Pokémon Go

Just caught a Meowth!

I probably don't need to tell you that Pokémon GO is HUGE.  If you need a bit more help understanding it, here's some good information:

How to Play Pokémon Go
Official Site

It is definitely worth learning a bit more about this huge global fad.  Your students will be talking about it so it's nice to have the terminology sussed out and not look clueless.  Plus, it's fun!  And it gets my fifteen-year-old out from his bedroom.

There have been some cautionary tales however.

School Library Journal had a great article about how this might affect libraries - Pokémon Go:  What Do Librarians Need To Know?  They also had a link to a more advanced article about Pokémon GO.  WAY more advanced.

I've bought a few more Pokémon books as I'm sure demand for these will increase.  I've also found a few Pokémon colouring pages that students might like to use:

Super Coloring
Morning Kids! (this one has the Pokémon listed by number and it corresponds with those in your Pokédex).

Have you had a try yet?

Updates:  Just saw this fabulous post by the New Zealand Book Council - Gotta pun 'em all:  New Zealand books with Pokémon

And fortunately, we can use them if we want:

Yay! If other libraries and orgs want to use the Pokemon NZ books pics in displays, Go for it :D #ReadNZBooks https://t.co/HgeSKq0DnZ

— NZ Book Council (@nzbookcouncil) July 18, 2016

Here's a cool activity if you know your way around Google Maps:

Making a #pokemongo collaborative Google Map in Quirindi! Even has #pokestop icons! Links to geography and History. pic.twitter.com/jNi2w3qX76

— markherringnz  (@markherringnz) July 18, 2016

Mark has now done a post about how to customise a Google Map.

This is a fantastic place for teaching ideas - Ways to use Pokemon Go in the Classroom

Other links:

Pokemon Go Brings Augmented Reality To The Mainstream
Here's The Inspiring Story Of The Creator Of Pokémon GO, John Hanke.
List of Pokémon (Pokédex)
Help! Pokemon Go isn't working: How to fix common Pokemon Go problems
Pokemon Go players: you have 30 days from signup to opt out of binding arbitration

A Spy's Guide to Book Week - Filming

For our Book Week this year, I have filmed six spy training videos and two news reports!  You can find out more about how this came about here.

I have no training in making videos, although I did make a couple years ago.  The image quality is awful, best not to make it full screen.  Fortunately, I have upgraded our video camera since then.

I have learnt a few things from my filming this year, that may be of use if you're ever indulging your Steven Spielberg tendencies:

• Think about whether you want good actors or "friends of the library".  Every time I film I know the smart choice is to go for actors, but I end up picking "friends of the library".  If you are going to pick library people and not actors, then have personal knowledge of their capabilities, or hold auditions.  It is still really important that they be able to speak clearly and understandably.  

• Don't be afraid to ask people to be in your video.  I only had one student turn me down, and even the principal agreed to join in.  Author Peter Millet also agreed to film a couple of short videos for me.  Never underestimate the power of a fun project.

• Be mindful of the times that you are filming:  
• I chose the weekends to cut down on external noise, but one Sunday there was a netball tournament on and we had to avoid the times they made announcements on their loudspeaker (fortunately they weren't on it constantly).
• One of my filming sessions was in the late afternoon and during filming the sun moved and started streaming into our library from an angle which affected the quality of the film.

• If you go outside, take your keys with you!  On one freezing morning, I took the boys outside to film and then couldn't get back in.  Fortunately, the aforementioned netball tournament was running and I was able to go to the other end of the school, beg for a key, and get back inside.

• After you have hit the record button, use your fingers to count down from three before your actors start speaking, and give another count of three after they finish and before you push stop.  That will give you a bit of leeway if you want to use transitions between your scenes.

• If you have a student filming, make sure they don't bump the camera during recording and check EVERY TIME that they have actually pushed the record button!

• Make sure the students understand that they need to be familiar with their scripts!  I had a few tell me they hadn't read them....arrgghhh!  Also, reconfirm times with parents, I had a couple of students still at home when they were meant to be filming.

• Have fun!  And don't expect perfection.  Don't compare your amateur school video with a professional production.  Depending on the time you have, it may be unrealistic to expect your actors to have memorised every line.

