My question to reflect on is: How have you provided ongoing support for digital media including Internet sites, school or library sites, online encyclopedias and reference materials, and social networks such as facebooks and blogs.
I have made a few school websites over the past ten years and created my first library website four years ago. The ability to keep the library open longer (at least digitally) has been a net benefit to all users. I do not have the financial resources to keep my library open for very long after the school day is complete, neither do I have the time or resources to even have the library open during the lunch hour. The lowcost solution is providing digital access to my patrons. Just having students able to access the library catalog from home to plan their next library visit and know beforehand what they want to read has led to more successfull reading experiences for at least a few of my patrons. Now that my students have the ability to recommend, review and discuss books using their own personal profiles in DestinyQuest there is an added vibrancy and sense of community surrounding our library collection.
Providing the school community with access to Worldbook Online, The Encyclopedia of BC and Culturegram has been a great support to students and parents. A web presence with access to Internet links, databases, OPAC access, news and some advice has helped us begin our transformation into a learning commons. Our library is breaking down its physical walls despite the lack of resources to staff for longer hours before and after school.
Just as an aside, our working towards being more of a learning commons has also involved two open houses a year that are opportunities for parents to learn about and learn to use the digital resources from our school. We have also created a SMARTBoard equipped teaching area that is not only used with library classes but is access by classroom teachers and is used as the gather area for staff meetings, PAC meetings and various school clubs.
Providing access to Internet websites has been an ongoing challenge. Years ago I spent a good deal of time making links to websites. The amount of time and effort required to keep these resources organized, working and current was unsustainable. I have changed to providing teachers access to our school's home page in Destiny Library Manager so they can add links for their classroom and I maintain links that support what classroom teachers are doing for the school year and what I cover in my teaching. I often start new at the beginning of the school year. It is better to teach people good search skills then it is to anticipate all the possible resources students and teachers would want to access. I need better tools and knowledge if I am to re-engage in the process of organizing Internet websites.
There are some tremendous digital resources out there. Access to cataloged streaming video web services is something I highly desire but have no hope of affording. The challenge for elementary school libraries is the same everywhere. We need to maintain and renew our book collections which is extremely costly. Now we also have many costs associated with annual subscription fees for OPAC services and their added features and for the quality encyclopedias and databases to which we subscribe. We also have a great deal of computer equipment to purchase and maintain. Our funding has not kept pace with the services we need to offer.
In terms of social networking and blogs I have limited my students to the MyQuest accounts they have through DestinyQuest. I restrict this to grade 4 and 5 students. It is social networking environment that has a limited scope and can be easily monitored and restricted to our school community. Opening my students to a much wider world has not appealed to me at present as I feel uneasy about relinquishing control and feel they are too vulnerable. In my technology classes we talk a lot about social networking and use the Passport to the Internet curriculum. I can see this being expanded as I learn to access tools and sites that allow the creation of restricted online communites. We can only afford to use free resources and still we just have the pure limits of time and access to computers (one lab of 32 computers and another pod of 15 computers located in the library and 300 student users).
Monday, January 17, 2011
Introduction
My name is Ben Koning and I work as a teacher-librarian and technology teacher at Torquay Elementary school in Saanich, BC.. As part of my studies for a diploma in teacher-librarainship through UBC, I have been asked to keep a learning blog. It is a new experience for me. I have not really been a blogging fan but must admit that I really shouldn't knock something unless I have tried it mayself. So here is my first post:
I am originally trained as a high school teacher and taught Social Studies, Math, French, Technology and History at the high school level for a few years. I then took a break from the classroom and worked as an Educational Consultant for four years in the late 90s in a partnership program with BCTel and the Ministry of Education. The purpose of the partnership was to help schools integrate technology with the curriculum. The majority of my work was training teachers in the use of educational software and the Internet and co-teaching with teachers from K to 12. I then worked for five years as school technologist with the Greater Victoria School District. My work involved the automation of some school libraries and establishing and maintaining school computer networks.
