I am now a Teacher/Llibrarian

At the end of my Masters course, it was with great trepidation that I began looking for and applying for positions in school libraries.  I was very worried that it would take some time before I was offered a job, but somehow the gods were smiling and I landed a very good post as a TL in a good school.
It is also not that far away!!!!

First term was tough as I had to learn so much about the new school, the staff, the students, the administration as well as how all aspects of the library worked.

Now that it is second term and I am able to help students and staff, have started teaching Information Literacy classes and can understand and operate some of the technical devices, I am feeling a little more comfortable about achieving things independently.  One of the things I am vey grateful for is that the library staff are happy to teach me, to allow me to make mistakes, and ask lots of questions.
At the same time, they encourage independence and are open to new ideas.

I can't believe how lucky I am to be in a position where I can put into practice all the skills, knowledge and theories of education I learned on my course.  And now it is all starting to make sense.!!

Last Blog for 2012

This will be my last blog for the year.  2012 has been a good year for completing things.  The first and most important thing to have completed was my Master of Education, Teacher Librarianship, a course I started in July, 2011.  I can’t believe has taken me 18 months to complete.

It was tough at the time, but in retrospect, I learned so much and am happy to say achieved my ultimate goal of a change of career into Teacher Librarianship.  At my recent graduation ceremony at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga campus, I was proud to say that I had secured a new position in my newly chosen field as a TL at Brighton Grammar School.

The challenges await me at this school will be many, but some I anticipate are coping with full-time work in a library, dealing with boys only after working in co-educational settings for over ten years, and all the new information I will need to acquire as I come to understand the workings of a new educational environment.

I have started to read books that I believe young adult boys would be reading, and to understand the new National curriculum and its assessment system.  In my new role as a TL in a senior boys’ school library, I hope that I will use all the knowledge and skills I have acquired over the last eighteen months, as I learn many, many more and keep up to date with new technologies and methodologies in a stimulating educational atmosphere.

Reflection on Finishing Masters in Education (Teacher Librarianship)

It was with great relief that I learned of my final marks and that I had successfully completed the last two subjects in my Master of Education in Teacher Librarianship.

It had been a struggle as I found a number of the subjects introducing me to completely new material and I had to learn new technology skills.  These were a challenge in themselves and writing to a recipe was a further challenge.

Fortunately, I have been able to find a really good library in which to volunteer one day a week in order to help me get some experience in a library. I am learning how to weed rigorously according to the particular needs of the users and to make decisions regarding cataloguing of resources.  I am also being given responsibility to create fiction lists for History subject teachers while learning how the circulation process operates using Amlib.

The librarians are incredibly patient and generous in teaching me how their library operates and allowing me to gain invaluable experience which is mutually beneficial.  I quite enjoy shelving as well.

I am loving being a Teacher Librarian.

What am I going to love about being a Teacher Librarian?

Collaborating with literature, students and teachers.  Designing learning programs and finding appropriate resources with which to teach them.  Discovering new ways for technology to integrate with literature and curriculum.  Witnessing the waysthat technology can be managed as a learning tool and that resources are only as good as the skills of the people who realise them.

What I learned in ETL402

I loved this subject.  It allowed me read and learn and discover new ways of reading and learning, as well as new ways of teaching.  I learned that Teacher Librarians need to be knowledgeable about lots of reading resources, and to be flexible, innovative and  adaptable to new teaching and learning strategies.

I learned how important it is for Teacher Librarians to be up to date with curriculum, and to be aware of the possibilities for collaboration and integration of literature, in all forms, across all subject areas.  It was exciting reading young adult fiction and realising that stories continue to be one of the most powerful mediums for teaching and learning. 

Everyone loves a good story, and if it is well told, able to immerse the reader in the moment, and help them to focus in order to understand, appreciate and derive pleasure from their experience of the story, then it will be remembered and the act of reading will have been productive.

I now know how important it is to read young adult literature and to be able to recommend titles to young readers, to be able to discuss storyline, plot, character, setting and genre with them.

Most of all, I loved reading and writing about something I have always loved--reading.

ETL402

What I learned in Children's Literature in Education ETL 402

I learned that fiction has an essential role in enhancing the curriculum through literary learning. I presented a case for using fiction in Year 7 History in the Australian National Curriculum using supporting evidence from current literary research on the principles of reader-response, cognitive, transactional and developmental literary learning theories.  Incorporating current examples of children’s fiction and teaching strategies, including on-line tools, my paper emphasisesdthe important role of the Teacher Librarian whose knowledge of educational pedagogy and collection development, communicative and collaborative skills, and their understanding of the needs and vision of their school, in creating a reading culture across the whole school community.

Reflection on ETL505 Bibliographic Standards in Education.

What  I learned from studying ETL505, Bibliogrpahic Standards in Education

 

ETL 505, Bibliographic Standards in Education was a really challenging subject. We learned to define bibliographic description and describe its importance in providing access to information.  As information agencies, school libraries need to consider how they can be an effective, integral part of the school’s educational programs.  To enable information literacy, cooperative planning, teaching and involvement in curriculum development, Teacher Librarians need to focus on the easy recovery of resources.  The increasing availability in electronic form of information generally and of new kinds of information particularly created the need for a redefinition and integration of the different categories of "information" organisations (Rayward, 1998, p. 207).  This has prompted a shift towards bibliographic description that emphasises the intellectual content and substance of the work itself (Hider, 2008, p. 303), as well as a more consistent and powerful way to facilitate resource access (Copeland, 2010, p. 14). As school library collections include an increasing variety of resources, an important aspect of the TL’s role is keeping up to date with appropriate and efficient means of meeting users’ needs in retrieving the information held within the print, audiovisual, digital and other sources. Therefore, clear, flexible frameworks, consistent guidelines and internationally accepted standards that enable more independent student search, selection and retrieval of resources will be welcomed by TLs whose time and expertise can be utilised elsewhere.

Cataloguing and assigning Webdewey numbers to resources, then truncating them against SCIS guidelines was a challenging task.  It taught me the value in effective bibliographic organisation, the importance of knowing the resources in your collection, and of the need for make accessibility easy for those who seek the information (Hider, 2008), p. X).