Let's Get Physical!

The more things change...

A while ago an old student of mine (now a teacher), pointed out after I commented on someone's remark on his FB wall,  that she was my "grand-student."  Yikes.  I've been teaching long enough to have grand-students.

But the thing about longevity is you start seeing "the old ways" come back in updated iterations.  When I first started the library gig about 10 years ago it was all about digital, virtual spaces. I wasn't so much worried about the physical library, as developing our online presence.  And that's important.

But we've started seeing a shift back to THINGS: Print sales rose for the first time in years, and ebooks declined.  Learning has shifted from consumption to creation as MakerSpaces abound and even Forbes Magazine is calling for more emphasis on vocational education.  And more  and more we're understanding the impact of physical spaces on student learning.

Last year, my school initiated a five year plan we call FLoW21. Its mission: to completely rethink what learning looks like at WAB. We're not just doing bits and pieces, we're tackling the entire learning ecosystem, from curriculum to teaching, to systems, to...you guessed it,  Learning Spaces.  Guess which committee I'm heading?

With all of this, I've been thinking quite a bit about the physical space in my library, its flexibility and whether it supports student needs and student learning.  It's a great space as is--we're packed during "free"blocks, but it's not all that flexible. I believe we can do better.

Thus, I've been reading.  A lot.  I'll link below to some books I've found especially helpful in organizing the two "think tanks" I have going, one made up of students, the other of teachers.

The first two activities, to get them thinking about the library, their beliefs about the library, and how it gets used.

 1) With one idea per sticky note, they brainstormed what the word "library" means to them.  Once they each had about 10 sticky notes, they places them on a large piece of butcher paper, then tried to determine the overall categories these fit into. Then we discussed those, questions they had, etc. I really should have recorded that conversation.  Next time.   As you can see from the photo, they thought in terms of Values, Environment, Systems and Activities.  As "homework" I've asked the teachers to come to the library during a couple blocks and just observe how students use and reconfigure space to their own needs.

2) As part of our FLoW21 study, we've been brainstorming around "Bob" and "Bobbie" imaginary students and what a typical day would look like for  them in our ideal school (think: self-directed, co-constructed, personalized learning).  Next meeting we'll do "Library Bob/Bobbie."  In this ideal school, how would they use the "ideal" library?  What would be available for them?   I'll also share the brainstorm session from another committee on the kinds of use we want to see happening.

3)  I'm collecting learning spaces ideas on Pinterest, to get their creative juices flowing.  Research tells us we need three types of spaces:  Caves (solitary spaces), Campfires (group learning) and Watering Holes (discussion). Or, put another way: Community, private, virtual, display and presentation spaces. I'll have the groups explore the Pinterest, then do a walking tour of our current space, discussing strengths and areas to improve.  Time for a new chart: Existing State ------ Desired State

Here's a short walk-through of the HS library.

This focuses on space, but I also want to discuss systems. Everything is on the table and open for change.

I haven't shared my ideas with anyone yet, as I don't want to influence them, but here's a summary of my thinking so far:

1) Less is More and the Library is Everywhere.
Shelving takes up a huge section of the center of the library. The students really like those two enclaves, but a lot of "shenanigans" also go on in there as it's hard to see due to the shelves. I want to open up that space for collaborative seating.  Thus, I'm doing a severe weed of the 000-930 to clear out space and have a tighter, more focused collection. I'm also thinking: Satellite libraries.  The HS here is spread into two buildings, separated by a pond. It's a 5-10 minute walk from one to the other.  I'm growing more and more convinced that books, to some degree, need to be where the students are. However pertinent a book might be, it's just easier for them to jump on to Google from class, than come to the library, so that's what they do.  I also don't think teachers are all that aware of what we have.  Fun fact: Hallways take up 40% of space in most schools. What a waste!  We're wondering how to reconfigure them into usable areas.  Pulling out lockers and adding shelving/chairs would create mini subject-specific libraries in key areas.  The library already doesn't have doors and our school is open to students 24/7. If we train students to use the Destiny app to self check-out, it would be an interesting experiment to see if there's increased usage and/or loss.

2)  Make it move.
Students are always dragging chairs and tables into different configurations. Why not make that easier?  Thus, we're looking at flexible furniture, rollers, etc.  We're talking about even putting the shelves on rollers, but I don't know how feasible that is.  A) Do I really want people rolling shelves around?  B) Given the weight of books,  those shelves are heavy. Not sure how much more movable they'd be, even on rollers. Or that rollers could sustain the weight.

3) "I Vant To Be Alone"
We have some good collaborative and hang-out spaces throughout the library and the HS in general. We really don't have private space, and that's going to be a hard one.  I also hate that corridor between the shelves and the windows. Kids pile up in there, throw their bags and books all over the floor turning it into quite the obstacle course.  I want to pull out the tables/chairs and have window seats (though not trees!) with power strips.  Semi-private space, and declutters it. It will also add some shelving,

4)  Collaborative Caves
Sometimes you want to work alone in a group.  With shelving out of the way, we'll have room for a couple collaborative pods with whiteboard tables and display screens where students can hook up and work together on presentations or whatever. We're also giving all the tables whiteboard tops.

5) Make the Virtual Tangible
I haven't figure out how to do it yet,  but I want to incorporate relevant digital material into the physical shelves.  If students are browsing for content on, say, the Cultural Revolution, I want an iPad or something there to point out relevant material in the databases, or have a QR code they can scan linking to a pathfinder or something.

How's that for a start?

Of course, we're doing more as a school.  Walls are coming down!  And we also have a bigger issue to consider: If every student has an individual plan, individual studies and areas of interest, how does the library support that?  I don't have an answer, but I'll definitely be pondering it.


