- Follett has caught on that we're all genrefying our collections and is in the process of creating a support system to provide help with cataloging, icons for book spines and signage, signage, etc. They are currently conducting a national survey of school librarians (you may have received their link) and look for more to come soon.
- Follett also has a $200K Challenge that very few school librarians apply for. They are seeking librarians to share stories of how their school library impacts their school positively, and there is serious money up for grabs. Read about this here.
- They also shared a new product called Light Box, which is a sort of extreme e-book with embedded links, videos, etc. It was fairly impressive and a good value at $40 for a school subscription for multiple users: http://school.follett.com/lightbox
- They are redesigning the interface for their Destiny circulation software. They plan to integrate with Overdrive, Mackin and to provide lessons related to content. They plan to launch this over the summer of 2016.
- They discussed parent access to their children's library records--causing some unhappy murmurs at my table--this is something to watch forl
- They also are now collecting data from Destiny checkouts across the US each month and publishing a list of the top 10 (and top 50) books checked out by students each month. I checked it out and cannot say it differed wildly from the top 10 books checked out in my school.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Follett update
Follett sponsored a lunch for school librarians at the AASL conference and provided an interesting update on their world. Since the majority of school libraries (including mine) use Follett, it seems worth sharing what they're up to, including:
Guided inquiry and collaboration—four takes in one day
My great
serendipity on Saturday was selecting three sessions that linked in interesting
ways to get me thinking hard about how to collaborate better with teachers and
introduce more elements of guided inquiry into my practice.
I started
the day with David Loertscher, who shaped my initial ideas about the
possibilities of a school library and continues to do so. His most recent research, conducted with a
professor at the Uof Toronto, demonstrates an astonishing increase in student
learning when teachers and librarians collaborate and co-teach. Carol Gordon presented in the afternoon, and
confirmed Loertscher’s by showing some exciting work going on when a librarian
working in collaboration with a teacher in New Jersey got exponentially better
results than she’d had the year before when she taught research projects alone
in a weekly fixed schedule.
Loertscher
and Gordon both explained that after FIFTY years, it was clear that fixed
schedule elementary programs were unlikely to go away. So they are now looking at a “fixed and”
model as Loertscher put it. They both
had an interesting take on how to solve the problem.
Loertscher
recommended employing robust MakerSpaces during fixed sessions with
classes. He showed examples of both
traditional MakerSpaces stocked with legos, MakeyMakey, little bits, etc. and
(I LOVED THIS) virtual MakerSpaces with links to tools such as Google Draw that
allowed kids to create in an open-ended environment. Once this is set up and kids are taught to
come in and engage and work independently with these models, a second class
could be using the library for research AND THE LIBRARIAN HAS FREED UP TIME TO
CO-TEACH! Interesting idea with some
caveats around management—but definitely worth thinking about. Notes are here.
Gordon’s approach
(which she’s just done beautifully with a teacher and librarian and has a great
project to show) involves taking a teacher-library team and having them work in
an asynchronous fashion on a joint project using a tool such as Edmoto (and
Google docs/folders would work) to share materials and information about
progress on projects. Gordon’s idea is
that the librarian basically works to coach the teacher on the research process
and helps with materials selection. The
teacher then works to roll out research between library visits, and when
students go for weekly “library time” they do more research with the
librarian. The teacher also helps the
librarian gain knowledge of content and content-directed questions. Using Edmoto and a clear and flexible
calendar, her team seamlessly collaborated and discussed student work, looked
to roll out new learning with responsibility assigned to teacher or librarian
(depending on who was where when) and the result was a beautiful project on the
Civil War done with a true guided imagery approach. My notes are here.
To round
things out, Laura D’Elia, Jenny Lussier, and Melissa Stewart all provided
insight into aspects of adding more guided inquiry elements into teaching,
including:
·
Preparing
very young students for research with I wonder moments, ability to do
exploration with realia and books, and open-ended discussions—Jenny does this
very well
·
Looking
carefully at wordless books and books with minimal text to get students to
notice details and examine visual images carefully (Melissa Stewart has great
practical suggestions—my notes are here)
·
Setting
up a standardized guided inquiry online toolbox for students with the research
steps carefully identified and explained and links to places where students can
save work for each step of the process.
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