Why Do We Need Teacher Librarians? …. Here’s Why: Part 4 of 4 in a series by CUE guest blog editor Jane Lofton As a teacher librarian, I was, of course, attracted by the headline of Mike Niehoff’s article in the Winter 2014 onCUE, “ From Stacks to Macs: The Next Generation Library Space.” I applaud Minarets High School for funding, designing, and furnishing a functional, attractive, and welcoming space where students can work, gather, and collaborate. The Mira Costa High School Library, where I work, was built in the 1950s and old yearbook photos confirm that it hasn’t changed much physically – other than the addition of computers – since then. What I found very sadly lacking in the description of the Minarets space is the presence of a teacher librarian. With the absence of a teacher librarian in the formula, the students have an attractive, flexible space, but they are being deprived of services they deserve and need to prepare them for college, careers, and lifelong learning. CC BY NC SA bit.ly/cslafilm Like this:
The Results Are In: Libraries Matter. — Room to Read Insider At Room to Read we are passionate about testing our assumptions. We do not want to take for granted that what we’re doing is valuable and effective, we want to be able to prove it and improve it. When it comes to our school libraries, it can be easily supposed that our libraries are enhancing children’s reading habits, but we wanted to test this assumption and find out more. Does having a library help make a child more likely to read for pleasure at school? Measuring the impact of thousands of libraries across multiple countries is quite a formidable undertaking, but with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we commissioned an independent, external research team to examine our libraries in Laos, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Zambia, and South Africa. Across all six countries, the evaluator visited more than 2,400 schools and interviewed more than 20,000 children. The study revealed more nuanced insights as well.
Study Ties College Success to Students' Exposure to a High School Librarian moodboard/Thinkstock Attention, educators: training high school students early in digital research, partnering them with a school librarian, and providing time to practice skills can instill a high level of confidence during college. This triple play of digital literacy education was affirmed by preliminary observations of a study underway by EBSCO Information Services, an online database provider. “The seeds for researching and training for informational literacy are planted in grade nine,” says Kate Lawrence, EBSCO’s senior director of user research, who is running the study. “There appears to be a relationship between what students were calling research boot camp in grade nine and the confidence they feel in conducting research at a college level.” Being prepared as early as their high school freshman year had a positive impact on the higher education experience.When training happened in a partnership with a teacher and a school librarian, the impact was even greater.
Libraries matter: 15 fantastic library infographics Library infographics presented below clearly show that being a librarian today is not about surviving any longer. It’s great that such infographics are created. Infographics are a fantastic way to draw attention of online users, and give facts not only in a more digestible, but also highly entertaining way. Many people still perceive libraries as awesome-looking magical places, full of a scent of old paper. It’s not true (and I think it never was). These infographics change the perspective. Click or tap on the infographics to enlarge them. Libraries matter: 18 fantastic library infographics 1. This interesting infographic lists most important reasons why you need a librarian in an internet age more than ever before. Nowadays, what we mostly struggle with is the information overload, not a lack of it. ⇢ Credits and more info 2. ⇢ Credits and more info 3. You’ll find here a comparison of salaries of library stuff, depending on specialization. ⇢ Credits and more info 4. ⇢ Credits and more info 5.
The importance of school libraries in the Google Age Kay Oddone In Australia, access to the internet is almost ubiquitous. In 2014–15, 85% of the Australian population aged 15 years and over were internet users, with 99% of people aged 15–17 using the internet (ABS 2016). With such widespread access to information comes the commonly asked question: now that we have Google, do we still require libraries and librarians? This question is particularly being pressed in schools, where smartphones mean that both teachers and students carry a wealth of information in their pocket, and school budgets are increasingly stretched between a wide range of competing demands. Regular newspaper articles spread the gloomy news about the demise of the teacher librarian; articles such as 'Teacher librarians on borrowed time' in The Age (Preiss 2014) speak of funding pressures in Australian schools — but this is not just a local phenomenon. The situation is dire, but the battle is not over yet. Scholastic's publication 'School Libraries Work!' References
Ending the Invisible Library | Linked Data To explain the utility of semantic search and linked data, Jeff Penka, director of channel and product development for information management solutions provider Zepheira, uses a simple exercise. Type “Chevy Chase” into Google’s search box, and in addition to a list of links, a panel appears on the right of the screen, displaying photos of the actor, a short bio, date of birth, height, full name, spouses and children, and a short list of movies and TV shows in which he has starred. Continue typing the letters “ma” into the search box, and the panel instantly changes, showing images, maps, current weather, and other basic information regarding the town of Chevy Chase, MD. The panels are powered by Google’s Knowledge Graph, a massive knowledgebase that launched in May 2012 with “more than 500 million [data] objects” drawn from sources including Freebase, Wikipedia, and the CIA World Factbook, “as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects.
11 Ways to use Symbaloo in the Classroom NOTE: This is a guest post by Mimi Chau from the Symbaloo team. Edublogs just rolled out a free Symbaloo plugin available to all users that we think you’ll enjoy! What is Symbaloo? Symbaloo is a free social bookmarking tool. Why Should You Symbaloo? Symbaloo helps teachers curate content and share the best of the web with their students. “Help, I’m drowning!” As schools start to implement 1:1 or BOYD methods in the classroom, teachers are required to keep up with the latest technology and teaching methods. And what about the “non tech-savvy” teachers that are struggling with technology? Symbaloo allows teachers to share valuable resources with their students and with each other. How do you Symbaloo in your classroom? 11 Ways to use Symbaloo in the Classroom 1. How do you share links with your students and parents? You can share your collection of links with Symbaloo. 2. Teachers are using Symbaloo to create lesson plans by creating a webmix for each subject that they teach. Music Webmix:
School libraries and teacher-librarians: evidence of their contribution to student literacy and learning Dr Hilary Hughes is Senior Lecturer in the Master of Education (Teacher-Librarianship) program at QUT, an active member of QUT’s Children and Youth Research Centre and a previous Fulbright scholar-in-residence at University of Colorado Denver. She has contributed to several recently completed research projects and is currently a Chief Investigator for an ARC Linkage project entitled ‘Fostering digital participation through living labs in regional and rural Australian communities’. International research provides compelling evidence that school libraries and teacher-librarians make a significant contribution to student literacy and learning outcomes. After summarising previous research, this article presents recent research focused on Gold Coast schools. School libraries have the potential to be a vibrant hub for learning, information, reading promotion, creativity, student leadership and social interaction within their school community. The research literature Australian research Findings