• Be careful with the words you choose for the script, and don't be afraid to make changes.  One of our girls could not say the word "espionage" so I changed it to "spying".  After that, if I had harder words I spelled them phonetically in the script to make it easier for the students to learn.  I had the word "loitering" in one script and the students didn't know what it meant, which was a good indication it was not the right word to use.  I changed it to "lingering around".

• Allow plenty of time for everything.  Writing a script, filming it and then editing it will take a lot more time than you think.  My scripts were around about a page and a half long, my videos have come out at about 5-6 mins long and that took about an hour and a half to film.  Editing has taken about that much time again (I'm still learning though, it might be quicker for those who know what they're doing!).

• Let the students add their own ideas.  The kids were keen to add their own touches.  I was mindful of the content I needed to get across, but was happy to let the kids decide to spin their chairs around at the beginning, or add a sign-off, or create some extras for the bloopers video.

• Oh yes, have a bloopers video!

The students have been very keen and have been good at keeping their scripts 'Top Secret'.  Some of them don't know who else is participating, some don't even know there is an author and news items involved - it's good to give them surprises as well!

I'm learning as I go and it won't be polished but it is fun and the students will enjoy seeing people they know pretending to be undercover spies with exotic code names!

A Spy's Guide to Book Week - The Beginning

Last year, I attended a SLANZA conference workshop by Cathy Kennedy about how she approaches Book Week at her school.  I was inspired by a number of her ideas, in particular choosing a theme and keeping activities manageable for teachers, so you're not adding too much to their workload.

I decided our theme should be "Spies and Detectives", which would then allow me to promote mystery books.  I didn't want to encroach on too much teaching time, so I thought about using our 'eating for learning' time, the ten minutes that the students spend eating their morning tea and lunch.  Perhaps I could have a series of little activities for the teachers to do.

Then I delved into learning about spies.  They are so cool!  In particular, I liked learning about various ways of encoding secret messages.

When it came time to choose an author to visit during Book Week, my first choice was Peter Millett, author of the popular Johnny Danger books.  Unfortunately, he's in Auckland and we're in Hamilton and we couldn't make it work.  In a decision he might come to regret, Peter said he liked our theme and offered to Skype in or to record a video answering questions from students.

At the same time, I had decided that we could have a spy school and teach various spy skills as well as promoting our spy and mystery stories.  But it would be more fun if there was a practical application for them - how about some secret messages for students to decode?  Of course that led to an idea to have a news item about treasure that's been stolen from the elves who live in the Reading Wonderland.  Our lovely artist, Jenna, agreed to come in the weekend beforehand and add some little elves to our mural.

I decided the only clue located at the scene of the crime could have different coded messages on it.  Then we could have some students introduce some short videos about codes that I could find on YouTube and show a different clip at each eating for learning time.  Only there weren't any videos that were the right length and handled the way I wanted, and isn't it better to have one code lead to another clue in a treasure hunt kind of way?  And then, what about other spy skills, shouldn't we teach them?  Oh, and we can't have a student teach about the codes anyway because then they might be able to decode them ahead of time...  And that, dear friends, is how you go from a simple idea to scripting, filming and editing two news reports and six spy training videos, with additional footage about codes provided by your principal dressed as 007!  Not to mention having the temerity to ask an author if he wouldn't mind filming a couple of short videos pretending to be head of the J.S.A - the Junior Spy Agency.  Although if you've read the Johnny Danger books its pretty apparent Peter has a good sense of humour!

So, that's what has been keeping me busy lately.  I have filmed all my spy training videos and just need to avoid having the police called in after sunset as my son dresses as a robber and uses a torch while breaking into the Reading Wonderland and taking off with the elves' treasure.  I think it may be a good idea to let my principal know what's going on ahead of time!  I think my filming experiences could fill another post, so watch out for that soon.

Book Week starts on 15 August and before then I still need to do all my editing and work on some activities for our younger students.  Once I've recovered from the event I'll do another post, update you on how it went and link to all my resources in case you want to do something similar.  That's all for now, remember, this information is extremely TOP SECRET!

Sharing Tech Tips with your Students, Staff and Community

One of my new projects this year has been working with our Student Digital Leaders.  I emailed my principal about this idea last year and have been fortunate to work with Renee, one of our very I.T. savvy teachers, on it.  We are working with two students from each Year 5 & 6 class (16 students in total) and showing them troubleshooting tips and how to use particular creation apps.

