Category Archives: Materials

Guest Blogger, Materials, School Media Specialist

CMLE Mini Grant Report: Jill Schmitt Osmo Kits

Osmo kits in action!

This is a guest post from Jill Schmitt, Tech Integrationist at Holdingford Public Schools. Need a Mini Grant to purchase materials or try an interesting new program at your library? Apply today! 

At Holdingford Elementary School we are continually looking for ways to engage students in higher order thinking skills. Though this can be done in a multitude of ways, we know that students are especially motivated when technology is involved! We are keenly aware of the potential negative effects of too much screen time on brain development and try to make sure we are providing quality, purposeful instruction through the use of devices. After exploring a variety of tools, we decided to give Osmo kits a try and couldn’t be happier with the results!

With the help of a generous mini-grant from CMLE, we purchased several Osmo kits focusing on numbers, letters, and shapes. Initially, we believed the use of these apps would be beneficial for primary students as they navigate the concepts of print, decoding, and problem-solving. However, we quickly discovered that our older students could appreciate the shapes app to develop spatial reasoning skills. More importantly, our students were eager to collaborate with classmates to solve problems and communicate results leading to deeper learning for all.

A huge thank you to the CMLE for making these learning opportunities possible at Holdingford Elementary School!

Materials, School Media Specialist

Does your school have library fines? Let’s consider deleting them!

A Library Primer illustration fine slip

Library fines have their place. In theory, they keep people returning materials on time, they provide a little money to the library, and they give a little punishment.

But the key word there is “little.”

I was absolutely horrified last week to read about a student in high school who had lost a book in KINDERGARTEN and never allowed to check out another book from her schools!

KINDERGARTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The extent I was enraged over that can hardly be quantified here! (I kicked my desk, for some perspective.)

First thought: This is beyond horrible. (I struggle here to keep the profanity from my typing – and would like you to know this is a struggle!) If you have a library that stops kids from checking out books if they lose one – talk to me. I will work on a way to get the book replaced and fines cleared up.

We do no one any benefits from banning them from checking out books!

But, there are too many stereotypical library people. Crabby Little Old Ladies (regardless of age and gender) – people who relish the joy of telling people No! You Can’t! Stop!

These people are an embarrassment to our profession. They are a disgrace. They are a stain on the joy of sharing information that is the foundation of our profession. If I have the chance to spit on their shoes – I will.

We are a profession of Yes! How can I help you! Here – please take these materials! What else do you need?

So we are sharing an excerpt from AASL, to give you some ideas about your school’s library fines. If you want to think through it all, please call us! We can help you set up a policy that will help to work through the different needs you need to serve.

More Support for Ending
School Library Fines

By Mica Johnson

A couple of blog posts ago I wrote that I was evaluating my stance on school library fines. Since then my co-librarian has warmed up to the idea, and we’ve been planning how we are going to phase out fines. I also started working with the ALA working group Resolution on Monetary Library Fines as a Form of Social Justice.

This ALA appointment comes at an interesting time for me since my co-librarian and I are actively assessing our stance on fines and trying to figure out the best way to implement this new policy. Fortunately, our administration is supportive and even though I don’t have the answers to all of his questions, our principal is willing to let us figure it out.

For librarians who are thinking about ditching fines, what kinds of information/resources do you think would be most beneficial to your efforts? For instance, our principal asked us to write a proposal and policy on removing fines. I would be very interested to read some library fine removal policies already in place.

Something else I think would be useful for me is seeing specific examples of fine removal in school libraries comparable to the size and population of our school library. Our school is fairly large, and solutions/strategies that work in smaller schools don’t always work for us. Being able to see what fine removal looks like in real life for a wide variety of libraries could help with troubleshooting and the practical application of a fine removal policy.

For those who aren’t really sold on the idea of ending library fines, what would you need in order to reassess your stance? My co-librarian wasn’t excited about ending fines. She felt like late fines motivated students to return books, and removing fines removed an opportunity for real-world lessons about accountability. What changed her mind was the combination of Googling some articles and the student who told us he wasn’t going to check out a book because he was worried about having late fines and getting in trouble with his parents.

Our administration didn’t need much convincing, but we did utilize information we found in several articles documenting success with ending library fines. Having easily accessible information and resources on ending library fines in public and school libraries could make it easier to increase enthusiasm for removing library fines.

For anyone who hasn’t really considered removing library fines, now could be the right time to reevaluate your library’s policy. My co-librarian and I never thought about ending fines until one day we realized our main reason for having late fines was that’s how it had always been done. We’d allowed ourselves to become stuck in a pattern, supporting a practice we had never questioned. Once we understood it as an accessibility issue, we began to dissect our fine/fees policy and assess the reasoning behind it.

Goals for the Resolution on Monetary Library Fines as a Form of Social Justice working group include creating/curating resources and information supporting and encouraging libraries to end library fines. As school librarians/stakeholders, what kinds of resources would help you support ending library fines–specific school library examples, stats, an infographic? Have any thoughts for or against ending library fines? I’m curious to know how other school librarians feel about ending library fines.

Communication, Materials

Accessibility for All: Training Librarians and Auditing Materials for Accessibility Issues

Accessible-pdf-word-cloud-640x480

We are passing on this training opportunity, because accessibility of library resources are important for every library to work through as you provide great things for your community members. CMLE members: we will give scholarships for you to attend this online webinar, or other training that will be helpful to your work.

Accessibility for All: Training Librarians and Auditing Materials for Accessibility Issues

Description:
In order to serve all patrons, libraries must create and distribute accessible materials. Accessibility enables us to serve all library patrons through ADA compliance. Library services and materials are shifting to increasingly more patrons requiring online services and resources. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach that calls for multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement that can be applied to creating online materials.

