Open For Business

It's nearly March and I'm just about ready to open the (dahdah!)Viscount Super Library Learning & Information Centre for 2016. That's quite late I hear you thinking, and that could be so. Except for the fact that #GoodThingsTakeTime, and this year I haven't rushed to get open by the end of Wk1 (and so feel by the end of the year I've never caught up with myself).

I've taken my time and really thought about what sort of library we have, and how that can be managed and promoted and used highly effectively by all the users. Here's the thing ...without having a Library Tech/ teacher aide. Just Me. And Richard...who's not a Library tech or a teacher aide but is all of those things - thank goodness. There's had to be a change of thinking around managing this space. Some things have gone. Some shelves and the Secret Book Club, but more about that another time.  I've also thought a lot about the actual space we have, and how 2016 really is the year we'll finally be getting new furniture.

There are other changes to tell you about. The pink wall in the new "Picture Book Room" (why had I never thought of that before?) mixing up the shelving, genrefying the non-fiction section and so on. But. Finishing stocktake was first on the list. Suffice to say, I've given 'them' a number for the number of books we have, and I culled a lot (think ruthless) and chucked out anything that was drawn on or ripped. 

I'm pleased to report that it was a fairly straightforward exercise using our newish LMS 

Concord Infiniti http://www.concordinfiniti.com/  to complete the s/t for the first time. 

This week we're Open For Business. I've made a google doc for the teachers with all of the elements (just like on MKR!) pertaining to Their Library . Think a base of info lit, literacy in general, a pinch of makerspace, toss in digital story-telling, a few music lessons and a dose of book promotion to make our crazy cake which is aforementioned VSLL&IC!

We still have a flexible timetable, but this year my goal is that more teachers will take up What Our Library has to offer.

 I'll keep you posted and put up a picture of the pink wall. It's gorgeous.

Lit Club

MrsPotts reads a lot and lately has knocked off a few goodies. Apart from the fact that there’s nothing better than getting engrossed in a great story, as a Teacher Librarian it sure helps to know what you’re talking about when it comes to recommendations for kids and teachers. As always there have been stand-outs and I just loved ‘The One and Only  Ivan’ by Katherine Applegate. I’ve infected a few other people with my enthusiasm for this story – a couple of my teachers are reading it to their class, Sandra couldn’t put it down and my sister has shared it with her colleagues as well.
We have a Lit Club running from the library here... the idea was to provide examples of really good literature for teachers and students to read. I’d realised that lots of teachers aren’t readers and this was one way to get a bit of momentum going in that area. It’s great to be able to go to the LC shelf and point kids and teachers towards a great read. There’s a real buzz at the moment  as something has recently clicked with a group of senior girls who want to read “really good books to help with our reading”.  They take book-choosing very seriously with lots of talk & discussion as they read the blurbs, sifting and sorting and trying to get the same book as their friends!
Our Lit Club began after MrsPotts and TheDP did Wayne Mills’ Children’s Literature post-grad paper at Auckland Uni. My mind was opened! I learnt how to look at books differently - in a deeper way that’s for sure. We learned about embedded ideologies, post-modern picture books and inter textuality.Who knew?!
I wrote a few thousand words about the wonderful, amazing and different ‘Skellig’ by David Almond - the type of book I didn’t really read before. I wrote another few thousand about ‘Fox’ by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks. This book is now used constantly for Inquiry.  ‘Al Capone does My Shirts’… another few thou about my ‘efferent and aesthetic response’ to this novel. whew! MrsPotts had to re-read the essay to find out what that meant! but I do remember loving this story with it’s themes of family, friendships and relationships.
Meanwhile TheDP was writing about the meanings,implications and ideologies of one of Gavin Bishop’s stories. Having met Gavin a couple of times, she emailed him to make sure that she was on the right track with her ideas. No, said Gavin, it’s much simpler than that – it’s just a story! Not that it mattered really as we had lots of fun debating who was right.
 It is easy now to interact with authors and tell them how much you liked their story. How cool to follow @peterhreynolds on twitter and tell him ‘The Dot’ is one of our most popular books…and to tell Patrick Ness that ‘The Crane Wife’ was a fab read. Alex from ‘The Universe vs Alex Woods’ has his own @ThingsAlexKnows on twitter & there was a competition running to find out where Alex is which links to the story really well.
 The potential to get our kids interacting with the authors is untapped at present but MrsPotts has a goal to work on here - enriching the reading of our kids by interacting with the authors who have put themselves out there sharing the hidden and not-so hidden messages in their stories.

