New Paths

Robert Frost's famous poem, The Road Not Taken, has been on my mind a lot lately. I love road pictures. They lead me to imagine destinations and possible futures. This has been a lovely source of daydreaming, but lately, I've been working towards making dreams real. I want to make some significant changes in my life. I want the chance to make a difference and to create and lead in ways I don't get to do now. I am writing more and have a personal project on the go. At this point, my focus is simply on getting something written. Where it will take me is something I don't want to try and imagine right now.
I'm also watching a colleague whom I respect a great deal do what he has spoken about often. He's walking away from teaching for a while to examine his life and his options. We have often discussed our frustrations with the public education system and our cynicism has increased over the years, even when it appears we could be on the cusp of some significant changes.  Will the changes benefit children and youth? Hard to say. In many ways, I'd like to join him in his exploration of what lies beyond this career path I've been on for so many years. The path I've been on is definitely not the "road less travelled." It's a well worn path. That's part of what is frustrating me. I'm seeing patterns repeated and know where they'll likely lead, but the young who have not been on the path as long, see it as new ground. There are so many snake oil salesfolk on this path, too. Everyone has a cure for what's ailing the system. I guess part of the journey is sour grapes, too. I've done the things I've seen be successful for others and yet what keeps coming clear on this path is that those who have powerful friends on the journey get ahead faster or just travel more comfortably. Because of that, I want some control. I have very little in my current role. I'd like to explore my creativity more. I'd like to have the opportunity to lead. I'd like to see where the other path will take me and who I'll meet on the journey.

My Capstone Project for my Masters in Education Technology

I'll admit to being both vain and proud! I realized after I looked at my Weebly site statistics, then Google searched for my ePortfolio, it wasn't a simple find. I hope this will make it easier.
http://cecilemcvittieporfolio.weebly.com

Secret Books & Public Spaces

Have you ever read a book you didn't want anyone to know about?

Flickr image CC 2013

It was racy or forbidden and you didn't want your parents to know or your friends to know? Perhaps it was to answer a question that you desperately needed answered or to find your identity in fiction or reality - to know you weren't alone? If you've been a teenager, you've probaby answered yes to that question. And for all that the internet makes finding information easier and more private than ever before, sometimes, you need a book to answer questions in greater detail than you are finding in your searches. Perhaps you've read an article by an author who promotes her/his more extensive writing. Either way - books still need to be on shelves in libraries to help readers find the answers to their personal journeys. That's why getting rid of all books in a school library can be a huge mistake. This is particularly poignant for teens who are struggling with deeply personal issues of gender identity or self-harm or family problems. While reaching out to find others who struggle with the same thing on the internet can be useful, some teens aren't quite ready for that outreach.
 

A rose by any other name....

Today, a teacher-librarian colleague from another district shared a recent blog column by Joyce Valenza (my idol) entitled "Do I really have to leave the library to do the work of a school librarian?" Even though I had course work for my Masters degree I needed to attend to, I made the time to read the article. You see, I transferred from a Teacher Librarianship program into a Masters in Education Technology program. I have been a huge advocate for the thoughtful use of technology in school for learning and teaching. I believe my role, as a teacher librarian, should include expertise in technology for educational purposes. I definitely don't believe that my role as a librarian is obsolete, though.
   Just before Christmas, students at my school completed the Tell Them From Me survey, a survey of student perception of academic achievement, social engagement and responsibility. Under the open-ended question asking what would make our school better, I was pleasantly surprised to see the response "have more books in the library" not once or twice, but several times. The students at my school are relatively well-off in a socio-economic measurement, so to have requests for books surprises me. I'm often told that our students will buy their own books rather than wait for us to get new titles on the shelves. Yet, for the first time in a few years, I'm seeing a rise in circulation statistics in fiction. Non-fiction - that's a different matter, but a topic for a different blog post. Students are reading and want paper books, audio books and digital books. They want to read! My reader advisory work is paying off!
   That's not my only role, though. I am the technology trouble-shooter for staff and students. I am a co-planner and finder of resources for staff who will allow me to assist them. I would love to do more of that work, but it is difficult to convince my colleagues that I am a resource for them. The silo mentality looms large in my building. I am a curator of resources, digital and physical. I am a demonstrator of new teaching strategies which incorporate technology. I could, if asked, demonstrate how I evaluate which technologies are best suited to certain learning environments and pursuits as I plan lessons and units. I manage the limited budget for resources as capably as I am able and advocate for more resources and apply for grants when I can. I am a professional development leader, a website builder and designer, a course designer and am working hard to develop a culture of professional learning and collaboration, as well as a culture of formative assessment and inquiry. All of these are what I consider to be part of my job as a teacher librarian.
    Despite this, there are administrators who do not see the value of the title or the role. Is it because they have never had the experience of working with strong, capable, positive teacher librarians? Is it because they see technology as a way to make a personal mark in their own career paths and will shape programs to differentiate themselves from other administrators? I don't know.
   I know that I am proud to be a teacher librarian who is a strong advocate for thoughtful education reform and use of technologies in support of sound teaching and learning strategies. Ultimately, it is people who make learning and teaching happen. Eighty years of research has demonstrated that media and technology make no significant difference in learning. Achievement and student success are the result of asset building, good mental and physical health, socio-economics and people who actively care about and interact with young people to build them up by challenging them and supporting them. School libraries can be at the heart of a school community if given the opportunity and the resources (people and artifacts) to help students and staff. I hope I get to continue in that role as a teacher librarian, but I'll do that no matter what my title is! Shakespeare (as always) got it right.

