Self-evaluation Rubrics for Basic Administrative Technology Use, 2010
I. Personal Productivity (NETS-A 2009 - 3c, 4e)
Level One: I rarely use a computer or other information technology, assigning technology-enabled professional record-keeping and communication to my office staff. I am not aware of or have interest in learning about using a computer, smartphone or other digital communication and information access device.
Level Two: I use a computer to keep a calendar to which my secretary has access; to track addresses and phone numbers of professional contacts; and to compose professional correspondence. I use technology to do routine tasks more effectively and efficiently, which gives me more time for work with staff and on long-term goals and major projects. I can access my calendar and other information remotely using a portable communication device and web-access.
Level Three: I not only use technology to increase my productivity, but encourage my office staff to do so as well. All correspondence from my school looks professional. All building/district staff use a shared calendar system for easy scheduling of meetings and shared document creation applications for collaborative work. Our school has nearly a paperless work flow, providing both economic and ecological benefits.
II. Student Information Systems Use (NETS-A 2009 - 4b. 4e)
Level One: My office uses a student information system to accurately track student information including parental contact information, grade reports, discipline reports, and health records. The system is used to build a master class schedule. Selected building personnel and I can access the system through the network and use it for decision-making purposes. The system is secure and back-up procedures are in place.
Level Two: Appropriate student information is used by all staff as well as by building leaders. Teachers are trained and proficient in its use. The system is integrated with a district census database that is also tied to finance, transportation, and personnel/payroll records. I know the philosophy of SIF (School Interoperability Framework) and use it as a criterion when selecting new or upgraded information systems. The district information plan has these attributes:
Level Three: The information system is used as a communication tool to inform parents/guardians and students of real-time student work reporting. Using a secure portal, parents/guardians and students themselves can access demographic data, attendance, grades, schedules and gradebook infomation including test scores, quizzes and daily work completion information. The data in the student information system is used with telephone calling and e-mailing systems to communicate with households. The system integrates with state reporting systems and with data warehousing/data mining programs.
III. Record Keeping and Budgeting (NETS-A 2009 - 3a)
Level One: I use and prefer a paper system, a spreadsheet or simple packaged record keeping system to track my department or building’s budget accounts. It is accurate and kept up-to-date. I can use my accounting system to cross check the district’s financial system if discrepancies arise.
Level Two: I use the district’s online accounting system to track my budget accounts. I can submit purchase orders electronically. I use networked inventory databases to keep track of my building’s textbooks, supplies, and equipment.
Level Three: I give access to the accounts I manage to anyone interested in the spirit of transparency. I use shared budgeting tools that allow a collaborative budgeting process working with a wide range of stakeholders.
IV. Data Use (NETS-A 2009 - 4b, 4c)
Level One: I do not use, or have available to me, reports or data produced by information systems in the district to help make operational or policy decisions.
Level Two: I can analyze census, discipline, scheduling, attendance, grading, and financial data reports produced by administrative systems to spot trends and highlight problems in my building or department. I can communicate the conclusions to staff, parents, and the community in understandable ways. I help my staff access, analyze and use student performance data to design instructional strategies. I have the statistical knowledge to make meaningful and accurate judgements based on data.
Level Three: I recognize areas in administration for which additional data is needed for the efficient and effective operation of the building, department, or district and can make recommendations about how that data can be gathered, stored, and processed electronically. I can use data mining techniques to draw conclusions about programs’ effectiveness and use such data to create building plans and evaluated their success.
V. Communications and Public Relations (NETS-A, 2009 - 3c, 5d)
Level One: I ask that my secretary word-process out-going communications. When I speak to the public, I use overhead transparencies or no audio-visual aids. I do not have a professional online presence.
Level Two: I effectively use a variety of technologies to communicate with students, teachers, parents, and the public. I have an e-mail address, check my e-mail on a regular basis, and communicate with building and district staff using e-mail. When speaking, I can use presentation software and the necessary hardware to effectively communicate my message. I use the district’s cable television capabilities for public information uses in the school and community. I have presence on the district’s website that is current and useful to students, staff, parents and the community. I can use the mass calling and e-mail systems in our district to notify the public of events and emergencies.
Level Three: I communicate online using a variety of technologies - blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, microblogging and emerging technologies. I contribute policy advice for our school’s web pages. I encourage my staff to use technology to communicate with each other, students, parents, and the public. The public is encouraged to communicate electronically with the school. I understand the powerful impression that my school’s online presence can play in the public perception of the school and can use online tools for recruiting and keeping students.
