Category Archives: Professional Development

Upcoming Knowledge Quest Webinar

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I am very honored to be a part of the September/October issue of Knowledge Quest, the professional journal of the American Association of School Librarians.  The theme of the issue is Participatory Culture and Learning and my article Opening the Space:  Making the School Library a Site of Participatory Culture can be found on p. 8.  This article was a joy to write, even though it took hours and hours to create.  I hope that the article inspires other school libraries to think about how their programs can embrace participatory culture as well.

If you would like to know more about the article and our Barrow Media Center program, I invite you to attend a webinar that I am presenting this Tuesday, October 9th, at 7PM EST.  I will expand upon what I wrote in the article as well as offer pieces that didn’t make it into the text.

The following October webinar is FREE to anyone wishing to attend. Members and non-members are welcome to register!

kq headphones iconOpening the Space: Libraries as a Site of Participatory Culture
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
7 p.m. EDT/6 p.m. CDT/5 p.m. MDT/4 p.m. PDT

Participatory culture is grounded in low barriers to artistic expression and allows students to be creators of content as well as pass on their experiences and knowledge to others. The Barrow Media Center is a site of participatory culture through elements such as student book budgets, collaborative projects that culminate in student product creation, opportunities for students to showcase their creations to others in a variety of ways, and students taking leadership in teaching one another how to use technology to create. This year, developing the participatory culture of the library is a specific goal that has been made public to all students, teachers, and families in the school and all members of the library have been invited to find their place in the library and make things happen. This webinar will explore participatory culture and how the library can be a space of participation.

Andy Plemmons is a school librarian in Athens, Georgia.  He teaches students in PreK-5th grade at David C. Barrow Elementary.  The participatory culture and collaborative projects of the Barrow Media Center are regularly featured on his blog Barrow Media Center. 

Register by clicking HERE! This webinar is FREE to anyone wishing to attend.

Resources for Media Specialists

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We hope all of you have been enjoying your summer vacation, but with school starting back soon, GALILEO offers some resources to support your professional reading.

First and foremost, if your professional development this summer has included a look at the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards, take a look at this information on how GALILEO supports the CCGPS.

In addition to that, ERIC (@EBSCOhost) and ERIC (@eric.ed.gov) provide access to lesson plans, technology plans, journal articles, books, reports, and much more. Try searching for library services, library materials, electronic libraries, library use studies, technology integration, multimedia, educational technology, or other topics of interest to see the types of resources you can find. Remember to check both versions of ERIC when you’re searching because the full text may appear in one but not the other.

Professional Development Collection from EBSCO includes articles and educational reports for professional educators, including many resources for media specialists. From book reviews of children’s and young adult literature to evaluation of a library media program and from instructional design to technology integration in the classroom, there are articles on a wide variety of topics. Search for school libraries, school librarians, educational technology, technology integration, or library media to get an idea of what you can find in this database.

GALILEO also includes several professional magazines for media specialists that include book reviews, articles, and more. Use Magazines A-Z to find magazines and professional publications in GALILEO, such as the following:

  • Book Links
  • Computers in Libraries
  • Curriculum Review
  • Information Today
  • Knowledge Quest
  • Library Media Connection
  • Multimedia & Internet@Schools
  • Online
  • School Library Journal
  • School Library Media Activities Monthly
  • School Library Monthly
  • Teacher Librarian

Remember that you can use journal alerts to keep up with a favorite publication or search alerts to keep up with a topics of interest. NoveList also offers series alerts to help you know when the next book in a series is coming.

The GALILEO Training page provides a list of upcoming sessions. Several sessions designed to help media specialists get the most out of GALILEO have recently been scheduled, including sessions on how GALILEO supports the CCGPS and an introduction to GALILEO for teachers and new media specialists. Also, stay tuned for more GLMA blog posts in August on how to link to GALILEO resources how to create search widgets for your media center site.

If you have questions or comments or need to report problems, please Contact Us.

Courtney McGough
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Upcoming GALILEO Training

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New webinars have been added to the GALILEO training calendar. Webinars are easy to attend and are great tools for professional development. Connection instructions are sent a day before the webinar to everyone who has registered. The instructions include a connection wizard that helps you make sure your computer is ready. Certificates of participation are sent to all attendees soon after the session. Below is a list of upcoming sessions currently scheduled. More will be added, so keep a watch on the training page and the GALILEO list for new opportunities.

