At both of my schools, we screen our students growth in reading and math skills four times each year. The second quarterly administration of the Reading Inventory and the Math Inventory are this week. I am responsible for coordinating student and teacher access to the software and running the reports after the administration is complete. For each administration, I cross-reference withdrawals and intakes with the software roster to make sure all students who need access have it. That might not sounds like a lot, but it is hand checking rosters for 700 students by hand, then making adjustments in the software. Then I email out the instructions for administration along with the folder containing all pertinent information for the tests. Lastly, I ensure that all students test, and distribute the data accordingly. To say this is an undertaking is an understatement. I ended this week with the Georgia Educational Technology Conference, and all I can say is WOW! It has been several years since I've been, and it's just as magnificent as I remember! Sing me the song of my people! There's such a wealth of knowledge and experience all in once place, and it's just for me (and all of my closest media specialist friends)! Now that I'm done "fangirling" over GaETC... I went to sessions on collaboration, encouraging independent reading, the latest gadgets, rethinking media center spaces, instructional technology, and so many more. I came back with a full brain and an inspired heart. It is so encouraging to see so many other library media specialists who are just as committed to their jobs as I am. I also got to meet up with some long lost friends who are now media specialists in other counties. The most important takeaway I have from GaETC is that we are on the front lines of education. We foster multiple literacies for students and staff so that they are able to be competent builders of a globally competitive future. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, November 4-5, 2019 Location: Georgia Educational Technology Conference Time: 8:15-5:15 daily, November 6-8, 2019 Total Hours: 40 After a much needed fall break, I hit the ground running this week. I ran a current Follett Titlewise Analysis to assess the effectiveness of "The Great Weed of 2019" as I've taken to calling it around here. We started out with a collection of 22,000 books for a patron base of about 700. Students and teachers were overwhelmed and the size of our collection limited how patrons could use the library effectively. We are nearly 10 months in, and our collection has decreased to a much more manageable size of 15,000 books. In addition, we have brought our percentage of aged titled from 79% down to 63%. I'm proud of the work I've done on this collection, because it was out of control before. We still have work to do, but with the process started, the work is easier. Once I completed the Titlewave Analysis, I used the information it contained to aid in selecting books for my big order this year. In addition to filling in gaps in our collection, I selected books that exclusively had Reading Counts quizzes. Our students struggle with finding books that have RC quizzes since we switched over from Accelerated Reader, so this is an essential requirement for books I select. I also take reader requests into consideration. Historically, I have just written titles down as students tell them to me. This year, we have a Google Form for student requests linked from our LMC page; students may request books we do not have in the LMC or ones they would like new or additional copies of. Lastly, this week is one of my favorites because I got the chance to meet up with the Region 9 chapter of GLMA! We had our fall collaborative meeting where we discussed reading, collections, book fairs, competitions, promoting ourselves, and instructional technology and MakerSpaces. Getting together with my peers is important, especially when I work in such a small district and rarely get the chance to collaborate outside of my PLN. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, October 21-25, 2019 Total Hours: 40 As I began this week, I had a retrospective attitude. Analyzing each task I've completed since this Practicum began was at the forefront of my mind. With that in mind, I spent Monday evening updating my PLN to reflect my current professional needs. By including links to blogs, social networking, podcasts, videos, websites, training materials, and professional articles, I've curated a robust and well-rounded set of resources to keep me abreast of the latest trends in my field.
