Ohio Legislative Success July 27, 2009
Posted by jfreeman in : Advocacy , add a commentEarlier this month Ohio state legislators passed legislation that will phase in funding for licensed librarian and media specialists in Ohio’s schools, based upon school populations. The Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA) has posted information on their website to help other states with their advocacy efforts, including a timeline with strategies and a wiki with talking points.
In a joint email to LM-NET, Deb Logan (Advocacy Co-Chair) and Marie Sabol (2009 President) of OELMA said, “Work and preparation came together with opportunity.” Congratulations to OELMA for being ready to take advantage of a positive environment.
Thanks go to OELMA for providing these materials to a wider, interested audience.
OELMA Advocacy Information – http://www.oelma.org/Ohio.htm
Learning4Life Summit & Advocacy July 19, 2009
Posted by jfreeman in : Advocacy, Conferences, Standards , add a commentI was unable to attend ALA in Chicago this summer, but I was following along as best as I could virtually via Twitter, blogs, etc. One of the most interesting sessions via Twitter was the Learning4Life Summit discussing implementation and marketing of the standards, but the session also included marketing and advocacy ideas for libraries, librarians and programs, including time to craft elevator speeches focusing on one or two standards.
I have tried unsuccessfully to find blog entries or continuing conversations around the Summit or these ideas. If you attended the L4L Summit at ALA, please add comments below or links to blog entries. It was an interesting virtual conversation and it should continue outside of that room. Some sample tweets are included below, but for the entire Twitter conversation that took place during the session, search for #aasll4l:
There’s Still Time to Apply for the 2010 Class of ALA Emerging Leaders Program July 15, 2009
Posted by Melissa Jacobsen in : Opportunities , add a commentDeadline July 31, 2009
The American Library Association (ALA) is now accepting applications for the 2010 class of Emerging Leaders. Applications can be found at http://www.ala.org/cfapps/emergingleaders/. The deadline to apply is July 31, 2009.
The program is designed to enable approximately 100 library workers to get on the fast track to ALA and professional leadership. Participants are given the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, network with peers and get an inside look into the ALA structure and activities.
For the first time since its establishment, the Emerging Leaders program will accept non-MLS library workers. Library support staff personnel are encouraged to apply to the program and will have an opportunity to be considered for sponsorship through the ALA Library Support Staff Interests Round Table.
An ALA division, round table, ethnic affiliate, state chapter or school library media affiliate will sponsor approximately one-third of the selected applicants. Each sponsor will contribute $1,000 toward expenses ($500 for each conference). Sponsorship is not required for participation in the program.
Applicants can indicate on the application which groups they want to consider them for sponsorship. A list of sponsoring units is included as part of the online application. You can also check with your state association and/or state chapter to find out if they are participating and how to apply for their sponsorship.
No more than one person from any institution will be selected for participation in the program. In order to be eligible, applicants must meet the following criteria:
- Be under 35 years of age or be a library worker of any age with fewer than 5 years experience working in a library.
- Be able to attend both ALA conferences and work virtually in between each.
- Be prepared to commit to serve on either an ALA, division, chapter or round table committee, taskforce or workgroup, or in your state or local professional library organization upon completion of program.
- Be an ALA member or join upon selection if not already a member.
Program information will be available and updated at: http://www.ala.org/cfapps/emergingleaders. For questions or more information regarding the program, contact Beatrice Calvin at bcalvin@ala.org.
You can’t be in two places at one time July 5, 2009
Posted by Wendy Stephens in : Conferences , 2commentsThis year was an unusual one for school librarians in that there wasn’t an overlap between the two largest national conferences. ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, met in Washington, D.C. the last week of June, yet the American Library Association will not hold its annual meeting until just after the Fourth of July. This year’s ALA meeting falls unusually late. The timing of the June meetings is so reliable that ALA committee appointments end in that month.
But conference dates for next three ISTE meetings have been announced
, and they conflict with the ALA conferences for the next three summers.
Since there is a natural overlap between AASL members and those active in SIGMS, ISTE’s special-interest group devoted to library media, care must be taken so that continued overlaps between the two conferences won’t fracture the membership of the organizations.
