Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Database. Such an intimidating word. Most states provide a portal to a list of subscription databases, and I have colleagues who SWEAR by them (Joyce Valenza, Boris Bauer). I can remember sitting in a SCASL conference session several years ago and hearing Boris say, “If you are not offering your users databases, you are doing them a huge disservice.” Edtech Talk webcast show Teachers Teaching Teachers had a three week discussion on the virtues of databases, and how to get our users to utilize the resources. the consensus was we need to make the db sexier to our students. I agree with this, and do feel that if our state subscriptions had the look and feel of Google, they would NOT be such a hard sell. I also think if we sell them to teachers too, perhaps the trickle down effect will transform the students into devoted users. So HOW do we do this? I think the answer is in collaboration with teachers, and our educating our teachers on the usefulness of the clunky, cumbersome tools. Since we cannot convert the subscription databases to a “sexy” mass-appealing simple look and feel, we can create pathfinders that list all the resources for a topic of study that includes books, videos, persons, places, and egads, “databases” (along with search strategies for those databases) in these pathfinders. The homepage of the actual pathfinder can have lettering and simple white backgrounds with the familiar plain lettering in googlized technocolor–a way to surely GRAB the attention of our google freaks everywhere! Soon my school district is changing over to a a new web interface for creating online presence. I am waiting patiently to have web presensence. I am going to googlize the whole concept of pathfinders. Wait and see.

Now to the uninformed, this may sound like I am ecstatic to know that the district is getting or has Accelerated Reader.  WRONG!! I sat through a meeting today, and my employer has put a moratorium on buying quizzes for books (accept the SC Award Nominees.) It seems they are seeing the program for what it is–a business that is in it to make money and not really help students.  (That’s my take on it anyway.) Actually the visionaries see that the program upgrades are calling for speed and memory, and the payoff back to student learning is just not there.  So it is being looked at closely, and we are not to purchase any more quizzes except for the nominees if we choose.  I choose NOT to purchase anything form Accelerated Reader.  Free at last from AR!!  I knew there were other reasons to come to this district!!

I was told today in my new district that mac users now have the option to request a mac instead of the traditional Dell PC and/or laptop if they so desire it. But there is a catch. If you opt for a Apple product, you (the individual educator) MUST purchase the maintenance agreement.  I don’t know what the cost of this is, but I’m interested.  I am going to ask. It does show though that the macs are slowly but surely creeping back into a solidly pc-windows environment across SC.  YEAH!

“MacBookPro.” Nickoneill’s Photos. 10 January 2006. 22 August 2007 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickoneill/85083685/>.

Today was spent at a new middle school and the meeting was targeted to middle school media specialists.  I got to meet them all, and actually thought the group was very nice and helpful. I wish I had thought to call or contact any of them earlier b/c some of my questions could have been answered easily with just a couple of clicks on the district’s website. Just about anything and everything I need to know is there.  WOW. I am embarrassed to admit that  had not even thought to look there.

The media coordinator has thre goals for the upcoming schoolyear, and these goals show me that he has cast a vision for what the media progrmas are to be about.  They are as follows:

1. The SLIS will actively encourage  collaborative planning through participation in teacher planning sessions, providing access to information and resources to teachers, and instruction that supports this collaboration.
2. The SLIS will serve as a mentor for all school personnel in the appropriate use of information technology.
3. The SLIS will provide an up-to-date and accurate OPAC for their patrons.

The goals excite me too.  I am well on my way to providing an up-to-date collection as i weed the out dated books. With an average age right now of 1988, I only need to lose roughly fifteen years. Piece of cake–NOT.  But I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. i know that I have approximately 2000 of the 11.000 books that have a copyright date older than 1985. Perhaps seriously evaluating these books (and hopefully weeding out the vast majority) will give me five of my needed fifteen years.  I hope–anyway.  We shall see.  I have a cordless remote scanner, and according to the fellow media specialists of the district, this will be a piece of cake to batch delete. I can’t wait to take a picture of the piles and piles of books to be removed.  It is unbelievable.  But I was warned today about a guide coming down from ur state department of education.  SACS calls for school libraries to offer ten books per student enrollee.  Our liaison has written a guide that is more rigorous than SACS, and the speculation is that to be deemed an expmplary library in SC, you have to have up-to-date books in all the areas of the library, and offer 14 books per student.  Our enrollment they say is going up.  Last figure I heard was about 650 students. Using the 14 books as a rule of thumb, that means I need to have 9,100 books.  That figure means I can get rid of 1900 books.  That places me just 100 shy of what I would like to get rid of. But hopefully with the budget (which I have not been told about yet) I will be able to rid the library of 200 books.