As a school library media specialist in a very rural area of Georgia, I often feel isolated from my own kind, so to speak. Coming from a school classroom where professional development was mandatory and occurred on a weekly basis, I’ve often lamented the lack of professional learning that I receive in my new role as a librarian. The Personal Learning Network (PLN) that I am working to curate is the perfect answer to my feelings of isolation and lack of regular professional learning. Though I have only been a librarian for a short while, I’ve often been able to find much of the information that I need on the internet, yet did not make the connection that there was a legitimate method of curating resources to support me in the quest to perfect my craft. When choosing a curation tool for my PLN, I chose Symbaloo. Through my time in this program, I have used other content curation tools like List.ly, Scoop.it, Livebinders, and Rebel Mouse, but the ease of use of Symbaloo appealed to me--everything can be organized into tiles, grouped by topic, and provide a streamlined appearance in the end. While I continue my PLN development over the course of my career, I can make changes, including changes in the curation tool, when needed. The best way to describe a PLN to my colleagues would be: Through the use of my PLN, I will be able to glean information and collaborate with my peers, continually evolving into the resource that my teachers and students deserve. While the experience of creating my formal PLN has been short, my goal is to develop an invaluable collection of resources that focus on the areas of reading, technology integration, makerspaces, and information fluency. By personalizing my learning experiences through the use of a PLN, I now have, a specialized set of resources that I can reference at will, update regularly, and share with my peers. After reviewing the Wiki and PLN Starter Kit in FRIT 7234, I began the search for resources. To keep myself abreast of current trends, I have included resources that I have consulted for a while like Becky Nipper’s Twitter feed where she shares her journey as a school librarian. She always has something of value that I can use in my own position. Finding new resources through my search, I have also included RSS feeds such as ResearchBuzz which has the latest in information “about search engines, databases, social media, and more.” ResearchBuzz has myriad insights into information fluency and the changing landscape of research in the 21st century. Through my search of blogs, course resources, social media, and RSS feeds, I found valuable new additions to my PLN. Each resource provides vital insight into the profession and craft of school librarianship and has been curated with the intention of developing a lifelong devotion to learning and providing others with access to information. This week, our Region 9 Georgia Library Media Association (GLMA) representative reached out to begin planning our first GLMA meeting of the year. Usually we meet twice a year to discuss the latest updates in the library media world and bounce ideas off of each other. We will meet in late October this semester. Our region representative is great at encouraging us to be the best LMS each of us can be; she also is always an advocate for us in our professional lives. LMA's support for the School Librarian Evaluation Instrument implementation is invaluable to me as this year, I will be evaluated under the new process. Several of our members have suggested discussing the SLEI at our October meeting, so hopefully with will be an ongoing part of our collaborative meetings. This week also saw class visits from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade ELA classes. I'm so happy that independent reading is a focus for our school this year! It not only aligns with my profession goal under SLEI, but I'm passionate about getting young people reading as well! We circulated 374 books last week, which is tremendous for us, as we have 313 middle-school students! On Tuesday, when the 6th grade classes came in, I also hosted an escape room aligned with their figurative language standard. Students circulated to different stations where they engages in rigorous tasks that deepened their mastery of how figurative language impacts a text. I'm also getting a large Follett book order together for each school. This week, I created my lists online and filled out the purchase orders to send to the BOE for approval. Hopefully we will have some boxes showing up soon; there's nothing quite like the smell of a new box of books! Usually we do 2 big book orders each year. We select books for order by looking at our collection analysis results and making notes throughout the year of what needs replacing or where we need new books. We also take requests from students and teachers for what they would like purchased. My high schoolers are VERY vocal about what they would like to see in our library media center, so I love trying to make their dreams come true! Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, September 16-20, 2019 Total Hours: 40 To keep a steady stream of new books available for our students, a portion of our budget for books goes towards monthly subscriptions from Junior Library Guild. We subscribe to to several of the most popular categories for both middle and high school students. When each monthly subscription arrives, we process them with the following steps:
The importance of this process is that it helps ensure consistency with our accessions. We need to make sure that all books ordered are delivered and processed for the appropriate school. The security strips help us manage the "comings and goings" of the LMC's property. We can also determine the age of a title and which school it belongs to (since both middle and high school books are housed in our LMC) by looking at the barcode numbers as our accessions process allows for this by assigning specific barcode numbers each year. Shelving books in the "New" section allows our avid readers to easily access new materials that they have not seen before. I also spent a bit of time this week weeding our 500s section. Over the past two years, I have slowly engaged in an aggressive weed of our collection. The previous two LMSs made minimal weeds to our collection. From fiction, nonfiction, and reference, to old VCR carts and on-the-shoulder video cameras from the 80s, we were overrun with outdated materials. Because of this, we had over 30,000 titles for a patron base of 800. Students and teachers were overwhelmed by the vastness of the collection and intimidated by the process of selecting a book. Since we've begun our weeding, we have seen an increase in circulations and LMC traffic. Students are better able to independently find titles that they will read. So far, we have weeded our obsolete technology, teaching materials, and fiction sections. This year, I have started on the nonfiction section with the hopes of being finished before inventory begins in April. We since this is our first major weed in recent history, we are using the MUSTY method (misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, your collection has no use) method, but hope to shift into the CREW (Continuous Review Evaluation and Weeding) method after our collection is brought more current and to a more manageable size. Location: Wilkinson County Middle/High School Library Media Center
Time: 7:30-3:30 daily, September 3-6, 2019 Total Hours: 32 |
Hope GoodnerA catalog of my Practicum experiences. Archives
November 2019
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