In this webinar, a public service Online Learning Librarian and technical service’s Assistant Dean of Collection Management librarian from a mid-sized, public university will team up to present on training librarians on creating and purchasing accessible material, as well as tips and tricks for auditing e-resources for accessibility issues. The librarians will cover:

Definitions of ADA compliance and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Free tools to check materials for accessibility
Case studies of collaborating across the university on accessibility
Future directions of performing accessibility audits on library e-resources

The librarians will engage the audience through various active learning techniques, such as polling. There will be time built into the presentation for questions and answers. These librarians will provide a link to this presentation, which includes templates for working with vendors and more.

4/4/2019 2:00 PM
– 3:00 PM EST		Accessibility for All: Training Librarians and Auditing Materials for Accessibility Issues Live Online$50.00 / $75.00


Instructors:

Beth Bernhardt is the Assistant Dean for Collection Management and Technical Services at UNC Greensboro. Beth has worked for over twenty years in the fields of electronic resources and collection development. Beth is also the Program Director for the Charleston Conference.

Sam Harlow

Academic, Materials, Research

Another group cancels their Elsevier contract

Elsevier

We shared the news that the University of California schools are moving away from Elsevier, and making research available through open source materials, and now another big group is making this transition: the country of Norway!

This is a big deal for academic libraries, and for everyone who is paying a fortune in your library’s money to get access to these databases. This move toward open source materials is really gaining steam. Are people talking about this in your organization? If not – it’s important to bring it up, so people are thinking about their choices. CMLE staff are happy to come to you and chat about this issue with you, your staff, and others in your institution.

We have an excerpt of an article about this below; click on that link to get the whole thing and all their info!

​Norwegian research institutions have decided not to renew their agreement with Elsevier

“The Norwegian government aims at making all publicly funded research articles openly available by 2024 and to move from paying to read articles through subscription agreements, towards paying for publishing articles that are openly available. Unit – The Directorate for ICT and shared services in Higher Education and Research has been in discussions with Elsevier since the introduction of the government’s national guidelines for open access in 2017. Unit negotiates and manages agreements on behalf of Norwegian research institutions. The agreement with Elsevier includes 44 member institutions comprising of universities, university colleges, research institutes and hospitals, and is the largest of the agreements.

To ensure a successful transition to open access, the following guiding principles apply to all negotiations:

* Articles with corresponding authors from Norway shall be openly available at the time of publishing

* Publishing open access shall not increase total costs

* License agreements, costs and business models must be fully transparent

* Perpetual access to content published in subscription journals must be granted

* Agreements should demonstrate a move towards models where costs are related to the volume of Norwegian article output

In July 2018 Universities Norway (UHR) gave their full support to Unit’s negotiation principles and nominated representatives from the rectorates at the universities of Oslo and Bergen to participate in the negotiations with Elsevier.

– For many years we have cooperated closely with library directors during negotiations. The type of agreements we are now negotiating will have a direct impact on the publishing of research, and participation from the top level of the institutions has therefore been important. The active involvement of the rectors has sent an important message to publishers that the negotiation principles have the full support at the top level, says the Director of Research Services Strategy at Unit, Katrine Weisteen Bjerde.

Despite good discussions, the offer from Elsevier is still a long way from meeting the principles and has therefore been rejected. There will therefore be no agreement in 2019, but the discussions continue.

– It is very disappointing that we did not manage to reach an acceptable agreement with Elsevier, a publisher that accounts for a substantial proportion of Norwegian publishing output and is an important stakeholder for us on the road towards open research. We wish to cooperate with all publishers in order to create a good framework for open publishing, but sometimes we simply stand too far apart, states the vice rector for research at the University of Bergen, Margareth Hagen.

Norwegian researchers publish around 2000 articles annually in Elsevier journals. In 2018 participating institutions paid around € 9 million in subscription costs. In addition, an estimated € 1 million was spent paying to make articles in subscription journals openly available.

CMLE, Guest Blogger, Materials, Services

CMLE Mini Grant Report: Computer Science Tools for Elementary Classrooms

This is a guest post from Technology Integrationist Angie Kalthoff from District 742. Need a Mini Grant to purchase materials or try an interesting new program at your library? Apply today! 

The mini grant I applied for was to purchase a variety of tools to help bring Computer Science (CS) into elementary classrooms.
I am excited to report that they were a success! I was able to purchase many board games and use them in classrooms before the end of the school year and at our local CoderDojoGRRL.

Here are a few items I would like to highlight!

Robot Turtles Extension Pack

I already had purchased the Robot Turtles game. Now, I was able to purchase the extension pack. Using the extension pack I am able to introduce more complex challenges as students progress through the game. In the image below, students are learning to play Robot Turtles.

Dash and Dot Learn to Code Challenge Card Set

We have sets of Dash and Dot in each of our elementary schools. Last year, I was able to work with amazing second grade teachers who created their own challenge cards which aligned to our second grade math standards. These challenge cards align with Code.org’s Computer Science Fundamentals A-F curriculum which we encourage our students to use in school and at home. The challenge cards are a great way to give kids freedom in their creation of code for Dash, while aligning them with skills they have learned about in Code.org! In this picture, we are exploring the cards at CoderDojoGRRL!

Coding Farmers

Coding Farmers is a game for kids seven and older. I used it in a first grade classroom. The goal of Coding Farmers is to “teach real programming concepts in a fun and intuitive way.” Students use cards and dice to move around the game board. A better description from their website is “action cards, which describe an action, like “move forward by two spaces” in two ways: regular English, and Java code. By playing the game several times, kids learn to connect their actions with written code. They become programming literate all while having a blast – rolling a dice, maneuvering around obstacles and chatting with their friends and family.”