The Library is My Happy Place

Transcript of screencast Introduction My final vision project for LIBE 477 is a Destiny Discover Basics screencast that is aimed at students and staff in the Vancouver School Board who are not familiar with this search interface. This 4:28-minute-long video introduces Destiny Discover, shows how to access it, and demonstrates how to search for books. I have created a transcript of the screencast and embedded it in the video description box on YouTube for increased accessibility. After attending a Follett Destiny Discover training session facilitated by  Camille Sullivan , I wanted to solidify my learning by teaching others about what I had been taught. I had colleagues who weren't able to attend the workshop and I wanted to share my tips with them. I thought a screencast would be an efficient way of sharing my knowledge with a wide audience who could watch at a time convenient to them. I used tips from the workshop and information from the Follett Training Manual to write a...

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Free-Photos on Pixabay, *my actual audience for this project may not be as large as the audience in this photo I have decided to create a brief screencast giving basic tips on how to use Destiny Discover to search our school's catalogue as my future vision project for LIBE 477. Now that I have settled on a project, I have started to consider a few specifics in relation to the final product. Who is my audience? I feel that my project is suited to a broad range of audience members. I would like students of all ages at my elementary school to view the video and I think it will also be useful for their teachers. I have been in touch with a colleague who is a TL at a different school in the district who would like to view my screencast as she wasn't able to attend the Destiny Discover training session. Tweet from @kambctl, VSB Curriculum and Assessment Mentor and Teacher Librarian After tweeting my intention to create a Dest...

Mindmap Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of TeroVesalainen on Pixabay Brainstorming and Goal Setting It's a little overwhelming to have so many options for my future vision project, which makes it hard to narrow down my focus. When considering a topic, I want to be sure to integrate my learning from this course and to produce something that will be helpful to me and others. In terms of a product, I would like to challenge myself and try presenting it using a new-to-me technology such as a podcast or an infographic. SAMR Model, Image Modified from Original by Lefflerd on Wikimedia Commons In the process of designing my project, I will endeavour to remember the SAMR model of using technology, and not simply use technology for technology's sake. I would like the technology I choose to use to be beneficial to the delivery of the end product. Narrowing down my Topic My library already has a  comprehensive website , so that's not an area of need at this ...

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of geralt on Pixabay Relationships are Essential The importance of building relationships with students, staff, and other teacher librarians has been a theme of my coursework throughout this diploma. My research and reflections in Phase 2 of this course reinforced the essential nature of working on connections with others as a librarian. When you have strong relationships with the school community, it is easier to build a reading culture and collaborate. If you reach out to others, you will learn more and develop your ITC skills. When you have good connections with teachers at your school, they'll be more interested in coming to your lunch and learns or other pro d opportunities. Finally, when you reach out to global librarians, you will learn about how libraries function around the world. It all comes back to relationships. Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Foundry on Pixabay The Learning Never Stops As a new teacher lib...

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of GDJ on Pixabay In researching global libraries, I came across the Beyond Access  Bangladesh program, sponsored by IREX and Save the Children , and read about their work in libraries in Bangladesh. This program started by working with twenty libraries to develop library programs for children. Before this program started encouraging children to come to the library, the library had no activities for children and very few of the visitors were children . The pilot program libraries were given supplies for a children's area in the library as well as four Samsung tablets loaded with books and games. Librarians received training and worked with children to encourage them to visit the library. I found an evaluation of the Beyond Access Libraries Program in Bangladesh and it included infographics stating that children used tablets 60,000 times between November 2015 and June 2017 and the monthly average number of children visiting the library ...

Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of aitoff on Pixabay While watching this week's course update video, I was captivated by our professor, Aaron Mueller's image of teacher librarians as explorers, going out to learn about the newest technologies and trends in education to bring them back to the staff. I aspire to being one of these explorers and I'm confident it will happen, over time. As a brand-new teacher librarian, I feel like I'm learning so much myself that I haven't had time to think about how I might share my knowledge with my colleagues. It seems intimidating to think of giving workshops on topics that I've just learned myself, although it would likely be a good way to cement my learning. However, I am fairly technologically savvy (despite my ignorance about the term ICT skills) and I have previously had a job as a technology coach. I have a Smart Board at my disposal in the library and could easily give talks about using Destiny, our new li...