Useful Books:
Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair
High Impact Library Spaces, Margaret Sullivan
The Space, A Guide for Educators  Louise Hare
Design for the Changing Educational Landscape,  Harrison and Hutton

Easy Collaborative Spaces

This is the year of making a more collaborative, interactive, hands-on library for me.  The  (not-so) epic Lego wall is almost finished; I'm still weeding NF to make more space for maker-shelves. I had a brainstorm the other day as I was looking at the useless end-of-shelf displays we have (that are too shallow to actually, you know, DISPLAY books), and realized if we shaved off the shelves and used some whiteboard wallpaper, they'd be a great collaborative brainstorming / planning space.

We decided to test it with one area (the most populated one) to see if students use it. If so, we'll do it with the other shelf ends, too.

How easy is that?

No Space? Build a MakerShelf!

I've been thinking a lot about flexible spacing and interactive libraries this year, and realized a bit of rigidity in my own thinking.

Space in my HS is at a premium, and there's really nowhere for the library to expand.  Our "makerspace" is actually a small room in another part of the building (on a different floor even), and it's photography focused.  We also already have three DT labs, complete with machines, 3D printers and all the maker bells and whistles, so when I was honest with myself, I realized we didn't really need another one in the library.  Yet this was very frustrating to my tech-loving, I want an innovative library self.

Then two things happened.

For no particular reason, I dumped several coloring books and sets of colored pencils in our "hang-out" areas. I was almost embarrassed by it, secretly suspecting the kids would scoff.  Who knew? They absolutely loved it--girls, boys, even some teachers.  ALL of them spend time coloring. One girl even told me, "I thought it was dumb at first. But now I think it's the most brilliant thing in the library."  Yet so amazingly simple.   As is the poetry wall we made when I found a bunch of magnetic words buried in the library office.

A few months after this, I presented at the Contexts and Conversations workshop in Beijing,  attending a presentation by the always forward-thinking Katy Vance who is busy re-imagining and re-configuring her new library in Japan.   During her talk, Katy mentioned doing an  über-drastic weed and using some of the resulting shelf space to create a Maker-shelf.  Lights and bells started going off in my head in one of those, "Well, duh!" moments.

Makerspaces are great, but even with the one I have, I fall down on programming.  And while I love that kids can tinker and engage in their own interest-driven learning, I don't want to lose the "library-ness" of the library.  The makershelf, for my library, is a sweet-spot combining student tinkering and creativity with easy-to-manage tools.  So here's my plan.

1) Gut the nonfiction section. And I do mean gut.  I'm in the midst of a pretty ruthless weed of the 0-800 sections.  I discussed this with the relevant departments, and they agreed that most of the information in the books can be found in the databases.  I'm keeping books relevant to extended essays or casual interests. Books that specifically relate to class topics are being reassigned to the classrooms. We need to stop thinking of the library as a particular space: the library is everywhere--it's a state of mind and a way of thinking. Books need to meet the students at point of access where they're most needed, and that's usually the classroom.

Everything else goes.  The shelves are looking pretty barren.   As a side note, I'll be curious to see if/how this affects circulation. There's some convincing evidence that a serious weed helps the remaining collection to stand out.

2)  The cleared shelves will then be dedicated to different maker subjects, based on informal interviews with students about what they'd be interested in having around. Along with the tangibles, each shelf will include relevant books and some basic "how to's" to get the kids started, as well as ideas they can build on.  I  want to give them just enough to get them started, but still leave room for them to have to "figure it out" through discovery.

3)  Shelves will start with the following, but the cool thing about shelves is they can always change, based on student interests.  That's harder to do with large (expensive!) spaces.

• This epic Lego wall, that I'm getting some interested DT students to build.   About the time I saw this, I also ran across an incredibly awesome electric Lego set on Kickstarter.
• 
  
• Math and origami--it's more than paper cranes!
• 
  
• Duct Tape.   Seriously.

Knitting.  I'll say, this surprised me. I think it's kind of dumb, but I thought the coloring books were kind of dumb, too.  And some kids asked for it, so what do I know?

I have more plans--whiteboard tables,   a conferencing table with built-in monitor for collaborating on projects/presentations, better promotion of our digital content. But that's another post.

Would love to hear other ideas!  Post in the comments.

Guided Inquiry Design: The Put-It-All-Together Chart

Previous GID posts:  #1,  #2

As part of our decision-making process for choosing Guided Inquiry (GI), the three librarians (ES, MS, HS) scheduled weekly meetings to read/discuss both of the Guided Inquiry Design books.  (If you can only buy one, definitely get the Framework one.  It's practical, rather than theoretical.)

Aside from nuts and bolts of the process, much of our discussion focused around  how the model fit with IB philosophy, the Learner Profile, and our individual sections.  It really is a natural for the PYP (elementary), which is very inquiry focused and collaborative, both with students and teachers.  It's still a good fit for MYP (6-10), though as the grades increase, I predict more of a struggle as classes become more content-driven, especially in the DP (11-12).

A big part of GI is research centered on student interests. Many of the "research" based learning at our school is short-term, product oriented, and teachers don't want to spend the time this kind of process takes.  And I do get that--not all research needs to be heavy-duty and pull-out-the-stops.  Thus, my goals for our pilot program this year:
With our pilot classes, identify which units benefit best from deep, sustained research.
The team then assesses and redesigns those units (as needed).
The team and students document and evaluate the process (I'll have a dedicated post on that later), gathering qualitative and quantitative data.

Once we'd finished reading/discussing, we felt we still needed a deeper understanding, so we broke up the various steps, and each of us gave a presentation summarizing how it all fit together.

That helped, but I felt I still needed a "big picture" flowchart of how the affective, cognitive and behavioral strands fit together for students and teachers, so I created the chart below (click to enlarge), which is by no means all inclusive, but gives a general "at a glance" idea of how the process works and what goes on when.  This is obviously more for teachers than students, and I don't like how each strand is separate--maybe some arrows to indicate the recursive nature?