One of the things Renee and I talked about was how to educate the teachers as well as the students.  Like all schools we have a range of abilities amongst our staff and we wanted to make sure that whatever we taught our students was also available to our teachers.  Initially we thought we would offer drop in sessions after school, but we didn't want to add to the many time demands that teachers already have.

I suggested that we record a series of very short tech tips and promote them so not only our students and staff benefit, but we also provide useful information for parents.  We have started with troubleshooting for iPads:

Next up is how to update apps and iPads, followed by how to check how much storage you have (and what to do if your iPad is full).  There are a number of topics that can follow that, and they won't all be about iPads.

We decided to do the Tech Tips separately to our normal Digital Leaders' meetings.  We asked for volunteers and then I gave them a short script to learn.  I had our I.T. guy check the script to make sure I hadn't got any advice wrong!  We could have covered more but I wanted to keep the videos short, and teaching kids how to restore an iPad to factory settings, for example, seemed a bit dangerous!

I made an introduction that we will use for the whole series.  I used PowToon, which took a bit of getting used to but was a lot of fun to learn.  I think it looks quite smart.

The process took longer than I imagined - we needed more than one lunchtime to get the recording done (if you're observant you'll notice that there are continuity errors!).  Just filming the iPads up close was troublesome, you have to watch the angle or you get reflection from the lights.  The school bell went off during one recording, as did the alarm on one of the boys' watches!  Recording at lunchtime also meant there was a lot of outside noise to contend with.

Afterwards I had to piece it all together in iMovie.  Again, it took longer than I anticipated, partly because I'm still learning with that as well.  I was pleased that I had allowed three seconds of recording before and after the dialogue, as this meant it was easier to get the transitions right.

I think there are many things we can do to improve, but at the same it will never be the same quality as a professional production.  However, at a primary school level I think parents are going to be forgiving of errors and will enjoy seeing their children share their knowledge.

I've scripted the next episode but fortunately another teacher will be filming and editing it (I have a Book Week to prepare for!).  I've also made posters with a QR code that links to the Tech Tips playlist, which I will be giving to all the teachers.  It is exciting to see this idea coming to life and I look forward to building up a bank of Tech Tips videos that our students, staff and community can refer to when they need them.

Awesome ideas from #EducampTheTron

Today I joined a bunch of teachers at EducampTheTron.  If you're not familiar with educamps, you can find more info here.

I've been working my way through some of the slides from the SmackDown, (a SmackDown involves people sharing ideas and tools with each other in a short amount of time).  First up, I had a play with a couple of resources Dave Winter suggested.  There was Story Builder, a tool I've played with before but now I have a creative writing group, the Ninja Unicorns in Uniforms, and I think they would have a blast with it.  Here's my quick test.  

I also had a look at Background Burner, which is an online tool that removes backgrounds from images in seconds.  I used a photo without a cluttered background for my test:

Then I transported my Book Fridge to Egypt, using their stock photos.

I'm not sure what I might need this for at the moment, but it will probably percolate in my brain and I'll wake up at 2am with a crazy idea!

There was a slide about Creative Commons which had several sites I knew about and one I didn't - photosforclass.com.  Images are filtered so they are appropriate for school, and when they are downloaded they automatically cite the author and image license terms - awesome!

Moving on, I had a look at Breakout EDU.  Thanks to Kim Tautari-Scott I actually got a chance to play this game today.  It was another idea I'd seen on Twitter, but I couldn't get my head around it until I saw it in action.  I can't say I was very good at it; I imagine I'd be better second time up having got the general gist of it.  It doesn't fit into what I'm doing at the moment so I'll put it aside for now.

Over to a slide about Blendspace.  It is an interesting curation tool that lets you add in images, documents, Youtube clips and quizzes.  It looks great but I have no need for this one yet either.

Alex Le Long provided some great links to genius hour resources - Youtube playlists and a Google Drive folder from the GAFE summit.  I will share these with our Year 5 & 6 teachers as I am sure they will be interested in these.  I also noticed her Slam Poetry playlist and then searched for some done by primary school kids.  

