jones.  As always, anything I have posted here is free for you to use, share and make better. And what's not to love about that?

QR Code Tutorial

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