Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You are all a little piece of heaven for us
newbies! I really appreciate all your help and advice. Below are the responses I
got for an introductory letter to teachers at the high school level. I have not
yet put my letter to the teachers together, but I have done some class orientations
this week (several every day in fact), and I used ideas from your emails to great
advantage. I made a one page brochure (front only) about the library -- hours,
procedures, behavior, etc. This I handed out to each student in the orientation.
On the back I printed a basic OPAC lesson that I went over with them using an
Infocus projector connected to a laptop that had our OPAC on it. This worked well
for me. Next week I am going to work on my teacher letter. One thing that I have
started doing is sending confirmation emails to teachers who call to schedule
library time. This is a great help. You have it in writing, and so do they.
Thanks again for everyone's help.
Vicki Nelson
Odessa High School Library
Odessa, Texas
vickinelson@grandecom.net
It was along the lines of Services provided through the Media Center, How I
can help you (collaborative lessons, scheduling labs, checking our AV,
etc.), and How you can help me (give me a copy of your lesson plan ahead of
time, only send 4 students at a time, etc.)
Since I put out a daily library schedule about four years ago I have not had
a problem with unexpected classes.
since I will be there all day this year I will send it out after the school
day is over. This will precipate reservations and I will send out another
one in the morning. Ususually my schedule shows about the next 6 days in
the library, some teachers plan ahead and that forces others to plan ahead
as I can only hold one class at a time.
The thing they are going to have a problem might be remembering when your
conference period occurs and if they can come to the library then.
email by periods of the day.
Period 1 Fishler
Period 2 Hedden
Period 3 Burke
used times during lunch periods.
Last year every period was divided into two parts because we had block
scheduling.
This year it will be mostly one teacher one period.
Bob King
I did a teacher brochure, but you could take it and make it into a
letter. It is in Microsoft Publisher, so I hope you can open it.
Joanne Seale, LMS
Space Coast Jr/Sr HS
Cocoa, FL
books4me@earthlink.net
Thomas Kaun recently posted this letter to teachers that I think is
wonderful. I plan to rework it a bit for my campus.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [INFOLIT:66] New teacher "orientation"
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 12:25:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Thomas Kaun <tomkaun@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-To: infolit@ala.org
To: Information Literacy Discussion List <infolit@ala.org>
Hi, Joyce and other Infolitters ;>),
Both of your messages got through to my email box and as usual you have
some
great insights into the real challenges of IL. Rather than dwelling on the
term, however, we should be dwelling in how we are making connections. I
just
printed up my "new teacher" letter and I think it summarizes what I see my
position as in a high-performing public high school. I've included the
text of
it below.
In my county we are working to develop an IL scope-and-sequence. We have a
collaborative group of LMTs and other library staff. What we are
missing, so
far, are classroom teachers. We absolutley must work with them or we
will never
make progress in this epic struggle.
Tom Kaun
****My new teacher letter follows****
****Feel free to steal without any credit. I'm pretty sure I got the
inspiration for this from Doug Johnson. Thank you, Doug****
Welcome to school. Is it ever nice to see your new, smiling faces! I
hope some
of your eagerness and enthusiasm rubs off on the rest of us who have
been here
awhile.
I am the school library media teacher. Or librarian, if you prefer. I
answer to
both. I recognize that your teacher preparation or experience in other
schools
may not have given you much information about or experience with working
with
me or using our library's resources effectively. There is also a pretty
good
chance that the school library you used during your own school days was
different from our program here.
To help get things off on a positive spin, here are a few things I'd
like you
to know about the library, our program and me that can help us both form a
great partnership...
1. The librarian doesn't own the library. You and your students do. You can
recommend materials and have a voice in library policy making. By the
way, our
library is named for Bessie Chin who was librarian at Redwood from 1968 to
1993. She still comes around occasionally and helps out. Consider yourself
fortunate if you get the chance to meet her some day. She and her
colleagues
set the standards which still make our library the best in Marin County.
2. The library should be considered an "intellectual gymnasium." It's not a
student lounge, study hall or baby-sitting service. The students in the
library, including the ones you send, should have a reason for being there.
Whether for academic purposes or personal use, students should be in the
library because they need the library's resources, not just because they
need
to be somewhere. I consider the library to be my classroom and have a
clear set
of behavioral expectations for those who use the library.
3. The best resource in the library is the librarian. I can help you plan a
project, solve a technology problem, find professional research, give
insight
into an ethical problem, or answer a reference question. And if I can't
do it,
I will help you find someone who can. I can help find inter-library loan
materials you need that are not in the school library itself. Helping
others
gives me a huge sense of satisfaction so please never hesitate to ask me.