Mental Health Break: It's That Time of Year...

"Respect the Research!": Why We Chose Kuhlthau's Guided Inquiry Model

Being librarian's you'll get my little Me, Earl and the Dying Girl shout out.  I really want this t-shirt, btw. Not the greatest design in the world, but I love the thought behind it.

Harrumph!  Moving on...

When we decided to overhaul the way research works at our school, we had a long talk about models.  Specifically, what we use in each of our sections, and what that approach was based on.  A number of inquiry-based research models exist out there (with the Big 6 arguably the most popular in the U.S.), and in one sense they're different treads of the same tire, variations of a  discover, explore, focus, gather, evaluate, synthesize and publish model. If they're basically the same pattern, does it matter what model you choose?

For the eight years I've been a librarian, I've mostly used the Big 6, or (after a few years) a hybrid  I concocted after a) seeing some problems I was having with the Big 6 and b) reading a couple of Kuhlthau's  pre-GID articles.

However, after looking at some of these models, we decided the Guided Inquiry Process provided some strengths lacking in the other models:

It's based on years of research into how students learn and seek information, and grounded in constructivist learning.

They  recommend  a collaborative approach to inquiry design: teams of three to develop the unit and guide the students. These teams consist of the teacher, the librarian and another member as appropriate: e.g.  tech integrator, learning support, school counselor, another subject expert.   These three members help design the unit from the ground up, and are not tacked on as just-in-time one-offs.

It specifically addresses three aspects of student learning: cognitive, affective and behavioral.  In each of their stages Kuhlthau, Maniotes and Caspari (I shouldn't neglect the other authors!)  link what students are doing intellectually with how they FEEL about that, suggesting useful interventions to promote student success.  Moreover, at each stage,  they address not just what students are doing, but what the guided inquiry team should be doing, too.

It doesn't skip the questions!!  While I was initially put off by the  model's eight steps (see image), I soon realized it hit one of my biggest complaints about the Big 6, which I feel jumps too quickly from defining the  task to information seeking.  HELLO!!?!   AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING??!?

 Research, as Jamie Mackenzie has pointed out, is all about the QUESTION....and good research questions are really, really hard.  In fact,  I've moved my "how to write a research question" lesson later and later into the process, as I (too slowly!) realized that students often have to do background research before they can even think about writing a question; they often just don't know enough to understand what the questions even are.  And, quite bluntly, if the students don't have a solid focused, arguable question, based on their own interests (not the teacher's!)  their final product is all but doomed.  The Guided Inquiry model recognizes this and not only builds those steps into the process, it grounds everything in writing that well thought-out question.

Finally, my favorite part of the model is the idea of the Third Space, developed by Carol  Leslie Maniotes.  Student interests and prior knowledge (the first space) merge with curriculum (the second space)  creating a new, third space, where students create personalized learning. This ties in, on a deep level, with all the conversations we're having in the library world about whether the library is just a physical space or not.  It overtly acknowledges that meaningful learning is personal and emotional and endeavors to build that into the process.

There you have our thinking in choosing the model.  Next post, I'll discuss how we went about getting our heads around the nitty-gritty of the model.

Collaborative Action Research in the iBookstore

We're published!

I blogged about the iPad Trials, but we've published the two studies in the iBookstore.  You'll find the larger iPad study as well as each teacher's individual subject-focused study.  We'd love feedback!

Year one/Cycle Two
Year two/Cycle Three


And here's our student-created book that started it all--over 15,000 downloads!

The Power of the Process: Adopting Kuhlthau's Guided Inquiry Model

The three librarians at my school (ES/MS/HS) spent the last few months thinking about the research process, what it looks like at the school (kind of a mess), and how we can improve it. 

Our biggest problems:
  Each of the libraries takes a slightly different approach (mostly variations of the Big 6)
  Just because the library has a process, doesn't mean teachers are using it.

Thus, students are getting conflicting messages/approaches to research (when they get one at all). I wouldn't say confusion reigns, but it's definitely mounting a campaign.

As a bit more background, the tech integrator and I ran a prototype of a collaboratively planned unit with the grade 9 science team last spring (Prototype: 90% sure it's not what the final will look like; Pilot: 90% sure it is).  The planning team involved all the grade 9  science teachers, me, the integrator, learning support and the enrichment coordinator.   As you can guess, it grew a bit unwieldy with so many people, and we had WAY too many meetings, but some good things came out of it and next year, as a pilot, each department is mandated to plan one unit a year with the entire support team.

What does that have to do with our research problems?

We took a long, hard look at Carol Kuhlthau's  Guided Inquiry model, a key element of which is using learning teams of three to guide students through the inquiry process.  It seemed like a natural fit!

Thus, beginning in fall, the three libraries will concurrently run a formal action-research pilot of what the guided inquiry process would look like at our school, then use those findings (presumably!) to push for school-wide adoption of the model.

Since this is action research, we need to document the planning and the process,  which seems as good a reason as any to start blogging again after my overly-long hiatus! 

Stay tuned...

Collaborative Action Research: Empower Your Teachers (Part II)

My last post looked at  the power of CAR and why the library should be integral to the process, beyond the obvious research reasons.  Here, we'll look at how we implemented the process at my school.

Our CAR team consisted of our tech integrator, me, the IT manager and my über-organized assistant, who set up all the check-out procedures and worked with the IT manager to decide the process for requesting/loading apps.

Cataloguing the sets in Destiny Asset Manager

Between the school and our parent group, we had a set of  36  16gb iPads, which we broke into sets of 6 by department area.  A few generally useful apps such as Explain Everything, were on all the iPads; otherwise, we kept a list of which apps were on which set.  We were going to run out of room fast, if we tried to have every app on every device.  The library made a rule from the start that the iPad sets  had to be checked out by the teacher, and could only be checked out as a set.  We broke that  last rule occasionally, when a student needed an iPad to finish a project.  We catalogued the set itself in Destiny, making it easier to check out.   Each set had a different colored cover, making them easy to identify.  Each set also had a subject-based (e.g. science/math) desktop image.

