A Librarian's Journey

Here's a go at screencast. Please work:

Over the course of the last few weeks of the course, I've found myself singing this line from a Semisonic song over and over again: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end... For me, the end of the class feels more like the beginning of my media specialist career than when I began back in the fall because now I've got such a better handle on what I'm doing -- or at least what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Initially, I think I was creating lesson plans without a very clear idea of where it was I wanted to take the students. Obviously I wanted to teach them to use the basic computer programs and learn to utilize the library's resources, but I didn't know how best to do that. In the beginning weeks of the class, when we covered Eisenburg and Berkowitz’s Big6 and other information search process models, I thought perhaps that's where I want to lead the media center curriculum -- toward teaching the kids how to search, so t

Looking back over my first reflection, I can see I was getting comfortable with some theories of school librarianship, most specifically the need for an information search process. Now the readings and assignments seem more entrenched in the realities of the job, in looking at the particulars of how to transform the theory into a workable reality. When I took my current position as a media specialist, I had so much to get up to speed on -- meeting the teachers, accessing and maneuvering in the district network, creating lesson plans, learning to use a Smartboard, document camera and on and on -- that I didn’t have much time for big picture thinking of how I wanted the media center to be. But I knew I wanted to move from this:    to this:   James Estrin/The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16libr.html?_r=1 And that’s where my library is headed, but I can see that I need to tweak, or in some cases overhaul, my lesson plans, particularly when it come

I've seen this far too often, but it always makes me laugh. Enjoy.

  I'm not breaking any ground here, but I recently picked up the graphic novel The Stonekeeper , book 1 of the Amulet series, by Kazu Kibuishi just to have a quick look-see, and didn't put it down until I finished it. Though a bit sad, and perhaps a little too frightening for 1st and second graders, third graders on up will be captivated. Kibuishi creates a beautiful, exotic world where anything seems possible, especially once we meet the cast of memorable characters. This is the first of a series that will keep kids, and adults, asking when the next one's coming out.