Stories are powerful because they provide meaning and context to something. Stories are easy to share and spread and we all love to hear and tell a good story. Think about this when developing your next campaign or strategy. Ask yourself what the story is and how you can get the world to talk about it, the answer might be as simple as giving a t-shirt to some guy at a conference.
Jacob Morgan’s blog post, “The Importance of Stories”, is a simple but powerful reminder of how important it is that we as librarians tell the story of our libraries—our programs, our work, and how we impact the students and teachers we serve. I think it essential that we find multiple ways to tell our stories. Whether we are thinking outside the box with something as simple as the t-shirt concept (see Morgan’s post) or using more traditional means, story is the medium that speaks loudest and most compellingly.
How can we tell our story? Here are just a few suggestions:
Social media: consider how you can use tools like Flickr, a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, student learning portfolios, or videos through YouTube and/or TeacherTube to show and tell the stories of your library. Encourage conversations by enlisting your students and teachers to help tell the story of your library.
Data: consider alternative ways to share both qualitative and quantitative data about your program whether it be through a web based report, a multi-part web page, or video. Consider how you can collect data, whether it be rooted in statistics, an ethnography, or action based research, and look at the patterns to better inform your practice and to share that reflection process as part of your story of library with others, including the parents, students, administration, and faculty of your school community.
Professional Channels: consider sharing the story of your library at professional conferences, library publications, your personal learning network, or even your state library association’s blog. We often think we have nothing unique to tell, but we forget that our contributions can help add to the larger story of library across our profession.
What other ways can we tell the story of our libraries? Please share your ideas here!
The process of creating monthly reports is a yearly evolution for me; each year, I try to find ways to include more meaningful and relevant data while presenting that information in more interesting ways. Last year’s reports were a major step forward as they were packaged in attractive Word document (and converted to PDF format) with statistical and anecdotal data about happenings in the library each month.
One of my professional goals this year is to do a better job of assessment and data collection. After an insanely busy first three months of school, I am finally beginning my first steps toward adding more dimension to my monthly reports. In August, I used Animoto to create a “video” report; the response has been positive to this format. Now I want to supplement my reports with additional layers of evidence as I try to be even more transparent about what is happening in my library program. I will now be creating a page for each month (example: September 2009 in its infancy). On the home page for the month, I will include the statistical data and a video. I will then add subpages to that month to represent each lesson or unit I create with a classroom teacher. As you can imagine, this will take time, but I think the investment in collecting more anecdotal data will be worthwhile in terms of getting better assessment and reflection for me in regards to library programs and practices as well as better educating our learning community about what we do with students and teachers.
This page represents a very rough draft of what I hope to be the template for this new mode of reporting. Essential elements for each teacher page will include:
an attached PDF for a unit or lesson plan using the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners template; having a copy of the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner is essential for identifying skills, benchmarks, dispositions, and responsibilities.
a link to the research pathfinder
a link to student learning artifacts and/or embedded student work on the actual page
Written and/or videotaped reflections from students and the teacher
Any other multimedia to support the collaborative lesson or unit
This example is my first effort, and it is rather rough, but hopefully, it will provide a model of what I hope to accomplish. I will still need to refine my details on the template and do a better job of collecting formative assessment, but I think this page represents a decent start. It is missing some of the additional assessment data I want to include (polls, surveys and the teacher video), but I feel this is a step in the right direction. You can see additional videos featuring teachers and students that I will am collecting and preparing to incorporate into the collaborative lesson pages at our library’s YouTube Channel.
I love how Google Sites easily lets me embed this data; I also like the attachment option as well. My goal is to go back and create pages for all the collaborative projects I have done since August 1; then I will be ready to move forward and document the projects as they are developed. I hope to have all pages completed by December 1, so I will provide an update at that time on this project and hopefully be able to showcase a much broader range of data for you; I also hope to better show the “vision” of these pages that I have in mind to feature as many kinds of data as possible.
If you can think of additional data that would be helpful and meaningful to include, please share your thoughts here with me on the blog!
As I began a short story project this week with Ms. Frost, 9th grade English teacher, some students gravitated to the print books available for finding their short stories, and others preferred e-copies on the web or through Google Books.
Some, though, turned to their iPods to access and read their texts. Some students read e-copies through their Safari browser while others downloaded free or inexpensive apps from iTunes to get their stories.
A quick search for Poe and short stories in the iTunes store reveals a wonderful menu of inexpensive or free apps for iPods and iPhones as well as podcasts that can be played on a computer or any number of devices.
Some librarians and educators are in real denial about the reality of eBooks and Reading 2.0 as it exists now and what may be to come. Others, understandably, are still making sense of this new reading landscape: what counts as literacy and how that definition is rapidly evolving. Some feel it is an “either/or” proposition and see the issue in black and white terms rather than realizing that different forms of reading, in whatever containers they may exist, CAN happily co-exist as depicted in the photo above.
The kids know this—what part of this don’t the adults get? At the end of the day, our focus needs to be about meeting their needs, not ours.
On Tuesday, September 15, I will be the guest speaker for the Georgia Public Library Service All-Staff meeting. I am honored to have the opportunity to be part of the group and create some conversations about ways we can cherish the traditional elements of librarianship that work while looking to new and innovative ways we can reach our patrons and continue our professional growth. Here are my resources for the talk:
I am honored to be a virtual guest speaker Monday evening (September 14) for Dr. Lisa Trip and her LIS5313 students. Here are some of the talking points we’ll kick around:
Examples of what I’ve done with technology and why
How to manage it all & continue to innovate (how do you think about whether or not to try something new, when do you ‘drop’ something)
What we think library 2.0 means for libraries ((implications for library staff, library services, users…)
Specific issues & challenges I’ve dealt with
Recommendations for others
Thanks to Jim Randolph, “Teacher Ninja” and SLM candidate at UGA, I am using Google Moderator for this presentation. Last week, Dr. Tripp emailed the link to my Google Moderator series I set up for this upcoming talk; we also Tweeted it using the course hashtag #lis5313. Last night, I took about an hour to answer the questions that had come in, and I think it will help facilitate the conversations we will have in the Elluminate classroom Monday night. You can see my Google Moderator series here:
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