Again, it's been a while....

Maybe I am just not cut out for this web 2.0 stuff.
As you may have noticed I have not been on my blog for a while. What I wonder though is if this is a good or a bad thing?

In saying this, however, I have just started a twitter account, so maybe it is not web 2.0 that I have trouble with, perhaps it is just blogging. I was never really any good at keeping a diary so I guess my habits haven't changed even though the medium has.

I am excited that the semester draws to a close as next year will be my final year.
Completing three subjects at once was a challenge but overall I am happy with how things have gone.
Already I have submitted my forms for when I would like to do my study visit and placement and enrolled for next year.

So now I can enjoy the upcoming Christmas holidays and wait until I become a fully fledged teacher-librarian.

ETL402 – Module 3

Literature and the collection

Some interesting points were raised as part of this module and there are some things in here that I wish I had read before I did assignment one, but never mind, I know better now. There are four things I want to cover; promoting reading, fiction arrangement, censorship and e-books.

Promoting reading

            La Marca (2000) and Cremin (2010) have some very interesting things to say about promoting reading. At the school in which I work reading is the domain of the English faculty. And students are often surprised when I am able to talk to them about the novels they are reading. I take every opportunity I can to talk about books and find the best time is to catch the students as they are borrowing.

            To promote the idea of reading for pleasure the school has a programme called START – students and teachers all reading together. For twenty minutes each morning students and teachers must read a novel. The problem with this is that many students do not like to read and so come into the library of a morning and pick any old book to read. Another problem is the fact that it is silent reading and teachers and students are not really given any time to engage socially to discuss their novels.

            The school also has a student book club but it seems sporadic at best. Personally I would like to hold readings at lunch once a week but I don’t know if students would even turn up.

Fiction arrangement

            As I am currently rearranging non-fiction I don’t have all that much to add here. In the school library I work in fiction can be found in five places – the general fiction section, graphic novels, quick reads and classics. I also have weekly displays of selected fiction such as books turned into films. New books also have there own front on display. If I could I would have all the fiction face out – students are much more interested in a book when they can see its cover.

Censorship

I have written about this before but I guess that it is something that hangs over the heads of all teacher-librarians. I am of the opinion that you cannot please everyone, and that just because one person might not like a text it doesn’t mean it has no place in the library.

Because I am in a high-school, and because it is a catholic girls’ high-school I feel like I often walk a very fine line between what is appropriate and acceptable and what is not. If I ever buy a book that I consider a little controversial I stick a ‘senior fiction’ tag on it and shelve it in that section. I feel like that covers me a little if I am ever challenged. The problem is though that I do not police the section. If a junior chooses to borrow a senior fiction book I let them.

Censorship is hard because everyone has the right to read whatever they choose but in a school situation there are certain values one must uphold.

E-books

            I must admit I haven’t really worked out how to ‘do’ e-books in the school library. Our technology is not that crash hot and so sometimes I think they will be wasted. However, more and more teachers and students have ipads and iphones and e-book readers and I should be moving with the times. In the interim, until I can figure them out, I have subscribed to World Book Online Advanced which has its own e-book library for students to download. They are mostly old classics and the such but it seems like a good place to start.

ETL505 – Topic Four

Metadata Standards

                    

I must admit that I still do not fully understand cataloguing rules and ways to write bibliographic descriptions. I find it hard to follow both the terminology and punctuation. (This is probably going to make the second assignment rather difficult).

What I do understand, however, is the why. Why it is so important to have descriptions, why it is so important to have standards and why there is a shift from AACR2 to RDA.

I think Kirkland’s (2010) article sums up well the implications of and reasons these changes are occurring. As with all education things these days, bibliographic description needs to become more user-centred and user-friendly. She makes the point that a shift to an online format, with generic descriptions for all types of resources will make for more relevant library OPACs.

Chapman’s (2010) article further highlights the need for change. It seems silly to me to restrict descriptions of format because it doesn’t fit, or to not even have links between the same text because format is different. Again the generic-ness of RDA descriptions that take format into account in different ways seems so much better.