VI. Online Research, and Professional Development, and Personal Learning Networks (NETS-A 2009 - 2d, 3b, 3d)
Level One: I prefer not to use online resources to gather professional information or research nor do I use technology to communciate with my peers to share information.
Level Two: I can effectively search and extract information from online resources such as educational journal databases, ERIC, and other credible sources on the Internet. I subscribe to electronic journals and newsletters of professional relevance. I subscribe to electronic mailing lists (listservs) and blogs to gather information and problem solve with fellow professionals. I have participated in educational forums or training delivered via satellite, ITV or online.
Level Three: I use technology remain actively engaged in an on-going professional learning community of fellow professionals.
VII. Teacher Technology Competencies (NETS-A 2009 - 3a, 4c)
Level One: I cannot specifically identify any specific skills teachers in my school or district should have in order to use technology effectively. My school or district has no written set of technology skill competencies for teachers.
Level Two: Our school or district has a set of technology skills that teachers are expected to master correlated to the NETS-T or other national standards. A formal staff development program that offers teachers a range of staff development opportunities in technology and a means for assessing the effectiveness of those opportunities is in place. The effective use of technology in supporting all teaching improvement efforts is recognized and addressed in staff development initiatives.
Level Three: All teachers are expected to use technology to increase their pedagogical effectiveness and integrate high-level technology uses into their classes when appropriate.
XIII. Student Technology Competencies (NETS-A, 2009 - 2a)
Level One: I cannot identify any specific skills students in my school or district should have in order to use technology effectively after graduation to be successful students, workers or citizens.
Level Two: My district has a well-articulated and well-taught information literacy curriculum that integrates technology into a problem-solving research process. I help assure that my school has a librarian who provide instruction to both students and staff in these skills. Students have a wide variety of opportunities in all classes to practice the use of technology in meaningful ways. Benchmarks for student technology proficiency are written and understood by the staff and public. Our curriculum is based on national standards such as NETS or AASL’s Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning.
Level Three: I serve on curriculum committees comprised of both educators and community leaders that help identify the skills and competencies future graduates will need to successfully participate in society. I can clearly articulate how technology use impacts student achievement.
IX. Envisioning, Planning, and Leading (NETS-A, 2009 - 1a, 1b. 1c)
Level One: I let others in my district or school create technology plans. We purchase equipment, software, and technical support on an as-needed basis.
Level Two: I use software to facilitate brainstorming activities, to plan and conduct meetings, and to create decision-making models. I take an active leadership role in building and district technology planning efforts helping make decisions about hardware selection and acquisition, staff development in technology, and integration of technology into the curriculum. Our school and district have a long-range plan and short-term goals for technology use that are regularly assessed and updated. I have a personal philosophy I can articulate regarding the use of technology in education.
Level Three: I have a leadership role in my professional organization that stresses the effective use of technology in education. I write and speak for my fellow practitioners on technology issues. I work to inspire others to use technology when it supports best practices in education.
X. Ethical Use, Student Safety and Policy Making (NETS-A, 2009 - 5a, 5b, 5c)
Level One: I do not feel I need to be concerned with any ethical, safety, or policy issues surrounding computer use.
Level Two: I understand copyright and fair use issues as they apply to information technology resources. I demonstrate ethical usage of all software and let my staff know my personal stand on legal and moral issues involving technology. I know and enforce the school’s technology policies and guidelines, including its Internet Acceptable Use Policy. I am aware of the issues as technology relates to student safety and security and the physical health and environmental risks associated with technology use. I have a personal philosophy I can articulate regarding the use of technology in education.
Level Three: I am aware of other value-laden aspects of technology use including data privacy, equitable access, and free speech issues. I can speak to a variety of technology issues at my professional association meetings, to parent groups, and to the general community. I encourage all staff members in all classes to address the issues of safe and responsible use of technology and the Internet.
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Doug Johnson
dougj@doug-johnson.com
From the days of Sumerian clay tablets till now, humans have “published” at least 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 movies, 3 million videos, TV shows and short films, and 100 billion Web pages…When fully digitized the whole lot could be compressed…onto 50 petabyte hard disks. Today you need a building the size of a small-town library to house 50 petabytes. With tomorrow’s technology, it will all fit onto your iPod. When that happens, the library of all libraries will ride in your purse or wallet – if it doesn’t plug directly into your brain with thin white cords. Some people alive today are surely hoping that they die before such things happen, and others, mostly the young, want to know what’s taking so long. (Could we get it up and running by next week? They have a history project due.) – Kevin Kelly “Scan This Book,” New York Times, May 14, 2006
Chances are an increasing share of your library’s materials budget is shifting to digital resources every year. Popular educational reference book publishers are publishing e-books and online databases. If you are adding a new encyclopedia next year, you are likely to consider an online version. And your teachers may well be using more instructional films from a streaming video source than from your VHS/DVD collection. And we know our “net gen” students prefer their information in bytes rather than pages.