Upcoming webinars:

  • Black History Month Resources — Demonstration of the Civil Rights Digital Library and GALILEO subscription resources
  • Holocaust Resources in GALILEO — In time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27
  • Grab GALILEO for Great Multimedia Projects — This session is great preparation for submissions to the Georgia Student Media Festival
  • Meet GALILEO for Elementary/Middle/High School — Separate session that focus on each grade level
  • Digitized Maps in the Digital Library of Georgia —A look at Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and an examination of historical maps to trace the changing environment of a Georgia city
  • Civil War Resources — Explore subscription and DLG resources covering the American Civil War
  • Bueno GALILEO: Language Resources — GALILEO foreign-language resources include encyclopedias for several languages and Spanish-language magazines
  • Journals and Magazines: Best Practices in GALILEO — Tips on searching journals and magazines in GALILEO and optimizing usage with alerts and linking

Archived webinars include a wide range of topics for all audiences.

GALILEO Staff
GALILEO Support Services
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

If you missed AASL 2011…there’s still time to learn and take action!

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I just had the great fortune of traveling to Minneapolis to the attend the American Association of School Librarians National Conference.  I’ve made it a professional goal for myself to attend this conference that occurs every two years because it’s an opportunity to network with librarians from around the world.  The aspect of the conference that I love the most is that there are so many ways to get involved with the conference as a whole whether you are attending in person or learning from afar.

Georgia Librarians @AASL Minneapolis/photo source: theunquietlibrarian

As the conference comes to a close, it’s not too late for you to connect with the conversations that were started in Minneapolis.  In fact, I think it’s necessary that you find at least one avenue to not only connect with the conversations from Minneapolis, but also use them to take action within your own practice, your school culture, and the education community as a whole.  It’s not an excuse to say, “My school doesn’t have funding to travel to Minneapolis”.  From the comfort of your own home, you can learn, reflect, and contribute well after the close of the conference.

The main message that I took away from AASL is that we are in a time of opportunity and transition.  Now more than ever, we must all take on a leadership role not only within our schools, but also within the education community and beyond.  We must be innovative, creative, and daring listeners, teachers, and collaborators.  We must harness the resources that are available in the world and work with our students and teachers to use these evolving resources to both consume information and create new content.  We must be transparent about the work that we do and digitally document our practice to not only support one another as librarians, but also to send a message to the world about the importance of our role as teachers in our profession.

What might you do to connect to the conversations at AASL:

1.  Download the new ebook School Libraries: What’s Now, What’s Next, and What’s Yet to Come?,  which was crowdsourced by more than 50 authors.  I started reading the book on my flight to Minneapolis, and every essay spoke to issues that I am currently wrestling with in my own practice and in my district.  I love how each essay is short and concise and that I don’t learn who the author is until after I finish reading the text.  This book can be a springboard for current and future conversations about libraries.  However, it should be more than a springboard for conversation; it should be an invitation to take action and move forward with the transforming nature of our work.  Here are just a few of the quotes that spoke to me.

School Libraries: What's now? What's next? What's yet to Come?

“New technologies do not create or fill some new need; they allow us all to express needs that have existed for generations.” ~Sara Kelley-Mudie

“The only constant is change.  More than anything else, perhaps, that change is exemplified in the future librarian herself: a highly skilled teacher who is an instructional chameleon.” ~Jennifer LaGarde

“As what it means to educate the 21st-century learner evolves, school librarians have the opportunity to claim our place as instructional leaders in this new educational landscape.  Today’s students cannot afford to wait for the ‘future librarian’.” ~Jennifer LaGarde

“I am a storyteller, information curator, database expert, extended essay supervisor, book group coordinator, wiki specialist, transliteracy coach, interdisciplinary-information literacy collaborator, approaches-to-learning leader, guided inquiry mentor, curriculum team member, open-access advocate, one-to-one and mobile device promoter, reading champion, and accreditation team member.” ~Beth Guorley

“We cannot simply support the curriculum anymore.  We cannot wait for people to see our worth.  Yes, part of our job is to support the staff and students, but we can also teach them and improve student learning directly.” ~Heather Hersey

“There is a good chance that the school librarian or library media specialist, as one of the school’s technology leaders, has the most organic understanding of how content and technology are most effectively co-mingled to the benefit of the student and to best help the teacher.” ~Evan St. Lifer

“What we cannot afford is to let students forget to love to read.  What we cannot afford is a generation of people who forgot how to think, to imagine, to care.” ~Jesse Karp

“Libraries should not shrink as physical collections shrink; they should grow as opportunities for collaboration and cooperative learning grow.” ~Len Bryan

“As we look to the future of school libraries, I see us as a run-on sentence of sorts.  People outside librarianship are often so anxious to box us in, to define us.  They want to apply their grammar to the library – a place that is, at its heart, artful, authentic, and inquiring.” ~Elizabeth Friese

2.  Join the twitter conversation by search for the hashtag #aasl11 and reading through the extensive documentation and reflection of hundreds of people attending in person and from afar.  Contribute to the conversation by adding your own tweets and responding to tweets.  Be sure to tag your new tweets with #aasl11 as well.

