Job uncertainty

cc licensed ( BY )  flickr photo shared by CarbonNYC

I am once in the position where I am not sure what I will be doing work-wise on the other side of the holidays. At the beginning of the year, it seemed like the next twelve months were laid out ready to go. It really is true: if there is one thing you can predict in life, it's unpredictability.

I have spent the last couple of years trying to keep as many doors open as possible, but I am starting to wonder: what exactly is it that I want to do? What kind of library do I want to be in? Who do I want to work for? What part does money play? Where could I make the most difference? What should I be doing now to help me get the job I want in the future? What kinds of job are likely to be available to me in the future?

Some of these questions I cannot know the answer to, and the rest I do not know the answer to - yet. I am living with the hope and trust that it will become clear to me before too long, and that I will end up in the right place...

If you think you can help me to know some of these answers, feel free to let me know!

How well do you use technology?

Wow, the school holidays are quickly coming to an end. I have been doing a few things over the holidays, checking emails and following TL news on the social networking scene, but I have not been as much of a participant as I could have been, and I have been terribly slack with my blog.

I am going to work on that. From now on, when I come across an interesting email that I think may be of use to myself later on, or to anyone who stumbles across my blog, I am going to share it here.

For a start, I am going to share a link to a website that provides outlines for rubrics to assess the level at which staff are using technology:
Doug Johnson's Website, CODE77 Rubrics
What an important thing for schools to use - rather than just assessing students, assess the staff that are teaching them, and ensure they have training to fill in the gaps. How important is our understanding and use of technology in this day and age?


cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by * Polly *

I felt encouraged to find that I was at level 3 or 4 for many of the sections :) Still have some things to work on though. I think I will make student assessment using technology a focus this year. Prepared assessment (too often I rush into an amazing unit, and the students gain a lot from it, but then it is difficult and time consuming to assess them afterwards, and to compare befores and afters).. I look forward to discussing and planning this with the TL I am job sharing with this year.

Where do you, and your school's teachers sit within such a rubric?

More reflection on placement

Today was very straightforward, with lots of time spent standing behind the counter with a husky voice and a knife...

Let me explain! I caught a cold over the weekend, and last night 'lost' my voice, so talking today was very difficult, and perhaps entertaining. The knife was for creative purposes - I was making wintry trees to go with the snowflakes, and finally managed to get the library's junior school classroom decorated. It took me so much time, and has made me think about how I would decorate if I was working in a library on my own (as I will be soon) with limited time; I am guessing I will have longer days than I have been having, and I will have to think more carefully about decorations that can be created by students at lunchtime (the snowflakes would work, the trees would not be ideal). The other thing it has made me think about is what I will be able to do on a tighter budget. I really do not know how much money I will have to spend, but I know I will need to carefully work out my priorities.


cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by sant.o

As the decorating took all day, the only other things I got to do were some returns, putting some texts away, and printing and applying some spine labels (which it was good to review). I am glad I got to decorate, and I feel like I've contributed to the library and learned from the experience, but I do hope that I can focus on the processes I will need at a TL in the three days I have left. I have a day off tomorrow, working at my other job, and when I return to the library on Friday it will be to Oliver, not Alice. I am very interested to see how that system works, and how the library staff are coping with it considering they haven't had any training and will just be working from the manuals.

Once again, I had a great day and am feeling relaxed overall, and excited about the future. Also, a little sad that my placement is nearly over already...

Reflective zone: Be warned

As I have mentioned, I am on placement at the moment. I have realised that it makes sense to do a daily reflection, thinking over the things I have learned. I reflect best by putting it in words, either on paper or screen. So I have decided: why not bore whoever might happen across this little blog with more details of my learning! Because I am a little slow on the uptake sometimes, I am starting this way too late and will only be able to reflect on 5 of the 10 wintry days this way. Here goes.


cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by CaptPiper

Today disappeared super quickly, as have the others, and I am sad to think that this placement is going to be over before I am ready for it to be. I only taught one lesson today. It was one I planned myself sticking with the TLs theme of children in stories. I read "Imagine" to them, my favourite Alison Lester picture book. I then had them lay on the floor, with peaceful music playing, and to imagine a place that would make them happy and relaxed. They then drew beautiful pictures of their places. Even though time was tight, I was really happy with how this lesson went. I love the idea of using books to encourage children to use their imaginations. I think imagination is so important, and needs to be fostered. As I have been doing in my other lessons, I had the children do their borrowing etc first. I feel that it is more tidy this way as a lesson, though it may make the time a little bit tighter. I am beginning to think that perhaps I should once again try to do it the other way around.

Today I was very excited to be able to help one of the teachers with a technology matter! She was talking about referencing pictures, and I told her about FlickrCC and showed it to her as well as the TL. They were very interested and it was a nice feeling to be able to share some of the wonderful things I have learned this year. I also gave her this blog address so that if she thinks it would be helpful she can learn about Greasemonkey and how to make it easier to attribute images like I have.

I covered a new kind of book today (learned to cover paperback and hardcover books last week): the book with a dust jacket. The covering is so simple and clever; I found it a very exciting experience! Easily amused, I know.

I spent some more time doing the basic library processes using "Alice". Hoping to have confidence and understanding before I come back on Friday to a new operating system - "Oliver". I feel reasonably confident doing the processes, but not confident in my ability to retain the information in the long term at this stage. I am hoping if I do need to use these operating systems again I will have some support. I am concerned that I am not getting practice with OASIS which is the system I will be using in terms 3 and 4, but I'm sure I will pick it up.