In addition, the school bought an iPad for each teacher's personal use (I work at a GREAT school!).  Half came from the teacher's personal PD money, and the school paid for the rest.  Each teacher had the option of buying an iPad retina or an iPad mini; in return, teachers had to commit to completing the CAR cycle (including their final iBooks chapter write-up).  Teachers who did not finish for some reason had to reimburse the school for the iPad.

Once we knew what we had to work with, we had to decide what we were going to do, especially since none of us knew much about action research.  Of course, that meant doing some research of our own:  we wanted to know what was being done, and how people were doing it.  We collected our research here, and quickly realized we had two very basic questions at this point: Can iPads improve student learning?   Can they replace a MacBook Pro (we're 1:1 laptop)?


With those guiding questions in mind, we met to design the study.  Teachers had to apply to be part of the study (though, really, I don't think we turned anyone down) and commit to completion. We ended up with about 17 teachers the first year  (a similar number this year), from Science, Math, Languages, PE, Music, English, ESOL and admin--a good cross study.  They also had a varying range of technology ability/phobia.  We had to dedicate the first few sessions to just familiarizing them with the iPad.

You can see the notes from our brainstorming session here.  It includes our outcomes as well as a tentative schedule of courses and content.  We also knew we definitely wanted to publish our findings to a global audience, having learned the power of going "public and permanent"  with the  WW II: Illustrated Histories project with the grade 10s.  Thus, we decided teachers would need to document their study and findings in an iBooks chapter, which we would collect into a book and publish. (We hope those will go live by the end of the summer!)

We also thought the best way to organized the course was through iTunes U, which would be easy for teachers to access using their iPads.  You can download the cycle 2 course here, and cycle 3 here (FYI, cycle 1 was the WW II book with the students.  We have that process documented here.) It's actually pretty cool that we have several schools following the course--and Apple's keeping an eye on it, too.  The teachers know this, and it honors and values their efforts when they know the world is watching!

Finally, we needed to adapt an easy action research process to our needs.

That's quite enough to look at for now!  My new post will look more specifically at a few of the process elements, the action research planner, and how we tried to structure the sessions.

If you have any questions you want answered, please post them in the comments!

Collaborative Action Research: Empower Your Teachers (Part I)

Two years ago, our director asked the tech integrators "So when are we getting iPads?"  Now, we've all been there:  Schools want to look tech-forward, so they pour money into smartboards or whatever, throw them at the teachers and say, "Here--use them!"

Fortunately, we have a brilliant tech integrator in the HS and she told the director  "If we're going to do this, we need to do it right.  We don't even know if these things are worth the investment."

And that was the birth of the iPad Trials, a two year experiment in collaborative action research. Perhaps ironically, my big take away isn't about iPads (meh--as with any tech, the power's in how you use it, not the tool itself);  it's about the power of the process  to engage and support teachers and their teaching and through that, improve student learning.  That blew me away.

As I mentioned in my last post, I  struggled mightily this year with the whole collaboration thing. WAB has a very strong staff, and part of that translates into them (knowingly or not) keeping control of the teaching in their classes.  Add the insanity of the IBDP teaching load, and teachers don't have a lot of time for non-content instruction or playing with new ideas that may or may not work.

I also believe that, while it's important to broadcast our impact on student learning, it's not having the effect we hoped for, because we're not accountable.   Nobody expects the counselors to take responsibility for science scores and principals don't hold librarians responsible for  reading or history outcomes.  Test scores aren't directly relatable to anything we do--and until NCLB starts testing for information literacy,  they won't be any time soon.

Where we DO have huge impact is on school climate and community building. I will always remember my principal telling me after my first year as librarian that he'd never seen one person make such a huge impact on a school in such a short time.  Now, as much as I'd like to take all the credit for that, I think it says far more about my role than it does about my performance.  They hadn't had a certified LMS in several years, so how could it not have a big impact, when suddenly someone is there whose main job is to make everyone students' and teachers' jobs easier/more productive?

Which brings me back to the iPad Trials.

I'll describe our process in later posts; what's important here is why CAR is so worth doing, and why it should be an integral part of your library services.  Basically, we had 15-20 teachers from multiple disciplines meeting from 4:30-6:30 every Wednesday for four months. The tech integrator and I worked as a team to take them through our version of the action research process. Some worked on individual projects, others worked as groups, but all of them came together every week (and occasional weekends) to discuss, share, commiserate and congratulate.  It was friggin' awesome.

I watched this disparately-skilled group of teachers move from not even being sure how to turn the iPad on let alone knowing how they wanted to use it in their classrooms to writing confident, data-driven chapters on their studies.  It was fulfilling to walk down the hallways and hear teachers talking about their studies, to listen to students chatting in the library about their classroom experiences, and to feel the teachers' pride in their own learning and growth.

Action research is "practical, focused on real life problems...acting on knowledge gained through reflection" (Barranoik, qtd in Sykes 16); it's grounded in students' observable behavior or problems; it's a teacher's reflection on practice, followed by focused, direct action in response to learner needs.  Moreover, working together embeds teachers in a supportive network of shared expertise,  building both collegiality and what Mitchell, Reilly and Rogue call a  "community of practice."

Being an integral part of this process demonstrates the libraries' role in the school and student learning more than any abstract study.  Not only do admin see teacher-librarians actively leading/supporting teachers in their efforts to improve pedagogy and student learning, teachers themselves experience the power of collaborating with the library because, of course, this is an excellent opportunity to team with teachers in the classroom.

