Organizing new middle school libraries

Learning to blog has opened a who new world up to me. I’ve occasionally run into blogs and read them while surfing the web, but I’ve never really participated in one. Actually, learning about Web 2.0 is really responsible for bringing the new experiences to me. I find that I can actually go out onto the web and interact with information (blogs and wikis) rather than relying on the static Web 1.0 that has informed me for years, but never really allowed a novice the chance to inform.

I’m currently in a graduate class learning about Web 2.0. Many of the ideas of an interactive web has prompted lively conversations between my husband and myself. My husband is a college professor who is frustrated by the students that have come in ill-prepared to his chemistry classes. They don’t work, they don’t prepare for tests, and they often don’t show up for class. Their test score averages have been horrendously low. He doesn’t think that they’re any less intelligent, but he doesn’t have any idea how to reach them. Since I’m in education as well and have also noticed a difference in student learning behaviors over the years, I suggested that we discuss his teaching style and that we discuss the students new learning styles.

I truly believe that you can’t teach a lecture hall of 300 students in anything less than a “sage on the stage” style because the lecture hall is not set up for cooperative collaboration. The new “business model” of university education will not allow for separation of the 300 hundred students into small groups due to the cost of hiring the instructors and staff and due to a shortage of rooms. It is my opinion that some direct instruction is necessary anyway along with other collaborative exercises in any learning experience. I truly wish the university education departments would see the value in direct instruction instead of coining the phrase “guide on the side” without qualifying that that style too requires some direct instruction. All students at all levels need direction.

Teaching today transcends the lecture hall. Educators must reach the “computer generation” of learners that we have. I suggested that my husband look into developing and incorporate educational gaming into his chemistry classes whereby the students can use the median that they know best (the computer and the web) to formulate their ideas. He would still give his lectures, but the students’ discussion sections and labs would be supplemented with interactive games and problem solving. Now I realize that bringing computer games and problem solving into the classroom is not a new idea, but using the interactive web to do it on the Internet is new. My husband is a total computer geek anyway. He writes scientific software for companies as a second job using lots of interactive graphics within the software, so this would not be a huge leap for him. I also suggested that he collaborate with the computer science department to find professors and graduate students who would be willing to join him in the work and seeking funding to support the development of his new educational gaming classes. Although education departments all over the U.S. are developing educational games, we need the experts in each of the fields of satudy to develop their own interactive learning. Just because I have a degree in education does not make me an expert in chemistry, nor could I write a game for that discipline. I couldn’t begin to know what two chemicals to mix to keep from blowing up the lab. I’ll be anxious to see what develops from this discussion for my husband.

Wow, I’m off the topic of my library. But, it’s nice to know that I can write anything I want. Hee, hee. Blogging is really a stream of consciousness.

I just set up my blog and excitedly went to my blog to see if any of my fellow colleagues in the library world had responded. Sigh…. No response. However, if I truly wanted friends, I would have set up a

My Space

account or an IM. So I’m going to use this space to post accounts of the huge amount of work that goes into separating libraries and setting up a new one. I’m not only going to use this blog as a journal account of the process involved, but perhaps as a guide for next poor soul that has to go through this experience.

Let’s preface this account with the fact that I have experienced separating libraries on a mini scale. The district that I worked in last year was loosing population. It only had two schools in the district as the high school students went to another district to high school. The district was in the process of moving students from the lower elementary to the middle school. They were gradually moving a grade or two each year to the middle school. Each year, the librarian had to separate materials that were specific to the grade levels. It entailed running histories on the teachers and students, fighting the administration, and using my own knowledge of what I knew the students read.

I had no idea when I moved to the new district that I would be organizing two new middle school libraries. We will be moving into our new libraries in the Fall of 2008. The administration has promised us that they will give us our assigned school by the end of this school year so that we can plan our new spaces. At the moment, however, I must help the architechs and designers make decisions about built-in shelving, etc. that affect the actual building itself and the placement of fixed walls, etc. This is time consuming at a time of year when most librarians are spending the last of their budgets, collecting the equipment needs of the school, and generally doing all the grunt work of the library.

At my next posting, I’m going to try to dig up the enthusiasm that I felt when I first learned that we were moving out of our 100 year old building after the referendum passed.

Our school district is building two new middle schools to replace the old middle school. We are adding 5th and 6th graders to the middles schools from the elementary schools. The problem is that 1) I have to split up the collections and 2) add new books for the 7th and 8th grade in one of the new libraries. The parents are complaining over who gets the new library books. The teachers are complaining over loosing books in the the remaining elementary school libraries. The principals are becoming territorial. Yikes! Further, we’re having trouble finding a company that will help us create the new records for the new schools. Have you gone through a similar experience? Do you have advice on how to mediate this nightmare?

Deloris