Learning to intelligently manage these intangible items is increasingly important.
When we talk about the management of print and physical audiovisual resources, tasks and procedures can be organized into the following, semi-chronological, areas:
And each of these resource management tasks is applicable to digital resources. But online resources have unique characteristics that make working with them quite different than the books, magazines and AV materials we’ve managed in the past. And I’m sure you’ve already encountered some of those differences.
First, let’s identify what digital resources need to be managed. Most of today’s school library media centers have most if not all these resources: (For the purposes of this article I am listing only those items that have a purchase or subscription cost.)
1. Needs assessment/collection development
Unless you have an unlimited budget, your digital resources must be selected to meet the needs of your school, its curricula, and teachers. Long gone are the days of the “balanced” school library media center collection where collection building meant having something available on every possible topic. While general reference sources are still needed, the “free” Internet, interlibrary loan, and local public and academic libraries give students access to a rounded set of materials.
Many states also purchase general resources for all libraries, public, school, academic, and special, to use. A first question to ask in a needs assessment is “What do I need in addition to the resources provided by my state?” Some state collections are amazingly comprehensive. Familiarity with these resources is a must for every LMS for their collection development process.
The LMS can concentrate on building a collection based on specific needs down to course, unit and even project level. Just as there is little sense in acquiring books on a topic that is not part of a curriculum or meets a reading program goal, there is no sense in selecting a subject-specific database for a subject not researched in your school. And traditional needs assessment methods can be used to determine areas of need in your collection.
Increasingly the question about meeting those needs centers around whether digital or print resources are best suited to meeting them. How will your students and staff get the biggest “bang for the buck?” In making that choice, you need to ask a few questions:
The “right” choice will depend on your own demographics and resources. While both you and your users may prefer a digital encyclopedia, if there are only a very few workstations in your library on which one might be accessed, the print version is still a better choice.
2. Resource selection
Just like choosing a print resource, good selection procedures need to be followed, including knowing the board selection policy and using unbiased review sources when making a selection. I believe good reviews and comparisons are more difficult to find for electronic resources than for traditional ones. Given the changeable nature of online resources, reviews may no longer reflect the actual product (a full-text periodical database may have added or dropped titles, change years of back issues, etc.)
One method of reviewing online resources, however, is available that is not traditionally used with print materials: the trial subscription. You and you patrons can use the product from 14 to 60 days before deciding whether to subscribe or purchase it. “Before I spend money on a database I try to have at least one teacher use it with their students. If there are glitches or the instructions/process is unclear – the problem will usually show up quickly. And by using this method we can also gauge if the literacy level/instructional level of the information is on par with the level of the students.” Gary Schwartz, LMS from Owatonna (MN) High School advises.
Another important review challenge is that many digital resources tend to be collections of materials, not distinct titles. It is one thing to purchase a DVD title; quite another to select an entire collection of educational videos. This makes a review imperative since a hands-on, eyes-on examination of every title is impractical if not impossible. It’s also a good time to review a basic selection precept that we include materials based on their strengths rather than censor them based on a small percentage of material that may be objectionable. Mary Alice Anderson, LMS for Winona Schools reports:
Had an interesting experience with purchasing a health database. The LMSs previewed it and asked counselors, health teachers and a couple others to look at it, too. People liked it. But one administrator questioned placing content like that on the web site because there are students whose parents don’t let them attend classes in topics such as sex ed. I explained we buy databases to steer kids into good content instead of whatever they find n their own via Google. I saw that as another example of how we need to be continually educating administrators.
Additional considerations are operating system compatibility (less problematic with web-based materials), bandwidth and storage capacity necessary. Some companies (Digital Curriculum, for example) will allow a school to house the product’s digital content onsite so that only wide area network or in-building network capacity is a factor, not bandwidth to the Internet itself. When the medium being accessed is comprised of large files, like video programs, this is an important factor in selecting a resource, but the server on which the material is stored may need to be very large. With the purchase of materials that are meant to be a permanent part of the collection (e-books, perhaps) there is the question of how accessible such materials will in future years as programs, operating systems and storage media change. (Tried to read any files created on an Apple IIe lately?)