I guess what I am discovering is that AACR2 seems to be cataloguer and budget friendly, while RDA is much more user/student/searcher friendly. And if the whole point of the library and the Teacher-Librarian is to meet the needs of users/students I say bring it on.

ETL402 – Module Two

Diversity in Children’s Literature

I really enjoyed reading about all the different, established and emerging genres in children’s literature. But already working in a library I feel I know a lot about this already.

It takes me back to something from the first module, that is that we were all children once and therefore have our own ideas about what it is or should be like. In light of this and with what I said last module I still read young adult fiction and still feel like a young adult, even if I am twenty-four.

I guess the really good thing about this module is that it has helped me to understand the first assignment a little better. It was hard to think about how children’s literature cold be used to promote anything other than literacy.

Now I feel better equipped to start my literature search for that assessment.

Just a side note that I feel I must add – with all this reading about children’s literature to do I have barely any time to actually read children’s literature!!

ETL505 – Topic Three

Introducing Metadata

I really like metadata. I totally get its purpose and usefulness and am slowly starting to see what the point of this subject is. I can also see how this fits in with the first assignment and so I say hooray for metadata.

It is obvious from the Milstead and Feldman (1999) reading that while metadata is an awesome thing it is highly problematic when there is no regulation of “how to write down the descriptive information and what to write down” (p.26).

For me one of the biggest problems associated with searching is that you don’t always know what you are looking for. Metadata deals with this quite well, however, it does depend on the fields included in that data.

ETL402 – Module One

Children’s Literature

Well I have finally started the reading for this unit, and despite my protests and phobia of long readings it wasn’t as nearly as difficult as I thought.

So my ideas…

Up front this unit asks you to consider what is a child and childhood and therefore what is children’s literature? I think that in terms of a generally acknowledged definition and one that is easy to understand saying that a child is anyone zero to eighteen years old seems pretty satisfactory. I guess the problem with that is though that there are many different capabilities and levels within that broad range. An eighteen year old is not necessarily going to be thinking or acting like a five year old. This has ramifications when one tries to define children’s literature. One thing that really stood out for me is that everyone, and children specifically, should be “reading literature according to their physical and intellectual capacities” (Winch, 2006, p.399).

So what then is children’s literature? I think that it is anything written or created for ‘children’. It would deal with issues that engage and concern the 0-18 year-old’s. just like adult literature it is broken up into genres, but rather than just going by theme so to speak, it is also broken up according to those physical and intellectual capabilities. So not only do you have romance, but you also have tween, teen, pre-school etc. And even though it may be divided this ageist way, it doesn’t mean you cannot read outside your age group to suit your capabilities and needs.

This debate reminds me of some trouble I have been having with manga. Each series is given a rating but I find those rated ‘older teen’ are actually more suited to adults. It is interesting to see what is acceptable to the Japanese compared to what I think is acceptable for a high school full of Catholic girls in Australia.

I was also struck by an issue raised in two of the readings to do with an article by Zipes (2009). The question is raised of whether new technology is ‘dulling children’s senses’ and whether images are going to be more important than words. Zipes seems to think that this is a massive problem, but is it really? If children are becoming more digitised why shouldn’t the literature they read reflect and engage them through the media they like. Again it comes back to the manga/graphic novel thing. I cannot buy enough of these for the school library, students will read them over and over and even out of order because they like the style and format. This doesn’t mean I have stopped buying traditional novels, it has just led to more borrowing and reading – a good thing I think.

ETL505 – Topic Two

 Information Retrieval Tools

Now I understand why librarians have outsourced this whole cataloguing and bibliographic description thing – if this made up the core of my work I don’t think I would be a teacher-librarian any more.

I have never really thought about why things are catalogued the way they are or how it was developed. For me, all I think about is ease of access to information.

And I guess that is the whole point of this unit…

But it is so dull.

I don’t need to know how or why it works as long as it does work.

