My+Blog

Welcome to LIBE 467 Blog!

=Week 2 =

From my limited experience volunteering in a public school library and working in several international schools, only one came close to meeting an acceptable level. The majority of time it is quite difficult to achieve these standards. First, one of the problems trying to meet these proposed standards is the size of the library facility. Most of the time the space and location were not purposefully built to include separate areas for reference, easy, fiction, and teacher resources let alone a computer lab and workstations. Also, it is recommended that newspapers and periodicals be kept for 5 years. These take up space and do not have a high circulation, last very long, and become out of date quickly. In addition, with a limited budget and print encyclopedia sets costing around 1500 dollars, yearly subscriptions to online resources, high cost of educational DVDs, and maintaining periodicals it is very difficult, but not impossible, to meet the standards set out by the A.I.L. If we constantly weed our collection, make good decisions on reference materials, and supplement our budget with outside sources, within several years we could have the reference collection close to acceptable standards. Think Positive!

A scope and sequence document is definitely important in the school library setting. How else will the TL know what resources they may need to allocate funding for? These documents are also necessary if we want to implement a research based inquiry system.

Why are teachers reluctant to adopt an inquiry based curriculum? An inquiry based model is fluid and organic. This means it is always changing based on the interest and experiences of the students. As a result, lesson planning needs to continually evaluated and changed lesson by lesson and year by year. It is true that this makes for more of an authentic learning experience. This involves meeting of grade level teachers, specialists and the TL. Without this collaboration time, it won't work. The amount of release time is just not possible in the current system.

When I was at an IB school doing inquiry based instruction we had weekly planning meetings where the TL and specialists attendex and late nights modifying lessons because the students took us in a different direction. This is why I think it is difficult -lack of time, do not see that it actually saves time and improves learning, lack of training, possessive of their class, and set in their ways. =Week 3 = Reidling’s selection and evaluation criteria presented in the highlighted boxes give an excellent overview of what we should be considering when analyzing reference materials, or the purchase of new resources. It is interesting how some of the main headings change when evaluating different types of reference materials. I would think that authority was also important for directories, almanacs, yearbooks, handbooks, biographical sources, and geographical sources. I would also think frequency or currency would also be an important criteria when choosing indexes and abstracts. If they are not updated regularly, then they won’t be much use.

My concern with these documents are they are very general. It gives a good idea of what someone should look for when evaluating materials. Many of the points are common sense and seem straightforward. On the other hand, there are some that I would need examples of, or more information to feel comfortable using. In addition, many of the resources I would not be purchasing unless I worked in a university or senior school.

I think many of these selection and evaluation criteria can be found in journals or sites that independently review these types of reference materials. In addition, colleagues and forums could also do a lot of the work for the TL who are trying to weed out or purchase. Reidling’s documents could be used as a checklist that ensures all areas are covered by reviews or recommendations and to help tailor criteria to a TL’s specific situation.

Reidling’s criteria are not realistic in the budget that is allocated to schools these days. Either there isn’t enough money to replace the materials that are weeded, or to purchase new materials that are required to support the curriculum. =Week 4 = I think that those who support both print and electronic reference sources are not fighting a losing battle. Like anything, print sources need to keep up with the times and change accordingly. Also, TLs can promote print resources as a viable and preferred alternative to electronic reference sources if students can see the benefit of using them. Print resources are great for the narrowing stage of research, while electronic sources can be used to find more in-depth information. There are a lot of great print resources out there that rival electronic ones and can be used almost anywhere at anytime, unlike electronic resources that rely on hardware and internet connections.

With a preference for electronic resources, a TL has to ensure that appropriate and effective materials are purchased in this format. Many times a subscription to electronic resources is more expensive than purchasing several good print materials. It is important to ensure the school has the capacity to allow for electronic resources to be circulated and used by those they are for. I don’t have a bias about students using one reference format rather than another. Each student learns differently and may benefit from having access to one format over another. That being said, I think we should expose students to all forms of media to help them realize that there are other sources that can be used instead of just their one of preference. This ensures the Universal Design of Learning. =Week 5 = I also believe that most learning comes from making mistakes because it allows us to use our higher level cognitive abilities to reflect and modify or create new schemas. This being said, failure is futile without having the ability to learn from these experiences. With these new strategies, we are able to improve the way we attempt to reaching a goal. The process of research follows the same pattern. The importance of the interview is to provide students with the opportunity to make mistakes with support. They will ask a question, narrow down their topic, gather their information, analyze the information and probably, along the way, get frustrated and overwhelmed. As the teacher-librarian, it is their job to take this frustration and turn it into a learning experience that will help students to become information literate. I agree that the process is more important that the outcome when we are engaged in research projects. = = =Week 6 =

I think that established and free citizen-built encyclopedias both have some of the same problems. Each of these sources are edited by people and, as a result, have some biases depending on the background and experience of the editors. Even though Wikipedia is always being updated, material is posted before being verified by other users. There is the possibility that someone might use the information that is on Wikipedia before it has been edited and verified, therefore leading to erroneous information. I think that this has the same problems as slightly out-of-date information in that they are both wrong. It was an interesting read that even Wikipedia does not recommend using its site as a reference, but visit the links of the main sources. Encyclopedias are an important tool for students to learn strategies to become information literate. Some people say that Encyclopedias are not useful because you can have students waiting for them if they all need the same volume. Is that the fault of the children or the instructor who planned the lesson that way? At the same time, if there are not enought computers or access to the internet, using Wikipedia will have the same issues. In conclusion, I think that many of the lessons learned from using Encyclopedias can be used when searching the internet for information or other digital resources.

=Summary = = = The reference collection is an important and integral part to a Media Centre. The fiction collection's purpose is to improve fluency and ability to read and follow information in a sequential order. The reference collection is important to teach students how to become lifelong learners and develop strategies that will allow them to discover the answers they need in a logical and efficient manner - information literacy. Today as a TL, we must provide a variety of media to ensure that all of our students have the resources to inquire. Even with the small budgets we have to work with, we are fortunate to have a plethora of free resources on the internet. If we supplement these with a up-to-date encyclopedia set, a variety of visual resources, and engaging and high-interest trade books, we can provide a rich resource environment for our students. This does not come easy and we need to be up-to-date on the curriculum, resource materials, and motivation of our students.