And finally, we also need to recognize that the resource interface, not just its contents, needs to be age appropriate. Happily, many companies recognize that younger users need less sophisticated search tools, larger icons, and brighter images.
3. Acquisition
Getting the resource should be as easy as entering a URL – right? Not quite.
Giving a school’s users access means working with your IT department in most cases and selection must be done in coordination with it. One decision to be made, when the option is available, is whether to give access to an online resource by password, by IP address or both.
If access is given by IP address, patrons at any computer within a range of IP numbers do not need a username or password to log on. The product recognizes the IP number as one in an organization that has purchased the product. This is convenient and reduces the amount of work needed to track usernames and passwords and is fairly secure method of limiting access only to licensed users. Access by username and password has advantages as well. Control can be given to only select users to certain materials; users may have access to individual areas where they can store results of searches or play lists; users can get access to the resource from computers outside the school’s IP range (without having to set up a proxy); and usage can be tracked more precisely. If access is given by individual rather than generic username and password, I would strongly suggest working with your IT department to set up an database, such as an LDAP directory, where usernames and passwords can be stored and used for authentication in multiple applications.
Home access is an important factor we consider when our district selects a resource. The movement is toward 24/7 learning and making sure learning resources are available 24/7 is important. Online courses and hybrid classes will continue to demand access to good digital materials since a students may not be near the physical library for extended periods of time.
One management/budgeting tip is to make sure your subscriptions begin and end when your school fiscal year begins and ends. Most companies will work with you to bill your district for a partial year or, more likely, a year plus the months needed to end the subscription at the end of your school year.
4. Promotion and display
How do you educate kids (and teachers) to use authoritative online sources and not just “Google it?” How do you teach your users to see the library as a portal to trusted sources? Online resources do not jump out at students and staff and holler “use me” anymore than library books ever did. They need to be promoted and displayed.
Library orientation programs must of course demonstrate online resources as well as the physical ones. Introduction to online resource is best done during research units themselves – when students actually need the information they contain. Any bibliography or webquest prepared for a unit should reference electronic tools as well as those in print. As LMS Jaime Jeanne Meadows St. Helens (OR) High School puts it, “The piece of the puzzle that I try to add is instruction. When I get a new “toy” I like to show the staff how to use it, hopefully during an in-service day, and then if it’s a student use item, show them how to use it on a case by case or class by class basis.”
LMC webpages should clearly mark links to their digital resources, either on the homepage or on a separated page that has a clear link from the homepage. A note by the link that tells the user any special instructions for accessing the resource not only helps the user, but will cut down questions. Oh, posting a generic username and password on a public website, no matter how convenient, is not appropriate.
Students and teachers can be subtly reminded of the schools’ online resources if guides in the form of posters are visible near workstations. These resources need to be promoted at teacher meetings and in teacher newsletters. The LMC’s webpage with links to its digital resources should be the default page when any web browser is launched.
Just because it doesn’t fit in a display case, doesn’t mean you can’t make it visible.
5. Cataloging, circulation and control
Should digital resources be cataloged? Well, of course. Follett’s eBooks come with MARC records. Online reference materials should found when doing a catalog search just like their print cousins. When feasible, the ability to search digital resource using a federated search tool must be made available.
Few electronic resources circulate per se. Multiple users can access them all at one time – a major advantage of these tools.
E-books are the exception to this rule. Follett and NetLibrary allow only single users to access titles with libraries determining “circulation” length as they would with any print resource. The specific rights for e-book use vary not only from supplier to supplier, but from publisher to publisher within suppliers’ lists. This includes whether a title can be accessed by multiple users, can be downloaded and read by portable devices, and can be printed. NetLibrary suggests that most users treat their e-books as a reference source with an average use time of 35 minutes. Supplying digital materials like e-books, may require the circulation of portable devices on which to read the materials such as e-book readers or digital audio players. When a single digital device may hold multiple items (one e-book reader with a dozen titles on it), counting circulation will become very tricky. Good luck with that.
Regular checks to see if right users have the access are important, as is checking the resources’ links from the LMC’s webpage to make sure they are working. As Australian librarian Margaret Dennerley opines, with tongue in cheek, “One really cool thing our IT department does is change our external IP ranges without advising us and without thinking it might have an impact on our patrons being able to access those sites that are IP authenticated.”
6. Inventory
Counting subscriptions is usual pretty simple to account for since they aren’t very numerous and impossible to steal, even by ingenious 8th graders.
