School Library Research (SLR)

Abby the Librarian The Voice of Users: Perspectives on School Library Automation COLUMN The Voice of Users: Perspectives on School Library Automation by Barbara Fiehn, Assistant Professor Northern Illinois University, College of Education Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment While automation systems are not perfect, don't try taking them away from library media specialists! When surveyed on why automation is important to school libraries, several school library media specialists wondered why the question would even be asked at all. Automation systems are an expected technology in schools today. Several respondents expressed the idea that since teachers in content areas have the current technology of their fields, so should librarians. This article reports the results of a survey of 164 school library media professionals from 28 states who responded to a survey about their use of library automation software. Alexandria Athena Dynix Follett Sagebrush Winnebago This article is presented in three parts. Initial Training Experience

What are literacy skills? | Thoughtful Learning: Curriculum for 21st Century Skills, Inquiry, Project-Based Learning, and Problem-Based Learning Literacy skills help students gain knowledge through reading as well as using media and technology. These skills also help students create knowledge through writing as well as developing media and technology. Information Literacy Students need to be able to work effectively with information, using it at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating). Consuming information: The current excess of information requires students to gain new skills in handling it. Inquire: A Guide to 21st Century Learning provides chapters on reading to learn, study skills, vocabulary, and basic and advanced research. Media Literacy Media literacy involves understanding the many ways that information is produced and distributed. Students' use of media has far outstripped educational use, and students will continue to adopt new media long before teachers can create curricula about it. Technology Literacy

» Back-to-school is the time to plan for data-driven programming AASL Blog Posted by Wendy Stephens in Check this out!. Tags: automation systems, beyond circulation, data trackback A new school year provides opportunities for fresh evaluation and strategic justification of our instructional programs. Our existing automation systems provide sophisticated capabilities for reporting about what is going on in our school libraries, but are we making use of them? The start of the year offers an ideal opportunity to set up your automation system to inform long term planning Circulation statistics are limited as a measure of library activity. I am excited about increasing the range of data, circulation and otherwise. In the past, I used one of the user-defined fields to track the checkout history of a student group. This year, I plan to use a single field in the student patron record to underpin a focus on equity. Data from the automation system can also help with external funding.

Skills Overview The Big6™ Developed by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, the Big6 is the most widely known and widely used approach to teaching information and technology skills in the world. Used in thousands of K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and corporate and adult training programs, the Big6 information problem-solving model is applicable whenever people need and use information. The Big6 integrates information search and use skills along with technology tools in a systematic process to find, use, apply, and evaluate information for specific needs and tasks. Why Big6™? We all suffer from information overload. One solution to the information problem—the one that seems to be most often adopted in schools (as well as in business and society in general)—is to speed things up. The Big6™ Skills The Big6 is a process model of how people of all ages solve an information problem. 1. 1.1 Define the information problem 1.2 Identify information needed 2. 2.1 Determine all possible sources 3. 4. 5. 6.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? Illustration by Guy Billout "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. Also see:

Formative Assessment The nearly universal national adoption of the Common Core Standards is bringing formative assessment and its purposes back to the forefront. Formative assessment is crucial for responsive teaching and reflective learning. This segment of "Nudging" explores how to embrace this mandate in a way that has real, valuable impact on student growth. Formative assessment is a way of evaluating student work while it is still in progress. The importance of assessment is well stated by Stanford researcher Linda Darling-Hammond when she writes, Collaborative and inquiry approaches to learning require that we consider classroom activities, curriculum, and assessment as a system in which each interdependent aspect is important to an environment that promotes flexible knowledge development. To be blunt, if school librarians are to call themselves teachers, then they too must ensure that students are learning, not just "doing." If You Have to Grade Formative Assessments A Natural Skill Score along the Way

Figures - APA Citation Style, 6th edition - Research Guides at George Washington University When you use a figure in your paper that has been adapted or copied directly from another source, you need to reference the original source. This reference appears as a caption underneath the figure that you copied or adapted for your paper. Any image that is reproduced from another source also needs to come with copyright permission; it is not enough just to cite the source. Hints: Number figures consecutively throughout your paper.Double-space the caption that appears under a figure. General Format 1 (Figure from a Book): Caption under Figure Figure X. from Book Title (page number), by Author First Initial. Year, Place of Publication: Publisher. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission. Example 1 (Figure from a Book): Figure 1. Loss (p. 73), by K. the Association for Memory Research. General Format 2 (Figure from a Journal Article): from “Title of Article,” by Author First Initial. Volume(issue), page number. Example 2 (Figure from a Journal Article) Figure 1. the choice task (b). Task," by S.

Inquiry-based Learning: Explanation What is inquiry-based learning? An old adage states: "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand." The last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning, says our workshop author Joe Exline 1. Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Furthermore, involvement in learning implies possessing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge. "Inquiry" is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge -- seeking information by questioning." A Context for Inquiry Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. Importance of Inquiry Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. The Application of Inquiry

What are 21st century skills? | Thoughtful Learning: Curriculum for 21st Century Skills, Inquiry, Project-Based Learning, and Problem-Based Learning The 21st century skills are a set of abilities that students need to develop in order to succeed in the information age. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills lists three types: Learning Skills Critical Thinking Creative Thinking Collaborating Communicating Literacy Skills Information Literacy Media Literacy Technology Literacy Life Skills Flexibility Initiative Social Skills Productivity Leadership New Skills for New Jobs These skills have always been important for students, though they are particularly important in our information-based economy. To hold information-age jobs, though, students also need to think deeply about issues, solve problems creatively, work in teams, communicate clearly in many media, learn ever-changing technologies, and deal with a flood of information. Demand in the Workplace These are not just anecdotal observations.