I am concerned too with the fictions section, as in a superficial look, there are MANY books that have duplicate titles. Some are 2-3  in number, but there are some that are also fifteen or more in number, almost like a class set that perhaps is no longer used.  My attention to the fiction area may have to wait for next year, though for the life of me I don’t know why this library has so many sets of the same title.  And with the tools available electronically to check for usage and getting statistics on titles in the collection, I’m sure many of these books have little to no circulations.  I will try to get some of these books out too.

Hopefully my budget will enugh to pour some updated titles in the collection.  The media coordinator shared that most of the principals hve given their librries $10.00 per student. So that excites me.  But of course he did say there were a few who got less, and even a couple who got significantly less. He is in talks with another stakeholder at the district level that may have leverage, and I get the impression those will be getting additional funding form the district level, but tht is just an impression, and nothing stated exactly.

That’s all the thoughts for day 4.

Today Bob Sprankle (guest blogger on Wes Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity) wrote about his 30 days of Twitter and how he gets it and is a transformed person because of it.  Bob, I’m right there with ya!! I have decided that Twitter can be really informative and downright fun!!  I have used it to preview blog posts–some of the folks I follow post a URL to twitter long before it hits my aggregator–its almost like getting a sneak peak. I got to see Will Richardson dance! I get tipped off to fabulous global projects, like Chris Craft’s “Life ‘Round Here” digital storytelling project.  I can get sports updates from golf, baseball, football, soccer, racing, and just about anything else.  It’s a cross b/w professional conversations and gabbing on the phone about anything. I’m totally hooked on Twitter.  If you like Twitter, follow me at “Cathyjo.”  I only hope some of my contributions are as meaty as the pros I’m following.

I forgot to carry in a camera and I didn’t have my phone so no pictures of all those books.  I finished unboxing all of them—there were around 30 boxes of books packed up.  If I had to estimate, I would say 400 books were shelved, and perhaps 300 were left for discarding.  My assistant came today for the first time, and we talked a lot. I think we are going to get along fine. She is so excited with my plan t purge the library of 2000 books.  She told me some of the policies about discarding books, and with some help from another assistant who had to work (she is like a shadow for a student) but did not have a student to follow began the process. Evidently part of the procedure is t remove all evidence that the book was in the library, including blacking out with sharpies stamped school names and other writings, and then remove the barcodes and spine labels.  They did not remove the barcodes, but did do the other stuff.  We have a remote scanner (an expensive panther) and  as soon as it is charged up, we will begin scanning those books so we can do a batch delete.

The rest of my day was spent troubleshooting computer issues. It looks like there is going to be probably an hour a day devoted to  addressing computer workorders.  Hopefully I can manage most either before or after school.  We’ll see. I have an all day library district meeting tomorrow, and I hope and pray that I am matched with a mentor of sorts to call and ask questions (like how to do this batch delete!) I also hope they hand me a district P & P manual and also give me so guidelines for serving as the tech contact for my school. I understand many of the district media specialists serve in this manner.

I do not go to my school tomorrow, so pictures of the large number of books to be discarded will have to wait until Thursday…I hope everyone else is having a jam up back to school week!