Tracking licenses of software that is installed on computer workstations is more problematic – making sure that your school is not running more copies of an application than for which it holds a license. Our district, to help stay in compliance, runs a remote survey of all computers to get a list of licensed program files on each. These lists are then compared to licenses for which we hold records, and if any unlicensed software is found, our department takes action. Limiting the rights for installing software also helps keep licenses from stretching too broadly. Oh, we like purchasing site licenses for products when possible. It is not only economical, but helps save the hassle of inventorying the product on individual computers.
Do keep good records of your licenses and subscriptions. It may not be possible totally stop software pirating, but your district needs to show it has made a good faith effort to do so.
7. Evaluation
Most vendors of digital information make it possible to track the usage of their products. It is, after all, in their own best interests to have LMSs and their administrators know just how heavily a resource is being used. A typical report might look something like this (from TeachingBooks.net):
Statistics for Johnson Elementary School, March 2007:
2786 pages turned since the start of your license.
229 pages turned in the past month.
28 sessions in the main section of TeachingBooks in the past month.
8 sessions in the Educator Area of TeachingBooks in the past month.
36 total sessions in all of TeachingBooks in the past month.
Target use figures can be established with resources meeting those targets retained, and those not getting the required use, dropped.
Usage analysis such as listed above provides data on the volume of use but does nothing to show how useful your users found the resource. If you base your decision to subscribe purely on transaction logs you are not getting the full picture. You need to combine log analysis with other forms of evaluation such as citation analysis and exit interviews done at the end of major products and student/staff surveys that ask about the importance of these resources.
I would recommend that the decision to keep or terminate a subscription to many of these products not be done the first or even every year. It often takes several years before teachers and students discover a resource. And a danger of switching content providers is that you might turn some teachers off using them if the links in their lesson plans to those resources need to be changed every year. Evaluate – cautiously.
The practice of effective analog resource management has developed over many years – even centuries. But the rapid pace of transition from print to digital resource does not allow today’s LMS the luxury of a slow transition. We need to develop, test and share best practices with each other rapidly. After all, today’s kids are asking “what’s taking so long?”
]]>I received a request from a fellow media specialist, for information on building a new media center. I know many of you have been looking at plans for designing school library spaces. Could anyone out there in school library land share some of what you have learned and any good sources you found? I am happy to compile any hits I receive. Thanks so much,
So as much for my own convenience as any service, here’s a short bibliography of things I’ve written on library facility design.
Imagining the Future of the School Library (with Rolf Erikson)
http://www.designshare.com/index.php/articles/school-library-future
Some design considerations when building or remodeling a media center
http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/some-design-considerations.html
Building Digital Libraries for Analog People: 10 Common Design Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/designing-digital-libraries.html
Facilities planning survey
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/3/2/facilities-planning-survey.html
Library design advice from the ancients
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2008/5/14/library-design-advice-from-the-ancients.html
Theory into practice - Rolf Erkison on third place libraries http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/2/18/theory-into-practice-rolf-erkison-on-third-place-libraries.html
I highly recommend Rolf Erikson and Carol Markuson’s Designing a School Library Media Center for the Future, 2nd ed, ALA, 2009:
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-School-Library-Center-Future/dp/0838909450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258714257&sr=8-1
Hope this helps. Remember, all my writing has been approved by the AMA as a non-addictive sleep aid!
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Six activities using some of the social networking tools introduced in the earlier workshop will be completed by the participants in a hands-on workshop. A short plan to use these tools to form a Personal Learning Network will conclude the session. Participants will…
Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, May/June 2009
Dear Great Brain*
I need to write up my goals for the year and give them to my principal. I have a few general ideas such as collaborating with teachers as much as possible, becoming a good resource for them, teaching students to use the databases, starting a lunch time book club, and decorating the library with student art. If you could send me any other ideas that seem reasonable for a first year in high school it would be much appreciated…I love creative ideas.
Diane
I suspect quite a number of LMC readers are asking themselves Diane’s question as they read this final issue of the school year. Whether graduating from library school or beginning a job in a new building, newbies should give consideration to starting off on the right foot with students and staff a high priority. What’s the old chestnut? “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
While the tasks Diane lists in her e-mail are important, they aren’t particularly strategic. In other words, Diane is planning day-to-day activities. A big part of one’s first year ought to be laying the foundation for growing and strengthening the program in future years as well. One should plan for both a happy and a long tenure in any new position.
My advice to all LMSs beginning new jobs is based on Johnson’s Three Commandments of a Successful Library Program:
Say, that’s pretty good. What do you think the job of biblical prophet pays nowadays?