It's beginning to get to me...

You might be mistaken from reading my blogs so far this semester that I am only undertaking two units. In fact I am studying three but have not posted anything for 402 yet.
Why is this you might ask?
Well not only am I a great procrastinator I have just been utterly overwhelmed by all the information we have been given for 402. Every time I look at interact it hurts my eyes. I have no idea where I should start.
Really it should be my best and most favourite subject. Even though I no longer fit the age bracket, teen literature is still something I deliberately choose to read. This is not because I work with and for teens but rather because I actually enjoy reading it.
And so as I set out to put it off a little longer I wonder why I chose three units in the first place.

ETL501 – Topic 2

Print and electronic information

I think the most interesting thing that I read as part of this module was the Ballard (2008) article. As I read about the web interface they created for their library all I could think was ‘I WANT ONE’. What a brilliant and ingenious solution to the reference debate! Accessible and available all the time, for me it encapsulates the purpose of a library – that is to provide the information when it is needed.

As for the reference debate itself I think it is becoming less and less relevant. At the school I am working in currently we have just integrated most of the reference section into non-fiction. It can now be borrowed for two weeks just like everything else. All that is left in the ‘reference section’ are sets of books and anything that doesn’t fit on the shelves. This was done for a couple of reasons. Really I think that if a student needs a book why shouldn’t they be able to borrow it? What makes some information so special that it cannot leave the library? Secondly, we have just subscribed to World Book Online and it is my hope that students will use this in place of the reference section. We chose this resource because of its ease of use and accessibility outside school hours. I think that for the idea of a reference section to make it into the future it needs to be called something else, something that takes into account the ideas of accessibility, authoritativeness and compendium.

Is Wikipedia then a reference work? I always direct students they’re at the beginning of their research process. It should be viewed as a general source, a place to go when you know nothing about a topic. Then once you have a basic understanding you move on to more reliable and specific sources.

ETL 505 – Topic One

 The need for information resource description

The very first things that this module asks us to do is question why we are even studying the unit. And I must admit it offers little in the way of solutions. The module stresses the importance of getting it right, of sorting materials and placing them in the correct place with the right description etc. It also stresses the idea that this is a specialist job, one that would take up too much of a teacher-librarians time. So I am still a little hazy about why I need to know it.

I was interested to read that archives, museums and libraries are like cousins, or perhaps even siblings. The Rayward (1995) paper suggests that their differences stem from their function and purpose and this makes a lot of sense to me.

I think it also links to why teacher-librarians need to know about all this. The reasons users search is different and understanding how, why and where information is kept can help TL’s help users.

One thing that took me a while to understand was the Hensen (2001) quote. So many big words, so many meta concepts.

In my own words I think he is saying

“cataloguing is primarily about content not form”

And I think that is something that is often forgotten. Usually I just search for one specific thing, especially at school when asked by teachers and students for help. So when they say have you got a book on ‘x’ that is all I look for. When really I should be looking for ‘x’ in all its forms.

So I guess I do understand why we need to learn this after all. If I can understand how information is described, and placed better I will be better able to retrieve and use it, and also better able to help others with this process.

Personally I think information needs to be organised effectively because that is the way I like it. In a library sense the information needs to be visible and easily accessed. It is also a way of selecting and sorting the resources one acquires. Twice this year novels have come into the library that are somewhat inappropriate for the context and users. So what happens to them? A senior fiction sticker is stuck on the spine and I can use it to remind me to quiz kids about their grade level before they borrow it. Can senior fiction be searched through the school catalogue though? The answer is no.

ETL501 - Topic One

The learning and teaching context

Beginning this unit with this topic has reinforced to me the ideas of what the focus of teacher-librarianship should be – and that is teaching and learning.

However, I am not sure that information provider is the most fitting term for this role. Information specialist is perhaps better, but my favourite role description for teacher-librarian is teacher.

