ISTE’s SIGMS announces a new award March 4, 2008
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : Awards, Opportunities , add a commentGreat News!
SIGMS (Special Interest Group Media Specialists) a SIG within the ISTE community. Each June at the NECC conference we have a business meeting. At our SIGMS business meeting during NECC 2007 we began planning for an award focused on School Library Media Specialists collaborating with classroom teachers. This new award has become a reality through the sponsorship of Follett Software Company, Linworth Publishing Inc and ISTE.
There are actually two awards, one for elementary and one for secondary and each award is for a team of two, classroom teacher and SLMS. All school library media specialists are eligible. Submission process opens officially on January 15, 2008. Deadline to submit is March 15, 2008.
From the website;
“The purpose of this award is to identify, promote, and sustain excellence in collaborative and innovative technology-based projects driven by the school library media center in support of curricular and instructional needs in elementary and secondary schools.”
Further information and forms are available on the ISTE website www.iste.org/sigms-award
We will post similar information on the SIGMS wiki
http://sigms.iste.wikispaces.net/
AASL standards Align, Embed or Integrate?
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : Hot Topics, Standards , 2 commentsThe new Standards for the 21st Century Learner were announced at the AASL conference in Reno. Discussions began on LM_NET as well as the AASL blog as School Library Media Specialists began to think about the new standards. One of the first postings occurred on January 4, 2008 when Sharon Grimes posted “Reflections on AASL’s new Standards for the 21st-Century Learner”. This post to a discussion throught out January ending with January 31, 2008 Gail Dickinson: “Yes, the Standards are different”.
Some of the discussion points;
- We need to show how we effect student learning along with the need for assessment
- How the standards will translated into practice
- Are the standards too visionary or are they not visionary enough
- Focus on what is unique about the school library program
While not everyone agrees with the new standards we all believe that the best student learning will occur if implementation is done in collaboration with class room instruction, rather than skills in isolation, As I read through the different opinions and worked with my own thoughts, I came up with what I consider a basic question centered around terminology. Since I am better at questions than answers I will post the question. In meshing standards, whether AASL and NETS or AASL and subject specific standards, which “focus” would best facilitate the collaboration we want? The three are (with paraphrased dictionary definitions):
- Align – bring into line, adjust for coordination
- Embed – bring into a surrounding “mass”
- Integrate – bring together into a whole
- Align — you do your part and I do mine resulting in a finished project
- Embed – adding to add to the curriculum — in a garden you many not have everything and still have a garden.
- Integrate, I supply you what you need to complete your project.
Comments?