What else happened today... I shared my homemade soup and it appeared to be a hit - I hope they weren't just being nice! I made one more tree to decorate the windows with, and the kids made lots more snowflakes (and mess). Pretty wintry classroom here we come. Oh, the TL showed me the budget she uses, and I will be able to get a copy of it to use in the future which is great. And I finished the day with a bit of food/sleep deprived delirium - I hope my reputation isn't ruined!

Looking forward to another fun day in the library tomorrow :)

Digital reference interview

I like the idea of students having the ability to ask their TL questions via the network or Internet. I forsee that there would be challenges:

- Less opportunity for a reference interview (tying in with the next point): the TL is less likely to be able to narrow down the search criteria by asking the student (or maybe teacher) questions, unless they either send messages back and forth, or ask them to come to the library (defeating the purpose of the digital format to begin with).

- Time constraints: typed responses have a tendancy to take longer than verbal ones (in my experience anyway), particularly if questions need to be asked. Also, if the questions are not clear, time can be wasted looking for incorrect/unhelpful information. Not to mention the many (time wasting) distractions a computer holds at the best of times.

- Response time: It is not likely that the TL will be able to reply instantly - and when does a student ask a question that they do not want an instant answer to? Students are likely to get impatient and seek their own answers, leaving the TL wondering if there is a need to answer it after all.

Despite these things, I think the concept is viable. If the TL makes it clear that queries may not be answered straight away, and if this is important they should come straight to the library or talk to their teacher, then students should only use it in the right situation and most questions will still require a response. That is something the TL would have to play by ear. These days, when technology is such a natural thing to turn to, I think it is going to be important for TLs to be able to help student via ICT, whilst still promoting the importance of face to face contact.

Be prepared...

As we said when we were girl guides. Though now I ask you to be prepared for an onslaught of seemingly random thoughts and ideas, as I rapidly progress through my readings in order to rapidly progess through my assignments.

Firstly focussing on 'Information Environment', with that assignment being due... very soon...

Three key factors I think a primary school teacher librarian would need to take into account before providing an information service to teachers:


- How the teachers would like that information provided - with busy schedules, it's going to be important that teachers feel that they are being helped, not just having more of their time consumed. What actions will make teachers feel that the TL is saving them time by providing them with information? What can the TL say to make this clear?

- What information teachers want - It is important that as professionals we continue to expand our knowledge of our field; as such, things like professional journals and new information on teaching/learning are important, but once again these can be time consuming. The TL needs to find out which information is important to which teachers, and to inform them appropriately as they find articles/information, rather than just throwing whatever they find at everyone.

- The TL would particularly need to take into account the attitudes of the teachers - how they percieve the role of the TL. They may need to clarify their position and capabilities to the teachers as a whole, and to outline just what they can do to help them. If the role that they wish to play is not clear, this could end up with frustration in both camps: The TL frustrated that the teachers do not seem to respect them in their role and are not making the most of such a great resource, the teachers feeling that the TL is not available as a resource as they have not made their commitment clear and have not clarified what they can do to help.

What I learned from ETL401 Assignment 1

This assignment put on a nice front, asking for 1000 words less than the ETL503 one. The first 500 words though took a very long time. I actually felt like I had to drag the words out of me when talking about an 'information literate school community' and I am not convinced that the words I dragged out were very good ones.

I feel like the rest of the assignment flowed better, but as usual I am not confident in how I went (this does not mean I will not be disappointed if/when I get a mark that is below average).

In the assignment I discussed the importance of the teacher librarian in the creation of an information literate school community - I can definitely see the role that a TL can play, the potential that role has to make a difference. I can also see though that there are many obstacles in the way of TLs, particularly the one which I looked at in my paper - that of classroom teachers not realising the aforementioned potential of the TL. Perhaps classroom teachers do not realise the importance of information literacy (perhaps I should have mentioned that in my assignment....), but in the school I was looking at they definitely do not collaborate with the TL for resources, and for the units their students are working on. The students are not given library time to acquire resources for the unit they are working on either.

I looked at some solutions for this, including the TL approaching a small number of staff members and getting them to collaborate and use the library more effectively, with the idea that this would catch on with other teachers over the years. I wonder if this would work. I wonder if this would lead to the importance of hte library being raised in people opinions, and therefore more time and money being put into it in the long run - would this lead to a better library over all? I think many teacher librarians are in a situation where they feel overwhelmed by all the obstacles in their way to creating a better library environment and being the TL they have been trained to be and wish to be - but perhaps if as TLs we choose one obstacle to focus on and see where that leads us. Perhaps if we focus on the right things, the library could eventually become the heart of the school, as I believe it should be.

One of the interesting things I got out of this assignment, was understanding the implications of RFF a bit better, and thinking about how much blame can be laid on the RFF itself. Initially the TL I spoke to suggested the fact that she was an RFF teacher as being an obstacle. The more I discussed this (Roy was extremely helpful) and thought about it however, the more I realised that RFF was not necessarily the problem, but people's attitudes towards it. Every teacher has planning time, and at those times another teacher takes his or her class. Just because they are relieving the teacher does not mean they cannot play an important teaching role. Teachers should respect that role, and the TL herself should know inwardly and outwardly that she is playing an important part in the school community and the students' learning. Also, it does not prevent the TL from making some kind of difference to the information literacy of the students - it is still possible to collaborate with teachers, and for students to use at least some of their 'library time' working on their current unit, as I stated in my paper.

Hopefully this assignment will help me to remember in the future that I can play an important role as a TL, and that information literacy is an important goal for a school. Hopefully it will help me if I am ever in a situation where I am not respected for my knowledge and abilities as a teacher librarian, but am looked at primarily as an RFF teacher, to see myself as the former, and to slowly work on getting others to do the same.

We can make a difference.