I hope I've conveyed the power and promise of the CAR process, and raised your interest.  In following posts, I'll detail exactly how we went about this and link to all of our documentation.

CAR, Part II

Bib 2.0 Summer Reboot

Hello?!  Hello!?  Anyone there?!?

I know, I know.  It's been ages.  I've pretty much given up blogging during the school year, as you may have noticed...There's a reason the Buffy's and Doug's and Cathy's and Joyce's of the world are the superstars they are: they have more stamina than I do, and probably a stronger work-ethic(well, among other things, of course!)

While I am certainly aspirational, I find the insane busy-ness of my current school just doesn't leave me more energy (once I get home at the end of the day) than I need to plop myself in front of the latest episode of Grimm!

 While I seriously considered just stopping the blog altogether, it's too important a place for me, personally, to think out issues, ideas, and practices.    Also, my current school being what it is, there are too many big things going on that I believe are well worth sharing and that I hope will be useful to others as we forge ahead into the challenges of 21st century librarianship.

Hence, a reboot.   I decided to turn this into a summer blog, where I a) document/evaluate the past years' projects and b) ponder/discuss ideas for the upcoming year.  In some ways I think that will be more useful for you, dear reader,  as it has the advantage of a full year's thinking and work, rather than the "as I go" nature of past posts.  What it loses in spontaneity,  it makes up for in thoroughness!

So, what's up for Bib 2.0, 2014?


Collaborative Action Research:  The role of the library in empowering teachers and improving learning through long-term PD.  We're wrapping up a two year iPad Trial, and this is the how we did it and what we found series of posts.

Evaluating Your Tech Mission: Last spring, we did a school-wide study of our tech mission statement (that no-one knew we had), which also evolved into a study of the perception of technology use at our school.  We have a reputation (somewhat underserved, I feel) as being a very tech forward school, and we wanted to "test the waters" as it were to see a) what teachers' perceptions were, where we were meeting the mission and what the barriers are to achieving that.  It turned into a huge deal, with lots of response coding, and I'll  detail what we did and why it's important that we did it.

MakerSpace update--a big hit, but also a snag.


That's the past stuff.  As to the "thinking online," stuff-for-next-year part:

Visual Notetaking/Visual Thinking--I've been really taken by this concept (ironically, as I always got the "well, you tried" C-/D+ in my art classes); I think it will make a big impact on student learning.  I'm exploring ways to embed it into my TOK (Theory of Knowledge) class, but it's also a good tool for the library to promote as we work to support multiple literacies and learning styles.

Library Services Infographic--In some ways, this year was something of a failure, as teachers used me even less than they did last year. Seriously, I had two collaborative lessons and that was it. My annual report is really embarrassing.  The MS Librarian and I spent the year bemoaning our mutual fate and cursing the teachers,  when we realized we could gripe and moan, but it was up to us to be more proactive.  We have some ideas (including the infographic to have in every classroom) so I'll do some posts on those.  I'm really getting kind of disheartened by this.  It's been an issue at every school, but it's getting worse and I'm wondering if I'm just really bad at advocacy, or ineffectual and teachers don't want me in their classrooms!

That Library State of Mind:  As long-time readers know, I was totally on board on that "put the library where the students are" mindset--of having resources all over the place online.  I still think that's  important, but after a few pathfinder debacles this year (Teacher: "But I  put the link in the Moodle course!  What else did they need?") I'm rethinking that whole idea.  While we need a virtual presence, the more I do this, the more I realize virtual me isn't nearly as good as me in the flesh.

If those are ideas you're interested in, keep checking back over the next month or two!

Why My Library Just Cancelled Its Subscription to Time Magazine

The New York Times published this interesting article today, unfortunately burying the lede in the third paragraph.  Money quote:

...Time Inc. will abandon the traditional separation between its newsroom and business sides, a move that has caused angst among its journalists. Now, the newsroom staffs at Time Inc.’s magazines will report to the business executives. Such a structure, once verboten at journalistic institutions, is seen as necessary to create revenue opportunities and stem the tide of declining subscription and advertising sales.  

Yep.  Time, Inc--no struggling online trade mag--now requires its journalists to report to the business execs, and editors now seek out "sponsored content" (aka "native advertising") as a large part of their professional duties.

Without getting too overtly political, I have long been concerned over the corporate buy-out of American public institutions, whether it's the money behind so-called education reform, a university selling its professorial hiring decisions to the highest bidder, or the Supreme Court (and presidential candidates) solemnly assuring us that corporations are people:


So what does all of this have to do with a library blog?

I just cancelled our library's subscription to Time Magazine, and am in the middle of an email to Time explaining why.

I work hard and spend considerable thought providing quality, authoritative resources for my students.  While we obviously have books or periodicals that promote a particular side or point of view, that bias is generally made clear through content or editorial policy. And, of course, my students and I talk about  using the databases first, evaluating sources, using the CRAAP test, etc.

Now, there is a long history of passing off advertising as editorial content; the public is increasingly sophisticated at recognizing and ignoring advertorials. Advertisers (and the publications) need to make it harder and harder to distinguish between journalistic and sponsored content; thus, it's not always clear which content is an advertisement.  Worse, the Online Publishers Association estimates that 90% of publications offered sponsored content by the end of 2013.

However, Time's decision is especially insidious, using their magazine's  integrity and  reputation as a reliable source of news in order to mask that commercial line. When reading  Seventeen or Sports Illustrated, there's a public understanding of the monetary bottom line, hence students have a certain amount of healthy skepticism when reading their articles. Time, as a straight news magazine, has traditionally drawn a firmer line between its sponsors and its articles, and students read it less critically.

As a librarian, I have a duty to provide my students with material that presents not an unbiased view, but one free of corporate interests--or at least material that makes clear distinctions between content and ads.  It may be a futile gesture, but I'll be cancelling our subscription once school starts again next week, and will definitely add this into my critical literacy curriculum.