Based on these commandments, I’d recommend these first year goals for any library program:
By all means, newbies, develop those individual collaborative projects with teachers right away. But don’t neglect a long-term, systematic approach to developing a program that has buy-in by the entire school and community. You need an entire learning culture that values and uses the library’s program and resources, not just a few enthusiastic teachers. Being strategic means getting off on the right foot – in anticipation of a long, successful journey.
* This e-mail was addressed to the collective brain that is LM_Net, not me. But you guessed that.
Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, February 2009.
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. - Elbert Hubbard
My guess is that you’ve made some changes this year in your library – changes that you believe to be in the best interest of kids, parents or staff. I’m also guessing that these changes were not universally appreciated. Were a few of those people not liking the changes more than happy to let you know what an idiotic incompetent you are?
Never underestimate the importance of being able to deal effectively with criticism if you are to be a change agent.
This year my district’s teachers’ first workshop day was spent learning to use a new student information system. The implementation of big systems always include some, ahem, surprises, and of course, new ways of doing familiar tasks. Not everyone was happy and more than a few let me know that I was the source of that misery.
I take heart in knowing that by the time you read this, a few months after my writing it, teachers will be happy we made the change. It is a more powerful system that is more reliable and easier to use.
Changing computer programs is akin to moving to a new house. For the first few weeks, when you can’t find the light switches or where you put the screwdriver, you wonder, “What was I thinking moving to this new house?” But in short order, the new house becomes familiar and you appreciate the reasons for moving - bigger garage, nicer yard, more bedrooms, etc. The light switch location isn’t a big deal anymore.
But last fall I needed a pretty tough hide since the criticism flowed freely.
In situations where changes I’ve instituted are not immediately appreciated, I joke that I need to wear my “iron underwear” since everyone wants to take a bite out of my butt. But when it comes to criticism, a thick skin is much better than armor. Not all criticism ought to be deflected - some should sink in if one is to become a more effective and just plain better person.
I see the following “flavors” of criticism directed toward me regularly:
This last kind of criticism is why a “thick skin” through which some jabs can absorbed is better than “iron underwear” off which every complaint, valid or not, is simply deflected.
All of us are sensitive to criticism. What helps deflect the arrows is faith that what you are doing is in the best interest of others. Or as the Blues Brothers put it: “… a mission from God.” Without this faith in yourself and what you do, it won’t take much to turn you back.
You can’t let criticism stop you from doing what you know is right for your students and your school. Reflect, refocus and keep moving ahead.
]]>Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, January 2009
A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills. … Their years of research … [have] shown readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts.
The quote above comes from a fascinating article published by Globe and Mail about how reading fiction builds social skills and empathy:
Most of you reading just said, “Well, duh! Haven’t we known this for years?” But isn’t gratifying to have our observations confirmed?
Empathy? Social acumen? Are these essential skills for surviving and thriving in today’s economy? Our national associations and gurus seem to think so.
From ISTE NETS 2007 …
Students … develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. …use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.
From AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner 2007 …
Students will: Consider diverse and global perspectives in drawing conclusions. …show social responsibility by participating actively with others in learning situations and by contributing questions and ideas during group discussions.
From Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind …
Not just logic, but also EMPATHY. “What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.
The unsung hero of many a successful enterprise is empathy. Understanding the needs and desires of others is critical for leaders, salesmen, politicians, lotharios, preachers, CEOs, writers, teachers, consultants … well, just about everybody. The better one understands others, the more effective one can meet their needs, appeal to their self-interests or, I suppose, manipulate them.
With a global economy, our empathy needs to extend beyond our next-door neighbor. Multi-culturalism and global awareness simply means understanding, not necessarily accepting, the values, motives and priorities of cultures other than those in which we grew up. (You mean not everyone values lutefisk and lefse!)
The question is, then, can empathy be learned - and how? Is there a small muscle somewhere in the mind or soul that can be exercised, stretched and built that allows us to more fully place ourselves in others’ shoes? Or sandals? Or moccasins? Or bare feet?
Reading fiction - especially when the setting is another culture, another time - has to be the best means of building empathic sensibilities. How do you understand prejudice if you are not of a group subject to discrimination? How do you know the problems faced by gays if you are straight? How does it feel to be hungry, orphaned, or terrified when you’ve always lived a middle-class life? By harnessing the detail, drama, emotion, and immediacy of “story,” fiction informs the heart as well as the mind. And it is the heart that causes the mind to empathize.