Here is the back story to this - yesterday, Ryan, one of our teachers, came into the library and asked what I thought about students doing slam poetry in our Reading Wonderland.  I said 'awesome, as long as you do it!'.  I had thought about having the students put on short plays in there, because the tiered seating makes it perfect for performances.  But it would have taken a lot of organisation.  So, I'm thrilled that Ryan's going to get that going and now I can suggest some great YouTube clips.  Perhaps my writing group will be interested in trying out writing slam poetry.  Actually, I've just gone back into Blendspace and downloaded a couple of lessons on slam poetry shared by teachers on there.  Some of it is on performance, which I can share with Ryan, and the rest is about how to write them.  Ooh, lots of great things for the Ninja Unicorns in Uniforms on Tuesday!

And...this is how you lose hours online!  It's way past my bedtime and my laptop's battery is dying, which is a sign I should wrap this up.  If you get a chance to attend an educamp I would highly recommend them.  They are free and full of really interesting people and can lead you on new adventures!

Introducing our Reading Wonderland

Last week we opened our new library space and our students got VERY excited!  Here's proof:

A neat feature is the little creatures, hidden doors and adorable bugs that can be found in the room if you look hard enough.  Spotting these was the reason for a lot of the extra noise!  Here's a few of them...

History

For a long time I lamented over the lack of space in our library.  Considering we have 750-800+ students, our 89m2 library was often jam packed.  "It's like a club" was a teacher's comment after venturing in one lunchtime.  

In January 2014, I made a proposal to the Board of Trustees to enclose the library courtyard area.  I was given the go ahead to get some quotes but my happiness was short-lived as incorrect concrete had been laid and therefore walls could not be erected on it.  The cost of digging up the old concrete and then laying new concrete made the project unaffordable.

For some reason this area wasn't very popular!

I considered taking over a bit of our adjoining resource room, but a giant air conditioning unit would have to have been moved.  In the end I looked at enclosing the courtyard with an outdoor screen, much like cafes often have, in order to weatherproof it and be able to lay carpet.  This revised proposal was accepted late last year and all systems were go!

Esther, our library assistant, suggested I put tiered seating in the room and then she found an apprentice builder who could do it for us.  I love the different dynamic this creates in the space.

My vision for the area was to have a theme so that students feel they are in a special spot, quite different from the rest of the library.  I ended up asking our very creative teacher aide, Jenna, to make a meadow/forest mural that went around every wall in the space.  Considering the walls are made of corrugated iron, glass, and wooden slats, I asked Jenna to go with quirky and whimsical art that incorporated the different surfaces, and then I showed her some art I liked that I'd saved in Pinterest.  I also asked for a blue sky ceiling where students could see different shapes in the clouds.  Because I like to be difficult!  And then I left Jenna to it because I knew that what she came up with would be way cooler than I could imagine.  And it was!

Naming the Room

I wanted the room to have its own identity so it needed to have its own name.  We held a competition last week to see what the students could come up with.  We had 379 entries; here are some of the key words that kept appearing: forest, garden, reading, nature, magic, enchanted, paradise, mystery, secret, fantasy, dreamland, wonderland, kingdom, peaceful, beautiful.  Aren't they lovely words to have associated with the library?  The winning entry was 'Reading Wonderland'.

The Opening Ceremony

My enthusiastic library advisory group, the Mighty Magical Moustache Girls, helped organise an official opening ceremony, which took place during morning tea on Tuesday.  I invited the staff involved with transforming the courtyard, our senior management and our Board of Trustees (although unfortunately, apart from our principal and DP, none of the Board could make it).  We also had some reporters from the Te Totara Times and we invited our book club, the Ferocious Bookworms, because the Moustache Girls felt we needed more of an audience!

We had a shared morning tea of the very sugary variety and then I thanked the Board of Trustees for their support and some of the Mighty Magical Moustache Girls thanked key staff and talked about our future plans for the room.  I announced the winner of the naming competition and then she cut the ribbon and declared the Reading Wonderland open.  Esther and I had blown up lots of balloons and put them in the room so everyone had a bit of fun with those.  It was short and sweet, which is how I like my ceremonies!  Here is the report from the Te Totara Times (also short and sweet!).

Communicating with the Community

Throughout the creation of the mural I posted photos to our library Facebook page.  These had positive responses, with many of our community knowing our artist Jenna, as she is also a parent of children in the school, and a teacher aide here.

