JSerra has joined bloggers around the world. You can see their new blog at:
http://jserrablog.wordpress.com/
Plus JSerra is now on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/JSerraCHS
Are any of your schools/organizations blogging/twittering?
The conversation grows.
Jeanne S.
JSerra Cath HS
Friday, May 15, 2009
New AASL National Survey on Independent School Libraries
Hi Everyone:
Happy Friday. AP Exams are over and graduation is looming just ahead. A very exciting time for a lot of people.
I found this excellent national study done by the AASL (Amer Assn of School Libraries - Independent Libraries section) on characteristics of private school libraries. They covered budgets, staffing, and cataloged resources.
Standard library collection appears to be 10 to 15,000 items. My library's collection certainly needs to grow, but in order to deal with the growing pains of a new high school, I have made myself the main library resource and thus have built a very strong instructional program. Hence, the outreach that I do and my high level of involvement in professional associations.
Read the survey. I am sure you will find it interesting to compare your program to national standards:
Jeanne Swedo
JSerra Cath HS
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Recent Events
Hi Librarians and Techs:
We are swamped here at JSerra, but I have some new information to relay to all of you. It looks like Glen Warren at OCDE, Michael Spencer (SMCHS) and I will be running a session at CSLA 2009 which will be November 19-22 in Ontario. We plan to call our session something like "Librarians in Exile". We wish to strategize and collaborate with all California librarians and other interested parties in order to maintain contact with disenfranchised LMTs and talk about how to form cooperatives across the state in each district and/or county. We are still ironing out our topics, but we are sure it will be a good session.
On another note, I attended a webinar with Dr. Loertscher (SJSU) and Dr. Lesley Farmer (CSULB) as speakers and entitled: "Link your Library to Achievement Project 2009/10." They decided to hold this session after seeing the vast amount of pink slips received by California LMTs. They discussed how to collect data to demonstrate what we are doing as librarians. Three levels of data were mentioned: Learner Level, Teaching Unit Level, and Organization Level. At these 3 levels, various types of data can support learning outcomes from the LMC.
Dr. L discussed the 'power of story' idea -- to brag about the best of our impact; to brag about collaborative classroom teachers we work with; to brag about supportive principals, and to brag about tech directors who provide access. He suggested we do like the Washington Moms have done: divide our libraries into legislative districts and post all the stories so that legislators can view the stories in their own districts.
Dr. L also suggested posting your library story on Doug Achterman's pbworks site: http://caschoollibraries.pbworks.com I have already put JSerra on the list. Have you added your school library yet? Compare your library classes to the standards to report organization level data. I have done this through a new Library Instruction Course Catalog that I just started this year. Each library course is accompanied by the AASL & ACRL standards (since we are a high school and I am forward-looking with where our HS students need to succeed). I am going to add the CA standards to each one.
Also discuss your co-teaching units for the teaching unit level data. Work with the teacher to define what a co-taught unit means, and provide links to those units from your library webpage.
Have learners keep a Learner Research Log: a brief log of research projects, on paper or a blog/wiki, over time and various projects with self-analysis over time about improvement and how student could improve more.
Have learners evaluate the technology and also ask them where they got research information?
Another suggestion from Dr L was to form a geek squad of tech-savvy students to assist teachers with tools. It could be a service club.
Use surveys for pre- and post-assessments at all grade levels. I have used Survey Monkey for this purpose and love it.
Dr. Farmer discussed her former TL position at Redwood High School where she implemented Cycles of Inquiry for assessment, skills levels, partnerships, and interventions. She suggested holding focus groups with graduating high school seniors, and with all other grades as well. Another interesting idea from Dr. Farmer was to track HS freshmen by feeder school and level of achievement - by whether or not the feeder school had a credentialed librarian.
Both speakers agreed that we need to reach out to others - find an impact buddy - and that's exactly what this collaborative is all about. We need to talk to one another and share and assist when needed.
There is another Dr L webinar tonight, May 7th, at 5:30pm. I will report on that one after the fact.
Blog authors - please feel free to add to the blog. Tell us what you are doing at your school.
Jeanne Swedo
JSerra Cath HS
We are swamped here at JSerra, but I have some new information to relay to all of you. It looks like Glen Warren at OCDE, Michael Spencer (SMCHS) and I will be running a session at CSLA 2009 which will be November 19-22 in Ontario. We plan to call our session something like "Librarians in Exile". We wish to strategize and collaborate with all California librarians and other interested parties in order to maintain contact with disenfranchised LMTs and talk about how to form cooperatives across the state in each district and/or county. We are still ironing out our topics, but we are sure it will be a good session.
On another note, I attended a webinar with Dr. Loertscher (SJSU) and Dr. Lesley Farmer (CSULB) as speakers and entitled: "Link your Library to Achievement Project 2009/10." They decided to hold this session after seeing the vast amount of pink slips received by California LMTs. They discussed how to collect data to demonstrate what we are doing as librarians. Three levels of data were mentioned: Learner Level, Teaching Unit Level, and Organization Level. At these 3 levels, various types of data can support learning outcomes from the LMC.
Dr. L discussed the 'power of story' idea -- to brag about the best of our impact; to brag about collaborative classroom teachers we work with; to brag about supportive principals, and to brag about tech directors who provide access. He suggested we do like the Washington Moms have done: divide our libraries into legislative districts and post all the stories so that legislators can view the stories in their own districts.
Dr. L also suggested posting your library story on Doug Achterman's pbworks site: http://caschoollibraries.pbworks.com I have already put JSerra on the list. Have you added your school library yet? Compare your library classes to the standards to report organization level data. I have done this through a new Library Instruction Course Catalog that I just started this year. Each library course is accompanied by the AASL & ACRL standards (since we are a high school and I am forward-looking with where our HS students need to succeed). I am going to add the CA standards to each one.
Also discuss your co-teaching units for the teaching unit level data. Work with the teacher to define what a co-taught unit means, and provide links to those units from your library webpage.
Have learners keep a Learner Research Log: a brief log of research projects, on paper or a blog/wiki, over time and various projects with self-analysis over time about improvement and how student could improve more.
Have learners evaluate the technology and also ask them where they got research information?
Another suggestion from Dr L was to form a geek squad of tech-savvy students to assist teachers with tools. It could be a service club.
Use surveys for pre- and post-assessments at all grade levels. I have used Survey Monkey for this purpose and love it.
Dr. Farmer discussed her former TL position at Redwood High School where she implemented Cycles of Inquiry for assessment, skills levels, partnerships, and interventions. She suggested holding focus groups with graduating high school seniors, and with all other grades as well. Another interesting idea from Dr. Farmer was to track HS freshmen by feeder school and level of achievement - by whether or not the feeder school had a credentialed librarian.
Both speakers agreed that we need to reach out to others - find an impact buddy - and that's exactly what this collaborative is all about. We need to talk to one another and share and assist when needed.
There is another Dr L webinar tonight, May 7th, at 5:30pm. I will report on that one after the fact.
Blog authors - please feel free to add to the blog. Tell us what you are doing at your school.
Jeanne Swedo
JSerra Cath HS
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