The Mob vs Collaboration

It's funny how a quote can get  your back up, if you're in a mood. "None of us is smarter than all of us." did that to me this morning. It got me thinking about individual responsibility to act in ways that are morally correct, for some reason. While collaboration is critically important in helping solve problems, there are times when the individual and the sense of personal resolve stand in the face of mob thinking.

The American election process comes to mind. The vitriol being spewed by media-seeking pundits (Ann Coulter's use of the R-word to describe Obama is the latest example.) borders on hate speech, sometimes. How is the group identification, in this case, an example of intelligence? Sometimes, the individual's buy-in on group values or group belief seems to suspend intelligence.

Another concern I have is the increasingly rapid-fire discussion on education reform. Why has this become increasingly urgent. Are we losing students from our schools in record numbers? Do we have more drop-outs? More failures? Fewer suitable candidates for university and the world of work? Yes, reform is important, but why is there a sense that public education is a complete and utter failure and must be changed NOW! Not tomorrow, but immediately. How is this smarter than the individual teacher in his or her classroom dealing with the children in that room? The sense that the person who is actually working with the children is being asked about the reforms is not present. It is yet another thing being "done to" teachers instead of giving teachers time to explore how they want to integrate the good research, practice and ideas that are being thrown at them almost daily. When teachers finally are freed from administration "pet projects", as they are sometimes called in my district, perhaps the reform will happen in a way that sustains both teachers and students.

The Elephant in the Room

I had the terrific opportunity to participate in my local principal/vice-principal's association professional development with Alan November today.I was both grateful for the opportunity and very excited, because as a teacher librarian, I've been using November's strategies and tools to become more information literate and help students for a few years now. I was so surprised and disappointed to see such a limited turn-out for a respected leader in technology, information literacy and education reform. The upper administration of our district and senior staff at the BC Ministry of Education have made no secret of the fact that education reform that will use social technologies is the direction education is moving in this province - indeed, it's moving that way all over the world.
Having just finished reading Will Richardson's Why School? and Michael Fullan's Stratosphere!, I'm a little fired up on change. Add in my current course work on Learning Theories and Education Technology and I'm sure I can be positively irritating. (I'm holding onto the irritating tag - pearls are produced from grains of sand that irritate clams. Yup, I'm irritating!)  I agree with November, Richardson and Fullan that technology alone is not the panacaea for the challenges facing education today, but Fullan certainly makes a case for incorporating new pedagogical strategies along with technology and change theory to implement necessary changes more quickly. Richardson is also absolutely correct that vilifying teachers will not solve problems, either. All three of these leaders see a need for leaders to lead by example and today, while I saw some leaders trying new things, I also observed skepticism, inertia and a reluctance to engage - almost a mirror of the problems I've heard teaching colleagues speak about when working with students.
I find it somewhat ironic that November calls on systems to value and use the skills that qualified and trained teacher librarians can bring to schools. For several years now, many of my t-l colleagues have been using the tools that November demonstrated at this workshop. Not all my teacher librarian colleagues have mad technology skills and information literacy skills, but the elephant in the room was that many of the people in the room today seemed to be very ...tired? Nervous? Cautious? Reluctant? It was a quiet room. It seemed that November had to work hard to get responses and the responses were (from a technology early adopter's point of view) disappointing. It seemed from an outside observer position that leadership in technology use is not even close to being a priority in this district for school-based leaders. If our leaders aren't going to demonstrate to staff and students what it means to be a technologically capable educator, then it becomes really hard to require staff to take on the skills that students and parents are hoping to see in our buildings. If principals and vice principals are too busy to use technology tools, then our buildings need teacher librarians as part of the leadership teams. Teacher librarians must be pro-active in demonstrating to students the skills necessary to be web-savvy and information literate. Unfortunately, the places that most need more teacher librarian time are our elementary schools and those are the places that have seen the greatest loss of teacher librarian time. It's a vicious cycle and one that needs to be addressed by all the stakeholders in the system. It's time to start some pilot projects because doing nothing isn't going to make our current system any better. The elephant needs to start moving!

