I have four libraries. Two of them do not have full time aides. One of them has no aides. Clearly it is a challenge to be at all of them and see them used correctly and well. Two libraries are in one district and two are in another. You would not think that two schools so close together would be so very different. They are. It is like two different worlds.
I'm working on getting the libraries to work off of each other. I dropped the ancient Winnebago Spectrum program that my new district was using and opted to host a server in one district and use Destiny for all four libraries running off the one server. Saves a lot of money and makes library resource sharing that much better.
I am looking at establishing some common webpages and resources for the districts instead of reinventing the wheel so many times. I use moodle to teach some of my classes and to team teach with some teachers. We have started to use the polycoms for some collaborations or meetings off site.
I teach our ERVING (distance education consortiums) ipads and ipods classes as well as the 21st century learning classes and many of my teachers from all four schools attend since they all have the capability to connect.
What are some ways that you would use to connect to teacher and students to and from so many different locations?
One of my goals for this year is to develop self-contained, adaptable to different subjects, modules on some common things, like databases and web site evaluation. My hope is that I'll be able to use them in classes, and that teachers will be able to use them when I'm not there. It sounds as if you're already doing some of that with Moodle.
ReplyDeleteI know it would be hard to organize, but if you have a lesson that works well with a particular grade, and you can get the teachers to cooperate, could you teach it using the Polycom? It might be fun for the kids to "meet" their age mates, and you could test it (and test market it) with something simple, like 'how to use the catalog'. I think getting the matching systems was smart, and you might want to see if you can also buy many of the same databases, which would allow you to both create tutorials and to use the same page for that part of the web page.
If you can find a tech savvy high school student who wants to work with you on the web pages or some of the other projects, that would help.
Basically, you need to create as many 'self-serve' things as possible, and it sounds as if you are already working on doing as many things as possible that are similar in both schools.
I'm also hoping my colleague in the other two middle schools can do some combined projects; she's already sharing her lesson plans with me.
There are also a lot of good lesson plans out there, like the plagiarism set from http://www.thinkfinity.org -- use as much as you can for yourself, and even suggest some of them to your teachers.
I see our role moving to more coaching and assisting teachers to teach our curriculum -- I don't think it's ideal, but I'm not sure how much choice we're going to have.
It sounds like you are doing a lot already to utilize your time and resources well. You have a limited amount of time to spend in any one library so your users have to be more self-sufficient. Increasing the usage of your library web pages is the way to go. I don't know where they are located in regard to the school's web site, but the closer to the main page the better. If the library is not one of the main tabs or in the main sidebar, I would lobby for that.
ReplyDeleteGood for you for getting rid of Spectrum! I had that at Stockbridge, and it caused me a lot of problems!