I then returned to the classroom beginning with a year as an Adult Education teacher in the area of Business Education and technology. Since that time, I have worked for the past seven years exclusively at the elementary level. I have taught grade 5 and 6 as a classroom teacher and for the past five years have worked as at K to 5 Teacher-Librarian and Technology Teacher in two different schools. I worked one of those years as a Vice Principal as well.
I have completed five courses in the Diploma Programme for Teacher-Librarianship. My primary interests are information literacy and resource based learning. I bring to my role a good working knowledge of the curriculum at all grade levels and some teaching experience at each level as well as a strong technology background.
Our school district has centralized the management of technology over the past few years. Our work stations and library systems are managed at the district level with some management functions delegated to the school. All libraries in our district use a union catalog from Follett called Destiny Library Manager. We order, process and catalog books at the school level but have access to a district clerk who will catalogue items for which there are no Marc records or will provide cataloging advice. Our library manages its own website and subscribes to a number of online services such as World Book Online, Culturegram, DestinyQuest and Titlepeek.
In addition to a district library clerk, our district has a strong teacher-librarian association which meets regularly and shares information and problem solves together through the use of central emailing list. Cataloguing issues are a regular part of these communications. Just recently a committee has been struck to standardize the use of Marc record fields in the union catalog and to develop methods to eliminate duplicate records in the catalog.
I am very much looking forward to this course. I had hoped to have had such a course much earlier in my career as a Teacher-Librarian. I have struggled over the past few years to find ways to make our library holdings more accessible for our younger patrons (K to 2) and at the same time trying to stay true to traditional organizational systems and cataloguing conventions. I am looking for insights into best practices in this regard as well as insights into the organization and management of electronic resources. I also hope to find answers to questions I have regarding the cataloguing of items such as biographies, graphic novels and series written by a variety of authors.
I am originally trained as a high school teacher and taught Social Studies, Math, French, Technology and History at the high school level for a few years. I then took a break from the classroom and worked as an Educational Consultant for four years in the late 90s in a partnership program with BCTel and the Ministry of Education. The purpose of the partnership was to help schools integrate technology with the curriculum. The majority of my work was training teachers in the use of educational software and the Internet and co-teaching with teachers from K to 12. I then worked for five years as school technologist with the Greater Victoria School District. My work involved the automation of some school libraries and establishing and maintaining school computer networks.
I then returned to the classroom beginning with a year as an Adult Education teacher in the area of Business Education and technology. Since that time, I have worked for the past seven years exclusively at the elementary level. I have taught grade 5 and 6 as a classroom teacher and for the past five years have worked as at K to 5 Teacher-Librarian and Technology Teacher in two different schools. I worked one of those years as a Vice Principal as well.
I have completed five courses in the Diploma Programme for Teacher-Librarianship. My primary interests are information literacy and resource based learning. I bring to my role a good working knowledge of the curriculum at all grade levels and some teaching experience at each level as well as a strong technology background.
Our school district has centralized the management of technology over the past few years. Our work stations and library systems are managed at the district level with some management functions delegated to the school. All libraries in our district use a union catalog from Follett called Destiny Library Manager. We order, process and catalog books at the school level but have access to a district clerk who will catalogue items for which there are no Marc records or will provide cataloging advice. Our library manages its own website and subscribes to a number of online services such as World Book Online, Culturegram, DestinyQuest and Titlepeek.
In addition to a district library clerk, our district has a strong teacher-librarian association which meets regularly and shares information and problem solves together through the use of central emailing list. Cataloguing issues are a regular part of these communications. Just recently a committee has been struck to standardize the use of Marc record fields in the union catalog and to develop methods to eliminate duplicate records in the catalog.
I am very much looking forward to this course. I had hoped to have had such a course much earlier in my career as a Teacher-Librarian. I have struggled over the past few years to find ways to make our library holdings more accessible for our younger patrons (K to 2) and at the same time trying to stay true to traditional organizational systems and cataloguing conventions. I am looking for insights into best practices in this regard as well as insights into the organization and management of electronic resources. I also hope to find answers to questions I have regarding the cataloguing of items such as biographies, graphic novels and series written by a variety of authors.
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