Tag Archives: School media center

Recommended Ed Tech Tool (PK-12): Edutopia

Edutopia
Edutopia

As an ambassador of learning within the educational system, how can Librarians/Media Specialists assist in developing and integrating tools to enhance learning outcomes?

Edutopia is a free online resource for PK-12 educators interested in strategies to incorporate the following concepts into their classrooms; comprehensive assessment, integrated studies, project-based learning, social and emotional learning, teacher development, technology integration. Tip: For a quick look at what this site has to offer, focus on the A to Z Topics on the front page. Click here to try it out!

School Media Articles Worth Reading

Article One: Have you read  the January  School Library Journal  article, Partners in Success: When school and public librarians join forces, kids winRead the story of how Leslie Yoder, a digital literacy and learning specialist with St. Paul’s public schools and Ramsey County Library teen librarian  Marcus  Lowry have found creative ways to work together. We know that some schools in our region already partner with their public libraries. Please consider sharing your stories with me, and I can share them more broadly through a blog post. Your colleagues really want to hear your story.

Article Two: I know this article will really irritate some folks, but the truth of the matter is that there will be more schools considering new models or possibilities for media centers, and yes, in some cases, the hardcopy books may disappear altogether! It is an important time to make sure you are at the table when important discussions about the future of your school occur. Use the comments area to share what you think about what this Minnesota school did….The article is titled  School Library Thrives After Ditching Print Collection. The Digital  Shift, Jan 8.

Taking Information Literacy on the Road

Bridging Information Literacy (IL) Across Libraries has become our CMLE tag line for work we have been doing with high school media specialists and college librarians. CMLE is in a unique position to convene important conversations across library types, and IL is the first bridging topic we have chosen. The group first met in April to get acquainted and get their draft assignments. By using a wiki and email, both groups finished  draft documents by the end of May. Then, a face-t0-face meeting in July really bonded this group in ways the wiki may not have been able to do.  Initially, we were uncertain how much the groups had in common. As we talked in July however, the group acknowledged the many commonalities, and that they want to do more around this subject. They did not want to end their work!

We wanted others to hear of our “bridging experiment” and laid plans for sharing what we had learned through MLA and MEMO Conference presentations. We believe it is useful to share the process we used, some outcomes, and some exciting plans for the future. We concluded that it is not helpful to “preach to the choir”  about IL….our colleagues already get it!  Somehow, the group felt it was worth a try to reach students. To that end, we recently developed a survey for college students asking them to offer advice to younger students. Specifically, we asked “Based on your experience, if you could tell a high school student three things to help them prepare for college-level research, what would it be?” We are hopeful that younger students will heed the advice of their older peers and engage more deeply in IL . We hope to produce a short video of college students sharing their message, with quiet  supported by a librarian message, and share it broadly through You Tube.

CMLE will continue this IL work, and hope to grow the circle of involvement and engagement. In the meantime, we are on the road sharing the message, and have opened the group wiki up so others can see the draft documents.  We hope to share a polished executive summary within the next couple of months. Visit the wiki to get the draft version of the  following:

  • Media/information literacy power standards (according to three high school media specialists)
  • Typical student profiles and research frameworks for high school freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior
  • Suggested skill sets for incoming college freshmen
  • The MLA conference handout which shares key points of the work of this group, and steps going forward.

Tip: Check out the New Insights documentation on the site, which captures shifts in thinking and understanding of IL and the work of  other librarians.

Would you be interested in participating in an event where we convene a larger group of high school media specialists, college librarians, and public librarians around the topic of information literacy? Let us know in the comments….or send email to papost@stcloudstate.edu

AASL Launches Video Contest for Students

A partnership between the American Association of School Libraries (AASL), SchoolTube and Cisco has launched a project called Learning4Life in My School Library Student Video Contest. The videos should focus on how school libraries and their technologies encourage students to become lifelong learners. Student video submissions will be accepted between January 4th and March 18th. Winners will be announced April 1st, and will receive a Flip video camera and a prize for their school library. More information can be found at www.ala.org/aasl/l4lvideocontest/.

School Librarians: Headed for the History Books?

The December 11th edition of the Star Tribune included an article titled School Librarians: Headed for the History Books, which summarized the current state of affairs for Minnesota school libraries and their staff. The article brought to light the fact that a quarter of the state’s librarians have lost their jobs. Some of the largest districts in the state, including Anoka- Hennepin, St. Paul, and Minneapolis, have very few school librarians considering the number of schools and students served.

MEMO’s president, Tori Jensen, was interviewed for the article. Jensen states that if librarians are cut “ [Schools will] …be OK for three years and then find out there’s nobody there to teach kids the skills that we are experts in. It’s not a matter of bringing the resources to them, it’s about teaching them how to use them.”

Click here http://www.startribune.com/local/east/111702274.html?page=1&c=y to read this article in its entirety.