3.  View the wealth of slidecasts, wikis, and videos from the Learning Commons.  Sessions on topics such as the bookstore model, play in the library, inviting participation in the library, the image of the school librarian, iPad apps, advocacy, reimagining libraries, and more can be found on the pages of this wiki.

Andy Plemmons presenting on participation in the library/photo source: theunquietlibrarian

4.  Register for the virtual conference.  For as low as $99 for AASL members, you can get access to the recordings of the opening and closing sessions as well as 8 concurrent sessions.  You’ll also have access to the handouts and slidecasts uploaded by presenters of other sessions.  Some of the archived sessions include Buffy Hamilton’s Libraries as Sponsors of Transliteracy, Doug Johson’s Cloud Computing, a panel on what kinds of books we need in K-12 libraries, and Dr. Violet Harada’s Assessment in the library.

5.  Join the conference Ning.  Get connected with people who attended the conference, continue conversations from before/during/after the conference, and view feeds of tweets and photos from the conference.

In one of the sessions I attended, a leader within ALA stated that she would like to see all librarians being transformative, transparent leaders within the next 3 years.  How will you get connected and take action?

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian

David C. Barrow Elementary

Athens, GA

http://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Some Notes After COMO 2011

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The cool thing about COMO is that you and a colleague could go and could come back to compare notes and you would have had two completely different experiences.  There’s that many different breakout sessions on that many different subjects.

My personal COMO journey focused, with no forethought, on pictures books.  I just kept ending up in cool little breakout sessions that told me about amazing picture books and ways to use them to teach with that were incredibly fun and interesting with all different grade levels.  I still need to sit down and process through it all, but it definitely gets the creative juices flowing.  And this is definitely a good time of year to get a renewed kick in the creative pants!

It was a smaller affair than in past years.  Not as many districts are sending as many folks.  I sincerely hope it doesn’t dry up and go away.  The inspiration, information and new ideas you get from conferences and other good professional learning experiences are invaluable for tech and media people like us.  I’m not saying you should go to as many conferences as possible every single year.  I’m saying do go to at least one professional learning experience, whether a class or at least a local conference every year.  You never know what you’ll end up taking away or how it will influence your practice.

It may not even be the main subject of the experience.  I got just as much from lunching with colleagues as I did from the sessions themselves.  I learned about technology that was new to me just by asking.  I’m talking here about tech that was being used by presenters, but not necessarily the point of the presentation.  Or I learned new and different ways to do things I was already into.

Probably everyone’s favorite general session was seeing Eric Litwin and James Dean in their Pete the Cat presentation.  Yes it was amazingly fun and interactive, but it also taught us how to be better interactive presenters.  Many people have commented that they read an author’s books much better after seeing the author(s) present it themselves.  I know I learned a ton from seeing Mo Willems in person some time back.

So keep going to conferences when you can and share what you learn with the rest of us!

Thanks,
Jim Randolph
Partee Elementaree
Snellville, GA

Jump-starting Teacher Technology Use

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Over the past 3 years, I’ve built some incredible collaborative relationships with teachers at my school incorporating technology, information literacy, and great literature.  However, when I look at the school as a whole, there are still many teachers who are hesitant or unsure of how to dip their feet into the waters of using technology for student product creation.  I wanted to support the teachers by offering them a whirlwind tour of what I felt were the most likely technologies that they might explore with students during the year:  Photo Story, Glogster, Animoto, Wordle, Tagxedo, and Audacity.  I invited some of the teachers who I have collaborated with to be the leaders of 4 different sessions that all teachers rotated through.

Before the professional learning session, the lead teachers and I sat down to plan.  We each voiced our preferences about which technology we would share and what format we would use.  In the end, we decided that at each of our sessions we would show a final product so that teachers saw one possibility upfront before being bogged down by how the technology worked.  Then, we would walk through some of the basics of the technology and give teachers time to explore.  Finally, we wanted teachers to have a chance to brainstorm how the technology might be used in their units of instruction during the year.  I created a simple handout that was emailed to all teachers in advance of the professional learning session so that they could easily access the links we would use as well as have electronic notes that they could refer back to after the session or add-to during the session.

