November 17

Work Placement Day 10

Tuesday 17th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:30 5:00
Story Time Story Time Re-shelving LUNCH Front Counter Children’s Services Meeting STEAM Club

Despite having a good sleep last night, I still felt tired today. It usually hits at about 2 o’clock! All I do is yawn!

Today we read Who Sank The Boat? for Story Time. What a classic by Pamela Allen! I felt more comfortable in my second session as many of the parents remembered me and I have been able to recall lots of the kids’ names. I also have a better idea of the procedures for set-up and pack-up.

Before lunch, I did an hour of re-shelving. Then, after lunch, I sat at the front desk with Rowan. No major happenings, and I got to show off my book contacting skills!

Instead of working on Literacy Kits, I sat in on the Children’s Services weekly meeting at 2 pm. I was tasked with packaging the Books in Homes bags. This will be my last project which will take a couple of hours on Friday. The team seemed very grateful for my help. It was also interesting to see the inner workings of a particular team within the library.

To finish off, I observed this week’s STEAM Club. Today, instead of using the Piper equipment, we made Kaleidoscopes. Then Krista brought out Little Bits, small pieces of circuitry that you can fit together and they result in a certain outcome. There were 3 kids at the session, and it was good to see how they used problem solving skills to work the circuitry. I have noticed that the sessions are very unstructured. Although I don’t know if kids actually really learn specific science and tech knowledge from the session, I think giving the participants time to tinker is great. And different to school, which is important!

November 17

Work Placement Day 9

Monday 16th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:30 5:00
Move & Groove Move & Groove Literacy Kits LUNCH Front Counter SRC School Visit Literacy Kits

Back to the beginning! Last week I missed Move & Groove because I was completing my induction. Each participant receives a scarf and an instrument, like a triangle, shaker, or xylophone. Then, just like Baby Bounce, the presenter follows a musical playlist, listening to the instructions and playing some games with the parachute. Once again, it was really cool to see all the big smiles on the children!

I spent forty minutes on the Literacy Kits before lunch, then went out for my next shift at the front desk with Matilda. When we started, she said how quiet it usually was from 1 o’clock onwards. Of course, there were lots of customers, and we even had to call the police when a young man with a disability refused to listen to his carer and threw a couple of things around the children’s cave. So much for a quiet shift!

After that, I went with Kelly and Terasa to their next Summer Reading Challenge school visit. We drove out to Mil Lel Primary School, a small school on the outskirts of town. With Terasa all dressed up as a fairy again, Kelly explained how the Summer Reading Challenge works, and I took some photos. It was a fun journey and interesting to see another Mount Gambier school.

At the end of the day, I had some more time to look at the Literacy Kits. I’m trying to find the contents for the kits but it is so easy to go down a rabbit hole searching for things that could go in!

November 15

Work Placement Day 7

Saturday 14th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00
Journal / Literacy Kits Literacy Kits Literacy Kits

I’m coming in over the weekend to make up for the Monday I missed. I did 3 hours today. I spent most of the time in the office working on the Literacy Kits.

I also went for a walk down to the main street, searching for a souvenir shop that I thought might have didgeridoos that could be included in one of the kits. But I couldn’t find the shop that I thought was there. All I saw was an orange ute crash into the back of a van.

November 14

Work Placement Day 6

Friday 13th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:30 5:00
Aged Care Delivery Aged Care Delivery Literacy Kits LUNCH Returns SRC School Assembly Visit Lego Club

Yep … it’s Friday the 13th!

Today was super busy, with 2 off-site adventures! I started the day helping with the library’s home deliveries. Today’s deliveries were for the many Aged Care homes in Mount Gambier. The residents provide the library with a list of their preferences and an automated system chooses resources for them. The librarian then collects the selected books from the shelves, packages them together, puts them into named bags and takes a government car to deliver them. With Covid, library staff no longer enter the homes to interact with the residents. They used to have a volunteer who spent all day reading and talking with them, which sounds nice.

Since we had 2 people on the job, we had time to cruise around town a bit. Danni showed me all of the tourist hot-spots, and offered some local knowledge about different buildings and locations. When we returned, I had an hour to work on the Literacy Kits.

After lunch, I was stationed on Returns by myself, as another staff member had gone home. This gave me a good opportunity to practice using the library’s system.

Then, we dressed Terasa up as a fairy and drove out to Melaleuca Park Primary School to appear as guests at their assembly. We were there to promote the Summer Reading Challenge, where children can read over summer to win prizes. It was really interesting to visit one of the primary schools and have a quick look at their library.

To finish off the day, I helped out with Lego Club.

November 14

Work Placement Day 5

Thursday 12th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:30 5:00
Baby Bounce Baby Bounce Front Counter LUNCH Returns Literacy Kits Lego Club

Today was another very interesting day! I managed to get myself out of bed at 6:30 am to go for a run around the Blue Lake. It was a little cold but the lake is beautiful!