Free image by Robfoto on Pixabay, text added by Holly Broadland As a new teacher librarian, I feel like a sponge, absorbing information and skills from many sources. In addition to my coursework, I learn through meeting with people in real life, through online interactions with people I know, through attending workshops and conferences, and through social media.  In Person Interactions The life of a teacher librarian can be isolating, due to the fact that we are often the only person in our role at a school. However, I've been lucky enough to work with other teacher librarians several times and I've learned something from each of them. While I was a primary teacher at my former school, the teacher librarian saw my interest in librarianship and asked me to come along on a book buying trip. What fun! In the past six months, I have attended two meetings of the Vancouver Teacher Librarians' Association (VTLA), my local chapter of the BCTLA and I find it inspiring a...

Illustration c2018 Debbie Ridpath Ohi, DebbieOhi.com/printready, free to download and print for personal and school use I have been a teacher librarian for five weeks now and it feels like I've come home. If my job includes brainstorming ways to develop the reading culture at my school, I'm in the right profession! As soon as I met the students at my school, I realized that there is already a strong reading culture in place here. The library is abuzz with activity before and after school and our daily book exchange periods are busy. Teachers at our school give students time to read on a daily basis and it's obvious that most students at our school consider themselves readers. As Stephen Krashen states in his "Power of Reading" video, the most important ingredient in developing readers is to give them time for free voluntary reading. I would add that having access to a library with a friendly and responsive teacher librarian is also helpful in fosterin...

My initial inquiry into resources related to information literacy led me to an article by Copeland and Jacobs in the journal Teacher Librarian entitled, "The power of collaboration between school librarian and classroom teacher". This article describes a successful collaborative relationship where a teacher librarian and classroom teacher taught students research skills to elementary school students. Copeland and Jacobs write, "the school librarian and teacher planned the unit together, determining student goals related to social studies content, information literacy skills, and communicator/collaborator skills." (Copeland & Jacobs, 2017, p 23). One reason this article is an excellent source is that it lists challenges that teachers may face when considering collaboration and offers possible solutions. As I'd had success finding articles on my chosen topic of information literacy in the journal Teacher Librarian, I narrowed my search within the L...

I am old enough to clearly remember using a card catalog when working on research projects. Library research has changed dramatically since I was in elementary school. Back in the 80s, when flipping through the cards in the catalog, the only books I would have seen would have been library books that had been selected by a trained librarian. Nowadays, students searching on the internet are likely to be overwhelmed with resources of varying quality and reliability. A trained teacher librarian can teach information literacy skills that will help students find what they need and assess the information they discover. I have spent time studying this topic in previous courses (see my symbaloo webmix on digital literacy created a year ago), but I feel that it is a vital topic that is worth revisiting.  UBC Library By searching for information literacy on the UBC Library website, I was overloaded with over 350,000 journal articles, nearly 325,000 newspaper articles, 125,00...

As a first-year teacher librarian, I feel like there are dozens of topics that I would like to research further and it's challenging to narrow down my research focus to just one. I will do my best to weigh my options and select an essential question that will immediately be put to use in my teaching practice. I have just started a job at an elementary school in Vancouver and I will be working with students from kindergarten through Grade 7. My position is a job share and I will be working closely with my teaching partner to make decisions about the library. My main priority at this time is developing relationships with students and staff and learning about the school community. I know I will be collaborating with classroom teachers in order to support students in researching their inquiry projects this year. I feel that building my knowledge of information literacy and library skills (e.g. effective internet searching, using databases, spotting "fake news") would be...

Theme 3 looked at a variety of reference works, from databases to dictionaries, from encyclopedias to atlases, and how to select reliable and current versions of each of these works in order to build an effective reference collection in your library. When thinking about this topic and reflecting on this course as a whole, I have realized that digital reference resources are more and more prevalent. Even the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica stopped printing encyclopedias six years ago and has completely transitioned to online publications. In light of this evolution of the reference collection, a large part of our role as teacher librarian will be to teach students the skills to navigate large amounts of online information. Riedling (2014, p. 116) states, "there will be an increased need for experts, school librarians with skills in searching, accessing, using, and evaluating information efficiently and effectively. In addition, students will now, more than ever before, need to b...

For reference label, photo by Holly Broadland Analysis of the Reference Collection In order to develop a plan to evaluate the reference services at my school, University Hill Elementary, I first analyzed the reference collection, both print and digital. In doing so, I kept our school population in mind. We have approximately 360 K-5 students with 40% English language learners (Vancouver School Board, 2017). I am currently a classroom teacher at the school, so I interviewed our teacher librarian to learn more about his priorities for the reference section. His comment was that he leans heavily on digital resources such as the World Book suite and other databases the Vancouver School Board has made available. This made me curious to learn more about how these databases are purchased and selected. I spoke with our district principal of learning technologies and learned that in order to take advantage of cost savings, our district purchases subscriptions to various databases through...