[slideshare id=8939691&doc=technologyprofessionallearningaug2011protected-110820130436-phpapp01&type=d]

My principal allotted a 90-minute afterschool professional learning block, and we held the sessions in adjacent teacher classrooms for minimal transitions.  Each session was a fast and furious 20-minute block.  We grouped teachers by grade levels:  k-1st, 2nd-3rd, 4th-5th, and resource teachers.  All teachers brought their own laptops and we provided any other technology needed such as digital microphones and webcams for the exploration phase.

As usual, some surprising things happened:

  • Most teachers were unfamiliar with the technologies that we explored
  • Teachers voiced their worries about clicking on the wrong thing or not knowing how to answer a student’s question, which surfaced a great conversation about how we don’t need to have all the answers.  We need to provide the space and tools for students to create and then we work as a community of collaborators to support one another.  I’ve had other students answer many questions for other students rather than all of the answers coming from me.
  • Even though teachers were overwhelmed with the beginning of school, they were buzzing with ideas and energy during the sessions
  • Several teachers approached me as soon as the sessions were over to talk about collaborating on projects
  • People found ways to use the technologies in their everyday tasks.  For example, my own paraprofessional has to do our daily email announcements.  She is going to highlight all of the announcements and paste them into either Wordle or Tagxedo and use that as an image at the top of the announcement to serve as a preview of some of the words people will see in the announcements.

[slideshare id=8939256&doc=ideasfortechnologyfromaugust2011-110820124616-phpapp01&type=d]

I am so thankful to the supportive group of teacher leaders who helped me jump-start technology this year.  I feel like this session was a starting point for thinking about how technology can and should become a part of each grade level’s instruction.  Now as I talk with teachers about projects they will have a base of information to think about final products that students might create.  How have you been proactive in jump-starting technology use and collaboration in your school?

Andy Plemmons

School Librarian

David C. Barrow Elementary

Athens, GA

http://barrowmediacenter.wordpress.com

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/aplemmons

Go West…New Program at UWG

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This awesome GLMA blog provides an excellent forum for announcing that the University of West Georgia is now offering an Ed.S. in Instructional Technology WITH School Library Media Certification. This means if you hold a Master’s degree and do not have media certification, you can go directly into the Specialist in Education Instructional Technology program and complete the program WITH School Library Media certification added. We are very excited about offering this program in addition to our Add-on media certification, and M.Ed. and Ed.S. programs in both School Library Media and Instructional Technology. (You might also want to check out our Online Teaching Endorsement and/or certification.)

GO WEST!!!

Phyllis R. Snipes,
University of West Georgia

Thinking about an Ed.S.?

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I am very happy to report that we are now offering a fully online Ed.S. at Georgia Southern with concentrations in school library/media or instructional technology.

If you’d like more details please contact Dr. Ken Clark (kclark@georgiasouthern.edu).

If you  want to jump right in and apply just ignore anything you see about missing the date for summer admission. We got approval a little late so we’re still admitting students for summer or fall.

