Just One Thing November 11, 2006
Posted by pcreighton in : SLJSummit2006 , trackbackAs thoughts and ideas began to gel with us and the School Library Summit, http://extras.schoollibraryjournal.com/summit/, in Chicago drew to a close, Gail Dickinson, http://education.odu.edu/eci/dir/vitae/g_dickinson.shtml, challenged attendees to consider what we would do differently as a result of the collective brainstorming and critical action points generated at the conference.
I was awed as attendees began to suggest ideas such as: share at conferences, tell the school board, tell the state legislature, share with local organizations, speak to staff and school improvement team, share with tech team, share with readers in publications, share on wikis and discussion groups, share on websites, share with SIP teams, share with administrators, conduct research, join leadership teams, share with higher ed programs, share with partnerships, make inroads with other depts. (those that train leaders), get education programs to include a library activity, become an adjunct faculty member, create a presentation to give to teacher ed program and post to a wiki; each state pick one key organization and arrange to present to state universities, post ideas to aasl blog, http://blogs.ala.org , (hey! I am doing that!), identify a significant curriculum standard where there is a point of intervention and work in a leadership capacity and identify learning outcomes and embed some simple strategies for information literacy instruction, collect data and analyze and make some claims about how intervention impacted student achievement and post on school library web site and share in districts and make known what you are doing at local level and get your voice out there, participate in surveys (how about the AASL future vision survey?…. A link is found on the AASL homepage http://www.aasl.org), take each of these items and describe in terms of consequences of failing to act on them and turn into a powerpoint and send to every superintendent in the country, and update online communications frequently so all can see progress.
Gail Dickinson then led us into our “dotting activity” where we all added dots to items on charts that we considered to be the most meaningful, powerful, and challenging critical action points. Dots were counted and the consensus of the group led to the following Top Ten Critical Action Points for our field:
10) building trust and respect
9) equity—leveling the playing field
8)including information literacy in teacher programs
7)partnering in assessment
6)technology literacy
5)playing a leadership role in emerging technology
4) providing stakeholders with models and information
3) developing new models to embrace 21st century learners
2) demonstrating use of data and evidence
1)meshing library added value into learning environments at all levels—student, teacher, parents, local, state, national
I squirmed in my seat a little as I watched and listened. I began to generate my own Top Ten list, which was not very different from the lists above, just slightly more personal. I thought to myself, “I could do this!” And, as you can see, from this post and others I have made this week, I have begun. And now, I challenge you, friends, co-workers, peers, and esteemed readers. I wonder what we could do collectively if we all acted on this thought. Do you know how powerful all of this is? Suppose each one of us did just one thing? Wow!
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?