I also shot the video of the children's reactions to the Reading Wonderland and shared this with our community on our school website and our school and library Facebook pages.  I don't think photographs would have done justice to the noise levels and extreme levels of excitement!

I invited parents to come in and view the Reading Wonderland and we saw some new faces, which was great. 

Plans for the Reading Wonderland

I am looking forward to the Reading Wonderland being a place where our classes are read to, where students can read with each other, and where we can also run some special activities.  At present it hosts the Mighty Magical Moustache Girls, the Ferocious Bookworms and the Ninja Unicorns in Uniforms (our creative writing group).  I have plans for a crochet group and we also want to do occasional craft activities and have reader's theatre sessions.  

I'm so happy to have such a great room.  It was definitely worth the time and effort involved with making it happen.  One of our Year 2 teachers told me that a reluctant reader in her class asked if the room would be open again at lunchtime.  Music to my ears!

Most Likely to Succeed

Having missed out on seeing the film 'Most Likely to Succeed' when it was shown in Hamilton I did what any self-respecting librarian would do and got the book out of the public library.

The book, by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith, is a cautionary tale about losing sight of the bigger picture and not keeping up with a changing world.  The authors tell us about how the education system we have today is largely unchanged from that set up in order to provide workers for the industrial era.  Our access to smartphones, crammed with more computer power than NASA used to get to the moon in 1969, is disregarded, in most cases discouraged.  We continue to teach students in the same way that we always have, with a focus on learning content that anyone can Google if needed and that most of us forget when we don't use it in real life.  The authors claim that "since information is readily available to everyone, content knowledge is no longer valued in the workplace".  Instead what we should be focussing on is "forming independent opinions, critically evaluating the logic of others, communicating, collaborating, solving problems creatively, and synthesizing".  This emphasizes the importance of digital and information literacy skills, which are often taught by a librarians.  It also provides a good case for a library having a Makerspace, where students can be encouraged to work together and meet challenges.

The authors also assert that somewhere along the line the U.S. education system has managed to make the purpose of education to pass a bunch of largely unhelpful-in-real-life tests.  What's worse is that because the tests are standardised and cost so much to administer, they are limited to what can easily be measured and not necessarily what is useful for students to learn.  In relation to reading the authors say "...if you're designing tests, there's no way to standardize based on students reading mostly what interests them".  So it is the test designers who are calling the shots, requiring that students read the same text even though it probably won't appeal to everyone.

There is a real fixation on test results - "...the bulk of U.S. education is a largely hollow process of temporarily retaining the information required to get acceptable grades on tests".  When this information is also irrelevant to the real world you can see why students get bored and lack motivation.  And what is even worse is how early the focus on testing impacts children's lives.  The book describes a kindergarten that cancelled its school play "to devote more time to preparing its six-year-old students for college and the workplace".  How awful!

One thing that particularly resonated with me was the authors' claim that the primary goal of education should be to help students find their true passion and purpose in life.  They feel that schools should "expose students to a wide array of pursuits and help them find what they love spending time on".  Having a library with a wide range of books, technology activities and a Makerspace, helps them do this, as does providing support for students who are involved with genius hour or passion projects.

Last year the OECD published an interesting report stating that using technology at school doesn't improve test results.  I thought of that report when I read this: "The impact of innovation in education isn't in using technology to deliver obsolete education experiences".  How often is technology used to simply repeat the same lessons teachers have always taught?  This goes back to the substitution level of the SAMR model.  Technology needs to be used in education to allow new and innovative education experiences that fully engage students and allow them to direct more of their own learning.  If technology can help students engage more with a lesson we are teaching on library or information literacy skills, then we need to be embracing it in this way as well.

You can probably tell that I enjoyed reading 'Most Likely to Succeed' and it got me thinking about how a library can support positive changes to the education system.

Dreaming of a Library

The #EdBlogNZ challenge for March is to blog about what your dream school would look like.  Obviously a dream school needs a dream library, so here's what I've come up with so far:

• My dream library is vibrant, innovative, warm and welcoming and an acknowledged "centre of amazingness" within the school.  It supports teachers and helps a culturally diverse population of students discover a love of reading and learning.