Viewing the world through the eyes of a narrator completely unlike oneself, draws into sharp detail the differences of experience, but also the similarities of the narrator and reader. And it is by linking ourselves through similarities - common human traits - that we come to know others as people, not just stereotypes.
Happily, empathy building through reading doesn’t end with childhood. We adults can be just as moved – and influenced by novels. My nominees for best empathy-building novels I’ve read recently are Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (reading it left me with a better understanding of autistic children) and Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (the author’s experience of the horrors of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and difficulties of cultural assimilation are profound.)
Unfortunately, as school budgets are stretched, school library funds that purchase quality fiction and school library professionals who select and promote quality fiction are too easily axed, replaced by reading programs, specialists and tests of basic comprehension.
Our politicians and educational leader rarely ask: If one can read but is not changed by reading, why bother? Empathy is an ability that is difficult to objectively measure. As a result, many educators simply ignore it, like they do too many affective skills. It’s essential that we librarians fight for our programs and budgets.
Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird gave this advice to his young daughter:
“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
It’s perhaps fitting that those of us who have experienced Lee’s book have indeed had our quotient for empathy increased by reading it.
Mick, Haley “Socially Awkward? Hit the Books” Globe and Mail. 10 July 10 2008.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080710.wlreading10/BNStory/lifeMain/home>
Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, November 2008
… we as a profession have a history of dropping the ball when it comes to making new technologies our own… In how many schools is the librarian not seen as a computer expert, even though we all know that a tremendous amount of information is available to patrons in electronic format? In how many schools are word processing, database and spreadsheet use, and computer-assisted drawing no part of the media skills curriculum, even though two-thirds of our mission is teaching students to process and communicate information? – “Sound of the Other Shoe Dropping “Head for the Edge, March 1995
If we take an honest look at what we as librarians have done since technology has come into our buildings, as painful as it is to say, we have dropped the ball – big time. Why?
1. Sexism.
Ok, let’s just start out with the one reason that will get me in the most trouble. Our profession is comprised of about 90% women. Brilliant, dedicated, hardworking women, but women subject to the same sexism that pervades society as a whole. Ideas coming from the field of librarianship are not given attention and seriousness because the majority of its practitioners are women. Guys rule school administration, and as technology came into schools, its implementation was turned over to the guy math teacher, not the female librarian. In our district, 12 out of 17 of our principals are male; 11 out of 12 of our librarians are female. Who gets heard?
Our own profession has a gender-bias. When AASL closed its 2005 conference with “a panel of leading figures in the school library media field,” all five were men. What has the male/female ratio of keynote speakers at your library and tech conferences looked like over the last decade?
Is the subtext in education, been “don’t you librarians worry your pretty little heads about technology -just leave it to us manly men?” Well, girls?
2. Schizophrenia
The school library field divides itself pretty cleanly and clearly between the children’s/young adult lit people and the research skills/technology people. And to a large extent, the lit people are in control.
The Nov/Dec 2007 issue of AASL’s Knowledge Quest is a telling example. I was very excited to learn that the theme was “Intellectual Freedom 101.” But I was very disappointed in reading it to find that the majority of the issue was devoted to book challenges – not Internet censorship and filtering problems. What does this say about the librarian’s role in technology integration when we still seem to be more concerned about a few cranks wanting to strike a couple fiction books from our shelves than we are about an entire generation of children losing access to a broad range of online information sources and tools? The teachers I talk to don’t worry about kids getting access to Harry Potter, but to Wikipedia, YouTube, blogs and wikis.
Until our profession sees its primary instructional focus as teaching information and technology literacy skills, we will lack both credibility and voice in technology implementation efforts.
3. Strategy
If librarians had a coat of arms, collaboration would have to be one of the biggest symbols on it. Our profession has books, articles, standards, workshops, and probably t-shirts and coffee mugs all devoted to collaboration with teachers in designing and implementing good information literacy and technology experiences into the curriculum.
But the emphasis has always been one-to-one, never the kind of systematic, whole-school collaborative approach that Technology Learning Coordinators Justin Medved and Dennis Harter from the International School of Bangkok describe as their school-based approach to technology integration:
We had to create a shared understanding of what 21st century learning is and why it’s important. We had to allow them [teaching staff] to help frame the context in which this could work at ISB.
Do we need to ask ourselves if the library field has put the cart before the horse, working with individual teachers before there is a school-wide understanding of information and technology literacy in place? Should we have been “collaborating” with our curriculum committees, our leadership teams, assessment coordinators and our staff development committees instead - and first? Without whole school buy-in, we may have amazing successes with the few individual teachers, but not impact the entire learning community. Is it too late for us to re-strategize?
