Mary Haddon’s Life of Li(brary)

Thursday, 1st General session Alan November.  MySpace, Wikis, YouTube, etc.  The things educators are most afraid to use in schools, but these are the things kids want to use, and do use, so why aren’t educators embracing them?  He gave the analogy that made clear what we are doing:  say at the invention of paper that a student wrote something bad, inappropriate on it.  Because paper can lead to this type of behavior paper is now banned or blocked. Use the things kids want to use, but fill it with “our” content.  Teach responsibility.  Embrace these mediums as a means for students to publish their work either through text, audio, or video.

After thinking about all this, I would like to get either a class or a group of students to make a wikipedia entry on something local or to add to an entry of something they are interested in. 

Thursday, 2nd General Session Jim Trelease.  I had to leave his session a bit early to facilitate another.  What I took from this is that we have to think of simple, but new ways to constantly reach out to our patrons and students in regards to literacy.  He showed statistics and gave reasons why the U.S. is falling behind in literacy.  Interesting side note he shared: Finland children who are not taught to read formally until age 7 and live in the highest ranked country in terms of a literate population, watches just as much TV as we do–not all educational either.  Why are they so literate?  Because Finland children watch American shows with the closed captioning turned on.  So, over the weekend I turned the closed captioning on when my little one was watching her shows on Noggin. .

We as school librarians are getting the shaft.  Why? A publication by the National Reading Panel barely mentions libraries or librarians, or reading aloud when countless studies have shown that those factors positively affect student achievement.  We have to advocate, be proactive, because the support of the government on libraries and librarians is minimal to none.  So, Strive for 25!  

Facilitator for Dr. Naidoo’s  session“Celebracion Cultura de Latino: Resources and Materials for Non-Spanish Speaking Librarians Serving Latino Children.”Lots and lots of great resources and book lists to meet the needs of this growing population in South Carolina schools.  Also learned strategies to use when picking “better” picture books/novels that celebrate the Latino cultures.   He emphasized the “Latino” student doesn’t always have the dark eyes and skin.  Some may be light skinned and blue eyed.  Also, librarians need to watch out for stereotypes placed on characters in stories; an example he showed was one where the girl, pretending to be a boy, was wearing a sombrero and riding a donkey.  Again, celebrate their cultures whether they are from Mexico, Argentina, etc because the Latino label often lumps then in one group when in fact each culture is different. 

Friday, my session with Valerie Byrd Fort:  Blogging and Podcasting.  We had a full house!  Very well received and look forward to communicating with attendees through blogging and/or podcasting.  See next post for information and an outline of the session.

 And lastly, my favorite was facilitating for award-winning author, Jacqueline Woodson.  Awesome session where she talked about how/why she became and author.  She read from some of her work, including my favorite Newbery Honor Book, Show Way.  The roots of the story are in South Carolina where she tells of her great-grandmothers show ways that lead slaves to freedom which Ms. Woodson has passed down to her own child through this story.