The MakerSpace: Equipment and Programming

Exciting title, eh?

Once you have the space, you need to add the "Maker" element, which consists of both equipment and programming.

Now, personally, I think there are all kinds of Makerspaces.  The point is to lure the kids in to hands-on activities that get them creating and learning.  Whether that's video production, 3D printing, carpentry/mechanics...it's all good.  Having said that, I was at a Learning 2.013 conference a few weeks ago, and attended a Makerspace un-conference session.  After I showed the panorama of ours, the leader flat out told me: "That may be other things, and it fits your needs, but it's not a Makerspace," then went on to talk about carpentry and mechanics.  Sucks to him, I say.  This is a pilot program with plans to expand.  If you wait around until you have the ideal space and tools, it may never happen.

The school already has 3 Design Tech rooms,  two art rooms, and a film and recording studio.  These, however,  are located in a building separate from the high-school.  As an all Mac/iPad school, with a 1:1 laptop program in the high school, ours students do a LOT of video and digital media productions.  We were also starting a weekly TV program in the HS.  We needed a space to both facilitate student production and improve the quality of their work.

The Equipment

After discussion with the Film, Art and DT teachers, we either purchased or re-assigned the following equipment:

   makerspace equipment.pdf by jerihurd

Most of it is self-explanatory.  The Legos are for stop-motion videos (or anything else the students think of!).  You might notice it totals far more than the $3,000 I had leftover in last year's budget; the extra comes from this year's budget.  Fortunately, I have a VERY generous budget!

We house the large items in the Makerspace, but keep the cameras, tripods and other portable items in the library for students to check out.

A word about the large-format printer:  We are working to improve the design of both student and teacher posters, banners, etc.  There is nothing more empowering for a student than seeing their work as a large banner in the school--but it has to be good!  In order for students to print their posters/banners on the (very expensive to print) large-format printer, it has to first be approved.  This means it is in it's final format and tested on the regular color printer before it is printed on the large format printer.

UPDATE: I just realized I forgot to include this tip:  We went with a green screen, rather than painting the whole room green, because the green paint reflects on the students when they video.  This not only gives them a rather sickly hue, when you attempt to remove the green while editing, part of the students disappear, too.

The Program

Teachers and students will need to be trained in appropriate use of the space/equipment before they can use it.  Fortunately, we have a strong student Geek Force, and I'm working with a core group of them (Maker Geeks!) to provide both training and workshops for students and faculty.

The "official" roll out happens in two weeks, when we have two PD days.  Faculty rotate through a mix of both obligatory and optional workshops.  The Makerspace workshop is obligatory, and will be run by the Maker Geeks.  They will attend a lighting tutorial run by our Film teacher next week, along with a session on the cameras and other equipment.  The Tech Integrator and I worked together to develop the faculty workshop (Brief intro to the equipment, followed by the time to create their own video, which we'll showcase at the end.  The group that uses the most Makerspace Equipment "wins").

We'll give students the workshop outline, along with two practice faculty groups to practice on before the PD days, then leave them to run it (though available if they need help, obviously!)

We're rolling out with the faculty first, using the theory that familiarizing teachers with the space will trickle down to the students.

The Geek Force will also offer regular tutorials in iBooks Author,  video editing (iMovie and Adobe Premiere),  green screen techniques,  stop-motion videos and more.

We'll populate the back walls with poster guidelines for various media:  e.g.  if you're filming an interview make sure you have x,y,z.  Putting together a documentary: these are the steps.   Basic reminders and quality-checks for students, in other words.

The library itself will sponsor various "challenges" or showcases  throughout the year, promoting student use of the space.

Finally (and I need to put these together next week) after each class or individual use of the space, students and teachers will fill out a brief questionnaire, that we'll use for documenting how the space is used, and what improvements would have most impact for next year.

The MakerSpace: If You Build It, Will They Come?

I'm about to find out.

Thanks to a dream, an under-utilized workspace, and a $3000 end-of-year surplus in my budget,  the library now has a MakerSpace!  It's on a different floor, the space isn't ideal, but hey!  It's there!

Ever since Buffy Hamilton first blogged about it a couple years ago or so, I've wanted a makerspace.  OK, sure, I'll admit it.  The geek in me waxed euphoric at the mere idea of more tech toys.  But I also firmly grounded my makerspace-lust in the belief that the library needs to support ALL literacies, not just reading and writing.  What better way to broaden our sphere and empower students than by giving them the tools, space and permission to go in and engage in meaningful play??

In my last school, money was the issue; in my current school, with its four different DT labs, film and recording studios, I figured we didn't need one.  I was so wrong.

When we were working on the WW II history project last spring, we set up the tech integrator's room as a mini-studio, with two soft box lights borrowed from the film studies teacher, using the whiteboard as a backdrop.  Next thing we knew, kids from all over the high-school were dropping in to use the lights.  This was my ah-ha moment:

• Students recognized the need for better quality in their digital creations, and
• We needed something local, as the DT laps and studios are in a separate building halfway across campus.

First Step: Collaborators
 I explained the vision to the tech integrator.  As one of the key-players for how technology is used in the high-school, she needed to play an integral role in promoting the space. Since she was part of the history project and saw first-hand the improved quality of students' work as well as the kids coming out of the woodwork to use the space, she was on board immediately--even though it meant giving up her work room. We moved her to the library's back-office instead, since I never use it; this has the added advantage of making it easier for us to collaborate.

More importantly even agreed when I insisted it be part of the library.  In fact, I was adamant.  If the space "ran" out of the tech department, teachers and students would connect it with them, and view it as just another tech lab.  Run as part of the library, it's a communal space for everyone to use.

We then got our curriculum coordinator on board, as the first person to present it to our principal.

