Tremors

Image used under a Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyllows/3475906797/sizes/l/

While I take great pride in my professional growth of the last three years, especially the last 12 months, I frequently worry I am not growing enough or as quickly as I’d like.

I read a diverse range of blogs and articles that I discover through my wonderfully insightful PLN (personal learning network) via Google Reader, Facebook, and Twitter, and it seems the more I read and dialogue with others, the more I worry that I may not be adapting quickly enough to the changing information landscape.  On a bigger scale, technology is changing our society and culture whether we acknowledge this change or not.

How might these changes affect the role(s) I have to play in the lives of my students?  My role within our school?  How do I need to respond to these changes to make my library program even more relevant and meaningful in our learning community here at Creekview?  What technologies or cultural shifts do I need to give more attention that might change the way a school library may function in the next year or the next five years?

Three different pieces have caused me take pause and wish I had a better ability to peer into the future and to figure out what I need to do to stay ahead of the curve and to better adapt my current concept of a school library to the changes that are taking place around me.

Howard Kurtz had this to say in “The Death of Print?” in yesterday’s Washington Post:

The people who run such companies bear a considerable share of the blame. In 1993, just before the Internet became a consumer force, I argued in a book that newspapers had become too cautious, too incremental and too dull, tailored largely for insiders. The rise of hugely profitable monopoly papers in most cities made them increasingly bland, seemingly allergic to controversy.

Then the Net changed America, but newspapers remained mired in two-dimensional thinking. They created sites that were largely a static replica of their print editions. There was little updating, little sense of the dynamism of the Web, and when I started writing a blog for washingtonpost.com in 2000, I had little company in the mainstream media.

The missed opportunities were endless.

On April 30, Joyce Valenza had this to say in her Neverending Search blog:

What is clear is that a lot of smart people–people who are out there teaching, speaking, moving, and shaking–are disappointed in what they see when they see school librarians.  Either we have a perception problem or we need to do some serious retooling.  I’d say we have to deal with both.  In a hurry.

Being an information (or media) specialist today means being an expert in how information and media flow TODAY!  It is about knowing how information and media are created and communicated. How to evalute, synthesize, and ethically use information and media in all their varied forms.  It is about being able to communicate knowlege in new ways for new audiences using powerful new information and communication tools.

Forgive me if it hurts.

In my mind, if you are not an expert in new information and communication tools, you are NOT a media specialist for today.

Doug Johnson shared this worry on May 10 in his Blue Skunk blog:

Some days I feel great about what I do – when someone e-mails or comes up to me at a conference to say that I have been helpful to them. But I also wonder what the hell I have been doing for the past 20 years when more school library positions and programs are in greater peril than ever. Either my strategies are flawed or the message hasn’t gotten through in my work trying to make the profession more relevant, more critical, and less dispensable to schools.

These three pieces have me stirred up this morning—I’m  trying to think hard, to reflect deeply, to see beyond the familiar—am I missing opportunities to make my library program more relevant to our students, teachers, administrators, and community?  Are we ignoring the warning signs and tremors that may portend major changes in the way school libraries function in the not so distant future?  Are we willing to think outside our comfort zone, to possibly give up the way school libraries function now for something that may be far different but even more powerful for 21st century learning?

I’ll be thinking long, hard, and critically about this question while I look diligently for opportunities this next year to make my library an authentic agent of change in my school.

Filed under: Issues, Librarian Stuff, Misc , adaptation, change, evolution, future, musings, present, wonderings

Testing Twitterfeed Update 123

Filed under: Misc

Day 3 of “Introduction to Information Literacy”

Next week I will be teaching Day 3 of a four day class called “Introduction to Information Literacy” for our school district. This course, part of the Cherokee County School District Teach 21/Media 21 class offerings, examines copyright issues, web evaluation and searching strategies, and the evolving definition of “authoritative sources”. Each class session meets for 2.5 hours once a week, and the class is usually a cross section of media specialists and teachers of all grade levels and subject areas.

My night deals with examining the organic concept of authoritative information sources. Below is my SlideShare presentation that facilitates group discussion and hands-on learning activities for the participants. The link to my course materials is only available within the district network, but I am providing you a screenshot of the class page. In addition, you can see my favorite web resources I have bookmarked for this course at http://delicious.com/teach21.validresources/teach21.valid.resources . This course is always challenging to me to teach, so please send some good vibes my way as I always want the participants to leave empowered and enlightened!