Judi Repman

Georgia Southern

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

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Pogo said it well, didn’t he?  But what did he really mean? Allow me to muse on this since it’s been on my mind as I look at the continuing dismal picture that is Georgia’s K-12 public education.
It is this writer’s humble opinion that Pogo was commenting on the fact that we are all personally responsible for the polluted waters in which we live. It reminds me of a concept in Zen Buddhism that says (and I’m paraphrasing) if you meet an obstacle in your path that does not yield in spite of your every effort to overcome, then you need to understand that you put it there yourself.
Every single day I see emails and hear stories from teacher-librarians about how things don’t work in their schools. The culprits range from uncaring administrators to micro-managing central offices to incompetent clerks to not enough money to… You get the picture. Yet in nearly every one I yearn to hear the suggestion of a solution. Take a look around this state at the teacher-librarians that are making their programs work and are making a difference in their schools and the one thing you will NOT find is an absence of any problems like those mentioned above. They work in spite of those things, folks. So what makes the difference in programs/teacher-librarians that work and those that don’t? I belive it is a kind of divergent thinking exhibited by those who are successful.
Do you have an uncaring administrator? Okay…maybe you’ve talked until you’re blue in the face but nothing has changed. Have you thought of a different approach? Maybe that administrator needs to be shown what you do, not asked if you can do it. Maybe that’s a person who will be impressed with results and turned off by complaints. Maybe you should take a moment and re-examine how you’ve dealt with this person in the past and get suggestions from your successful colleagues about how they’ve overcome this issue. It IS possible but the possibilities begin with YOU.
Do you have a micro-managing central office? How have you approached your building level staff for ideas and suggestions on implementing successful programs? Is there a colleague at your school that is able to get innovative lessons/ideas into practice that you could collaborate with? Sometimes approaching successful staff members with an attitude that includes admiration, respect, and “how can I help you make it even better” will go a long way to changing the status quo.
Do you have a clerk that has no training or experience in a media center? First and foremost, ask yourself what you have really done to bring that person up to speed. Maybe you’re working with someone who needs their duties spelled out in a list format prioritized by daily, weekly, or monthly tasks. Is it extra work? Yes, but isn’t it better than simply complaining that the assistant isn’t assisting? Working with someone who carries a bad attitude with them is probably the most difficult thing in the world and will bring you down quicker than almost anything else. Does that mean you throw up your hands and give up? Well, you could but how does that make YOU look? Find a spot in your school or your media center where you can go and center yourself. Take some deep breaths and repeat “I can handle this. I can rise above this. I can smile and do my job.” I’m not a Pollyanna, folks. I’ve been there. It’s hard. It’ll make you question if you’re really doing what you were meant to do and it’ll make you question whether you even want to get out of your bed and show up every day. But keep one thing in mind – you serve a purpose that is more global and far-reaching than just about anyone else in the building. Allowing one person with a bad attitude to subvert that purpose is ultimately on you. And, who knows, if you can find a way to shift your focus from problems to solutions you may find an administrator willing to entertain suggestions on solving the issue. Show that administrator how your program works, how it affects every single stakeholder in your school community, and how appropriate personnel makes a difference and you just might get some relief from an untenable situation.
These are difficult times made more trying by the economy and a social climate that places public education and public school teachers somewhere in the spectrum of used car salesmen. What are WE doing to change that? Look critically at your situation and determine where your realm of influence ends – then work backwards. Change your world and change the world of a student. That’s why we’re here, after all, isn’t it? To improve student achievement? To help them navigate the tangled overload of information thrown at them every day? To help them think critically about what they see or hear or read? Yes, there are problems – deep problems – but look at them in terms of solutions and you will soon find your focus in a different place. You do indeed have the power to move the obstacles, my friends. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you and don’t be afraid to tackle it head-on. You make a difference when you choose to do so. What will you do differently today?

TeachMeet Georgia

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The Educational Technology Center at Kennesaw State University is very pleased to be participating with an enthusiastic group of teacher volunteers to host TeachMeet Georgia at the KSU Center on January 21-22, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day.

Just in case you are not familiar with TeachMeet events, they are free professional learning opportunities organized by educators for educators. Teachers will share and learn about ideas and resources that will engage students as citizens in a technologically rich society. We are very pleased the have Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal on Twitter) as our opening keynote speaker. Eric and his school were featured in a video on Scholastic Administrator’s Tech Talk last spring (see: http://www.educatorsroyaltreatment.com/2010/04/30/sheninger/)

TeachMeet originated in England a little over a year ago with a group of teachers coming together to share about effective classroom practices. These types of “unconference” events are springing up around world, both in the TeachMeet format and the less structured Edcamp events. We are very excited to offer the first TeachMeet event in Georgia and would appreciate your help in spreading the word to schools within your service area.

TeachMeet will offer a variety of quick, fifteen minute sharing sessions related to use of technology-oriented tools. Some presenters (teachers and students) will be live at KSU, others will connect via Skype. All will be webcast! You don’t have to be at KSU to participate!

There will also be panel discussions, round table discussions, and a computer lab setting to explore resources shared during the event. All sessions will be live streamed and recordings archived for later access.

For those at KSU, lunch will be provided and many fantastic door prizes have been donated by various vendors, including Edutopia, TechSmith, Solution Tree, Mindsteps, Herff Jones, Glogster EDU, Apple, and Ed Voyles Automotive Group. The generosity of these sponsors has made it possible to provide this event free to educators.

Participation AT KSU is limited to 200, but anyone can tune into the live stream. Presenters can be at KSU or connect via Skype.

You can find both the participant and presenter registration forms and additional information about TeachMeetGA at http://teachmeetga.pbworks.com.  Remember, it’s FREE!