Finally, we met with the all the film and DT teachers, had a good look at the space and asked for their recommendations. I've embedded a panorama of the room below. You can see it's quite long and narrow, which limits what we can do in there. We also wanted to  keep our goals attainable and achievable over the summer,  saving the dreaming for next year.  Thus, the current space is very oriented towards digital media production.

Step Two:  The Proposal
Now we needed a brief but powerful rationale for why we needed the space, and how we'd pay for it. Fortunately, this was going to be relatively low-cost as it mostly involved the re-purposing of an already existing space and buying equipment, all of which could come from the "leftovers" of last year's budget.

I focused on three areas:  An explanation of what it is and how it would be used, the impact on learning, and the benefits to the school.  You can see the document below.  Like most admin, mine are very short on time and don't want to read pages and pages of rationale; I didn't quite make my  two page goal, but almost (I've blacked out names for obvious reasons).

   Library Makerspace Proposal by jerihurd

I have to say, there were no real road blocks to this, mostly because my school is very tech-forward and progressive, with challenging and inspiring students part of our mission statement. The principal read the proposal, loved it, and arranged a meeting with our director.

He asked me one question: How will you pay for it.  When I explained I had enough money from my budget, he exlaimed, "Fantastic! Get started!" and moved on to other business.  Shortest meeting I've ever had here!

And here's the space, though it's not the best panorama in the world!  Next post, I'll describe the equipment we purchased and how we're running the programming.

iBooks Coming to Your Mac: This is HUGE!

I have to say, I never thought it would happen.  Keeping iBooks off your Mac forced people to buy iPads in addition to their Macs, so why would Apple bring iBooks to their computer.  Or so I thought.

With their new OS X, Mavericks (glad we're out of the cat phase), which releases in Fall, Apple announced they will finally have iBooks on the Mac.

Why is this huge?  Think interactive learning!  I'm part way through writing my blog post on our iPad trial findings, but our big take away is that Macs are still the real workhorse, so this combines the power of your Mac with an interactive space.

Flipping your classroom (or library) just moved out of the "go home and watch this video" stage.  Using iBooks Author, teachers and create engaging,  interactive lessons that ALL students can access, not just those with an iPad or iPhone (this assumes you're a Mac school, of course!).

I also like that student notes appear in a sidebar beside the book, making them easy to review and use.

More importantly, students can now create and preview books all on the same device--you don't need computers AND iPads,  putting the power to create, edit and publish in one place.




So if you're a Mac school and haven't jumped on the iBooks Author bandwagon yet, this fall is definitely the time to start!

Is Your Library User-Focused, or Library Focused? (Part I)

I'm back!  I had visiting friends right after school let out, so I've been simultaneously acting as tour guide and fellow-tourist as I showed them around Beijing and then we visited other parts of China (Pingyao and Xi'An).  You can see my photos on Flickr if you're interested.  I try to keep only my good captures online, so don't worry you'll have to scroll through interminable photos of me standing in front of monuments in that "I need to prove I was here!" kind of shot.  It may be of interest that 1/3 of the photos I took with the iPhone, and all of them were edited on the iPad.  Mobile photo editing is my hot new thing, and I'm actually putting together a workshop on iPhoneography.  But I digress.

I have a couple large posts pending: action research, annual reports and Makerspaces.  This past year was one of those banner, "OMG, I can't believe what I learned" years that transforms your entire way of thinking about everything you do.  We get those far too infrequently--or maybe not, because it's going to entail a LOT of work next year.  It's also entirely possible we get those kinds of years only when we need them.

Needless to say,  I've been doing a lot of thinking about modern libraries and best practice (of course, though here's the English teacher in me asking "If it's needless to say, why did you say it?").

In my eagerness to provide students and teachers with a forward-thinking, 21st Century library,  we've spent a lot of time and money technology. We're a 1:1 laptop school, but I still have 3 iMacs for student use; we circulate 3 iPads that are strictly for the library, as well as 35 others on carts.  We have 20  digital cameras of various sorts, 3 document cameras, 15 snowball mics.  We subscribe, just in the HS, to fifteen different databases.  We have a blog. We have two wikis. We have untold accounts with various Web 2.0 tools.  Moreover, I hound our teachers to bring me into their classrooms more. "Use the library!" I implore.  "We can collaborate!"

Have you noticed, though,  how many times those sentences above start with "We" or "I"?  A lot of the above is about what I think a good library should be, and don't get me wrong. We do a lot of good things.  But it occurred to me this year how much I try to lock things down to the library and making use of me, bodily, in the flesh, mostly to prove the library's importance to the ongoing life of the school.

Let me back up a bit.  I'm also the schools' extended essay coordinator (the EE is a 4,000 word academic research paper 95% or our grade 11's have to write over the course of a year). As part of that this year, I insisted on teaching a series of workshops for the 90+ students, taking them through various aspects of the research process.  The heaviest attendance over the course of the 8 workshops (offered at various times to accommodate student schedules) was around 50%, but it petered off pretty drastically by the end of the year.

In addition,  as part of the science curriculum, grades 9/10 do a number of research projects.  While I finally got the teachers excited about pathfinders, they only brought me in to talk to the students a couple times, giving me 15-20 minutes max (and pretty grudgingly at that).  And if they were reluctant to bring me in to discuss information literacy, they SURE weren't going give up class time to have me talk to the kids about good presentation design!

Nor has this been a problem only at my current school.  I don't know if it's me or the nature of scientists or what, but  while the history department is always totally on board with anything I want to do, the science department is always a hard sell.

I can be a bit dense, but I finally realized, I was asking students and faculty to meet my needs and design, when what I really need to do is meet theirs.  I mean, I've always known that, and I thought that's what I was doing ("But they NEED these lessons on information literacy").  It finally occurred to me that, while they need the information, they don't really need to deliver it.  At least not in person.