The two groups have come up with some ingenious workarounds to unite shared memberships. Last year’s video hook-up from NECC in San Antonio to ALA in Anaheim modeled effective distance videoconferencing. Both groups plan monthly joint professional development activities attracting top tier speakers to ISTE Island in Second Life.
SIGMS introduced numerous virtual opportunities for participation at NECC, including a webinar simulcasting the membership meeting and recorded sessions available online. Some ALA committees are entirely virtual or offer virtual appointments, but much ALA participation requires attendance at annual conference and midwinter meeting.
Some librarians go to AASL, but not ALA; others attend midwinter committee meetings, but give the big annual conferences a pass. Another group, including vendors, flies between conferences, wasting a day in the air and airports.
While attending two national conferences can be expensive and draining, it should not be assumed that participation in ISTE and ALA are exclusive. At last year’s SIGMS membership meeting, media specialists were said to make up around twenty percent of the overall organizational members. School librarians are influential within ISTE as well. At this year’s SIGMS membership meeting, Doug Johnson called attention to fact that ISTE’s board now included Annette Smith, a Wisconsin faculty member and former school librarian, noting that participation in ISTE leadership gives librarians a voice when planning future meetings.
But when it comes to the networking and leadership opportunities only possible when face-to-face, the overlap effectively forces school librarians to decide between being at one conference or the other. This may result in a narrow self-selection not accurately representative of contemporary school librarianship in either place.
Integrating Social Media as Authoritative Information into Research Pathfinders July 1, 2009
Posted by bhamilton in : Hot Topics , 2commentsThe role of social media in reporting the events in Iran in recent weeks has highlighted the increasing role of emerging sources of authority and provides some authentic opportunities to engage in rich conversations with students and teachers about evaluation of information sources. We are hearing more dialogue and a call for school districts to relax filter restrictions so that students may access social media resources like podcasts, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube. Even mainstream media like CBS News and Time magazine are recognizing the role that social media networks like YouTube/CitizenTube and Twitter are playing in the reporting of news events and how that reporting is impacting the world event itself. Clay Shirky illustrates this idea with razor sharp clarity in his TED Talk about the impact of social media on world events.
As we forge this brave new world of social scholarship, students and teachers will look to us for guidance in selecting and evaluating social media as valid sources of information. In recent months, I have increasingly turned to nontraditional sources of information to use in conjunction with traditional authoritative sources to provide students a balanced research pathfinder.
Podcasts can provide valuable and timely information about a research topic. The Library of Congress just announced this past Tuesday the debut of their iTunesU site which includes videos and podcasts. I have also found that most podcasts I find in iTunes are available on the web with a RSS feed you can use so that if students are unable to access iTunes at school, then they can still access the podcasts via the web. Here are some example of pathfinders I’ve created that utilize podcasts:
- Rick Stevens’ Audio France podcasts for a research pathfinder on places to see in Paris.
- Nature Podcasts: a treasure trove for all things science
- Science Friday, NPR: they also offer a Twitter account and Facebook page; a Second Life presence is also available.
- Scientific American offers podcasts on a wide range of topics related to psychology and the sciences. I have used these in Pageflakes pathfinders!
- PBS and American Experience offer podcasts on a diverse range of topics including history, biography, and literature; I have used podcasts on the Berlin Airflift and the Space Race with U.S. History classes.
- Podcasts from CNN
- NPR offers a variety of podcasts; this podcast on issues female veterans face upon their return home from duty was a valuable resource for students researching veterans’ issues.
- Podcasts from CNN and iTunes U were also utilized in our study of veterans’ issues.
- Podcasts from the U.S. Government
In the collaborative research pathfinder I’m designing with Dr. Robert Fernekes, Associate Professor and Information Services Librarian at Georgia Southern University, we created an entire tab of podcasts for our Business studies pathfinder page. By searching the Business Podcasts at iTunes, I was able to find podcasts to use; in the pathfinder, we elected to use the web-based feed for the podcasts rather than the specific iTunes links since not all students may have iTunes installed on their computers, but you can easily include the link iTunes link if desired. Even if you don’t link to the iTunes version of the podcast, iTunes is a great “search engine” for finding popular and quality podcasts in a particular topic. iTunesU is also a great resource for quality podcasts (and videocasts, too)—I encourage you to explore the quality resources available.