Filed under: Copyright and Fair Use, Etc., Information Literacy/Research Skills, Misc, Web 2.0 , course, Day 3, information literacy, Media 21, Teach 21

Changes

You may have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically quiet the last few weeks. Part of this silence is due to the fact that I have been insanely busy with library life, and many of my happenings/discoveries have been posted on my library blog at http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com . Part of the silence has also just been life—this time of year seems to be busy for all.

However, I have also been quiet as I have tried to make sense of and come to terms with the news that our evening school campus at CHS (“North Campus”) will be closing at the end of the semester. We the faculty learned this shocking and devastating news on Thursday, October 2 prior to giving our last exams of the first quarter. The news then was published in the local newspaper before we even had a chance to break the news to our students the following week.

While one board member was quoted as saying he believed “students would not suffer” from the consolidation of our two campuses, students in fact have already been impacted by this news. Many of our students live 20-30 miles away from the south campus in Woodstock and cannot afford to drive 40-60 miles round trip four nights a week to take courses. Others cannot make it to the first class by 4:00 due to their work schedules and the distance of the south campus from their workplace during the day. Several students have already withdrawn to seek their GED this past week and specifically stated that the impending closure of our campus was the reason for them stopping their studies and pursuit of a diploma through our north campus. Other students have commented that they probably will not continue their schooling after this quarter because they cannot make the drive to the south campus come January.

I am one of the original faculty members of our north campus that opened in January 2006. For the last three years, I have spent an average of 18 hours a week teaching English courses to our students. While we are compensated for our work, you have to love what you are doing and have some kind of passion for teaching to devote that much of your time and your weeknight evenings (especially when you consider the fact I taught until 11:00 the first two years until our schedule changed and we now end at 9:45) to such an endeavor. Our campus, which housed 150 students at our peak last year, has been a small and nurturing environment in which students felt like they belonged to a family and that staff members truly cared about their progress and well-being. I feel honored to have had the opportunity to teach here and to hone my teaching skills—it has been a wonderful adventure for me and my students as we have tried new learning strategies and activities. This was a campus in which I felt valued as a faculty member and as though I truly made a difference in the lives of my students, particularly those that I “looped” with through consecutive courses. It was here that I was lucky enough to teach some of the brightest and most industrious students I have met in my 17+ years of teaching.

It is never easy to say goodbye to something you love, to let it go. It has not always been an easy road to travel, but it has been a gratifying journey to travel this way for three years—I will always treasure the wealth of happy memories I have of being part of this campus. I feel immensely lucky and honored to have been part of this fellowship—my heart aches to think of how much I will miss our students and the camaraderie with the faculty. I wonder what will become of my students—what path will they take, and what will happen to them? I hope that we have made a positive impact and that whatever road they take, that some part of Polaris North will always be with our students.

Many of you have heard the old expression, “Where one door closes, another opens”; I have found this to be true time and time again in my life. After having a few days to absorb this major news, I realize that for the first time in many years, I will have free time on my hands. While I am truly sad and heartbroken about the closing of our campus, I am envisioning the doors that will be opened in my life by this change. I look forward to having more time for myself, to exercise and take better care of myself—I might even begin running again and train for another marathon! I look forward to more time with my family and my dogs, to have time to catch up on my reading (outside of all the reading I did and enjoyed with my students), to have more time to devote to my library, to have more time to spend with friends.

I have no doubt that my experiences as an English teacher for the last three years have made me a better person, librarian (yes), and teacher in profound ways. I feel I have been a positive influence in the lives of my students. While my heart is heavy to see this journey come to an end, I look forward to the possibilities that this change will bring to my life. Even Thoreau, as much as he treasured his time and experiences at Walden, saw that there were benefits to leaving that treasured place and to exploring new directions in his life. I am giving myself permission to slow down and be still for a bit, to heed the wisdom in Willa Cather’s words, “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” I look forward to seeing what I can learn from the “calm” that will envelop me come January 1, 2009!

Filed under: Etc., Misc , changes, classroom, teaching