Welcome ladies and gentlemen to edweb.net’s using emerging technology to improve your school library program. This is session # 9 and today, we are going to talk about partnerships and using collaboration to make things happen.

Thanks to Irene for being our chatter today.

If you are Tweeting, #edwebet

You may be wondering about the background in today's slide show.

When you job gives you lemons…

Make lemonade

In New Canaan, one could argue that we have lemon cream pie. So I get that this is a tough sell, but bear with me.

Even in New Canaan, we have moments of crisis. It might not happen often, but when it does, it is important to be resourceful.

I have talked to librarians across the country over the past nine months, and I am shocked at the kinds of lemons librarians are being handed. In Michigan, elementary library programs in one county are being slated for replacement by foreign language programs. Librarians everywhere are split between schools. Last month I had several follow-up conversations with Emerging Techers who had abysmal stories to share. It's pretty bleak out there.

I did win the AASL election for region 1 directory elect last month, and I hope to be able to promote advocacy for us once I get started, but in the meantime, we need to be able to cope with what we are handed right now.

So today’s webinar is all about how to make the best of what you’ve got - How to capitalize on your limited or abundant resources to maximize productivity, to deliver the very best program you can, regardless of your circumstances, and to help students be successful learners.

There are three things you can tap into to make your job easier. Human resources Community resources Technology resources

I know what some of you are thinking. You're already short staffed (at best), you have no community support, and your technology is restricted at best.

But let’s try to think outside the box

let's think a little bit about her lemonade rather than lemons

Last year, when we were scheduled for a site visit from the American Association of school librarians awards committee, we got a serendipitous phone call from New Canaan Public Schools central office. Our assistant superintendent of human resources called to ask if I was trained to be a new teacher mentor in the state mentoring program. Luckily I was. It turns out that a student teacher from a nearby Information & Library Science program was slated to do her student teaching at a nearby district when she learned that her supervising librarian did not have the required training. Their loss was our gain. We suddenly had an extra librarian for 10 weeks. The timing was remarkable.

We had a formidable quantity of documentation to compile in preparation for the sake visit.

Honestly, I don't know how we would've done it without Alex.

Last fall, my colleague Christine Russo and I paid a visit to the local school library training program at a different college. We were invited in to talk about school librarianship. When all of the students in that program became eligible for internships and later student teaching, guess where they wanted to go?

Using interns and student teachers from local colleges and universities is a growing way to harness human resources and strengthen your program.

I wouldn't ever want to suggest that librarians were easily replaced by parent volunteers or students. That is not the case. They are not certified to teach, do not hold graduate degrees in library science, nor do they have training in any of the areas librarian expertise

Having said that, they sure can be helpful for circulating resources, shelving materials, processing incoming orders, creating displays, pulling materials UK high school, we had a program for student interns. Our one requirement is that they take the program seriously, show up punctually, and stick to their schedule. Most of our student interns circulate materials at the desk. We also have a parent volunteer program, and while most of our parent volunteers shelve books, we have others who prefer to work the desk we have one who loves to work in the “bindery” and we have another who enjoys processing incoming resources. There is value in asking people what they like to do. We never would've known that our parent volunteer, Laura, wanted to bind books. It was something she expressed an interest in, researched, and now she's been doing it for two years.

Recently, we had an alumnus from the class of 2003 come in, and offer his services. He is between trips to Taiwan and is bored. So he works for us during the lunch shift three days a week. It's been amazing. That's never happened before and I don't ever expect it to happen again.

Last year, when we assign teacher duties, we approached the principal and asked him if we could make the library a duty. He was very accommodating, largely because we had traffic statistics.  

Because it is documented, we had no trouble arguing for assigning teachers to the library throughout the day. We have minimal expectations in terms of supervisory responsibilities, we try to keep it as amicable and friendly destination as possible.

It really does help to have an additional supervisor in the library at all times, particularly given the traffic we handle.

When we hired our instructional assistant three years ago to man the circulation desk, it quickly became apparent that she was cut out for librarianship. Within six months, she had enrolled at the local universities information and library science program.

Now two years into it, her projects mostly serve the library. Two weeks ago she completed our summer reading website. We've never had a summer reading website before. We had foisted for two years, families destiny last year, and now this year in order to better serve the entire community including students were not school-based, we have a summer reading website. She did not work on this alone. She collaborated with the town library teen librarian-a new resource in our community. Together they compiled a list of resources and published a website for students to use and interact with about their summer reading.

