With Shakespeare back on the radar as most states work toward Common Core, is it the right balance of cost and resource?

Oxford Shakepeare Project via kwout

From Time magazine comes the news that General Electric’s foundation is getting into the educational funding business.

This morning the GE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the multinational General Electric Company, announced a landmark $18 million investment to support state implementation of the new Common Core standards and train teachers how to use them …

GE is giving $18 million to Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit consulting organization launched by David Coleman. Coleman, a Rhodes scholar and classicist who built and sold a successful student assessment company before moving into the nonprofit sector, is one of the architects of the Common Core standards. Student Achievement Partners will use GE’s money to create institutes to train teachers, build an online tool for sharing resources and lessons, and help teachers model best practices with the new standards …

In addition to the size of the donation, GE is running toward controversy rather than away from it. The Common Core is not universally popular, and among many conservative (read: business-friendly) state legislators, the shared standards project is an object of great suspicion, if not outright opposition. And there is a determined group of activists and academics trying to bring it down.

I asked Bob Corcoran, the President of the GE foundation, why they were stepping into the breach when there are so many less controversial ways to be involved in education. He described the development of the standards as an incredibly hard-won achievement, but then pointed out that the coming implementation of these new standards would be the real “test of mettle, a test of commitment.”

Question for you: If you had the funding you needed, what kinds of PD would your staff benefit from if you are in a Common Core state? Now … how could you provide it for no money?

Side note: is it just me, or does it make you just a teensy bit uncomfortable that the guy who wrote the majority of the standards is now getting a huge influx of cash for his organization to help implement them?

Read the entire article here.

Here, we probe the second question from the scenario — how do we look at our students’ level of achievement and turn the mirror on ourselves? How can we learn about our strengths and weaknesses as teachers and guides by looking at how well our students did? What can we learn and improve upon?

Our scenario pal Mike is back again … what advice can you give him? We hope to be able to publish your perspective in School Library Monthly. Wouldn’t it be fun to see your name in print and share it with administrators as their parting idea about the power of librarianship in your building?

Thanks!

More and more, I want to see relationships develop between high school and college/university librarians. We have a lot to learn from one another.

In the meantime, here’s to future reading!

Library Instruction Round Table — LIRT Top Twenty via kwout

Libraries: Please Share Digital Learning Day Activities | District Dispatch via kwout

School Library Monthly joins the ALA Washington Office in encouraging readers to sign the White House petition asking the Obama administration to “ensure that every child in America has access to an effective school library program.” This is a SEPARATE initiative from the SKILLS Act that has been reintroduced in Congress. If 25,000 signatures are not received by February 4, the petition will not be forwarded to the President. It has been recommended that we set an internal cut-off date of Feb. 3, just in case.

Remember: this is a REVISED petition. If you signed the petition a few months ago that was initiated by librarians in California, that vote does not count toward this new petition.

ALA Washington distributed these cards at ALA Midwinter with the instructions:

Grab the embed code from HackCollege

So the folks at Midwinter tend to be the librarians who are going above and beyond their day job at their library or related site. These are the folks who, back home, live under that dark shadow called, “You’re An Overachiever.”

If there’s one thing I saw this past weekend, it was FATIGUE. The combination of what was, for most, a shorter holiday break, plus additional job responsibilities seems to have tuckered out our profession. And there were many faces we didn’t see this year that we usually do, folks for whom salary or benefit cuts, or an overwhelming workload, meant they could scarcely afford the time or the costs of being away from home. And we know that there are many of you out there who are running multiple libraries, or trying to balance part-time classroom teaching with the very full-time responsibility of maintaining, much less improving, a library collection and program.

School Library Monthly hears every day from folks who are working this hard and feeling this fatigue, and that’s why it supports the White House petition that, if 25,000 signatures are received, will be delivered to President Obama’s desk. Many of your colleagues have worked tirelessly to get the word out on behalf of the profession.

If you haven’t yet signed, SLM encourages you to do so, if only as a sign of support and thanks for those formal and informal leaders in the profession who have extended themselves on behalf of all in the profession. Signing sooner rather than later reduces their fretful anxiety. Remember: this is a REVISED petition. If you signed the petition a few months ago that was initiated by librarians in California, that vote does not count toward this new petition.

Thanks.

From the Occupy movement to increasing state-level flexibility in federal education legislation, the significance of being both local and vocal was a major theme of this year’s institute.

“We don’t live in a top-down communication world anymore; messages are peer-to-peer,” explained Trippi. “Anyone can challenge the thinking at the top.” Trippi encouraged educators to use social media to their advantage to build their “army of Davids” and start “handing out slingshots.”

