Bailey, Nina

What Types of E-Books Are Best for Young Readers?  (2014).  Retrieved April

20, 2014 from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/what-types-of-e-books-are-best-for-young-readers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

IL

Summary:

Heather Ruetschlin Schugar and Jordan T. Schugar recently reported on the results of two studies conducted to investigate how the use of e-book on iPads impacts reading comprehension in students.  Their findings indicate that often, the added stimuli provided in the electronic books interferes with the children’s comprehension of the text as the multi-platform capability pulls their attention away from the actual reading.

Evaluation:

Schugar and Schugar offer advise to parents and teachers who are looking for e-books for use with students to select carefully and to chose books that focus on text interactions rather than text distractions.  In addition, they caution that as adults we not make too many assumptions about the children’s ability, as digital natives, to successfully navigate the e-book world to maximize their own learning potential.

Engelbrecht, Shannon

CO

Kimmel, S. C. (2012). Seeing the Clouds: Teacher Librarian as Broker in Collaborative Planning with Teachers. School Libraries Worldwide, 18(1), 87-96.

Summary: The article also addresses the classroom teachers' perceptions of the value of collaborating with teacher librarians.

Evaluation: The findings of this article engaged in a theoretical discussion of boundaries and library resources as boundary objects that was fairly opaque and non-obvious. The latter half of the findings drew this conclusion: "Teachers in these interviews describe collaborative planning with the teacher librarian as a design for learning that includes both the resources of the library and the participation or involvement of the teacher librarian in planning how to use those resources in the classroom."

Again, bringing relevant resources to collaborative planning meetings are the bridge to being an integral part of the collaborative learning process.

Engelbrecht, Shannon

CO

Montiel-Overall, P., & Jones, P. (2011). Teacher and School Librarian Collaboration: A Preliminary Report of Teachers' Perceptions about Frequency and Importance to Student Learning. Canadian Journal Of Information & Library Sciences, 35(1), 49-76.

Summary: This article is a bilingual (French and English) detailed statistical analysis of the results of a sixteen question self-adminstered survey for classroom teachers. It addresses four research questions regarding teachers' perception of the frequency and importance of teacher librarian collaboration and the value to students.

Evaluation: This article includes an extensive literature review that is the basis of research questions and the survey questions. Two conclusions struck me:

• "...teachers perceive all collaborative practices as important to student learning."

and

• "...teachers generally do not perceive that they frequently engage in collaborative endeavors..."

Their overall conclusion, aligned with previous studies, showed that:

"...a considerable amount of time working with teachers in traditional ways was needed to develop relationships and trust with teachers. Once these relationships and trust were established, high-level collaborative efforts between teachers and school librarians were more likely to occur."

Rather than deprecating the traditional work that is the daily work, it can be understood as the bridge to higher level collaboration.

Engelbrecht, Shannon

CO

Wolfe, C. (2009). Traveling the Road to Higher Level Collaboration. Medium, 33(3), 8-9.

Summary: Christopher Wolfe, NBCT Teacher/Librarian at Griffin School, a K-8 school near Olympia, WA, describes his collaboration with two second grade teachers at his school to get their students to the public library for a series of three field trips to gather additional materials for
their year-long research project, entitled “Research Expedition!”. They made this possible by pursuing and winning a 2008 Mackin Collaboration Award that allowed them to take the students three times. This lead the team to pursuing a grant the next year and expanding the program to further develop an authentic inquiry learning research experience.

Evaluation or opinion: Mr. Wolfe describes the steps the team took to pursue the goal of authentic student learning, including the grant writing, support generation, and family connections. It is an excellent case study of sustained collaboration.

Do we need school districts?

Young, Alice

ET-Government and Professions

Do we need school districts?
Levin, B. (2013). Do we need school districts?. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(5), 74-75.

The article reflects on the value of local school districts, focusing on the ways in which they function in several countries including Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S. Topics include the roles districts serve between federal governments and schools, the roles of school boards and educational law, as well as the role Norway's and Denmark's municipalities serve regarding the achievement gap.

The author presents some issues for the bureaucracy in school districts as well as the different governance approaches of this middle tier in different regions. Although there are continual attempts in experimenting with changes for some countries, such as board appointed by mayors have replaced elected school boards, the value of these strategies are far from conclusive. Levin mentions two main elements that may seem important. First , there must be effective forums for political dialogue among the parties, and the second requirement is capacity building, not just for district leaders, but also for local elected officials, so they can understand their responsibilities and their potential to contribute to strong school systems.

Library 2.0 (L2)

Young, Alice

CO - Integrating TL into curriculum
CO - Collaboration Strategies
CO - Collaboration Tools

Library 2.0 (L2) is a transformation in the way library services are delivered to library users. It provides new tools to make the library space (both virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative and driven by community needs.

The following images from Steve Hargadon site. 

Blog http://www.SteveHargadon.com
Website http://www.classroom20.com

Freeman, Annelise

CA

Krashen, S. (2014). THE COMMON CORE. (cover story). Knowledge Quest, 42(3), 36-45.

Summary: 

Krashen discusses his feelings on how the common core standards will be devastating for schools and libraries and that the real issue in our schools is not underperformance but poverty.  In the article he addresses what it will take to implement the new standards and how he believes that poverty in our schools is a larger issue affecting student performance than what standards are implemented.  


Evaluation: 

Krashen brings up some valid points in his article about poverty and also about the funding required to implement the CCSS standards.  Some of the points that resonate with me were the amount of technology required to implement the new testing and the student's level of access to this technology.  The testing, in reality, requires a higher level of technology than my site possesses but we are doing our best to cobble together the required number of computers for all of our students.  We are running into many issues that do not pop up when we use the few new Chromebooks we have vs. the 12 year old Dell desktops now running the defunct XP.  However, we have no money to outfit the entire school with new computers or Chromebooks and the wifi to use the Chromebooks has not been completely installed.  Students who come from poorer socio economic settings also do not have the keyboarding and word processing skills that are now required on the test, where in the past students were able to write, they are now required to type.  I do not necessarily agree completely with Krashen's argument but I do believe he brings up some valid points.