Well today marked day 2 of this school year project.   I have become aware that I am expected to deal with all computer issues, though I have yet to receive any formal training or given any policy/procedures for dealing with such issues.  I am new too, and have some of the same questions everyone is coming to me with.  I am begging forgiveness and telling them I will get right on it.  Some of the issues deal with computers not logging in, login names and passwords that worked Friday not working today, computers that haven’t worked since last year–and still do not work, overhead projectors that were tagged for repair but were never picked up, and you name it, it is on my list.  That’s okay, I’ll focus on them sooner or later.  It is a new challenge to my job that I haven’t really had to deal with in six years, so I just need to get back in the groove of things.  When I asked about some of this, I was told that the media specialist meeting Wednesday would answer a LOT of my questions.

So today once again I focused on the collection and getting the books in the boxes sorted and shelved. Once again I used a simple method to identify books for weeding.  Mainly I looked at the book first for obvious age and disrepair.  It wasn’t hard to find them.  I will use a more strategic method by looking at the collection analysis once all the books are shelved.   I found another jewel today!!  The title is  Stories of Our American Patriotic Songs by Dr. John Henry Lyons. It’s copyright date is 1942.  The author died in the 50s. I know I shouldn’t but I googled the author, and only ran across 2 pages of google hits totalling 19 in all. Apparently Camden, New Jersey has it in a library up there, because one of the hits led me to their book database online.  It will soon NO LONGER be a part of CMS’s database, though in all fairness, it looks like a pretty good book with some historical value.  The cover is ugly, the pages are musty, and it smells.  That is reason enough to remove it.  If my teachers truly value this title, I will seek a replacement that is more up to date.

Here is the book:

I have not learned yet what the district policy is on discarding old books.  I will find that out Wednesday too.  I’m sure one of the options is to allow teachers to “adopt” titles for their classroom. And I did have some teachers today come in and request some of the books. Tomorrow I’ll share a picture of the stacks of books I intend to discard, just to show you how many are going so far.

Here are some statistics on the collection as of the last Titlewise Collection Analysis:

Number of records = 8634

Holdings =  11, 259
(this tells me there are lot of multiple copies of books–I have seen that especially in the Fiction section)

Average Age = 1988
That’s not too, too bad. I’m just 19.5 years in average age!)

Enrollment = 566

Books per pupil = 19.69 books.

Implications as I see them:

• SACS requires ten books of quality condition/age, so I see that I have some wiggle room in tossing books that are too old–YEAH!
• In studying the analysis further, there are 800+ books that have a copyright date older than 1970; there are 1800+ books that have a copyright date of 1979 or older (including the afore mentioned 800+)
• The oldest books in the library (and EGADS there are 3 copies!!) are 1921 editions of Willa Cather’s My Antonia! – My goal tomorrow is to go find those jewels and get them off the shelves too.

I copied and pasted the data from the Titkewise analysis into a spread sheet so I could sort by age first, which helped identify these jewels.
I will study the books some more tomorrow…

I still have to get ready for an open-house Thursday evening.  I cannot even fathom how I will make the library look presentable for that.

Okay–I’ve created a new school blog. It is located at http://cmslib.edublogs.org/ and is appropriately titled @ CMS Library!

I hope to utilize it just as I used my old school blog (@Northside Library Blog). It will be interesting to see how this goes. Since I am at a middle school, I took some advice form a friend, and clearly stated some rules and expectations.

I also hope to make use of a wiki and maybe even delve into Moodle this year, since I am slated to teach one class in video production. We’ll see. Anyway, the blog is in its infant state right now, and I expect to tweak it as I go along.

(Note to reader–this is not a complaint or anything remotely like that. I just want to sort of journal the school year. In the title the letters “SYP” represent “School Year Project” and each SYP post will be tagged accordingly. I got this idea from Christian Long of Think Lab. He is doing a similar thing. I may or may not keep it up here. But in NO way is this an expression of dissatisfaction. Secretly this post is written in 3rd person as I chronicle my new school and my experince this year, my 22 year of teaching–in public school no less–ALL of it. Pictures may be blurry, b/c I used my cell phone!)

Welcome to your new school year, Cathy. Here is your library. Enter with blinders on, for as you know the school is in the process of finishing a renovation and construction for a new science wing, and so the library has been a common storage area for just about anything and everything. Soon all this extra “stuff” will be taken out, but it may take a week or so. There are text books, library books, and other things boxed up and sitting around, but eventually it will all be sorted.