People ask us all the time how we have time to put together these videos that we produce. There are lots of resources that make it easy for us.

One, is our schools music technology teacher, Anna makes. And as students compose music, turn it into MP3s, upload them to a folder in Google docs called music to share.

They know that when they do this, any teacher in the building can grab that music and use it for a project so long as they give the student credit. The student name is embedded in the musical works title. Whenever I put together a video that requires music, I use student work. Anna has made that so easy for us.

Whenever we need artwork, we ask our schools Photoshop teacher to commission her students to create our graphics. Our website banner is student generated. We commissioned a class, we had samples, we selected a work, and we tweaked it and tweak it and tweaked it until we were satisfied.

So when Roberta Stevens, the president of the American Library Association sponsored a teen video contest, our student submissions were excellent. Our upperclassman production is stellar. I will share it at the end (I have to stream it, since it isn’t mine).

The underclassman production needed some work, but since the student who coordinated that effort is eager to become our schools next upperclassman videographer (now that the current ones are leaving), we gave him the side job of making a movie about the making of the movie. We'll see how he fares with this task before we assigned him additional responsibilities.

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In our family and consumer sciences department, our foods and nutrition teacher instructs her students to prepare and serve a meal for teachers every six weeks. It's called the Rams café (you can in high schools mascot is a RAM). On two separate occasions, when I've been expected to provide a luncheon for a special occasion, I've booked the Rams café. In both instances it has been a godsend.

My district will only pay for my conference attendance if I present at the conference. Technically, there are really any professional development funds for conference attendance.

But it looks good for the District if we present at conferences so they tend to find resources when our conference proposals are accepted.

So when I decided I wanted to attend ED UCO and in January long after proposals had been submitted and accepted, I knew my district wouldn't pay for the trip. But I also knew that the model UN club was going to Philadelphia that same weekend. So I offered to chaperone the trip and asked our director of information and communications technology if he would split the trip with the model UN folks. I chaperoned the trip, supervising the students when they needed it most, for dinner and bedtime, but I attended the conference during the day when my services were less needed.  

But there are also free conferences that are held on weekends. Uncoferences are cropping up everywhere. Last Satruday, I went to edCamp Boston

This is a really nice segue two the last category to tap into: technology. What is best for specific tasks today will not necessarily be the best thing for that same task tomorrow. This is really important. Last October, I did a whole webinar on hybrid learning using movable. Six weeks later I started migrating to a new platform. In 2008, we use voice said for online book discussion. In 2010 we replaced that with destiny. This year we will combine destiny with Google sites. Last year, we were promoting reference e-books through a browser-based portal. This year, we are featuring mobile at for the same resources.

We've talked about students, parents, faculty, and ourselves as human resources. These are all in school learning communities human resources. But there are others beyond our actual school. There is the community at large. Our first ally, is the public library.

When I first started in new Canaan high school, I created a teacher project form. It was my expectation that when a teacher wanted to collaborate, they would complete this form before they would be allowed to sign up for computer labs. You can guess how long that lasted. It quickly became apparent that if I wanted to collaborate with teachers it was going to be on their terms. Even now, I get brilliant assignments but also some real duds. In order to build the collaboration we want, we go along with the duds, knowing that next year, we can anticipate that upcoming project, and make some suggestions for refinement. We have to go slow. Now I mentioned this in the context of the public library because our public library until very recently had a teacher project form. And yes, as you can guess, it did about as well there, as it did in our library.

Last year, my colleague Christina Rousseau and I co-presented a session at the Connecticut Library Association with our town library director and its director of acquisitions. It was a session about our collaborative relationship

The Connecticut Library Association is primarily a public library organization. When we finished and opened the forum up for questions participants asked why we were presenting it to bear rather than at the Connecticut Association for school librarians annual conference. At the same conference, we were asked to participate on a panel about school/public library collaboration. The facilitator produced a collection of rather embarrassing quotes from school librarians about their reluctance to collaborate with public libraries. My colleague and I felt a little blindsided. We were shocked. We didn't realize this is a problem. As evidenced by presentation earlier that day we have a great collaborative relationship with our public library and we were astounded at a) the public library and perception that school librarians were resistant to collaboration and B.) apparent confirmation of this fact from a professor in a information and library science program.

We added the town library to our inter-office mail route, so that when students request a book in the morning, it is often better circulation desk by the afternoon.

In the summer, we send over as many as 350 resources from the summer reading list (we don't have 350 books on the list but often we send over multiple copies of popular titles).