4. The library is my classroom. The subject I teach is information
literacy.
It's not a "core" subject but it is core to student success at school
and in
life. I need your cooperation to teach my subject since it's when you bring
classes to the library that they have the opportunity to learn and practice
information literacy skills. Those skills include the ability to access
information efficiently and effectively, evaluate it critically and
competently, and use it accurately and effectively; to pursue
information about
personal interests, appreciate literature and other creative expressions of
information, and strive for excellence in information seeking and knowledge
generation; and to recognize the importance of information to democratic
society, be ethical in using information and information technology, and
participate effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.
This is
my curriculum.
5. Planning is a good thing. Advanced planning with me will greatly
increase
your students' chances for success with projects that require information
resources. A well-planned research unit or technology project will greatly
decrease frustrations for everyone involved. With my experience, I can
let you
know what strategies work and don't work.
6. Realize that the library provides access to both print and electronic
information. I can help determine which one best suits your students'
needs.
Students do not always realize that print resources are the best for many
purposes. It breaks my heart to watch a student spend a frustrating hour
trying
to find the answer to a question on the Internet that could have been
answered
with a print resource in minutes.
7. The library has a terrific award-winning web page at
<rhslibrary.org>. Take
the time to find all the various resources on the site. And if there's
something you think should be there but isn't please let me know. I put
a lot
of time into maintaining the web pages but if they aren't meeting the your
needs or those of your students they are just a waste of my time. Also
notice
that through the web pages you can access the library's online catalog from
anyplace in the world and that I have cataloged many web sites which can be
access through the catalog. Let me know if you have favorites which can be
added to the database.
8. The librarian can be helpful in evaluating the information found on the
Internet. One of the greatest challenges of using the Internet is
determining
whether the facts and opinions found there are credible. I have the
training
and tools to do just that. And it is my mission to teach students effective
evaluation skills as well.
9. We subscribe to several online databases (periodicals, science,
literature,
World Book, geography/history, health, Novelist) which can only be accessed
with a user name and password. The library's general user name is xxxxx,
and
the password is xxxxx. For the InfoTrac databases (including Opposing
Viewpoints Resource Center and Gale Virtual Reference Library), only,
the user
name is xxxxx, and the password is xxxxx. I've included a flyer which
you can
post in your classroom for the entire list of resources and their specific
logins. I encourage you to encourage your students to take advantage of
these
"deep Web" resources which are linked from the library's home page. They
provide the kind of quality resources which students need to complete
quality
assignments. I also encourage students to use the County and local public
library online resources.
10. The librarian can help create assessments for your students'
projects. The
findings of research projects presented in electronic form, conclusions
drawn
from primary resources, and research that calls for higher-level
thinking to be
demonstrated, all call for good authentic assessment tools rather than a
simple
gut-reaction comments or an objective test. I can help you find examples of
these sorts of tools as well as help you create and administer them
yourself.
Let's work together to make your students' learning experiences as
meaningful
as possible.
11. The librarian can be your technology support center. I'm no
technical guru,
but can help you and your students with technology applications. Need to
use a
scanner or digital camera? I can show you how. Need to create a multi-media
presentation? Let me give you a quick lesson. Looking for effective ways to
search the web? Ask me. I'm not a technician, but I can help locate that
kind
of help for you as well; after all I live next door to our wonderful
educational technologist, B----- M-----.
12. The librarian will be your partner when trying new things. It's been
said
that some teachers during their career teach one year, 30 times. Can you
imagine how long those 30 years must have seemed? If you need somebody
to share
the glory or the shame of a new unit, activity, or methodology, I'm the
one.
If you are new to the teaching profession I hope your next thirty years
will be
exciting and gratifying. You'll be influencing the lives of thousands of
kids
in incredibility positive ways. If you have been teaching for a while
and are
just new to Redwood I know you've been selected because of your
excellence. Let
me help you to maintain that excellence for all the students you reach
while
you're here.
The subtitle of my professional standards document is Building
Partnerships for
Learning. I have truly taken that concept to heart. I am here to help
you and
your students do things you can't do alone.
Thomas T. Kaun
Library Media Teacher
Calif. School Lib. Assoc., VP for Educational Technology
Redwood High School, Bessie Chin Library
395 Doherty Drive, Larkspur, CA 94939
415 945-3662; fax 945-3675
http://rhsweb.org/library
"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment." Jalal ud-Din Rumi
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