Our current library situation. Working with the worst-case scenario for the 2011-2012 school year, our district had planned to reassign half of the teacher librarians to the classroom or lay-off those that were within the range for "pink-slipping" which were the two positions of our newest librarians that had joined us this year. The district plan was to run our middle school and high school libraries with one librarian and no library technicians. (Library Technicians were laid off last year.) Luckily the budget outlook improved in our district somewhat, and all teacher librarians were brought back. I had the opportunity to represent teacher librarians on a subcommittee that covered everything from the downsizing and reassignment process to developing a 7-12 regional model that would be run by one librarian preforming job duties at two sites that were covered by four positions just a year and half ago. Luckily, we didn't get that far. We will still be meeting to figure out how one teacher librarian will do that tasks that a teacher librarian and library technician used to do. We applied a band-aid approach to our services this year but we need to work as a team to figure out a better approach to offering quality library services which include textbook distribution for the 2011-2012 school year. As I was sitting on this committee this summer, I realized that the librarians in our district (overwhelmed as we are working two positions) need to educate our teachers, parents, administration, district administration and School Board members about the important role we play in student learning. I believe that many people may have the same belief as California Representative Hunter Duncan that students don't need libraries because they have the Internet, but many of my colleagues and leaders of our district are not aware of the services we provide. I have not been included in discussions of our site technology plan, so I will need to make a request of my administrator to be included. I do not believe our district has a teacher librarian on the district level technology committee. We do have a library leadership committee which meets three times a year. The group has updated our district's library plan (which has yet to be approved) and is currently working on an evaluation tool for library media teachers as we are currently evaluated by the tool that is used to evaluate classroom teachers. If the predicted budget outlook for schools for 2012-2013 is bleaker than this year's, our teacher librarians will need to prove to be indispensable this year. I believe collaborating on Web 2.0 tools, digital citizenship, reaching beyond the library walls with technology, and educating everyone about what we do in the library will be a very important part of our jobs this year. So this summer I am dedicating myself to completing Digital Citizenship and working to implement it with other teacher librarians in my district who are willing to do so.
It's been quite awhile since I have participated in School Library Learning 2.0 and Discovering Assistive Technology but I have continued my library learning by participating in webinars. I am looking forward to getting back in the swing. Here I go.
Digital Citizenship Module 1
Task:
1. Check out one of the PowerPoint presentations to learn about digital citizenship.
2. Adapt it for use at your site.
I viewed Digital Citizenship Instruction PowerPoint, Digital Citizenship Teacher PowerPoint and Digital Citizenship for Librarians. I also viewed Staying Safe in Cyberspace. Staying Safe in Cyberspace had lots of practical information. I will incorporate this information into presentations for parents and for students. I can see developing several presentations for specific audiences using the information provided by Dr. Farmer. Teachers and school staff should be aware of the laws and Acceptable Use Policy. Last year was the first time we were asked to sign an AUP in our district. I'm not sure if we will be asked to sign one yearly. But all school staff needs to be aware of the implications of this document that they are signing. I think several of the slides in the teacher presentation regarding court cases where teachers were dismissed for inappropriate use of the Internet were very powerful. Also many of these court cases will help administration determine how to handle situations with students breaking rules with acceptable use. I also felt the information about educating students how to protect and use the Internet responsibly will take away some of the fear surrounding Internet use. I'd like to eventually see our district lessen filter restrictions for the Internet and allow our students and staff to use more Web 2.0 tools. I believe that the majority of students will behave responsibly on the Internet and those that don't will be disciplined under the Acceptable Use Policy when they are caught. I'd like to would with our Technology department to loosen the filter a bit. For instance, currently our web-based catalog cannot be viewed outside the school walls. We use Destiny and there are many features that students could use outside our walls but they do not have access. This last year we chose to reduce the hours our library was open to be able to keep up with some of the administrative tasks that are required of our job. Having the catalog available to students would have been beneficial as they would have been able to chose books from home and maximize the time they did have in the library.
I just signed up for a Prezi educators account. I'd like to develop a presentation of the PowerPoint information for various groups using Prezi. I've never tried Prezi yet and it has been a goal to learn. So why not, go for it and try two new things at once. I plan to develop one to show my staff that way I'll be demonstrating a new presentation tool and giving them important digital citizenship information at the same time. I'd plan to open the presentation with 24 Hours in the Life of a Digital Native from Teacher Tube because I feel it demonstrates how much our students use technology outside of school and how we don't embrace using it as a teaching tool during school hours. I also plan to use Social Media Revolution from YouTube.
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