The public library's reference librarians have administrative access to our online courseware, originally modal, but now the Annex on blogger.

Our town libraries teen librarian attends our schools cross disciplinary reading team meetings. We cross reference our homework help pages for every project. And just today, the teen library and sent me a list of the high school textbooks she is about to purchase for their reference collection. We frequently attend the town libraries acquisitions meetings, sometimes to share and decision-making, but other times to showcase new software or new technology that we are integrating at the high school. They consult us when making changes to their database collection and software licenses.

We often direct our students to the town library's IM services, but always warned them that those services terminate when the town library closes. At the end of the summer, the town librarian gives us their circulation figures for the entire summer reading collection.

It is hard to quantify the degree to which our town library expands and enhances our services.

There are other libraries with whom you can collaborate. Presumably, your state library offers services that can enhance your program. Here in Connecticut we have a special collections lending Center that services the entire state. Estate digital Library provides an extensive collection of databases, e-books, and audio books among other things. We also have a state consortia which affords us discounted rates on volume but purchasing, certain databases, and other resources. What is your state's interlibrary loan system like?

College and University libraries are often helpful too. We have a partnership with UCONN

We also partner with the teen center in town. We host our monthly library chats there, which exposes students who wouldn't normally frequent the teen center to its services. It allows us as book discussion facilitators to host these events on neutral ground-making them feel less academic and more social. It also provides new clientele to the teen center. It's a win-win.

We reached out to the sports Council for funding on author visits, as well as youth services, and other outreach programs. If our author's work fits a niche in that organizations socio-emotional development program, they are usually willing to support our effort. Laurie Halse Anderson Chris Crutcher Alex Flinn

Our Parent Faculty Association (PTA) accepts grant requests year round. One of our favorite grants was for the picture book collection. We have a preschool in the building and the toddlers were our intended audience.

There are other organizations will fund all kinds of academic endeavors: the town sewing club, the Rotary club, the Kiwanis club, the exchange club, the newcomers club, the league of women's voters, etc. I've also worked in urban districts where there are other community organizations that can help support library programming. There are other organizations will fund all kinds of academic endeavors: the town sewing club, the Rotary club, the Kiwanis club, the exchange club, the newcomers club, the league of women's voters, etc. I've also worked in urban districts where there are other community organizations that can help support library programming. Newman’s Own

Last year, and memory of a library secretary who had passed away, we organized a community effort to dig up a garden, asking everyone to contribute one plant. In four hours on a Saturday morning in May, we created a beautiful garden. A garden which will now be the venue for a small assembly tomorrow.

Then we held a special “grand opening” ceremony and invited her friends and family.

There's one ally that is commonly underutilized by school libraries. And that is the local newspaper.

Most local newspapers have a school sports section, but why not have a school reading section, or literacy section, or library section. Our program gets a lot of coverage in the school newspaper. Mostly, because we feed them stories. Sometimes it's about kids, sometimes it's about programming, sometimes it's about new resources.

But in the last 2 1/2 months we've been featured on the front page of the town newspaper three times.

If you can't get to the town newspaper start with the school press. Our young journalists know that when they are trolling for stories, a quick stop at the school library is guaranteed to generate a scoop. Hardly a week goes by without a library mention on the weekly television broadcast.

I will spend more time on this next month, but it is very important to enter contests and applied for grants, and awards. Districts will love it when you generate revenue. Doug Johnson, the author of the indispensable librarian back in 1997, used to love to tell a story about a sourpuss librarian he once met. He said she was unpleasant, not particularly responsive, or helpful. But she could write a mean grant, and that she kept her job. I'm not advocating for disposition. But I am advocating that whatever it is that you can do, even if it seems negligible to you now, capitalize on it. Honestly, in the eyes of my colleagues that you can high school, I gained more respect for my colleagues in 2007 from my Google calendar expertise than any other single lesson I taught. I'd like it to be otherwise, but that's the fact.

We also have allies in vendors. Folic is a great example of that. They fund numerous grants and awards every year including the American Association of school librarians national school Library program of the year award. They want you to like their product. That's how they make money. Therefore if you want their product to do something for you, and it isn't doing it yet, call them. Ask him how to do it in the current version, or how to do the next best thing in the current version. Vendors listen. They need to. Use enhancement request forms. Use twitter. Use e-mail. Use the phone. Convey your needs. It is worth it. Because in the long run you will have a product that does for you what you need it to do. In the long run it will help you be more productive, and it will help your students.

