Over the August vacation, my library prefects come into school for a 2 week training period we call boot camp, with good reason. My library prefects are not only required to help me and my staff with the day to day tasks of operating a School Library Media Centre, but also to act as research mentors to their peers. It is a physically and mentally tough session, culminating in a day long assessment of their skills and attitudes, before a selection is made.
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| Our old logo |
One of the questions they were asked was about the symbolism of the library's logo... and then we hit a stumbling block. One little one could explain clearly why we chose 'books and bytes' as a motto - (information's past and future), but then she asked me a question.
'Ms. H. what's that?', pointing at the floppy disk image on the logo, and I realised to my horror, that my beautiful logo (originally designed by past pupil Gillian Rollock) was in fact out of date! We were becoming obsolete... and I didn't even realise it!
The students of St. Joseph’s Convent, P.O.S. are true 21st century learners; growing up in an age when information grows exponentially and communication technology changes almost on a daily basis. In June 2010, a simple survey showed that 85% of students had access to a computer with Internet service. And now each of our new Form 1 learners was going to receive a personal laptop, fulfilling a promise made by Trinidad and Tobago's new Prime Minister during the run up to the election. Yet I had made no effort to reflect on how this should affect my delivery of the Library and Information Literacy curriculum nor how I communicated with them and they with me. Nor at that time had any plans been made at my school about how we would treat with this new resource.
It was very obvious to me that this was going to have an enormous impact on our learning community and all its stakeholders. This could be a wonderful opportunity for learning and for developing the lines of communication, between learners, between learners and their teachers, between parents and guardians and educators
This urgency, coupled with the fact that my ability to achieve the objectives of the project which I had proposed for my practicum, the capstone course for the Certificate in Education for School Librarians, was becoming more and more unlikely, made my decision to start fresh very easy. To create a site that would be fresh and appealing to our users, while offering them not just access to a myriad of reliable information, but also to interact with me and each other outside of school hours, as well as opportunities to learn and to practise new skills would be of benefit both to me personally and the school..
Why a website?
I needed to create an interface to meet learners’ needs online because my learners were online. If I wanted to play a role in guiding them to become ethical and effective users of ideas and information, I had to move my practice to meet them there. This is a generation of learners that expects to seek information, learn, and communicate online, so to be relevant in their world as a 21st century educator, I had to determine how best to help them achieve their information handling goals efficiently, while encouraging them to develop a consciousness of their role and responsibilities in a digital society.
School library websites have the potential to expand and reinterpret library services for learners. Through a website, I would be able to apply traditional skills in instruction, collection development, collaboration, reference and reading promotion in new ways, by offering increased accessibility and opportunities for differentiated instruction. I would like to use a variety of mediums to connect with our learning community and to stream information for research to our students.
From our domain on the school website, which was constructed using a template designed by Shape 5 but customised by us (the participants in my project), for us – students are able to access the diverse menu of places where our library will live on the web. Even though the school administration was justifiably concerned about the negative impacts that social media may have in some circumstances, an online presence on Glogster, Diigo, Edmodo, Schooltube, Flickr, Slideshare, and our blog, allow us to provide many free entry points of access to library information and services for students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
It was very obvious to me that this was going to have an enormous impact on our learning community and all its stakeholders. This could be a wonderful opportunity for learning and for developing the lines of communication, between learners, between learners and their teachers, between parents and guardians and educators
This urgency, coupled with the fact that my ability to achieve the objectives of the project which I had proposed for my practicum, the capstone course for the Certificate in Education for School Librarians, was becoming more and more unlikely, made my decision to start fresh very easy. To create a site that would be fresh and appealing to our users, while offering them not just access to a myriad of reliable information, but also to interact with me and each other outside of school hours, as well as opportunities to learn and to practise new skills would be of benefit both to me personally and the school..
Why a website?
I needed to create an interface to meet learners’ needs online because my learners were online. If I wanted to play a role in guiding them to become ethical and effective users of ideas and information, I had to move my practice to meet them there. This is a generation of learners that expects to seek information, learn, and communicate online, so to be relevant in their world as a 21st century educator, I had to determine how best to help them achieve their information handling goals efficiently, while encouraging them to develop a consciousness of their role and responsibilities in a digital society.
School library websites have the potential to expand and reinterpret library services for learners. Through a website, I would be able to apply traditional skills in instruction, collection development, collaboration, reference and reading promotion in new ways, by offering increased accessibility and opportunities for differentiated instruction. I would like to use a variety of mediums to connect with our learning community and to stream information for research to our students.
From our domain on the school website, which was constructed using a template designed by Shape 5 but customised by us (the participants in my project), for us – students are able to access the diverse menu of places where our library will live on the web. Even though the school administration was justifiably concerned about the negative impacts that social media may have in some circumstances, an online presence on Glogster, Diigo, Edmodo, Schooltube, Flickr, Slideshare, and our blog, allow us to provide many free entry points of access to library information and services for students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
Why were these specific choices made?
- Creating a library domain on the school site;
the school site would add credibility, reliability and value in the eyes of our users and of their
parents, encouraging them to trust in its value and increase its use.
- Reshaping the school site;
focus group, (that it was dull, unappealing 'boring', didn't really have anything on that they were
interested in, needed or wanted to know about or do!), we took the decision to first revamp the
school site, reasoning that if learners were not engaged by the primary site, they would be unlikely to
visit the library's pages.
- Custom build or template;
Fraser (UWI) agreed to come on board as an adviser, and I identified several other resource persons
(Ms. Semoy Garnett and Mr. Devan Sooknanan) we had no little time for a custom build, and it was
agreed that the most workable alternative was to select a template based on the Joomla content
management system that was already in place. After an extensive consideration, I presented 3 choices
to our principal, Mrs. Jennifer Annandsingh who agreed with my favourite, a Shape5 template,
University.
(Ms. Semoy Garnett and Mr. Devan Sooknanan) we had no little time for a custom build, and it was
agreed that the most workable alternative was to select a template based on the Joomla content
management system that was already in place. After an extensive consideration, I presented 3 choices
to our principal, Mrs. Jennifer Annandsingh who agreed with my favourite, a Shape5 template,
University.
While the practicum course ended in December 2010, the site itself did not go live completely until late August 2011. It would be remiss of me to fail to acknowledge the unfailing support of Mrs.Anna Pounder, without which this project would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve. Having assumed the position of principal at the beginning of April, her encouragement, understanding and commitment to the ideals of 21st century learning were key factors in our success!
References
Eckert, P., Goldman, S., & Wenger, E. (1997). The School as a Community of Engaged Learners.
Accessed Nov. 20 2010 at http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/SasCEL.pdf
Hamilton, B. (2008). Not Just Another Brick in the Wall: Engaging 21st Century Learning Through
Participatory School Librarianship. Accessed Nov. 20 2010 at
McKenzie, J. (1997). Why in the World Wide Web? Vol 6, (6)
Technology & Learning. Accessed from http://fno.org/mar97/why.html
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed.).
Technology & Learning. Accessed from http://fno.org/mar97/why.html
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin.
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