Thursday, October 19, 2006
Agnes Pflumm Website
Here is the website for the Agnes Pflumm series. You may want to share with your teachers. I will be posting it on the Northside school's website and on my Teacher Technology blog (TechnoTuesday Blog). I had heard Merry Southgate 7 years ago while I was in Aiken. It was a workshop we were invited to at the Ruth Patrict Science Education Center at USC-Aiken. Merry Southgate has also attended and presented at SCASL before, so if you were thinking "I know that name from somewhere..." you probably did. If memory serves me well, Marcy Yates of one of the private prep schools (Mason Prep?) in Charleston helped Merry launch her career as a consultant. But I may be wrong on that tidbit. If you did not get to attend today, there is a second meeting planned that will cater to the artsy side of her presentation. I for one am going to request to be allowed to attend since my school is an Arts Based Curriculum (ABC) school and an identified "Distinguished Arts Program" award recipient. I would love to see that part of the presentation. Dr. Jawarowski is the reason Merry Southgate came today. I hope my principal can garner me this invitation.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
K12 Online Conference
http://k12onlineconference.org/
It's MUST SEE and MUST hear info. What a novel idea! An online conference (virtual in every aspect of the word) where you can actively participate through blogging, podcasting, videos, and wikis, or you can be a passive observer, and just soak up the information. You can even apply for renewal credits.
DavidWarlick's opening Keynote address was yesterday, and last evening he participated in a Firelight Chat (using Elluminate) that was incredible. It was called a "firelight" chat because we would all be illuminated by the glow from our computer screens!! This goes on for two more weeks, and is chocked full of experts and more, all sharing about Web 2.0 in education. And BEST, I was afraid it would cater to the experts and expereinced, but no, it is for even the most uncomfortable beginners. Might want to check it out.
Technorati Tag: K12onlineconference
It's MUST SEE and MUST hear info. What a novel idea! An online conference (virtual in every aspect of the word) where you can actively participate through blogging, podcasting, videos, and wikis, or you can be a passive observer, and just soak up the information. You can even apply for renewal credits.
DavidWarlick's opening Keynote address was yesterday, and last evening he participated in a Firelight Chat (using Elluminate) that was incredible. It was called a "firelight" chat because we would all be illuminated by the glow from our computer screens!! This goes on for two more weeks, and is chocked full of experts and more, all sharing about Web 2.0 in education. And BEST, I was afraid it would cater to the experts and expereinced, but no, it is for even the most uncomfortable beginners. Might want to check it out.
Technorati Tag: K12onlineconference
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
RSS explained
Chris Harris' blog "Infomancy" has a really good explaination of RSS and RSS feeds. You can read it by clicking here.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Are you fuzzy on Bloglines?
David Warlick's preconference workshop and one of his sessions went over setting up yourself a Bloglines account. He has extensive handouts on his site. Here is a link to the one that helps you set yourself up for tracking the blogs you are interested in reading about, but may not have time to "visit" everyday. Bloglines will "notify" you when new material is posted. Visit his site for everyhing he talked about in Myrtle Beach.
Technorati scedtech2006
Technorati scedtech2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
News from Library Supervisors Roundtable
Yesterday I attended the LMS Leadership Roundtable and want to pass along the information.
Position shortages
The shortages of certified LMS have led to many districts filling positions with candidates going through the PACE program. PACE hire-ees (my word & I like it) no longer have to have a Masters in Library Science and the course requirement has been lowered to 24 hours (with only 9 required from USC Lib School). PACE is easier on the districts/candidates that can not afford the internship since there is no internship required nor the PRAXIS. Much discussion was held and the Roundtable as well as all LMS need to hold conversations with anyone who can create any/all of the following changes.
A. The state department - the requirements for the PACE program need to be more in line with the background and training that the job necessitates
B. The USC School of Lib. Science - this program needs to be much more flexible with indistrict internships and inschool mentoring internships
C. The state department - the office of Teacher Certification needs to recognize the growing shortage of LMS and look at accepting/promoting a Bachelor of Science degree with emphasis of Library Science
Library Supervisors Roundtable (SCASA)
Apparently SCASA recently said that there is no such entity. This roundtable was formed initially for communication and credibility. The group will continue to meet and a committee was formed to petition SCASA to recognize this group as a subgroup of SCASA.
External Review (Someone please edit this for clarification - my notes are fuzzy here - ER of what?? SACS?? NCLB??)
For the 2007-2008 year only the first 3 of the 8 target indicators will remain, but no benchmark standards will be included. The 3 indicators cover collaboration, size & age of collection, and flexible scheduling. A future concern is that the size & age target indicator will be omitted because it does not tie to legislation and is not funded. M. Alewine felt that we are fortunate to have the 3 indicators remain included and not to have lost all indicators in the wave so has not made much noise on this. Remember the whole point of ERT is to look at ways to improve student achievement.
Funding
School libraries are back in the 07-08 General Assembly budget request. The one million dollar request is not a line item, but a special allocation. It was noted that this amount will not go far statewide, but the funding was last approved in 1999.