I needed to flip the library.

Our Learning Support team (which includes me) met with the Science HOD at the end of May.  He's a good guy, and realizes we needed a better way of doing things. Here's the plan:

Instead of lengthy sessions, we're going to  plan a series of 10 minute participatory lessons.  I'll create a tutorials for students to complete on their own time, then our lessons will be guided practice on their own research.

I don't just want a series of videos, though.  I think the flipped classroom movement has been WAY too video heavy, and Khan Academy has come under some justified criticism for that.   Students need to be more involved/engaged.  Since we're a 1:1 MacBook school, and all students have Keynote, I'll create a series of interactive tutorials. Video will no doubt be part of that, but it won't be the sole component.  Here's a sample tutorial on slide design.  It loses the interactive bit on Slideshare, but if you email, I'll be happy to send the .key file.

The hope, of course, is that students can access this information 24/7.  So whether they come to my extended essay workshops or not, they still have the information if they need it.  Whether they'll actually use it or not is another issue.

On a related note, as part of our more user-focused approach, I want to create supply bins for the students to take back to their desks.  Right now, we offer staplers, etc., but they're actually TIED to the circ desk!  Mostly because we lose a lot of staplers.  I think if we create supply bins--stapler, scissors, glue sticks, markers, etc. and the students have to take the WHOLE kit, they can work at their desk, instead of standing around, AND it will be much more likely for things to come back.  Well see.

Rethinking the Library Annual Report, Part II

“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”  (Mark Twain)

So I had a bit of a temper tantrum in my last post, and declared the Annual Report was a complete waste of time.  Of course, this was about 4 hours in to my 16 hour AR marathon.  If you have Keynote, you can download the final result here.  It's interactive and multimedia, and looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself; unfortunately,  most of the data is unimportant to anyone but me.

As I see it, there are three main problems with the annual report in its current form:

• No one reads them
• They're too long
• They gather all the wrong data

You can see that the first problem probably stems from 2 and 3, so I'll ignore that for now.  Length is a problem, but it's secondary to my main point, so I'll save it for the next post.
So here's my big take-away from all that hard-thinking I've been doing:  Who, besides librarians, needs collection statistics?  If you look at any examplar, whatever else they include, a large portion of them relates statistical data: # of books circulated, # of database hits, # of lessons held.  That's certainly important information for a librarian, and we need to gather that data.  What we don't need to do is share it with our administrators.


The library's raison d'etre is to facilitate student learning.  Whatever else we do, whatever programs we run, if we don't  first and foremost help the little darlings learn, we are failing in our mission.  I think the rationale behind all those earlier statistics runs something like this: if they're checking out books, they're reading (and learning); if I'm teaching 30 lessons a week, they're learning.


Except, of course, those statistics prove nothing of the sort.  I have shelves of books at home that I've never even cracked open, and I suspect plenty of students check out books and never read them.  Moreover, ask any teacher if just saying "Hey, I showed up for class!" counts as evidence.


We've been sharing those statistics for decades, and it has done us no good, if thousands of lay-offs are anything to go by.


In a response to my earlier post, Doug Johnson says "The key to a successful report lies...in its direct correlation to district goals."  He's absolutely right, but for someone faced with putting that document together, it's not all that helpful.  How do you DO that?  What kind of data do you need to gather?


Just as importantly, what if the school's goals aren't yours?  I left a completely wonderful school, partly because my principal and I had completely different visions of what a library should be, and mine didn't involve green lampshades.


The answer, of course, goes back to every school's primary mission: student learning.  Of course if you are helping the school meet its goals, that needs to be an integral of your report.  Its driving focus, however, should be not just your impact on learning, but on hard evidence.


As I said, I've been thinking about this for a while, and as I was sitting having a pedicure the other night, I ran across an article in the December, 2012  teacher | librarian (I'm a little behind on my reading!) that reached out and smacked me in the face.


In it, Mark Ray, teacher librarian in Vancouver, Washington states,

"In an age dominated by assessment scores, benchmarks and data dashboards, it is essential to...present compelling data connected to your instruction and program. General circulation numbers are not enough. The data needs to be tied to learning outcomes and linked directly or indirectly to student achievement and growth." 

 Huzzah!


Of course, what that looks like is what all the education battles the last few years have been arguing about, but I have a few ideas.

Basically you will need three types of information: Data, examples and stories.  Here's how I plan to gather that.

DATA: Most of my library instruction sits in either the science or history departments.  I'm going to create a series of short, specific pre-post quizzes on various aspects of information literacy and collate the data.  I'll do exit surveys after the series of extended essay workshops.  I'm fortunate in that I have 100 or so grade 12s every year being externally assessed on a 4,000 word research paper, and the school can pay to get that data. We will.

EXAMPLES:  Display examplars of excellent student projects on your library blog or display, and either link to them. Or include them in your report in other ways. For example, in this year's report, I included photos of some of the better student infographics.

STORIES:  I've always include short quotations from students and teachers about the library program in my report.  It both promotes our services and adds visual appeal.  This year I took that a step further and embedded short  30-60 second interviews with students and teachers talking about the library's impact on their learning and curriculum.  One student shared how the infographic really made him think in different ways and to discriminate among his choices of data.  His teacher related that she'd come to me asking for help with a poster assignment, and it turned into something far more meaningful.

These are powerful testaments to the direct impact of the library program, and a meaningful complement to your data.

The key to all of this, of course, is that you must have it in place at the start of the year. It's not information you can gather retroactively, so you need to make it part of your strategic goals and plans.

And none of this is any guarantee it will be read if you turn in 15 typed, single-spaced pages.  Doug's post implied an underlying pooh-poohing of my concerns over design and medium.  I think he's dead wrong there.  Stay tuned for the final installment in the Annual Report Epic.