(a guide for Teacher Librarianship)

All I really need to know about how to blog and what to post and how to build knowledge, I learned in EDES 545. Collective wisdom is not constructed alone, but there on the blackboard of WebCT.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything

• Play podcasts

• Filter less.

• Rethink what you’re doing in your school library right now.
  

• Build a learning community that meets the needs of your learners.

• Don’t post pictures without permission.

• Say you’re sorry when you delete somebody’s wiki comments.

• Respect intellectual property and privacy
  

• Update.

• Asselin and Valenza are good for you.

• Create a balanced plan – read some and question some and gather info and analyze and synthesize and create and share and connect every day some.

• Take a break from the online world every afternoon.

• When you go out on the web, watch out for inequity, and bridge that digital divide.

• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little videoclip on YouTube: your video goes up and the world downloads it and nobody really knows how it embeds, but it’s just like that.

• Web 2.0 applications like blogs and wikis and voicethreads – they’re all social. So are we.

• And then remember the post you accidentally deleted and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – SAVE.

Everything you need to know is online somewhere. AASL’s standards for the 21st-century learner and ISTE’s NETS for students and teachers, and Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship. Asselin’s and Doiron’s technology and critical literacies, and ethics and social responsibility.

Take any one of those new literacies and transform your practice for 21st century learners and apply it to your school life or your library or division or your department of education and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – practiced Asselin and Valenza 24/7, when logged on to our laptops to learn and collaborate with each other. Or if all districts had as a basic policy to put teacher librarians back in all our schools to build and sustain a culture of inquiry.

And it is still true, no matter how savvy a digital native or immigrant you are, when you go out on the Web, it is best to hold virtual hands with a teacher librarian and stick together.

[With respect to the original "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum]

As the Coordinator of Library Services in our school division, I work with all school library personnel, including teacher-librarians, library assistants and library technicians, to support student learning and enhance teaching through our school library programs.  In addition to my administrative role for the division, I also provide direct support to seven schools operating school libraries without a teacher-librarian on staff. In order to arrive at a clear destination for our vision, it is important to reflect on our past, in order to understand how we have moved closer to the harmonization of our school library programming and the staffing of our personnel:

Timeline

• (2002) Amalgamation of two legacy school divisions with differing philosophies about school library programs and various staffing configurations for school library personnel
• (2005) School library harmonization begins as a new vision for school library programs begins to take shape
  • Teacher-Librarians receive copies of Achieving information literacy: standards for school library programs in Canada
• (2006) Committee of Teacher-Librarians present a 5-year proposal for professional development and receive the funding for implementation:
  • Literacy with ICT across the curriculum (Michelle Larose-Kuzenko)
  • MSLA SAG: Inquiry and beyond (Jamie McKenzie)
• (2007) A new staffing formula for school library personnel is established, ensuring that 33/40 schools are staffed with a half-time teacher-librarian and 35/40 schools are staffed with a full-time library assistant.  Professional development funding is formally included in the divisional budget to support the professional learning of all school library personnel (teacher-librarians, library assistants and library technicians) and the new position of Coordinator of Library Services is created at the divisional level. 
  • Focus on inquiry (Dianne Oberg)
  • Leadership in information literacy (Lois Barranoik)
  • Clarifying copyright? (John Tooth)
  • MSLA SAG: Beyond bird units (David Loertscher)
• (2008) Professional development continues to flourish and K-8 teacher-librarians plan new instructional partnerships that support inquiry and implement the ICT contimuum.
  • Re-visioning the school library program (David Loertscher)
  • Questioning is key (Carol Koechlin)
  • Assignments worth the effort (Carol Koechlin)
  • Talk about assessment: strategies and tools to improve learning (Damian Cooper)
  • Supporting inquiry and the implementation of the ICT continuum (K-8 teacher-librarian and classroom teacher instructional partnership teams). 
  • MSLA SAG: Light at the end of the tunnel (Kenneth Oppel)
• (2009) Professional development expands to include collaborations with other school divisions and sharing of costs.
  • Inquiry through the lens of assessment Grades 9-12 (Catherine Birch)
  • The power of storytelling (Gail De Vos)
  • Taking comic books seriously (Gail De Vos)
• Coming soon
  • September 2009: Learning right from wrong in the digital age (Doug Johnson)
  • MSLA SAG October 2009: What’s “new” about the new literacies (Marlene Asselin)

The occasion to scaffold a vision for the future is truly a welcome opportunity for our school library personnel.  We are presently entering our fourth year of a five year PD plan that set out to ”reinvent, regenerate and rejuvenate” (OLA Super Conference motto, 2008) the instructional role of teacher-librarians in our schools.  When the plan was originally proposed in 2006, we had purposefully left the 2009-10 school year open to address “emerging needs and new opportunities” that might arrive over the years.

It would seem that building in the flexibility to revise our PD plan at this time could not have been more timely because a new opportunity has emerged for our school library personnel.  Our K-8 teacher-librarian and classroom teacher instructional partnership projects, that support inquiry with an infusion of ICT skills, have come to the attention of our Board of Trustees.  Their positive interest in the project and how it effectively supports the Board’s priorities for teaching and learning, make this an opportune time to showcase the evidence we have gathered on how teacher-librarians support both student and staff learning in our division.  Due to declining enrollment division-wide, we will lose another teacher-librarian position this year, so presenting a new vision for 21st century learning is critical to rethinking the contribution of the teacher-librarian in fostering student engagement and increasing student achievement.  The door is open and the dialogue is beginning.

Although our teacher-librarian team will work together to collaboratively design and implement the new vision for school libraries in our division, I will also offer my personal vision for the future in support of 21st century learning for both students and staff, based on the following key elements:

1. New learners (David Warlick, Will Richardson, Stephen Heppell)
2. New literacies (Marlene Asselin, Ray Doiron)
3. New libraries (Joyce Valenza)
4. New learning specialists (Allison Zmuda, Violet Harada)
5. New leadership roles (Violet Harada, Sandra Hughes-Hassell)

In order to support this new vision, it is important to consider what students will need to be successful learners and productive, global citizens in the 21st century.  By using a “backward design” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) approach, we can use our divisional mission and vision statements, as well as our Board of Trustees priorities for student learning and professional practice and learning, to illustrate how the instructional role of the teacher-librarians impacts favorably on student achievement in the 21st century learning environment.

A final course assignment that you can actually use to improve your current practise is definitely a gift. Like our students, I always appreciate an authentic task that has added-value and supports an area of personal interest.  The opportunity to present a vision for 21st century learning is one such assignment. 

Please visit my VoiceThread entitled A vision for 21st century learning: beginning with the future in mind.  I hope to use this VoiceThread to initiate discussions with our teacher-librarians as we begin to lay the foundations for our new PD plan.  With the added input of the teacher-librarian team, I hope this information will emerge as a formal presentation to our Board of Trustees.  It is time to reinvest in the instructional role of the teacher-librarian in order to support student learning more effectively in the 21st century.