Phillip Abrami, Concordia University, is talking to us about our federal government's Digital Economy Consultation Paper in his reflection on school libraries, with a view from outside of the field. The digital skills detailed in the paper give us a point of purpose for a national response. He went on to highlight the recurrent theme of our day, the import of evidence-based practice, along with the import of evidence-proven research for reference.
Ruth Hall, Ontario School Library Association, is reflecting on the development of Treasure Mountain Canada over the last year. In celebrating this occasion she is shining the spot light on the value of mentoring. What comes next? With the inspiration of TMCanada we have the opportunity to carry the dialogue back to our local contexts, our provincial colleagues.
Ross Todd, Rutgers University, is sharing his thoughts about our role to craft the future of school libraries and student learning. He suggests that we each write down three or four clear action steps that we can each take next, as we return to our schools and learning contexts.
TMC Blog: Our collaborative think tank discussion hub. Continue the conversation from TMC8 2025. Read the papers, review the events!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
wallwisher
Check out our brainstorming on wallwisher!
Ross Todd is just now referring to our wall to answer some of these questions and ruminate on some of these comments. What a great way to reflect on the day and paraphrase our new thinking!
Imagine using wallwisher with your students, to have them express their learning! What connections might they make if you have them move the cells around to sort and classify?
Ross Todd is just now referring to our wall to answer some of these questions and ruminate on some of these comments. What a great way to reflect on the day and paraphrase our new thinking!
Imagine using wallwisher with your students, to have them express their learning! What connections might they make if you have them move the cells around to sort and classify?
collaborative intelligence
David is drawing our day's learning together with the statement, "You're about to see just what collaborative intelligence looks like." He's organizing us to do group table work, to go to our Collaborative Workspaces Google spreadsheet entries. It's there that we have been documenting our reflections after speaker addresses, there that we have been capturing the connections we're making and there that we are organizing our newly constructed learning in the theme categories. David is leading us into the Big Think.
He's assigning us a topic, from the strands down the page: From Transmission to Transformation, Towards a Transformative Pedagogy, From Teacher-Librarian to Learning Leader, From School Library to Learning Commons, From Information Literacy to 21st Century Skills, Building Both Narrative and Expository Readers. Our task and guiding question: From the comments on the spreadsheet, what are the common threads we're seeing?
He's assigning us a topic, from the strands down the page: From Transmission to Transformation, Towards a Transformative Pedagogy, From Teacher-Librarian to Learning Leader, From School Library to Learning Commons, From Information Literacy to 21st Century Skills, Building Both Narrative and Expository Readers. Our task and guiding question: From the comments on the spreadsheet, what are the common threads we're seeing?
and the research shows ...
Dianne Oberg is sharing with us her thoughts about changing school culture and the role of the 21st century Teacher-Librarian in that change. She asks the question why school libraries are special libraries, special as in unique. School libraries serve the interest of the institution, serve a defined clientele and are often staffed by a sole librarian on site who reports to a supervisor, who is not a librarian. Also, the institution holds high expectations for librarians to contribute to the success of the enterprise.
Dianne makes the connection to Elizabeth Lee's earlier address to us. From Elizabeth's comments about the significance of context for successful school libraries, Dianne had an 'aha' about context and school culture. We can all look to the Ontario study regarding exemplary school libraries and context and to Dianne's research on Changing School Culture and begin to construct new personal understandings. This intersection of these two research studies shines a new light on re-imaging school libraries.
Dianne details the supports for change and re-imaging. They include a collaborative school culture, a principal who takes a collaborative approach to leadership and high expectations for students and staff -- 'intellectual quality'. In this regard, Dianne addresses Fullan's idea of moral purpose. With that in mind, she puts forth that the implementation of an integrated school library program involves changing the meaning of the school library in the minds of its users—teachers and students—but also in the minds of the teacher-librarian and other school leaders.
These simultaneously supportive and provocative ideas lead us to question the changing meaning of the school library in our own local contexts!
Dianne makes the connection to Elizabeth Lee's earlier address to us. From Elizabeth's comments about the significance of context for successful school libraries, Dianne had an 'aha' about context and school culture. We can all look to the Ontario study regarding exemplary school libraries and context and to Dianne's research on Changing School Culture and begin to construct new personal understandings. This intersection of these two research studies shines a new light on re-imaging school libraries.
Dianne details the supports for change and re-imaging. They include a collaborative school culture, a principal who takes a collaborative approach to leadership and high expectations for students and staff -- 'intellectual quality'. In this regard, Dianne addresses Fullan's idea of moral purpose. With that in mind, she puts forth that the implementation of an integrated school library program involves changing the meaning of the school library in the minds of its users—teachers and students—but also in the minds of the teacher-librarian and other school leaders.
These simultaneously supportive and provocative ideas lead us to question the changing meaning of the school library in our own local contexts!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)