Previous by Date | Next by Date | Date Index
Previous by Thread | Next by Thread
| Thread Index
| LM_NET
Archive
| |
ORIGNAL TARGET: A while back a few people wrote about their experiences of providing informative library sessions for parents--about research methods, reading and books, or general library orientations. I'm writing an article about these types of parent sessions and would love to hear the sorts of programs you've offered in your library for parents. RESPONSES: When we do our fall open house, when parents follow their child's class schedule, parents come to the library during their child's study hall. I show them all of our online resources that they can have access to for free! For those who come it is well worth the time. I use a laptop and an LCD projector and I take the parents right to our school's website <http://www.dce.k12.wi.us/midschool/imc.htm>http://www.dce.k12.wi.us/midschool/imc.htm Then I give them the same instruction sheets that I give our students. This information that is printed in our student's study buddy as well. I show them how to use each tool. If I have time I show them some of the sites that will help them promote reading with their child. I try to keep our website very simple. When it gets too cluttered it seems to be to hard for students and parents to use. *** One of my most successful session was a demonstration of our online subscription databases. Our school offers a "Parent Council" meeting once a month and occasionally the Principal lets me make a presentation. At one session I demonstrated basic search methods in several of our subscription databases: Grolier, World Book Online, EBSCO, and the Gale databases. The parents were shown how to access these databases through the media center's webpage. A quick reference sheet was provided for each database. We also gave them a bookmark listing the username and password required for remote access to all of the databases. The parents were very grateful to know that this resource was available for their children to use both in school and at home. *** While I was LMS at a middle school (lost my job in Columbus Schools lay-offs 2 years ago) I did a parent lesson as part of a PTA meeting. The first PTA meeting is usually the best attended so I asked for the last half-hour of the meeting. I was the program. I explained what my job was, the difference between the LMS in the middle school and the aide they were familiar with in the elementary (they are always surprised to find out the person they called librarian wasn't a librarian). I gave a short overview of the things I would be teaching their child. We then adjorned to the computer lab. I took the parents through several of the resources we used: INFOhio, Unitedstreaming, OPLIN, and Columbus Metropolitan Libraries. They received a bookmark I created that had the URLs and passwords for everything. The bookmark included my library phone number and my e-mail address for any questions. Parents were always grateful for the information. Some booked additional lessons on how to use INFOhio, how to help their child do research, how to cite sources, and, after we automated, how to use the school OPAC from home. The additional sessions ended up being individual. Depending on the person's schedule I'd offer to stay after school or after a PTA meeting. Many were e-mail. I did my best to check my e-mail by certain times (I gave out those times as part of my presentation - never thought to put them on the bookmark until just now) and responded to all. To those who included a phone number, I called if it seemed necessary. Most of the questions centered around citing sources but some of them were requests to get a book for them. *** My school district has a "Saturday Academy" at which I taught parents how to use the online features our school library and how to access the public library. *** I'm preparing a library orientation right now for incoming kindergarten parents. Our K students don't check out in class, and I've informally had parents check out for their K students if they come to me. Now I am offering library cards for parents who bring their children before or after school. At the orientation, I will present: * a tour of the library * a short PowerPoint presentation on the benefits of reading at home (and the relationship between standardized test scores and independent reading, since that's measurable and oh so important!) * a sheet with read aloud tips on one side and ways to make reading fun on the other * a pathfinder of books and websites for finding great books * information about our Birthday Book cart, from which parents can purchase library bound books to donate to the library * library card applications for the two public libraries our students can use, plus info on the libraries' websites and using the OPAC from home * a bookmark for their child I'll be presenting this during K orientation, and plan on spending about 15 minutes. I hope that it addresses questions parents have about the library, and gets them to the library, either ours or the public library. I'm hoping to make it impossible for a parent to say, "We can't get to the library." *** At my former elementary school I hosted an Internet workshop for parents to give them suggestions on how they might best help their children with homework assignments. I taught them search techniques, how to use district resources such as Nettrekker, our opac, etc. Afterward I had several parents tell me that they came even though they didn't think they would get much out of it and were pleasantly surprised. They learned a lot. Most of them knew nothing about our Opac being available on line, or that there was even a resource like