I'm back...

Well hello there, and you could say it's been a while - August 2012 to be exact!  and whilst there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, MrsPotts is back in business. So it's 'on with the show' as Miranda would say.
Term two is already two weeks down and in the library it's been business as usual with lots of issues, Duffy book selections, Info Lit lessons, showing kids EPIC, Te Ara, AnyQuestions etc, using You Tube, The Literacy Shed to watch v cute animated stories (http://www.literacyshed.com/) and trying to manage computer-game-crazy boys to name a few. Then there are the new initiatives. MrsPotts has a very short attention span and has been known  to rearrange the furniture quite a lot :-) so these new initiatives are code for 'let's do something interesting and exciting to get me on my bike and racing to school every day'! 
We've been talking for a while about giving kids the opportunity to be creative and be given the opportunity to explore making 'stuff'. Lots has been written about creativity and I'm a believer in giving kids heaps of opportunities to explore and create and play and make. To be frank there haven't been many opportunities with our very- timetabled-overcrowded-timetable and as we all know some teachers are better at getting the creative out of kids than others. (Our Art specialist being the major exception and that is another story).
 The idea which had been bubbling along was for a Mad Inventor's-type club of some sort and I volunteered a space in the library for this and call it our makerspace (of which there's also quite a lot  written about). As with all these things my friends, it depends on the people, the people, the people... so imagine my delight when the opportunity arose to employ the ultimate Mr-Maker-Space-Cadet himself. We've known Calvin for a while and he is the perfect man for the job. He's set himself up in a sunny corner of the library with bits and bobs and wire and batteries and things that go whirr! right next to the boxes of lego and the train set. Already I can see and feel a change. There are more children coming in the door each day... new faces too.They meet me at my car in the morning, grab my keys and open the door. Lights, Action, Music as they say in the movies! (Yes, there's going to be a movie too but more on that another time).
Kids are sharing and talking about their creations, they are staying after school to explore and play in the makerspace. This week I've issued books on electricity and inventions and how to make models.
Fantastic stuff.

Product Placement and Sharing Welcome here!

MrsPotts read somewhere recently about ‘product placement’ and how this sort of promotion (in a local reality TV show) had reached ridiculous proportions. I agree that everything seems to be sponsored these days and now I’m conscious of the MacBookPro or the like casually (strategically) placed in movies.

But you’ll have to excuse me today s'il vous plait as this product placement is more in the line of … sharing.

My nephew-in-the-wine-industry presented me with this new kid on the block to celebrate something (anything!)  It’s called Stoney Ridge Pink Sparkling Spritz and it’s definitely worth a product placement here!  

Thanks Rowan.

So to Libraries and Learning-land...

Lately MrsPotts has been thinking about how difficult it is for (some) teachers to get the balance right between effective practice and dealing with all the day to day 'stuff ' in classrooms. As well as delivering the best teaching & learning programmes, the assessment of learning, assessment for learning and so on teachers have to consider things such as: how do we increase & maintain student engagement? and how well we integrate and optimise digital learning opportunities? digital-age learning which is authentic, real-world, rigorous, collaborative, and global (#ISTE12).

Some days I’m left wondering whether or not teachers are even managing everyday life in the classroom as a constant array of distractions seem to be taking up an awful lot of teachin' and learnin' time. I’m sure you know what we’re talking about here folks. Lately (in my Director of Learning role) I seem to have had to deal with my fair share of (mild) misdemeanors, social problems, health issues, petty arguments [he said, she said]& even shaved eyebrows (uh-huh!).  All of these things have an impact on learning as teachers and kids are distracted from what we are really wanting to achieve.

But MrsPotts is staying positive! I believe that it is possible to deliver great learning programmes for our kids, no matter what! (insert poster from Nike here!)

One of our teachers who I share with (she’s worth it!) took the time in the weekend to have a good look at this amazing resource I'd found out about on twitter called The Literacy Shed.

It’s fantastic and you can follow them on twitter or facebook or check out the sheds at http://www.literacyshed.com/ 

Check it out now, I say!

Today in the library Miss J told me that she had found just the thing to kick-start thinking on her class Inquiry.  Not the easiest of classes, but when she put the little movie clip up on the interactive whiteboard I saw engaged, focused kids asking super questions and giving thoughtful responses. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Any excuse to wear a red velvet coat

Hello folks …another great day in library-land, in fact especially good today. There was the great discovery! Yesss. All that, and the Olympic Games on the IWB all day! 

Of course, in true MrsPotts fashion I was supposed to be finishing something else at the time but I’m pleased to say that my SLANZA (www.slanza.co.nz] Collected mag article on Ross Todd will hit the streets on time too!

I was checking out twitter and after phoning my daughter to check protocol on re-tweeting (as you do!) I came across this 10 Ways Librarians Can be a Marketing Genius Like Lady Gaga  

this super-duper slideshare from Gwyneth Jones @gwynethjones aka The Daring Librarian.

I have a horrible feeling that I missed her session at the ISTE conference Arrgh!  But, she shares her stuff and I like what she says very much.  This is so clever and I realized when I went through Gwyneth’s list that I was really good at some on the list, OK at others and useless at some too. 

Although I know that our library is a pretty cool place for teachers and students, I now have some new ideas for continued improvement of services/processes; tweaking what’s already happening, as well as “now for something completely different” so that our library continues to develop and change with the times. It goes without saying that I’ll be combining this with ideas from Ross Todd’s EBP (evidence based practice) workshop and I wonder what I’ll be able to say about the even greater learning outcomes that I know we will achieve. I’ll be sharing those in a great big <shout out> somewhere, sometime. Imagine if we all did that!

So thanks for the inspiration today Gwyneth Jones and with Lady Gaga in mind MrsPotts is getting out the red velvet coat to wear and with a spoon in hand will sail into the library with greater purpose tomorrow. There might even be a photo! 

Fab Facebook

Well after having such a busy week MrsPotts is in dire need of a sit down with a nice hot cup of tea...  Having read the blogs of other teachers, something that I've noticed is that there's often/sometimes a disclaimer of some sort that says that the views on the blog are that of the writer and have nothing to do with the school/employer. I reckon my boss won't mind if MrsPotts (who's that? he'd say!) wrote something contentious or that she was having a brandy instead of a cuppa!!     but I digress...

I've just checked my Facebook Newsfeed. As well as finding out what my friends & family are up to, I get love getting updates from groups such as Edutopia, Kathy Schrock, edTed, Kleinspiration, Edudemic, ISTE & Powerful Learning Practice to name a few.  
It's great for learning new stuff and getting great ideas! There are all sorts of goodies to be found as more and more organisations and individuals form groups, and more and more people realise the potential of being connected by/with social media.
Today I loved reading about the Connected Educators Book Club. Check it out http://bit.ly/N49rEU

There's a MrsPottsPoints fb Group (ask to join if you'd like :-)  which I use like a professional learning group for teachers at my school as well as friends in teaching who are interested in what I do. The idea is to inspire and challenge others to try something new and share thoughts and ideas.

We don't have a Viscount(super!)Library(learning and information centre!) fb page - yet. It's only a matter of time my friends. Big ideas...Small steps.

Nearly the weekend, happy days from MrsPotts.

Ross Todd rocks!

It's not very often that MrsPotts is able to sit still for hours on end listening to one person speak.
Short. Attention. Span. So much so that at conferences I try to sit near the door for a quick get-away if my attention isn't grabbed and held in the first five minutes!   (On reflection it's probably just a bad habit I've developed!)
A-ha! Today was different. I sat and listened to just one person - Dr Ross Todd @RossJTodd - All day.

I'd heard him speak before and he is such a nice man that he even said he remembered meeting me at the IASL conference in 2008 at the University of California at Berkeley, USA: "World Class Learning and Literacy through School Libraries"
He was great then... and was even more interesting today as he spoke about evidence-based practice for school libraries. It was about how libraries impact on student learning and how we can set about gathering evidence (data) and using this evidence for continued development and continuous improvement. There was a model of the school library as a 'dynamic agent of learning' amongst the heaps (yes, heaps!) of slides. He talked about gathering evidence in our schools & posed more than one question for us to consider including; What differences do my school library and its initiatives make to student learning outcomes?

Dr Todd challenged us, questioned us, talked at us and with us (in small groups) and at the end of the day, asked for our specific ideas on our EBP action plans. WHEW! He did not draw breath!
I sat in my seat all day.