Here is your office and workroom. There is a conference room, an a/v room, a room where the old server is, and an additional storage room. You may have to wait to get into some of the storage rooms, because we stored a lot of classroom stuff in here while the new wing was being finished. I wouldn’t even bother with opening them today.

Surprise, the new production studio is well underway! It is going to be a state of the art facility, and we hope you are up to the challenge of bringing video production to our school. It’s not quite finished yet, but it is coming along nicely.

These boxes along this table here are from the shelves. You see, when we added the studio, it was decided to remove the bookcases from the walls. We purchased new shelving to accomodate all the books we moved, and they are in the boxes in order and well labeled, just waiting to be returned to the shelves. Since the studio’s “construction” is done, they can go back on the shelf anytime now. The workstations’ island may have to be shifted some, but you have time to figure out a floor plan that will work. What’s that? You want to give the books a really good study before they go back on the shelf? That’s right you did say that the collection analysis showed a lot of books need to go. Yes I would agree, and sciences probably need to be done first. That is good because the boxed books are from the sciences, technology, and sports…No time like the present to begin this project. It will save you a lot of work too, because there will be less shelving to be done. What a jewel! A book about flowers with a copyright date of 1948! Maybe we should save it for a memory box or some kind of archived history of the school.

I’ve been reading a lot of Christian Long’s blog (Think:Lab). I feel like I know him as a personal friend even though I can honestly say I’ve only met him in passing (NECC 07) and had virtual conversations with him on my blog here and in skypechats among many other participants. He asks some really hard questions and really makes me think. He is heading back to the classroom this year after working in business, and he is being treated like a first year teacher. Maybe he really is–I don’t know. That just shows that I really only have superficial knowledge of him. But he is still a favortie blog to read! Best of luck as you enter this world where kids are your audience, Christian, and where I truly believe you will make the world their audience!

In the last year (September 2006) Christian and his middle school principal wife had a son. Beckett, his son, was placed in a daycare that offers a lot of perks to parents, including an opportunity for parents to log in and see what is happening in their baby’s room at the daycare center. Reading Christian’s reaction to seeing his son explore his world, make friends, and yes, even take his first tentative steps as a toddler in that daycare center has almost brought tears to my eyes. Christian has shared some of these video clips from that daycare webcam on his blog. And he is asking some really hard questions, like are those teacher’s of Beckett’s future prepared for his desire to see what is happening to his son in their classrooms. Which brings me to the purpose of my post today.

Incredibly, one of the newest schools that opens its doors and welcomes students for the very first time in Rock Hill is equipped with cameras in all the classrooms!!! India Hook Elementary School will be a state of the art school technology-wise. And according to an article in the local paper today (The Herald), parents (among other groups that could include administrators, peer teachers, interns, and more) are going to be able to visit and go to a “viewing” room to see what is happening in the classroom. Yes, it’s true. There was a disclaimer, however, in the article. Teachers will be told when their class is being observed.

So now I have questions: Would this affect the way you teach? If this school has this capability, who is to say they will NOT “tune-in” without the teacher’s knowledge? Will teachers have to sign something saying they agree? Will there be a clause that gives the teacher the right to say the video cameras have to be “off” unless the teacher is aware? Why shouldn’t anyone, anytime come and watch(since we all pay taxes)? Why isn’t the feed being made available during the day via the Internet for those with a “vested” interest, like parents who work? I know these are hard questions, and no, I don’t have the answers. But it is a sign of what is to come. It will be interesting to see if parents in particular come to see their child in class, or better, DEMAND the availability of the feed. I’m POSITIVE Christian Long would make this request.

“Security Camera.” Clean Wal Mart’s Photo Stream. 7 February 2007. 15 August 2007 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleanwalmart/381468078/>.

“Securitycam_29.” M3Li55@’s photostream. 13 January 2005. 15 August 2007 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissa/3330361/>