Yet, despite grassroots support, it often seems education policy makers and practitioners speak two different languages. Staffers and educator advocates offered communication strategies for bridging the divide between Capitol Hill and the classroom. For example

- Using anecdotes, espcially stories specific to your the representatives jurisdiction, to illustrate your goals or agenda

- Basing your argument in research

- Identifying what’s working well, what you want to change, and where you can compromise

- Tweaking the rhetoric from “measurement” to “assessment,” and from “compliance” to “engagement”

- Knowing your representative’s voting record and commending like-minded voting

- Asking what issues they’re working on and how you can help

- Follow-up with phone calls, emails, and supplemental materials

“There is a firehose of information coming at your representatives; it’s up to staffers to ge the best to their bosses,” advised one staffer. “Build relationships with staffers and be persistent.”

And ask your friends to join you, included Trippi. “YOU move the message.”

Good advice for getting our message across in tough times!

ALA recognizes four library programs as top cutting-edge services in third annual contest | District Dispatch via kwout

From the ALA Washington Office’s District Dispatch Blog:

The American Library Association (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and the Library Information Technology Association (LITA) have selected programs at Contra Costa County Library in Pleasant Hill, Calif., New Canaan High School Library in New Canaan, Conn., New York Public Library in New York, and Scottsdale Public Library in Scottsdale, Ariz., as the winners of the association’s third annual contest to honor cutting-edge technologies in library services …

“This year’s winners represent thoughtful and creative engagement with technology trends including QR codes, open-source software, social media, GIS, and mobile applications,” said Christine Lind Hage, Director, Rochester Hills Public Library, who chaired the selection subcommittee. [Kristin’s editorial note: Hage is a UM library school alum — Go Blue!]

About the Winners:

Snap & Go, Contra Costa County Library, California
Using QR (Quick Response) codes, Snap & Go serves as an innovative delivery mechanism for traditional library services. From local transit ads to posters to newspaper ads, Contra Costa County is delivering instant access to library materials and services to cardholders with mobile phones. By scanning the code with a reader on their phones, users are directed to downloadable e-books and audiobooks, virtual museum passes, interactive reference service, account and catalog search, and readers’ advisory tools. QR codes placed on popular titles take readers to “read-alike” lists created by library staff. Usage of the library’s mobile site has increased 16 percent since Contra Costa implemented Snap & Go. http://guides.ccclib.org/qr

Participatory Platforms for Learning, New Canaan High School Library, Connecticut
New Canaan’s Participatory Platforms for Learning program strives to cultivate curiosity throughout the learning community and encourage experimentation with new tools for content creation, publication and participation. The program includes deploying the full complement of Google applications; advocating a culture of intellectual freedom; using Twitter for current events research; and using Facebook groups for students to record their research process and provide feedback to others in the group. The program enmeshes learning and the “real world” to teach students digital citizenship by encouraging them to become responsible information consumers, creators and contributors … Their online portal is at: http://nchslibraryannex.blogspot.com/ [Kristin’s note: one of New Canaan’s librarians, Michelle Luhtala, has strong ties to School Library Monthly — having co-authored a recent article — and its book publishing wing, Libraries Unlimited. She penned a chapter on webinars in the upcoming professional development book Growing Schools: Librarians as Professional Developers, co-edited by Debbie Abilock, Violet H. Harada, and me.]

Map Warper Toolkit, New York Public Library, New York
The Map Warper toolkit allows staff and the public to virtually stretch (or geo-rectify) historical maps onto a digital model of the world à la Google Maps or OpenStreetMap, transforming old atlases into interactive spatial environments. Participants also can go deeper, tracing and transcribing specific map features into a growing public database. The project adds to the historical and scholarly record while engaging library patrons in building digital resources. The service is managed by the NYPL Labs group, developed in collaboration with EntropyFree, an open source geospatial software firm. The tools are in the process of being published to an open code repository for other libraries, scholars and cultural heritage workers to use and build upon. http://maps.nypl.org

Gimme Engine, Scottsdale Public Library, Arizona
The Gimme Engine mobile website helps customers find a great book to read based on a library staffer’s recommendation and review. Gimme combines library catalog MARC data, content enrichment service images and descriptions, and library staff book reviews on Goodreads.com to create a unique experience. Gimme, which was developed with monies received from an LSTA grant, was created to meet a need stated by both library and non-library users; they wanted book recommendations powered by library staff. The Gimme engine is a creative solution to meet these customer needs … http://gimme.scottsdalelibrary.org

Congratulations, winners!