the big house library

the big house library was proud to be a satellite location for this live streaming learning event. :)

the big house had a total of 17 district-librarians, teacher-librarians, and library support staff from all over the north bay area. :)

there were a total of 200 participants -- individuals logging in from home and groups signing in from satellites like ours -- from all over the state and from across the country! :)

some participants just watched, listened, and learned, while others texted and tweeted with attendees from all over the state. it was totally interactive and incredibly fun! :)  
 

there were a lot of really great quotes to ponder and so many awesome new links to explore!

@aprilgeltch said: "i will grow step by step, not all at once"

@glenwarren said: "i wish we could bottle this and put it in every supermarket!"

the famous and fabulous professor of librarianship dr. david loertscher asked the million dollar question: does web 2.0 impact student achievement? i'd sure like to think so! and when i find some research to support that claim, i'll post it here.

dr. loertscher also asked if 2.0 tools impact earning potential. well, to me, it's obvious that they do! when was the last time your employer asked you to prepare a poster board about a project you were working on? why is it then that we're still assigning them to our students? when was the last time your employer told you that you couldn't use a computer all day at work? why is it then that we expect our students to power down at school when we never do?

what we are required to teach our students does not align to what they need to know how to be able to do to succeed in today's workplace. state school library standards will help, no doubt. but we've got to begin now teaching teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, and of course our students about all this stuff. they just don't know what they don't know; and that's where we come in! :)

i learned so much in this webinar, probably most importantly that i am not alone in my desire to do libraries differently than they've always been done before. we're marching in the right direction. keep heart! the revolution is under way! :)

in response to the "oh-my-gosh-there's-so-much-what-do-i-do-next" feeling that many of us had at the end of the webinar, i would point out dr. valenza's answer to our nagging question: how does she *do* all this???

dr. valenza said: "i stopped making the beds. i don't inventory every year. i don't catalog completely. and i gather all the help i can (students, parents, grandparents). but not doing it is not an option."

i would like to thank the tireless organizers of this event in the southern section of csla:  kathie maier, jane lofton, and my gal pal marie slim! :) i would also like to thank our inspired speaker dr. valenza and our host dr. loertscher. :)

i can't wait for our next webinar! (and, yes, the big house will host!) there will thankfully be one a month from now on. teacher-librarians -- especially ones new to the profession like me and in districts like mine that can no longer afford to have teacher professional development days due to the state budget shortfall -- desperately need school library leaders like dr. valenza and dr. loertscher pushing and prodding us to do more and be better. our kids deserve no less from us.  
  

curious about the details of this webinar? please visit joycevalenzawebinar.wikispaces.com/.

curious about having your own webinar in our library? please contact ms. koval. :)
  

 
I presented this Animoto on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at the Petaluma City Schools District Office to our library-loving Superintendent Greta Vigue and her Advisory Council -- made up of one teacher representative from each school in the district.

Petaluma High School's teacher-librarian, Connie Williams, and I toured the committee members through our library websites and collaborative teacher projects. We talked about the Governor's initiative to move toward electronic textbooks -- something I strongly support and coincidentally just mentioned to my principal Linda Scheele and tech committee chair Tom Kinney today. And we asked about the possibility of unblocking social networking site Facebook in schools -- something I'm not so sure about yet (as you know, I am not a social networker). (The Superintendent said that she is working on a plan for that with Eileen Rohan, Director of Educational Services, and Mike Cole, Director of Business Technology.)

Connie and I offered to lead a professional development session for district teachers about the Big 6 information literacy model and/or a workshop for adult education students and parents a la the Classroom Learning 2.0 program. Though school librarians already do so much, these days there's more than ever to do, and we are happy to do whatever we can.  :)

One of the teacher reps lamented the fact that Petaluma's elementary schools no longer have any credentialed teacher-librarians at all. But we pointed out how lucky Petaluma is to have what we do have:

• 4 secondary school libraries that are open full-time
• 4 credentialed teacher-librarians who work full-time in just 1 school each 
• 2 full-time library assistants, 1 at each high school (I love you, Miss Helen!)  :)
• an inter-library loan program that give students access to materials at 4 schools instead of from just their own
  
• a voter-backed parcel tax that supports school libraries  with a very healthy budget every year from now  until perpetuity (I love you, Measure C!)  :)

Though Petaluma's school libraries are well loved and well supported, who knows what the future holds. Our neighbors to the north in Santa Rosa are basically eliminating their school library programs because of budget cuts (read that story here and read Connie Williams' response to it here).

Hopefully the adoption of State School Library Standards by California's Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell (read that story here) will keep some districts from shutting their school library doors for good. But should it come to that, maybe Petaluma parents will fight for us the way Orange County families protested on behalf of their school libraries and the way Oregon moms got almost militant about saving their school librarians.  :)

Petaluma understands the importance of strong school libraries.  Research shows that strong school libraries have a positive, observable, measurable impact on students' academic achievement (just look at all the data from the California Department of Education and the data from 16 other states!).

Strong school libraries DO make a difference -- especially here in Petaluma.  :)