My library shift began with one of the children’s programs, Baby Bounce. Children aged 6 months to 2 years sit in a circle with their parent who guides them through actions and singing to a preset playlist. I wasn’t sure how I would go with this but it was amazing how much the babies smiled and made noises. They were clearly enjoying the session!

Either side of lunch I worked at the front desk and in returns. I even did some re-shelving this time. This is the bread and butter of the library so I really enjoyed both of these shifts.

I had some time to start working on the project brief for the new and renewed Literacy Kits before Lego Club at 4:00pm. Only three kids turned up, which was unusual. It was interesting to observe how this children’s program runs, how it sits alongside school-based Lego programs, and how they intend to expand the program next year.

November 14

Work Placement Day 4

Wednesday 11th November 2020

8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:30 5:00
Returns IT Lesson IT Lesson LUNCH Front Counter Literacy Kits Hub Meeting at Melaleuca PS

Today I started on Returns. This station involves answering the phone, processing returns and managing the books sent out to other libraries via Australia Post and homes via the libraries home delivery service. I enjoyed how similar it was to processing and re-shelving returns back at school – I picked up the process fairly quickly.

Next up, I observed a session for elderly people learning how to use an iPad. For some reason I found it very satisfying to see how excited the learners were when each next feature was introduced. One of the group members stayed behind for a long chat and he was really nice. I liked his loud laugh. I wonder if he doesn’t have many people to talk to at home, so he stays behind to feel social. The library provides that space for him, which is cool.

After lunch I spent some more time at the front desk. I even served a few clients who came to me for help with scanning documents and processing overdue books. I enjoy helping people and they were all very friendly.

From 2:00pm onwards, I worked with Kelly. To hit two of my professional goals, she thought I could assist by revamping the Literacy Kits ready to put out on display in the children’s area. I’ll be working on this project throughout the rest of the placement.

Finally, Kelly drove me to Melaleuca Primary School where a quarterly meeting is held at The Hub, a community space where agencies come together to provide services to nearby residents. It was interesting to hear what programs and services were being planned for next year, and having a quick look at one of the primary schools in town. The library attends the meeting to advertise their relevant programs and try to promote the library to those in lower socio-economic areas.

September 18

A Balanced Collection

Browse your school or local library. Does the library have a balanced collection? Does it include the full range of resource formats and delivery modes identified above?

My school library collection is heavy in some areas and light on in others. At least for the needs of my primary school community, I think the collection is quite strong, although there are some gaps that I’d like to fill over the next couple of years.

Browsing the collection has certainly helped me to find some of those gaps!

Multiple formats and delivery modes Our school has a reasonable range of print resources, although we don’t store any large posters, infographs, ephemera or maps within the library itself. Big books are stored in the junior primary building. We have access to a wide variety of eBooks through the Scholastic Literacy Pro program, but we don’t have any subscriptions to popular eBook titles as students generally don’t access them and we’re trying to save money on that front. We don’t have DVDs or CDs as these sorts of resources can be found online. I’m not sure about Realia. This might also be stored elsewhere within the school. I’ll have to investigate!
Reading and comprehension levels and social development The Lexile system is used effectively from Year 2 to Year 7. Foundations and Year Ones use readers from Level 1 to Level 30 before accessing the Lexile program. We have an excellent range of books varying from very low to very high reading levels. We also have magazines but no newspapers. So far I haven’t come across any material that is socially inappropriate.
Support for the curriculum Recently I cleared out the NF section because many of the resources were old and tattered. I am now beginning to see gaps that I need to fill, especially when students come in asking for a book on a particular topic. We do have lots of resources for STEM topics, as well as Sustainability, Civics and Citizenship, and Australia.
Leisure resources to challenge and maintain literacy development Again, our leisure-based resources are many. We have six years worth of Guinness Book of Records, magazines, joke books, games, construction and fact books. We don’t have a whole lot of books that are dual language. Our school teaches Japanese, so it would be good to have more resources related to that as well.
Catering for different learning styles I don’t know exactly what we have in terms of Teacher Resources. I am thinking that I should start here when I do stocktaking for the first time at the end of the year. I know that the STEM teacher has lots of kinaesthetic learning resources stored in the library. We don’t have any audiobooks, as far as I know.

 

August 12

My Professional Goals

My professional placement goals:

  1. Explore and contribute to children’s literacy development in a public library.
  2. Build an understanding of the range of programs and events for children available at a public library.
  3. Evaluate how resources are displayed and marketed in a public library compared to my school library.
  4. Explore how the public library utilises its virtual platforms to connect with its users.
May 24

ETL401 Assessment Item 3: Part C – Reflective Practice

Provide a critical reflection of how your understanding of Information Literacy (IL), IL models and the TL role in inquiry learning has expanded through this subject.