                Some interesting points were made in the first chapter of Herring’s (2011) text the most pressing of which I think is the conflict between the concepts of the purpose of education and the purpose of school. These are important as depending on which is in focus the question of ‘what is learning?’ can have different answers.

                I agree with the point that 21^st century teaching needs to be based on a constructivist model and think that the main aim of this should be as Herring (2011) says to encourage, foster and develop information literacy in students. With the myriad of information sources available to young people today, and the multiple stimuli they are constantly in contact with, it seems to me that engaging them, through their own knowledge and interests, is the only way to go. It is key that teaching has a “clear focus on what students learn, how they learn and what teaching strategies will be most effective” (p.11) and that teacher-librarians have the same.

ETL401 - Assignment 2 Task C Blog post

Task C

Word Count: 620

            The concept that has most influenced my understanding of the role of a teacher-librarian is information literacy. It is a concept that is highlighted in the readings and research I have completed and in the thoughts of myself and others in blogs and on the forum.

            One of the first and foremost responsibilities of the teacher-librarian is to promote themselves as an educator (Morrison, March 3 2011), and that “the role of ‘teacher’ should be up the top of the list” (Ronnie, 2011). It is a mistake for the teacher-librarian to be viewed “as being in their own domain, called upon when necessary, but ultimately outside the teaching and learning practices” (Morrison, March 17 2011). There is consensus among the literature (Lamb and Johnson, 2008; Herring, 2007; Twomey, 2007; Sykes, 2001) which has informed my views that “the school library should be seen as a centre of learning first and a centre of resources second” (Herring, 2007, p.27). Teacher-librarians and school communities need to realise that the library has “the potential to be the pulsating technological heart of the learning community” (Varela, 2011) and with this comes the responsibility and role to “support information literacy in the school” (Morrison, March 17 2011).

            One thing that I did not completely grasp until well into the course was how closely linked information literacy is to the role of the teacher-librarian. It was naïve of me to think that myself as teacher-librarian was the sole leader of information literacy in the school. A key idea that has allowed me to evolve my understanding is constructivism. It is clear that information literacy is a process “where learners construct meaning for themselves” (Herring, Tarter and Naylor, 2002, p.2). In order to fulfil their role, a teacher-librarian must also see themselves “as a process, rather than a content, expert” (Johnson, 2011). The role of the teacher-librarian then is to instruct students explicitly about how information literacy can be used “to enhance and enrich their learning and assist their learning processes” (Bisignani-Piepers, 2011). To achieve this a teacher-librarian must work collaboratively to create “an information literate community”, a goal that “is the responsibility of the whole school” not just the teacher-librarian (Skrzeczynski, 1999, p.241; Morrison, May 2 2011).

This links back into the idea of the library as the learning hub, as through their role of promoting information literacy a teacher-librarian must connect “learning inside the school to learning outside” (Sykes, 2001, p.7). This is the most important role for teacher-librarians because if they “focus on the curriculum and student learning, know what teachers are teaching and when, and look for ways that technology can engage learners in meaningful experiences, they can have a tremendous effect on learning” (Lamb and Johnson, 2008, p.2; Morrison, March 20 2011). This is reflected in the Professional Standards where their knowledge and skills can be used “as a basis for providing library and information services” to both teachers and students (Haycock, 2001, 3).

            It is obvious that over time ideas about the role of the teacher-librarian have changed, and my own understanding is no exception. Teacher-librarians are asked to be all things, to all people, all the time. At this point in time, however, I have come to the conclusion that a teacher-librarian’s role in promoting and teaching information literacy should be at the forefront of everything that they do. That being said, I have also learned that the role of the teacher-librarian is a complicated one, and that whichever function is chosen pulls them in a different direction, to promote different values (Abilock, 2004, p.10).

            Therefore, there is one certainty about the teacher-librarians role and which is that it is “constantly changing and they must be able to accept new tasks in order to perform their duties effectively” (Purcell, 2010, p.33).

N.B.

The complete reference list for this section has been incorporated into the reference list for this assessment submitted on EASTS.