Netrekker that they could use at home. (Of course, we had sent home several flyers with this information, but it obviously wasn't forefront in their minds) This past year a couple of our elementary bilingual teachers and I hosted a session for our Spanish speaking parents. We got out our laptop computers and taught them how to sign on to the internet, showed them how to get to our public library web site, how to use bablefish to translate web sites. They also did their on line volunteer background check for our district so they could volunteer at our school. (Most of them had nver touched a computer before) We also showed them how to use our school library, and set up parent accounts for them. We've talked about doing more of this type of training, and I would LOVE to see more of it, but there just doesn't seem to be time. *** In the past, I have presented sessions for our parents on the following topics: How to use the Fee Based (Subscription) Databases our county purchases Internet Safety Helping your Child Select an Appropriate Book The Internet Safety session I did was some years ago when it was an initiative of Baltimore County Public schools through a program they launced called PIE (Parent Internet Education). Many of the ideas we shared came from Perry Aftab (sp?) who was brought in to speak to us about internet safety. Since then, I have spoken to a couple small groups of parents (through the the PTA one year and to a private organization once). I also talk about Internet safety with the kids in school, of course. Currently, I am gathering feedback from our parents to see if there is enough interest in participating in an adult book club that I would facilitate. If I get enough response from the parents, we will begin the adult book club reading fiction not parenting books. I posed the question to the parents in the upcoming school newsletter and I will see what kind of replies I get before proceeding. *** In Connecticut we have access to a database paid for with our taxes. It has numerous resources including Kids InfoBits (found on the ICONN.org site). After introducing the site to the students and writing about it in our school newsletter I invited parents in after a PTO meeting to see what this site had to offer and how to use it. I included handouts about it and other resources found in the database, I explained how to access the site from home. It is open only to CT residents. I showed them where they could find out how to navigate the site to help their students and encouraged them to talk to their child about what they found when they were exploring it during their library classes. It was well received and I would do it again!!! *** One time I had "fair night". I gave some info on how best to help their child with the Science Fair (I taught science for 23 years), our Cultural Fair (which our entire 6th grade did for years until we outgrew the gym) and held a bookfair on the same night. I had websites created, sample projects, project guidelines, and question and answer sessions. I don't remember how many people attended, but it was well worth the time. And on the "Fair Night", I had door prizes (book fair certificates) and light refreshments (furnished by the PTSA) *** I called ours Palmerston Parent Participation Programs and the alliteration seemed to catch the eye!!!! I focused on 'helping your child with homework (without doing it for them)' and took them through the Information Lit process we use, and then specifically locating resources (including the World Wide Web) and selecting information from them (accuracy, currency, bias etc). I offered sessions in the afternoon (when I had some administration time and which dovetailed into their pick-up time for their kids) and again in the evenings - usually a 7.00pm start. Tea and biscuits (that's coffee and cookies in your language) at each one, name tags and a quick introduction of self by each person if the numbers were small,. Just to make it friendly. Tried to make it interactive by setting them a specific problem to solve so they could learn by doing. Maximum time span was two sessions. (We found from experience that parents were reluctant to commit to anything that extended for more than two weeks -so if something could not be covered in one 90 min session, it could carry over to the next week but not beyond that.) As a staff, we passionately believed that to achieve the learning community we envisaged (it was a new school in a new suburb) that we had a role in parents' education and this built huge support for the school. Most of the specialist teachers, particularly, ran parent programs, including the Reading Recovery teachers, the counsellors - even our PE guy had a regular parent/child games night. It was all done at no charge to parents in our own time as part of our commitment to the vision and very unusual in the primary setting. I also invited pre-school parents in for some tips on reading to their child and how to select books., and I had grab bags available which comprised seven pre-selected titles in a library bag so busy parents could nip in, grab a bag and sign it out and have a read-aloud a night for a week! Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS <mailto:tonibuzzeo@tonibuzzeo.com> Maine Library Media Specialist of the Year Emerita Maine Association of School Libraries Board Member Buxton, ME 04093 http://www.tonibuzzeo.com Fire Up with Reading: A Mrs. Skorupski Story, illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa (Upstart 2007) BRAND NEW! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/ * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html * LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------