At the end of Week 2, I completed my first reflective blog post for ETL401, talking about the role of a Teacher Librarian (TL) based on my teaching experiences. In the final paragraph, I mentioned that beyond the two main facets I had spoken about in depth, TL’s manage the physical library space, teach students to be library, ICT and information literate, manage Book Week celebrations and/or events and keep themselves and other staff up-to-date with the publishing industry, technology, current teaching pedagogies and the curriculum. So, even at this early stage of the subject I knew that teaching information literacy (IL) was part of the TL’s role, but I didn’t know a great deal about IL as a concept.

To unpack IL as a concept, I first drew upon my knowledge of information from module two. Although there is no widely accepted definition of information (Case, 2006, p. 61), I demonstrated my understanding in Forum 2.1 (Thinking About Information) that there are different types of knowledge and information, and that the four properties of information – inconsumable, untransferable, indivisible and accumulative – have a profound effect on how we learn and communicate. I also discussed the data-knowledge continuum, which I can now see has influenced the structure of IL models.

Next, following the course material in module five, I began to consider the nature of the term literacy. I attempted to come up with a simple definition in my blog post, Definitions of Literacy, to capture the traditional skills – reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and understanding – as well as the situation and application of those skills. However, UNESCO (2006, p. 148) highlighted another two ways of seeing literacy: as a learning process and as text. As such, I don’t know if my definition does justice, especially when you consider, in addition, Functions of Meaning or multiliteracies (Kalantzis & Cope, 2015). Clearly, the concept of literacy is just as complex as information, so when you put the two together, the complexity increases twofold!

There are many definitions of IL (CILIP Information Literacy Group, n.d.). As the information landscape changes, so to will the definitions change (Fitzgerald, 2015, p. 17) since the concept is tied to its context. In one blog post, I highlighted one of my favourite quotes taken from the course material, and thought about it in relation to my fourth-year university practicum. It clarified the important shift from IL as a set of skills and behaviours, to sociocultural construction of information and meaning, and whole body engagement with a range of modes. It also helped me to understand the importance of authentic learning experiences.

By engaging with this modality of information, novices learn to act as practitioners, but they cannot become practitioners because they are removed from the reflexive and reflective embodied experiences and tensions arising from practice.”

– Lloyd, 2007

As I moved through the fifth module, I couldn’t think of a time when I had actually used inquiry learning. Most of my teaching experience is as a TRT, so, of course, inquiry learning is not an option. Then I remembered using Primary Connections during my very first year, which I spoke about in Forum 5.3a (Information Literacy Model). The program, developed by the Australian Academy of Science, uses the 5Es – engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate (Australian Academy of Science, 2019). Though this is not an IL model itself, the elements of an IL model, such as the Information Search Process, Big6, or I-LEARN could be easily integrated with it.

So, how has my understanding of the TL’s role developed through the subject? Here, I’d like to refer back to my original statement on the role of a TL. I said that one aspect of the role was to teach students to be library, ICT and information literate. This is true, of course, but if I rewrote my statement, I would expand on this element of the role, and include more about collaboration.

Without IL, the Teacher Librarian is just a Librarian! IL and inquiry learning is where the TL and classroom teacher come together as the ultimate partnership. The classroom teacher brings content knowledge and the TL brings knowledge of IL, ICT, Creative and Critical Thinking, and Literacy capabilities together to create authentic learning experiences and develop 21st-century skills. For this to happen, effective collaboration is critical. In one blog post, I considered Gibson-Langford’s guiding principles for building collaborative relationships (2008, p. 34). I have bookmarked these for the future.

References

Australian Academy of Science. (2019). 5Es teaching and learning model. Retrieved from https://primaryconnections.org.au/node/262

Case, D.O. (2006). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs and behaviour (2nd ed.). Burlingham: Emerald Publishing Limited

CILIP Information Literacy Group. (n.d.). Definitions & models – information literacy website. Retrieved from https://infolit.org.uk/definitions-models/

Fitzgerald, L. (2015). Guided inquiry in practice. Scan, 34(4), 16-27. Retrieved from https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan

Gibson-Langford, L. (2008). Collaboration: Force or forced, part 2. Scan, 27(1), 31-37. Retrieved from https://search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/fullText;dn=166077;res=AEIPT

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2015). Multiliteracies: Expanding the scope of literacy pedagogy. New Learning. Retrieved from http://newlearningonline.com/multiliteracies

Lloyd, A. (2007). Recasting information literacy as sociocultural practice: Implications for library and information science researchers. Information Research, 12(4).

UNESCO. (2006). Education for all: Literacy for life. EFA global monitoring report, 2006. Paris, France: UNESCO Publishing

May 4

An Extension of the Traditional Literacy Definition

Do new formats and delivery modes or multi-modal resources require users to have different literacy skills to make meaning or is this just an extension of the traditional literacy definition?

I think that the traditional elements of literacy – reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, understanding – encompass the skills required to make meaning of multi-modal resources. For example, students watching a video use viewing, reading and listening skills to make meaning from the video.

So, this is just an extension of the traditional literacy definition. I guess it might come to down to the students ability to transfer their literacy skills into new and different contexts, which are specified by different labels, for example, ‘information literacy’ or ‘music literacy’.