Blogs can be another source of information and rich dialogue. Although many blogs do have an obvious bias, a wealth of blogs reflect the thoughts, analysis, and reflections of experts in the field. Just as we teach students to evaluate print and web resources, we can also scaffold students’ skills in evaluating social media. This rubric and set of evaluation questions from Joyce Valenza provide librarians the teaching tools to evaluate the validity of the information in a blog. Here are two examples in which I incorporated blogs as valid sources of information:
- In our Business Resources pathfinder, Dr. Fernekes and I scoured the “blog” section of favorite and frequently used business publications. In addition, I looked at lists of “top business” blogs from reputable websites to find additional blogs to add to the mix.
- In my Iran Election 2009 pathfinder, I incorporated blogs from reputable journalists as well as Iranian bloggers recommended by newspapers like The Washington Post; Mashable and the Read Write Web websites also provided suggestions for blogs to follow for first-hand accounts of the events in Tehran.
Twitter has received an incredible amount of attention lately for its role in the Iran Elections and protests of 2009. Thanks to other librarians and educators in my personal learning network as well as The Washington Post, Mashable, and Read Write Web, I incorporated Twitter feeds from reputable journalists such as Ann Curry (NBC) and Lara Setrakian (ABC) into my Iran Elections/Protests pathfinder; I also incorporated a Twitter feed from Tehran Bureau as well as a RSS feed for a saved search of the Twitter hashtag #Iranelection. In our Business Resources pathfinder, Dr. Fernekes and I included Twitter RSS feeds from reputable publications such as Wall Street Journal as well as media outlets such as CNN Money. Earlier this year, I included a Twitter feed from CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta the CDC Twitter account as part of my Swine Flu pathfinder.
Video is becoming an increasingly important medium and can be a great “hook” to get students’ interest in a topic. I have used YouTube videos and videos from sources such as CNN, CBS News, and ABC News in pathfinders on Iran, Piracy and Somalia, Paris travel, Swine Flu, Gun Control , Threats to Brazil’s Rain Forests , the Peanut Butter-Salmonella recall, and White House and Congress 2.0. Videos are an essential source of information in my bookmarks for my Veterans’ Issues research pathfinder.
I also included a saved video search of videos as well as a RSS feed from the CitizenTube video blog in my Iran Elections pathfinder. In our Business Resources pathfinder, we have included video feed from MSNBC and a feed for the videocasts from The Economist.
Google Map mashups are another exciting new medium for illustrating information. In my Iran Election/Protests 2009 pathfinder, I included a Google Maps mashup featuring embassies accepting injured protesters. My Swine Flu pathfinder includes a striking Google Maps mashup that illustrates the number of confirmed Swine flu/H1Ni1 cases. For more ideas and resources on how to find and integrate Google Maps mashups into your research pathfinders, check out my bookmarks on Google Maps mashups.
As social scholarship continues to evolve, I feel it is imperative librarians tap into the power of social media and social networks for accessing, organizing, sharing, creating, and embedding information. The use of social media as authoritative information reflects one of the common beliefs of the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners:
The definition of information literacy has become more complex as esources and technologies have changed. Information literacy has progressed from the simple definition of using reference resources to find information. Multiple literacies, including digital, visual, textual, and technological, have now joined information literacy as crucial skills for this century.
Although these Social Networking Literacy Competencies are geared toward public and academic librarians, I feel they are competencies we must master as school librarians to prepare our students to be skilled lifelong learners in what is now an ever shifting landscape of information. By incorporating social media and social networks as sources of information and as tools for learning, we can help our students master skill 4.1.7, “Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information.” These AASL standards are also supported by the use of social media as authoritative information:
- 1.1.5 Evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.
- 1.1.7 Make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.
- 1.2.4 Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.
By using both traditional and emerging sources of authoritative information, we can provide our students a broader menu of information sources for exploration and to ignite learning through research. If you are interested in more readings on social scholarship, please check out my bookmarked resources. If you have examples of how you are using social media as an information source in your research pathfinders, please post them here to expand our concept how we can integrate social media as an authoritative information source.
Buffy Hamilton, School Library Media Specialist
Creekview High School
Canton, GA