Every criticism I’ve made can be applied to my own district and its library/technology program. But if librarianship as a profession is to survive and thrive, we need to have some hard conversations about who we are, what we do, and how we do it.
I will end this column with the same words I ended the March 1995 column:
]]>… if a critical mass of librarians don’t become the on-line information specialists…, the next sound we hear won’t be that of a ball being dropped, but the sound of the other shoe.
Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, October 2008
Most of us shudder when asked a question about the fair use of copyrighted materials. “Uh, the poster over the copier says I can only use a poem of less than 250 words in my project and this poem is 251 words. Am I breaking the law?” Been to law school recently enough to know how to answer that question?
Actually law school may not help you much. Fair use guidelines are, well, guidelines, subject to interpretation. Temple University professors Hobbs, Jaszi, and Aufderheide wisely write: “Applying fair use reasoning is about reaching a level of comfort, not memorizing a specific set of rules.” There are no definitive answers to “is this fair use?”
So, how do we help our teachers and student establish an informed, personal “level of comfort?”
Few of us are comfortable at either extreme of copyright enforcement – playing the copyright bully or completely ignoring situations of questionable copyrighted materials use. Complicating the issue is that each of us is likely to arrive at his/her own personal level of fair use comfort, judgment of seriousness of possible use, and perspective of the morality of intellectual property use both personally and professionally.
I propose we re-brand ourselves, “copyright counselors” and do what good counselors have always done – help others reach good decisions about their actions rather than serve in a judgmental role.
Allow me to advance some practical steps to teach and enforce copyright compliance and other issues of intellectual property use. Raise your right hand, stand on one foot, and repeat after me:
My long-standing philosophy is that education is about teaching others to think rather than to believe. It’s our job as LMSs to help both students and teachers arrive at personal comfort levels when using protected creative works.
* Hobbs, Renee, Peter Jaszi and Patricia Aufderheide “Ten Common Misunderstandings about Fair Use” Temple University Media Education Lab http://mediaeducationlab.com/index.php?page=274
Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, September 2008
You Know You’re a Librarian in 2008 when…you know more librarians in Texas than you do in your home state because of LM_Net.
Peter Milbury and Mike Eisenberg, the founders and moderators par excellence of LM_Net for the past 15 years, announced last November that they are passing the torch.
For the one or two of you reading this who don’t know about LM_Net, it has been the mainstay electronic mailing list for an estimated 100 million school librarians in 2 million countries, on a dozen other planets, and at least two identified alternative universes. It produces in excess of a billion e-mail messages each day - 10 billion on “recipe day.” (These numbers are rough estimates.)
I was an early subscriber and participant on LM_Net using my university “vax” account back in 1992 when I first joined. This was 1200 baud modem dial-up, line interface, pre-WWW, uphill-both-directions-in-the-snow Internet days. Not soft and cushy like young‘uns have it today with your graphical interfaces and wirelessness. The computer screen was hard to read by lamplight, too.
Anyway, LM_Net became my first Internet “continuing education” experience. And the learning began early.
It was my second year as library media supervisor and I was getting lots of push-back from the district librarians I had inherited. I was determined to make them tech integration specialists and they seemed just as determined to remain print-only librarians. After one particularly frustrating day, I turned on my computer, opened my e-mail, and just let rip about the reactionary, troglodytic, myopic, nature of school librarians, concluding that they had better damn well wake-up and smell the coffee or they would all be replaced with techs and not to let the door hit ‘m where the good lord split’m on the way out. And off the rant went to LM_Net.
Let me put it this way - I got some reaction. I knew librarians had good vocabularies, but even I learned some new words. I believe after that other LM_Netters opened my e-mails simply wondering what idiotic thing I might say next. In LM_Net I found my voice.
But more importantly, I found colleagues who offered information, encouragement, and support. It was my first true “continuous learning” experience not because I was the one doing the teaching, but because we were all learning together – as we do to this day. The virtual community built by LM_Net (a professional learning community before they were so named) was a lifeline and sanity-keeper for many of us.
Continuing education prior to LM_Net consisted of reading professional journals, attending library conferences, and taking college classes. These activities are still available and important. But given the pace and amount of change, they alone are insufficient to keep most of us current with the happenings in librarianship and information technology. Thank goodness for these online continuing education options:
These are just a few of the growing number of “continuous learning” opportunities the Internet is making available to those of us engaged in the rapidly evolving field of school librarianship.
Does your school’s mission statement include the words “life-long learning?” It should. And the sentiment should also apply to us as well.