Physical Space and Equipment

• The library is big, with a variety of areas to meet the different needs of students e.g. a quiet reading room, a Makerspace, a media production room, tiered seating for performances of plays/reader's theatre.
• Furniture is movable to allow students to configure areas to suit their current needs.
• Students can sit on, under and in furniture. There is a big range of comfortable seating options around the library, including an impressive-looking reading chair that teachers, and students, can read in. 
• Outside the library is a private lawn surrounded by large leafy trees with even more seating options for outdoor readers.
• The reading room is soundproof and decorated in an immersive theme so that the students feel relaxed and peaceful.
• The media production room has camera equipment, microphones, an editing suite, music and podcasting equipment and a green screen.
• The library has iPads and laptops for students to use in order to provide some equity for those who do not have access to them at home. 

A great window seat in Devonport Library

The Collection

• The library's budget allows for a good physical and electronic collection to be developed, enabling the school to cater to all students' personal interests and curriculum needs.  
• There is a system so that students, teachers and parents are able to request books.
• The library's collection also includes makerspace items that can be borrowed by parents e.g. telescopes, microscopes, sewing machines.

Programs and Services

• There is a strong online presence so students have access to the library 24/7.
• Students and librarians combine to make awesome, interactive library displays that are regularly changed.  In addition to physical displays there are also student-made book trailers that show on the large library TV.
• The TV is also used to Skype in authors and subject experts into the school.
• The library publishes physical and electronic copies of student work.
• There is a student librarian programme giving training, library experience, rewards and privileges to interested students.
• A team of students help to run activities in the Makerspace and provide student voice around library decisions.  The Makerspace allows students to be creative, solve problems and collaborate and introduces them to robotics, coding, 3d printing and crafts.
• There are library-run challenges and competitions to inspire creativity.
• Students can play games in the library e.g. chess
• There is a book fridge so that students and staff can swap books from home with one another.

Staffing

• The budget enables the library to be fully staffed, including over the holidays, in order to run summer reading programmes, and before school, at morning tea and lunch, and after school.  Staff are paid well, have regular appraisals, access to good professional development and are respected as professionals.  They are enthusiastic, dedicated, have strong professional networks and enjoy working with children.
• There are teachers on the library team who provide direct classroom teacher feedback on library initiatives and share their own ideas for the library.
• Library staff are involved with planning and collaborating with teachers in order to support the curriculum.  They provide curated materials for the students and teachers which are regularly used.
• Library staff teach library skills, digital citizenship and information literacy in ways that are as fun and engaging as possible.  They allow flexible scheduling and they are on hand for students who come to the library with research needs.
• The library helps feed a school-wide reading culture by employing staff with an excellent knowledge of children's books who make digital and physical reading guides, run book clubs (with teacher involvement) and are available to help children select books.

Community Connections

• Parents are able to use the library before or after school to help their children, including their preschoolers, select books and to discuss book selection with the library staff. 
• Social media is used to engage the community with the library.
• Library staff encourage the community to use the library to share their knowledge and skills with students e.g. through the Makerspace or as an expert for genius hour projects

Support from the Top

• The library manager has regular conversations with the Board of Trustees and senior management team around how the school's charter and the New Zealand Curriculum can be supported by the library.  
• The BOT and senior management team regularly visit the library and are excited by the vision for the library, its collection and the programs that are taking place there.

Finally, my dream library is not one-of-a-kind but just one of a nationwide, legally mandated chain of exceptional school libraries providing New Zealand's students with a passion for pleasure reading and lifelong learning.

Photographic Tour of my Library

Yesterday my post was a "Photographic Tour of School Libraries" that I visited last year and today, as part of a photographic weekend bonanza, I'm going to show you my library!  This is actually the second 2016 EdBlogNZ Challenge, which is aimed at classroom teachers but I amend it to suit my profession.

This is the view from behind the circulation desk.  The desk is wide and long and if I could I would replace it with something more compact and accessible from both sides.  I managed to 'find' a second computer, which helps our senior classes get through the issues and returns process a lot faster.  Hidden from view in the far corner is a pile of cushions for students to use.  Teachers use the red chair to read books to their classes.  Picture books are on the right, fiction books, arranged by genre, are on the left.  Graphic novels, junior non-fiction and readers are on the far wall.

The best thing about the issues desk is that it has an overhang that a couple of small children can fit under.  This is not a small child, this is my tall 12-year-old son modelling for me before going to his school!

