As a school librarian, you are the only librarian on your campus. You go from being a classroom teacher with many other peers, to the only one of your profession on your campus. That is the reason that professional development with other professional librarians is so important to your career. Being a school librarian is the BEST job in the world, in my opinion, however the hardest part is not having another librarian next door to discuss work issues with.
EdCamp Library is one of the best professional development days for this very purpose. Hundreds of school librarians gather together for this "unconference", build a schedule together based on the current needs of those attending. If you've never been to an EdCamp, I highly suggest it. Upon arrival, the attendees make the suggestions for sessions over topics they are interested in. Attendees can also sign up to facilitate a session on a topic they are passionate about, excel at, or are just highly interested in. You don't have to be perfect or a pro at the topic, you are simply there to faciliate the session and keep the conversation going.
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| The schedule is built on a google spreadsheet, and the collaborative notes are linked. |
Sessions
After the schedule is built, we get to choose our sessions that we want to go to. The best thing is, if you get to a session and it isn't what you thought, you can go to a different session during that time.
Digital Badging
The first session I went to was over Digital Badges. I met some new librarians and had some great conversation. Two of the librarians had used digital badges with their students and their teachers. I learned a lot, and I cannot wait to implement this next year. These ladies were so awesome to share their amazing resources!!
Genrefying the Library
Next session was over genrefying your library. Most attendees were secondary librarians, but a few were elementary. This is something I am definitely thinking about next year, and I love that now I have other librarians as a resource to turn to for questions. Students are constantly asking for a certain genre, and while a few librarians said "Why can't they just look it up in the catalog", I try to be more positive and think of how I like to look for books. Public libraries and book stores are all organized by genre. Everyone has their favorite genre, and while I believe we should encourage children to read multiple genres to find their favorite, by 4th and 5th grade those good readers usually know their favorite genre by now.
I'm really excited to start my genrefrication journey!! Stay tuned...
Self Checkout
The next two sessions I agree to facilitate and guide the conversation. Self checkout has been an amazing life-saver for me, which is why I wanted to facilitate this session. Some of the attendees also used self-checkout, but several were wanting to implement the process an had several questions. I'm glad I had a picture of my self-checkout station to show, which several people said was helpful.
One question that was posed by an attendee was, "How do I talk this up to my principal so he will allow me to do this in my library?" I'm thankful that my principal lets me run the library the way I feel is best for our students, but I know many principals like to have a say. So, we discussed reasons why you should implement self checkout:
- Opens up the library for more check out time.
- Frees up librarian to work one-on-one with students.
- Allows for more co-teaching time.
- Teaches students independence.
- All ages can utilize self-checkout.
Collaborating with Teachers
If you've been following my blog, or following me on twitter, you know how passionate I am about collaboration with teachers. We had a fabulous conversation about collaboration and the importance. We first talked about the obstacles and ways to overcome them. I always like to get the obstacles out of the way first. :) Many questions were how to get teachers on board. While many teachers forget that we are also teachers, we have to remember that student success is our goal. Start small, maybe only one teacher or grade level at first, and let others see how you can TOGETHER impact students.
Smackdown
At the end of the day, everyone meets together to share highlights from the day. I like being able to hear ideas others got from sessions I did not get to attend. Plus, we get doorprizes. :) I won this cute shirt from FlipGrid!
