Is “All the World a Stage?”

As I see many of you at AISL this week, you may notice two things about me. First, I take a lot of notes. I’m someone for whom the process of learning is greatly assisted by the practice of writing things down, even if I never return to the specific notes again. Though AISL conferences are so full of information that is relevant to me, I keep my AISL notebook in the drawer to the immediate left of my chair. So even if a presenter says the entire presentation will be online, I’ll probably still have my pencil in hand. Second, I’m generally pretty quiet in group situations. Like many introverts I’m listening and I may seek you out to continue a conversation on the bus but I would literally hide behind a pole rather than belly dance in an airport. (Just a little reminder of what a multi-talented group we librarians are.)

So it came as a surprise to me this spring when my advisees, who know me pretty well as far as students go, asked why I hadn’t yet given a chapel speech.

Me-“Guys, I hate speaking in public. There’s no way…”
First student-“What are you talking about? You love it. Pause. Right?”
Second student-“Right! You talk like all the time.”
Me-“What?”
First student-“Yeah in our classes. You talk a lot.”
(Cue sad face for student-centered classroom failure…)

And so that brings me to my main thought of today, particularly for those of you with flexible scheduling who depend on teachers to invite you into their classes for co-taught units. Many people harbor a stereotype of a silent librarian, but are we all, secretly, theatre people? At least in one way, my answer is assuredly yes. I follow improv’s “rule of yes” whenever I can. With both students and teachers, I think it’s important to think about why you’re saying no.

 “Oh, interesting that you can’t write 1750 words on Nazi propaganda because there’s not enough out there? NO, here’s a 257 page book entirely on your topic.”

But for many questions, consciously thinking about learning goals rather than tradition might move a no to a yes or at least a let’s think about how this could work.

 “I know it’s not really history, but I don’t understand Brexit, and I want to know if it’s really about refugees. Can I research it?” YES.

“I know you want us to have a website, but I found this really interesting podcast and it’s led by doctors. Can I use it? YES.

“I have to read a fantasy book and this one takes place in the real world except that ghosts are real. My friend recommended it, and I want to know if it can count for the assignment.” YES.

“I want to include an appendix with a picture of “Guernica” so my readers can see it for themselves.” WHY NOT?

Formal research is a tough process for our kids in today’s “infobese” culture. This is especially true for perfectionists who want to get everything right the first time. Keeping foremost the learning goals for an assignment, why not challenge yourself to say yes when there isn’t a contradicting reason to say no? As my mom says…

Along with this idea, when I’m collaborating I try to focus on the things within my control. This includes my interactions with my school community and my management of my library. For many of us, we can’t control our colleagues, their assignments, the work ethic of the students, or delays due to weather, illness or alternate schedules that pop up out of nowhere. I attend classes at the invitation of the teacher. They know their class dynamics and they are the ones creating and grading assignments. Since I ultimately want to provide support to the teacher, I try to think carefully before “correcting” a teacher, particularly in front of students. Not every project is going to meet both my research goals and the classroom teacher’s subject-specific goals. That said, it’s often possible to start tweaking a project to improve it for next year even as you’re assisting with the current version. I’ve found a variety of ideas can help as I try to link these projects to the learning goals I’d like the students to attain. Take the long view and suggest some “adaptations” for next time. Or ask if a project can be used to help you “test a database’s effectiveness.” Offer to grade the annotated bibliographies you fought so hard to include. I’ve found this comes easier the longer one’s tenure at a school. So breathe easy, continually do your best in promoting your library’s resources and leave your feedback below.

 

Library Listservs 101 (The Basics)

Question Mark Icon

Question mark icon. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016. Accessed 16 Dec 2016.

I’ll keep this short, as (at least here in Fort Worth) Winter Break is about to begin. Thank you to David Wee (links to help with media literacy and fake news) and Courtney Walker (being proactive in a “post truth” world) and others who blogged on fake news, media literacy and how librarians can help educate. I’ve shelved my draft on those topics, and moved on to….

The Value of Listservs

Listservs are ongoing electronic conversations around a common interest. Listserv subscribers pose questions, share links and comment on items of interest. The professional listservs I am aware of actively discourage (or specifically prohibit) advertising, blatant self-promotion, off topic comments, politically charged comments, flaming and the like. There is always wiggle room, as what feels like self-promotion to one reader may feel like a sincere wish to share helpful information by another. Professionally-f0cused listservs usually have moderators who step in to redirect or curtail discussion threads if needed. (A special thank you to St. Stephen’s Episcopal School (FL)  librarian Christina Pommer, moderator for AISL.)

Listserves are a great way to access and share information and keep an ear to the ground in any profession. Depending on the list, and your temperament, you can lurk, share occasionally, or share often.

Tips for Listserv Newbies

  • Use a full signature block. Name, school name and contact information at minimum.
  • Check the protocol for responding. (Reply all? Just to sender?) A simple “Me too!”can go to an individual. Other responses might benefit the whole list. LM_Net, with 11,000 members, has a specific protocol that discourages responding to the full list, to cut down on email traffic.
  • Some listservs require membership in an organization.
  • Consider checking the listserv archives for general questions (pros and cons of genrefication, for example) before opening a discussion.
  • Remember that listservs may turn up in Google searches and elsewhere. Vent carefully, if at all.

Four Listservs to Consider (and Links to More)

AISL – Open only to AISL members, with topics of interest to independent school librarians. If you read the Independent Ideas blog, you may already be subscribed.
LM_Net – Probably the largest school library network, with 11,000 members worldwide. Subscription, Etiquette and Archives all easy to find from home page.
aaslforum – The American Library Association has a number of listservs open to ALA members. Sign in with your ALA credentials at . The aaslforum list targets school librarians/libraries.
iasl – International Association of School Librarianship members only. School librarianship with an international focus.