The $25/student funding (= 1book/student) is still in discussion in the Education Oversight Committee. This money, if approved, will be specifically for print resources and not technology.
Data Collection
This will be the buzz topic for school administrators next year, especially tying data to test scores. LMS are encouraged to use MAPS scores to determine the impact their programs have/can have on student achievement.
SCASL Conference
Both the March 2007 and 2008 SCASL Conferences will be held in Columbia. The group signed a 2 year contract with the convention center.
School Advisory Committees
As more and more books are challenged, you are encouraged to develop a School Advisory Committee to work with you on collection choices.
SPATIAL - New Student Association
Apparently there used to be a student association (again help me out here someone - it sounded like schlossa??) that was parallel to FBLA or HOSA. There is interest in SCASL helping to develop SPATIAL that focuses on Information Science. The group would include student assistants and anyone interested in the field itself. A service component would be a major focus in the program. SPATIAL - Student Professional Association of Technology Information And Library Sciences
Martha Alewine's Blog
You may want to add Martha's blog to your list. www.scschoollibraries.blogspot.com
Speaking of Blogs
Remember, instead of going to each one of the blogs you like in order to check to see if anything new has been posted, have Bloglines do this for you! Bloglines will keep up with what you've viewed on ALL of the blogs you subscribe to and give you all of the updates to all of the blogs in one place. Then you just check one place ( http://www.bloglines.com/ ) to get the new stuff. If you are really sweet, maybe Cathy Nelson will share her blogroll with you - that will give you a bunch of Media Center blogs and Ed Tech blogs and you can add your favorites to them and delete the ones you don't want.
The Library Supervisors Roundtable will meet again in January.
Position shortages
The shortages of certified LMS have led to many districts filling positions with candidates going through the PACE program. PACE hire-ees (my word & I like it) no longer have to have a Masters in Library Science and the course requirement has been lowered to 24 hours (with only 9 required from USC Lib School). PACE is easier on the districts/candidates that can not afford the internship since there is no internship required nor the PRAXIS. Much discussion was held and the Roundtable as well as all LMS need to hold conversations with anyone who can create any/all of the following changes.
A. The state department - the requirements for the PACE program need to be more in line with the background and training that the job necessitates
B. The USC School of Lib. Science - this program needs to be much more flexible with indistrict internships and inschool mentoring internships
C. The state department - the office of Teacher Certification needs to recognize the growing shortage of LMS and look at accepting/promoting a Bachelor of Science degree with emphasis of Library Science
Library Supervisors Roundtable (SCASA)
Apparently SCASA recently said that there is no such entity. This roundtable was formed initially for communication and credibility. The group will continue to meet and a committee was formed to petition SCASA to recognize this group as a subgroup of SCASA.
External Review (Someone please edit this for clarification - my notes are fuzzy here - ER of what?? SACS?? NCLB??)
For the 2007-2008 year only the first 3 of the 8 target indicators will remain, but no benchmark standards will be included. The 3 indicators cover collaboration, size & age of collection, and flexible scheduling. A future concern is that the size & age target indicator will be omitted because it does not tie to legislation and is not funded. M. Alewine felt that we are fortunate to have the 3 indicators remain included and not to have lost all indicators in the wave so has not made much noise on this. Remember the whole point of ERT is to look at ways to improve student achievement.
Funding
School libraries are back in the 07-08 General Assembly budget request. The one million dollar request is not a line item, but a special allocation. It was noted that this amount will not go far statewide, but the funding was last approved in 1999.
The $25/student funding (= 1book/student) is still in discussion in the Education Oversight Committee. This money, if approved, will be specifically for print resources and not technology.
Data Collection
This will be the buzz topic for school administrators next year, especially tying data to test scores. LMS are encouraged to use MAPS scores to determine the impact their programs have/can have on student achievement.
SCASL Conference
Both the March 2007 and 2008 SCASL Conferences will be held in Columbia. The group signed a 2 year contract with the convention center.
School Advisory Committees
As more and more books are challenged, you are encouraged to develop a School Advisory Committee to work with you on collection choices.
SPATIAL - New Student Association
Apparently there used to be a student association (again help me out here someone - it sounded like schlossa??) that was parallel to FBLA or HOSA. There is interest in SCASL helping to develop SPATIAL that focuses on Information Science. The group would include student assistants and anyone interested in the field itself. A service component would be a major focus in the program. SPATIAL - Student Professional Association of Technology Information And Library Sciences
Martha Alewine's Blog
You may want to add Martha's blog to your list. www.scschoollibraries.blogspot.com
Speaking of Blogs
Remember, instead of going to each one of the blogs you like in order to check to see if anything new has been posted, have Bloglines do this for you! Bloglines will keep up with what you've viewed on ALL of the blogs you subscribe to and give you all of the updates to all of the blogs in one place. Then you just check one place ( http://www.bloglines.com/ ) to get the new stuff. If you are really sweet, maybe Cathy Nelson will share her blogroll with you - that will give you a bunch of Media Center blogs and Ed Tech blogs and you can add your favorites to them and delete the ones you don't want.
The Library Supervisors Roundtable will meet again in January.
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