Bring Your Own Device(BYOD) - equitable?

Since the BC Government came out with it's new "education plan," the tweetosphere has been abuzz with discussion and speculation. Proponents are quickly trying to slam the brakes on folks who question the benefits of the government's vision with calls for "out of the box" thinking, implying that those of us who ask questions are Luddites who don't want to see improvements for students and reform of the system we currently have. I will give the government credit. At least we're all finally talking about what the Liberals want to see, not just speculating. It's still pretty vague, but at least it's public. This morning, @MrWejr posted a tweet calling for discussion on @bkuhn's post on Equality or Equity. I'll bite, because I'm a teacher librarian who gets to play the equity/equality game on a daily basis. The whole reason libraries exist is to share knowledge and advance discussion. Today, that means trying to help students deal with accessing knowledge on the many devices that they bring to school (and I do mean many!) and try to assist in troubleshooting when the devices don't access. It also means trying to get up to speed on every new system that comes along. I spend my days discussing how to get Apple devices and PC's and Androids to work with a Linux system. I have to stay on top of the increasing number of apps that become available for various devices to be able to recommend learning tools for students and staff. I won't even begin to discuss what a nightmare e-books are when you're trying to decide whether to subscribe to Overdrive or use Follett's ebooks or just stick with an epub option so that students can read PDF's. (Apple's lack of Flash on iPhones/iPads drives me nuts!! - personal rant moment) I teach at a small high school with a generally middle-class population. Access to broadband at home generally isn't an issue, but it does exist. At least 10% of our school population doesn't have access to a home computer with broadband. Most students don't have their own laptop. Most have phones or iPods, but many of the phones aren't well set up for data use and don't have touch screens. I repeat, I teach at a school that is relatively well-off. What about schools where that isn't the case? What about our rural schools? What about First Nations communities? What about our students with disabilities? I don't know if equity will exist in a Bring Your Own Device world. When @bkuhn suggests that school districts simply need to be responsible for infrastructure (wireless networks, bandwidth,etc.), he ignores the increasing financial strain on families. I have significant issues with lost textbooks and library materials that cost the district thousands of dollars a year. Despite a supposed textbook deposit, which is ignored by most families, we still lose textbooks and don't recoup those losses. At our school, we still loan graphing calculators with deposits, so that all students can have access to a good quality device. If we supply devices to even 10% of our population to even up the digital divide, we have to be prepared to accept financial loss. Families struggling to make ends meet will often ignore costs they know they won't be accountable for. Teachers also have to be prepared to spend a significant portion of their time with students dealing with device "issues". We currently see our district tech support person every other day. The rest of the time, issues are dealt with by teaching staff who do simple IT troubleshooting off the ends of their desks. What the government appears to be proposing is that schools and students that are located in places which can provide easy access to devices and bandwidth (the Lower Mainland, larger communities on Vancouver Island and the mainland) will do well in a 21st century model. Families who choose to reside in rural communities will be choosing to accept that high speed access may not be possible. Families with financial issues will have to be prepared to accept rental or loan of a "standard" device with deposit. Students with special needs already have to wait significant amounts of time for experts to feel they are "ready" for certain devices. (We've been told my daughter needs to wait to be old enough to benefit from an iPad, despite the fact that she uses one at home at home with specific apps for learning. We don't send it to school because the whole family uses this device.) Despite my reservations about this, I think solutions are possible. I do want to think outside the box, but I believe in social justice. We need to make sure that our families and students who need the help, get the opportunity to access the technology that will make collaboration and connection possible. I think Library Learning Commons are the heart of the solution. If the basic premise of a library is knowledge and conversation, it makes sense to ensure that IT support, knowledge searching experts and teaching support staff are located in a central place which serves as a teaching and learning hub. Accessible resources for sharing and experts available to help when needed - the 21st Century School Library. Andrew Carnegie would be impressed.