For more listserv ideas, check out the Library of Congress Library and Information Sciences Online Resources webguide (Listservs are listed about half-way down.)

Parent communication

Starting my third year at this school, I feel that I have progressively gotten better at keeping parents informed about library events, special projects, checkout procedures, overdue books, and everything else library-related that they would be curious to know. This year, I subscribed to Smore (which I used heavily at my previous middle school but not so much my first two years here), and I plan to use it for everything!

I got back into using this online newsletter tool last year when I created my So you’ve read Harry Potter – what’s next? list. I shared it on my blog and Twitter, but I didn’t email it directly to anyone.

At the beginning of this school year, I knew that I wanted my first newsletter to families to be chock-full of information, yes, but also visually appealing and easy to navigate. I love how simple it is to do this using Smore.

newsletter

Rather than embedding the newsletter into my blog, I instead emailed the flyer to all of our Lower School families directly from Smore. The advantage to doing it this way is that I could see who opened the email, who clicked on the newsletter, and how long they spent viewing it. When I see that the newsletter has been delivered to 211 email addresses with only 119 of them actually opening it, I can better manage my expectations of how much families really know about the library. I also know that some families have multiple addresses listed, so if one parent has seen it, that’s enough.

We just finished our book fair last week, so I created the following Smore in about 15 minutes to send out to families thanking them for their support. You can see how versatile it is!

thank-you-smore

While I plan on using Smore heavily for parent communications, I know that I need to diversify my avenues of parent contact. Just standing outside at dismissal time (chaotic as it is!) is a good way to strike up conversations with parents. If they see me, they also might remember something they wanted to share with or ask me.

What ways do you find are most successful in communicating with parents and families? I’m always looking for new ideas!

Creating Presentations That Resonate

A Closeup of Handblown Glass. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 19 May 2016.

A Closeup of Handblown Glass. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 19 May 2016.

Are you zombified by student PowerPoint presentations and a bit dizzy after viewing spinning Prezis? This year I have been rethinking the librarian’s role as literacy expert.  Whether you use the term media literacy, digital literacy, data literacy, or New Literacies—all of these concepts have in common an emerging need:  librarians guiding students to grapple with meaning, communicate their insights in multi-modal formats, and, potentially, share and publish their work digitally.

This article suggests books and online resources to more effectively plan and animate presentations, thereby creating messages that will resonate with your audiences.

Nancy Duarte is a persuasive presentation expert who maps the structure of effective communicators (see her TED talk comparing the structure of great speeches by Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King). Duarte presents her strategies in two books Slide:ology and
Resonate.

Duarte, Nancy. Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. http://www.duarte.com/book/slideology/.

Duarte, Nancy. Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. http://www.duarte.com/book/slideology/.

In Slide:ology, Duarte estimates that an effective  presentation requires 36 or more hours to research; evaluate audience; brainstorm ideas; organize; solicit feedback; storyboard; build slides; and rehearse.  Tips include brain-storming with sticky notes and by sketching diagrams; highlighting data; designing with color and selective choice of text; and crafting a story flow through animations and slide transitions. Though 36 hours may seem unrealistic with demanding class  schedules, sharing tips will aid students in message making.

 

I was able to demonstrate some of these techniques in a serendipitous teaching opportunity; a freshman physics teacher asked me to advise students on incorporating their science experiment data into slides. I rented a Kindle version of Slide:ology and projected on a large screen examples of data graphs and charts, inviting freshmen to evaluate ineffective/effective design and to keep in mind Duarte’s mantra: “Data slides are not really about the data. They are about the meaning of data” (64).  Visually highlighting or emphasizing a part of the data can show an emerging trend or complication–a moment when data results challenge assumptions and cause a rethinking for the student scientists. As students discuss the highlighted data, they begin to show the audience the meaning behind the data.

Duarte, Nancy. Resonate. http://www.duarte.com/book/resonate-legacy/.

Duarte, Nancy. Resonate. http://www.duarte.com/book/resonate-legacy/.

In Resonate, Duarte  explores the power of stories to connect with audiences and to deepen under-standing.  I adapted a suggestion from the book, “amplify the signal, minimize the noise,” to aid freshmen in reading and assessing a quote by Adolph Hitler on the power of persuasive media messages (170).  In the slide example below, the quote was first read and then a series of animated graphics appeared in an equation format to distill meaning of Hitler’s message:

(All images from Britannica Image Quest.)

(All images from Britannica Image Quest.)

If you desire to share an example of how we perceive images based on entry into a slide (scene), show this movie clip from Hitchcock’s thriller, Strangers on a Train. Notice which direction the “good” character enters the scene versus the “bad” character’s entrance.  Since Westerners’ eyes are use to a left to right movement, entries from the right are viewed as disconcerting.  Students can consider this as they animate visuals or text appearances on their slides (left to right and top to bottom are more familiar ways of reading messages).

Hitchcock, Alfred. Strangers on a Train. 1951. Photography. Encyclopedia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 19 May 2016.

Hitchcock, Alfred. Strangers on a Train. 1951. Photography. Encyclopedia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 19 May 2016.

Explore more ideas on storytelling and making meaning from data in this archived webinar, “Storytelling with Infographics,” presented by Debbie Abilock and Connie Williams.  Abilock and Williams will also be presenters in an upcoming conference:
Virtual Conference on Data Literacy: Creating Data Literate Students hosted by the University of Michigan School of Information and University Library (see website for free registration to this virtual conference).

And for something totally different, listen to NPR’s interview with artist/rocker David Byrne as his explains his use of PowerPoint as Art.  Wising you a summer filled with stimulating reading and rethinking the tools we use to communicate meaning.