The 'Quick Picks' shelving on the right holds our early chapter books.  The bottom row and whole other side are organised by series, so students can quickly find their favourite books.  Behind this is our non-fiction area.  Currently some valuable shelving space on the far wall is covered by a TV that I use when I teach library skills.  In front of that is the OPAC, on another computer I managed to 'find' within the school.  Hopefully, if I have any money left over from our courtyard project, I will move the TV to a higher space above the shelving and use a couple of iPads for our OPACs. 

Tucked away in the far right of the non-fiction section is a cosy spot for students to sit.  In the far left is another pile of cushions and bean bags.

This is my outdoor courtyard area which has been enclosed with a plastic screen this month to weatherproof it.  The birds were also getting in and leaving their mark on the concrete, making it a less than appealing space to our students.  Given that the library is small for a school that by the end of the year has more than 800 students, I was keen to make full use of all the spaces available to me.  Fortunately I have a great Board of Trustees who approved funding to improve this area this year.

The tiered seating has been stained since this photo was taken and it will be covered in large cushions.  The other walls (in corrugated iron), and the glass doors, are in the process of being covered with a mural, which will extend round to the wood (it will have ivy painted on it).  Due to the painting in progress the area is currently out-of-bounds to students; I am so excited that we will soon have a new space to share with them.  I have lots of plans for it!

This is my office, which looks out into the library so I can keep an eye on what our classes are up to!  To be honest, this is the tidy version - I am usually fighting a losing battle with more paper that sits on my desk.

The other side of my office gets used by Esther, our awesome library assistant, for storage of books for processing.  I have put my library diploma and an award from SLANZA on the wall because people often don't believe that librarianship is a profession you can study for.  One way we can help change that attitude is to do little things like this.

I have read a number of studies showing that in any kind of library one of the most important things to patrons is seating.  I am pleased that we have such a big range of places for our students to sit.  At lunchtimes the library is usually full with students reading, using iPads and playing chess.  It is not the quiet libraries that I was brought up with but it does have a wonderful, vibrant buzz about it that makes students feel welcome.

Photographic Tour of School Libraries

Late last year I took part in a SLANZA Waikato/BOP tour of four amazing primary and intermediate school libraries in Auckland.  I'm going to share a few photos from each of the libraries with you.

First up was Fran Mes' library at Viscount School in Mangere.  Fran is the Director of Learning, Library and has been featured in an Excellence in Practice video by the National Library.  She teaches information literacy skills in the library and she shared this awesome House Hippo video as a way to show children that they can't believe everything they see on TV.  Fran is a strong believer in not having a library timetable. 

This is one of two pianos!

An amazing student-made mural

Train tracks, great for collaboration

Fish!

Next up was Esther Casey's library at Stonefields School, one of two libraries she manages.  Stonefields opened in 2011 and has 'open modern learning environments'.  I love the way Esther encourages her student authors and uses her library's website as a way to share their work.  Esther's takeaway for us was to remember to link our library goals with the school charter.  

On my 'to do' list

A nice range of seating to choose from

Esther in front of her flag display

What a great way to build connections with parents

I love these little slices of history

After lunch we visited the Library/Makerspace at Sunnyhills Primary School.  We met Helen, the Teacher with Library Responsibility, who was based in the library.  Helen worked closely with classroom teachers and tied her 'making' activities, like Scratch, into the classroom programme.  Her Lego walls helped teach symmetry and spatial awareness.  She felt that using a 3D printer should be more about the process than the product.  She had students make their designs in Lego first, before going on to use the 3D printer.

Tote trays contain supplies and are also used to store partially completed student work

The table on the left was set up with MaKey MaKey

3D Printer (bought from Office Max)

Lego Walls

Our final visit was the spectacular Somerville Intermediate.  It was built in the days when they gave libraries a decent amount of floor space, there were a lot of jealous librarians!  I got a shock when I recognised Annemarie, the librarian, who went to the same college as me!  Annemarie has different activities on each day - Cozy Corners, Kids' Lit Quiz Team, School Newspaper, Book Club and Groovy Game Day.

Annemarie in front of a list of her library activities

Love this advertising

A foreign language collection

Plenty of games

An OPAC on an iPad

There were two TVs outside showing slideshows

One bonus photo just to show you the amazing "street" that the architects designed for Somerville Intermediate.  The classes and the library line up on each side of the street.