This is a really nice segue two the last category to tap into: technology. What is best for specific tasks today will not necessarily be the best thing for that same task tomorrow. This is really important.

Last October, I did a whole webinar on hybrid learning using movable.

Six weeks later I started migrating to a new platform

In 2008, we use voice said for online book discussion.

In 2010 we replaced that with destiny.

This year we will combine destiny with Google sites.

Last year, we were promoting reference e-books through a browser-based portal.

This year, we are featuring mobile at for the same resources.

It is critical to continue to evolve technologically. Regardless of where your baseline is, we need to keep moving in order to stay current and relevant to students and teachers. In order to do this, we need to capitalize on the technology's ability to make our jobs easier. So, for example, when you have a choice between two tools, choose the one that's going to make your life easier. Why do I not use my Outlook calendar? Because I can't embed that calendar in any of the other applications I use. Why did I switch modal for blogger? Because it syncs with twitter and Facebook, I can embed a podcasting tool, and a blog search widget. Why did I disband the voice thread? Because destiny required so much this work. Why do I use Facebook for student research logs? Because the students are already there, and I don't have to create the groups, they do. If we are willing to renounce mastery, we can get a whole lot done just by experimenting with technology. The problem is that we are not always comfortable launching into something we don't fully understand. The truth is, that technology development is moving too fast for us to ever establish mastery, so we just need that piecemeal our way through trying to find a most efficient way to get as much done as possible with the least amount of effort.

So speaking of pooling resources, we have a project Ed Web we would like to enlist your help with. As you may know, we are going to dedicate what is traditionally assigned to banned books week in September to banned sites week this year at new Canaan high school. We such lucky, the founder and CEO of Ed Web.net had two separate conversations in the last few weeks one with Arnie Duncan and another with Karen Cater both of the Department of Education. It turns out the complying with the regulation is not as difficult as we are being told. Therefore, we really want to developer survey that we can distribute across the nation about access to educational media and mainstream social media in schools.

So we like to tap into this community to start creating the questionnaire so I will open a discussion what would you like to ask Americans to educators about filtering and access in their schools? What would help you build your case? What do you want to know? But state-run questions and their and see what we come up with.

One of the most important things technology can do for you is to connect you with thousands of peers. Look at what we have created here! A community of colleagues with varied backgrounds, and regional ties but with one common interest – delivering library programs that help students thrive as learners. On that note, and the wrap this up I'm well over my 3000 words for today and I will see you in the chat.

edWeb.net Using Emerging Tech to Improve your School Library Program Session #11:Partnerships

Thanks to our host & sponsor

Thanks to our today’s chatter Irene Kwidzinski L4L Coordinator in the L4L Affiliate assembly ISTE, NESLA, CASL fixture & a fierce proponent of of school library advocacy

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Why this image???

Lemons

Lemonade

Being resourceful

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkrt26GkIv1qjjbmao1_400.jpg

Election results

http://doctorweb20.com/wp-content/themes/gear/images/ico.big/gear.png

3 kinds of resources Human resources Community resources Technology resources

#1 HUMAN RESOURCES

Information and Library Science Programs

Me and my colleague, Christina Russo Janine Johnson, our new Intern

Volunteers Parents? Students?

Volunteers

Thanks to our host & sponsor

R U Tweeting? #edwebet

$ Professional development funds

$ Professional development funds

#2 COMMUNITY

New Canaan, CT Public/9‐12 Partnership Success! Strategies to seamlessly fuse your programs

Who are we? Everybody

Seamless partnership Interoffice mail Summer reading Reading initiatives Book group (multiple copies) Universal barcode for HS students Admin access to online platform Reci”friends” on Facebook and Twitter Acquilistions alignment (print & non-print) Data collection

Interoffice Mail

NCHS Books at NC Library for Summer Reading: 2004-2009

Seamless partnership Interoffice mail Summer reading Reading initiatives Book group (multiple copies) Universal barcode for HS students Admin access to online platform Reci”friends” on Facebook and Twitter Acquilistions alignment (print & non-print) Data collection

Community organizations Sewing club Rotary club Kiwanis club Interdenominational youth groups Community service organizations Newcomers’ club League of Women Voters etc.

$ Vendors! $ $

#3 TECHNOLOGY

Survey National survey about educational access to media in schools What do you want to know? What would make a difference in your school? What do you most want to see changed? What should we be asking?

PLN

Thanks to our host & sponsor