It starts with a Teacher Librarian...

Last week, I got an email from the OZTL_NET list serve that really got me thinking.

Barbara Braxton wrote a lovely thought provoking piece about how the "chain starts with the librarian".

 She explained how some of the biggest recent movie franchises got their start from a series of books and that these books would have been recommended to children by their teacher librarians.  From there these books spiralled into such overwhelming popularity that thousands of people's livelihoods now depend upon the  word of a teacher librarian.  These people being "the actor to [the] theatre usher, not to mention all the side-shoots like those in the publishing and printing industries, the manufacturers of the commercial spin-offs; the employees in the theme parks or even the cleaner/nanny/driver the author, agent or bookshop owner might now employ."

It truly is an amazing thought that the word of a teacher librarian can be so powerful.  Goes to show that we are not as redundant as many people seem to think we are becoming. 

Currently Reading: Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (book 1 of A Song of Ice and Fire)

ETL 401 Attempt Number 3

Hopefully this year, life won't get in the way. Teaching, nannying, having a life of my own and studying. It is quite a lot to juggle.

I am back again for another attempt at ETL 401, the second subject of my Masters of Education (Teacher Librarianship) at Charles Sturt University.  After a year of withdrawing from subjects I have finally completed ETL 503 over the summer session.  ETL 503 was an immense challenge and the assignments were very challenging for someone who was not working in a library.

This year though, things are looking up and I have found myself in a primary school library at least 2 days a week.  I am acting as Teacher Librarian in a small sized primary school in the ACT and find myself teaching all of the students in grades 3 to 6 and undertaking all of the admin tasks in the library.  The schools normal TL is working in an executive position within the school and is taking all of the junior grades for their library sessions.

I have also been lucky enough to work a relief day in a library at another school and it was great to get the chance to compare and contrast the library set up and organisational methods. It has given me a few new ideas.

To round off this post before I get back into my study this rainy weekend, I wanted to share this beautiful video that has been going around, particularly  after it has done so well at the Oscars. Looks like it is soon to be turned into a picture book!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore by Moonbot Studios

Currently Reading: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (book 2 of The Hunger Games trilogy).

Post-literacy causing the end of school libraries?

All this discussion about a post-literate society has gotten me thinking.

A few months ago, I went to the UK to visit some friends. 

My friends twin boys, who are 12 and at the end of their first year of high school, are not big readers. 

One of the boys has dyslexia and struggles to make text work for him.   What amazed me though was how many books and the level of the material that these two boys were getting through. 

Both boys have their own mp3 players and smartphones.  When at home and not doing their homework, both boys can frequently be seen wandering around with headphones plugged in, pottering around or snuggled up in a comfortable chair.  Both boys are avid audio-book "readers" or, I guess more accurately, "listeners." At the moment Ben is making his way through Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy while Alex is almost finished JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit.

What astounded me most was the amount of content that they were actually taking in and could quite happily discuss major and minor plot points with you in a very animated discussion.

They have access to a number of speech to text programs both at school and at home, but as yet there are few text to speech options when it comes to their school material.

If only they had access to their school textbooks in audio format.  It might make it easier for them to negotiate the next few years of their academic lives. 

Since my return from this trip, I decided to  give audio books a try for myself.  In the past week I have finally finished the seventh Harry Potter book in audio format.  I enjoyed the whole experience immensely but have come to the conclusion that I would only use audio books for books that I am already familiar with as I miss too much content when my brain wanders.  My auditory processing is obviously not quite as advanced as these boys.

I think the important thing to consider in all of this is the fact that everyone has a different learning style.  I know that I am a visual learner and struggle to remember things  I hear.  These boys are obviously more aural  (or linguistic-verbal) learners.  I think the dominance of certain learning styles are starting to shift in this digital post-literate society.

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For a while now, I have been curious about how the digital reading revolution is going to impact the primary school library. 

I can see how secondary school libraries are likely to move across to digital text books and see a diminishing number of print resources available on the shelves.  It is much easier to visualise students in high schools and college (year 11 and 12 in the ACT) as students are more responsible and can be trusted to look after their own laptops or tablets (and by tablets I include everything from iPads to e-book readers).

What I cannot see is how pre-school and early primary school students can be expected to care for and safely manage a laptop or tablet when they struggle to look after a single book at the moment.

Digital collections are likely to filter through to the primary school environment in one capacity or another, but I think we are a long way of all print resources vanishing from the primary school library altogether.

As for those who are questioning whether or not school libraries are still needed have obviously not witnessed the joy of preschool and early primary school students when they share a book with an adult and have the freedom to choose their own book to take home for the week.  Children just learning to read are often ravenous for stories, eager to find one that they particularly enjoy and start to develop their own personal tastes.

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After my ranting though, I did just come across this video by Library Ireland.  It's a book domino video titled "Smart people use smart libraries."  Enjoy.

Dewey Decimal Rap

Just watched a video courtesy of one of my fellow ETL401 students.

A rap about the Dewey Decimal system and where you can find some information. I think that sections of it could be useful for introducing upper primary students to the filing system of their non-fiction books.

E-books and Audio books

Before the start of this semester of university, I finally splurged and bought myself an e-book reader.  There were a plethora of reasons behind the decision but my decision was made when I looked at my stack of printed readings from the one unit I was studying last semester.

With this in mind, my new investment had to be able to view .pdf files as well as standard format .epub files.  It also had to be able to allow notes to be taken directly onto the files, either in handwritten format or text notes.

I ended up purchasing the new release Sony Reader Touch edition.  It has a lovely clear e-ink screen and is slim and fits into the hand easily.  It also frees up a lot of space in my handbag which is usually occupied by a chunky paperback.

So far, I have only really been reading an .epub novel on the reader and  I am loving it.  I have played around with the .pdf format documents and they are a little bit more complicated to manipulate than I had expected.

One of the best features is that I can just drag and drop files into a folder on the readers harddrive without the need to use a specific program.

The main downfall of the Sony Reader is that the File name and the Title of a .pdf document are not always the same and whilst it is very easy to change the Title of a file, the Reader displays the File name of the document that you cannot change without an extra piece of software.  Now that I understand the nuances of this quirk, it is only a slight annoyance.

The other new piece of technology that I have been trying recently is audio books.  I have memories of listening to audio books on long car journeys with my parents, in particular Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.  Over the past few years though, I have been a little bit skeptical about the convenience of audio books for someone who doesn't go on long drives.

I invested in the complete Harry Potter series read by Stephen Fry.  After a few months of listening to 15 minute snippets on my way to work and more lengthy sessions whilst doing the housework or the occasional drive to Sydney, I have finished all 7 books.  And I think I may have fallen in love.  Stephen Fry is fabulous and has distinctive voices for each character and he transitions between them flawlessly.

After the success of Harry Potter, I am looking forward to listening to all of  Roald Dahl's books, read by famous British actors and actresses.

In conclusion, I think that my foray into new technologies (well I know audio books are not a new technology but they are new to me) has been very successful.  I will be intrigued to see how these technologies are integrated into the primary school library setting.

Currently reading: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas