About Me

Education

I gained my Masters of Education at the University of British Columbia specializing in Teacher Librarianship.

In 1993, I gained my My Post Baccalaureate Diploma at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia,  in curriculum studies.

In 1991, I gained my Bachelor of Education at Simon Fraser University.  I have minors in history, psychology and early childhood education.In 1979, I gained my Early childhood Education Diploma at Brixton College, London, England

Teaching Experience

I am currently the teacher librarian at Hazelgrove Elementary School, Surrey, BC.  We have a large body of students with diverse needs.  It is an exciting, challenging position.
Previously, I spent 3 years in England teaching 6-7 year olds in a village school in the North West of England.  I enjoyed my experience helping a small village school build their  library and learning about smartboards.  I have fond memories of the teachers and students I worked with. Prior to my experience in England,  I taught in various schools (from inner city to high socio-economic) in the Surrey School District #36 in British Columbia for 15 years.  I have taught kindergarten through to Grade Four.

Passionate About Children’s Literature
I love children’s books and enjoy sharing books with my students.  I was not a child who loved to read and in fact hated it!  I  raged when my older sisters (both teachers) gave me books for birthday gifts.  My whole experience of learning to read was painful and I can still remember the dread of being asked to read aloud in front of the class.  I want my students to have a very different experience with literature.  I pride myself on trying to match students with books that interest them.

Interests

Apart from my collecting children’s book I love to travel.  I love the cities of Europe and the warm climate and resorts of Africa. Paris is my favourte city where I spent my honeymoon and my 50th. Birthday.  

School Libraries and Blogs

I have found out so much about how school libraries use blogging.  Many use blogs to publish book reviews.  While this is very interesting and I enjoyed reading them, it became apparent that the students did not comment very often and I felt the librarian might have been posting to his or herself.  I would have become quite discouraged.  I  believe that to truly utilize a blog, students should have the ability to post comments not just respond to comments.  I am sure there are logistical issues involved here but I think that is what the essence of blogging is all about.  I would like to have seen more library blogs linking to student’s blogs (Grandview Library Blog). On Doug Belshaw’s teaching-related blog  he finds that he doesn’t have any trouble getting students to blog and in fact they want to do it during their lunch times.  He dicusses two sites that enable students to blog within a safe environment.  The first is Think.com   and the second is Imbee.com.   He monitors the postings before they are posted but does not monitor the comments.  As a school libraian, I would be interested in getting the students to blog not just using a blog to convey information.  I think this is where there may possibly be a difference between the use of blogging in a public library and the use of blogging in a school library.

Maybe there are two different types of blogs?  I am stuggling to find the missing link but I know my search won’t stop just because LIBR 500 has finished.

After writing a web site, I believe that a blog is the way for the librarian to get in touch with his or her community.  It is easiy to design and accessible to everyone.  I think the parents would find it interesting to find out just how much goes on in the library! However, libraians, make sure you link to your school home page, as that where most people start looking for school related information.  I am sure that in the future this is one web 2.0 tool I will defiantly use (along with podcasts!).

The Library Zone

King George V School , Hong Kong hosts the The Library Zone.   It is easily navigated from the school’s Welcome Page by clicking on the side menu buttons of Department, KGV Library and then KGV Library Blog.  The blog was established in November 2005 and is hosted by two library staff, Ms. Tong and Mrs. Chan.  It is easy to read and has lots of photos and clip art to catch the readers eye. The posts are approximately once a month and discuss what is happening in the school and in the library.  It advises students of the new library system.  Or suggests they read in the new Hong Kong Library to get avoid the hot humid weather.  It also provides links for book lists for summer reading, Inside a Dog is a great web site to find interesting books for teens.  The blog also had several posts about Harry Potter and the up coming book (earlier in the year).

It seems to be a forum for the librarians to provide information for students relating to books.  There are also cultural events discussed and links posted to find out more information, for example Chinese New Year, I was curious what Chinese students were taught about Chinese New Year!

This blog seems to take on the role of a notice board. It informs students of events like book awards or competitions and points them towards useful web links.  Is it interactive?  Are the students voices heard?  The answer is no to both of these questions.  The only comment I found was from another teacher.  Once again, the question of how to get students to post and comment has to be examined.  I thought I had found the answer in prizes and competitions but this did not prove to be the case for this library blog.  The published Harry Potter Contest results were great, but no one made any comments about them!

Grandview Library Blog

A Must Visit Site!! 

Grandview Elementary School, Monsey, New York is the home of Grandview Library Blog.  The library blog can be found by clicking the library link on the side menu of the school’s home page.  It can also be found by googling Grandview Library.  The Grandview Library Blog is eye catching and had tons for me to click on.  It really wasn’t a blog but  a web site with the title of Blog.  I explored it for hours! I think Mrs. Chauncey and her students have an excellent grasp of using web 2.0 tools in their school library.  It is an outstanding site.On Mrs. Chauncey’s librarian web page, was a U Tube insert with various cookie Monster clips.  I loved Cookie Monster visits the library! a must watch!  She also had a long list of professional links which I will take time to explore later.If you click on the school newspaper you can find podcasts about a panda study or book talks by Grade Three students, there are even video clips.  The home page of the web site is written for parents and extolled the virtues of reading aloud to your child. It provided links to the local library and how to get a library card. It gave detailed lesson plans for the library curriculum and lots of excellent links.  One of the links I particularly like was to  Scholastic research which examined the importance of libraries and librarians to student performance.  Once you started to click on the links the pages became more child centered. The blog button was just one among many (I’m not sure how many parents would have found it or clicked on it if their child wasn’t directly involved and told them to go and look at their blog).  Mrs. Chauncey had posted the rules for blogging.  Students were not allowed to post photos or use their names only initials and class number.  Although this was a safety precaution, and I have been concerned with student safety and the internet I wondered if it prevented students making comments if they weren’t sure who they were talking to. The student’s blogs were journal type entries.  They had not been written as a class assignment but by individual students who had wanted to write a blog.  Mrs. Chauncey had asked open-ended questions in her comments to their postings to encourage students to blog more.  I see these blogs and being real places for the students to publish their ideas and to read the ideas of their peers.  It wasn’t just a space for the librarian to review books or the students to publish their book review assignment.This school library also had a School Wiki for Grade Three research projects.  I can’t even imagine how Mrs. Chancey keeps up with it all!ONE BIG PROBLEM I couldn’t find the link to the school web page anywhere.  It took a lot of looking for the school on Google to find the right school. This letter is from someone who attended a Media Specialist Conference and saw Mrs. Chauncey present.  It sums up the web site (taken from a letter posted on http://www.grandviewlibrary.org/ ).”Attended the School Library Media Specialists of S.E. New York conference this Friday March 31st and was electrified by one of the presentations, namely that of a colleague, Sarah Chauncey of GrandviewLibrary.org, an elementary school in Monsey,N.Y.If you visit her webpage www.grandviewlibrary.org you will see the future ladies and gentlemen.  As an Alumna of the Palmer School I exhort you:The Palmer School MUST work with Sarah to develop a semester long course (minimum) in sharing her vision of the digital school library posthaste. Her model can be extended into every level of K-12, AND beyond.As a career changer, I took my M.S.LIS at LIU by dint of a Title II grant for leadership in 1994. I may not be a leader, but I recognize leadership when I see it.”  

I loved this site! 

Book Splat

Beverly High School, Massachusetts has an interesting Media Center web site run by Barbara Fecteau.  The strange thing about the Media Center’s web site is there are no links (that I could find) to any of Mrs. Fecteau’s blogs and she has five connected with the school!  I first came across Book Splat from a link Susie had set up in School Libraries that Blog.  The address of Book Splat is http://booksplat.blogspot.com/  It’s a really up beat blog, with well written interesting book reviews.  Mrs. Fecteau talks about reading all the books on the summer reading list and you really feel interested in her opinions. She puts the covers of the books on her blog next to the review to catch the reader’s attention. Clicking on her complete profile it becomes evident she hosts four other blogs.  There are no obvious links from one to the other, only through exploring the blog  do you come across them.  The BHSL Blog promises students they can find links for all their research needs as well as other information from the friendly, helpful staff at Beverly High School Library.  It contains a list of reliable web sites, a list of good fiction books and information about library fund raising.  It isn’t very eye catching and I’m not sure it would keep the student’s attention for long.  Both First Year Teacher Talk  and BHSL Research  seem to be written for teachers, providing information about on line resources.  One, as the name suggests, welcomes new teachers and helps direct them to relevant sites while suggesting a few lesson ideas as well.  The other provides links to professional development information and web sites that might be useful to teachers such as eLibrary, Biography Resources Centre and EBSCO.The Library Schedule Blog  tells the students about activities that are happening in the library.  It is difficult to read as the timetable comes up with tons of HTML code.  However, Barb Fecteau puts her personality in by declaring Barbvember the month of her birth!  I like this lady!!

Barb Fecteau has lots to offer her students and colleagues.  But how will they know if she doesn’t put links on the school’s Media Center web page?  She may well tell the students and teachers about her blogs in class or through email but parents and the rest of the school community might find her blogs interesting.  I did notice that there are no comments posted on any of the blogs!  Who knows they are out there!!! I think Barb is using the blogs like easily editable web pages.  Barb did a professional development session on blogging for teachers.  I hope she told them that the students need to be able to access the blogs! 

Mission:Read

Chiddix Junior High School, Normal, Illinois hosts three blogs from their Information Media Centre.  To navigate to the IMC from the school home page is easy, just click the IMC menu button on the sidebar and it takes you to the IMC home page.  Mrs. Glatt is the author of all three blogs but they each have a very different look and purpose.  The Girls Read Blog is a fairly recent blog that has a light airy feel.  It has only a few postings.  The initial posting described a meeting where about 50 students met to decide what they wanted in their blog.  Having decided what they wanted (fashion, relationships/dating, dance and crafts), it is a pity Mrs. Glatt is the only one who has posted anything.  There is a link to Reader Girlz which seems a really interesting web sight for teenage girls who like to read.  It is a bit more than just book reviews.  I was surprised that although there was a link to the Mission Read Blog there wasn’t a link to the Guys Read Blog.  The Guys Read Blog has a totally different look than the Girls Read Blog (GRB).  It uses dark colours and different font. It had a number of postings but they weren’t as recent as the GRB.  It was also supposed to be student driven and was created to capture the interests of the guys.  There was only one comment to a posting and all the postings were from Mrs. Glatt.  The Mission: Read Blog is really good.  It is well established, with the first posting having been on November 14, 2005.  Its main posting body tells about activities in the IMC. There are flickr photos for students to browse and information on Teen Read Week with the theme Laugh out Loud. On the side menu under categories, are other areas to explore such as book reviews, movie reviews and trivia contests. The book reviews are written by Mrs. Glatt.  They are interesting and contemporary.  There were a few comments on these postings.  The movie reviews were interesting but the comments buttons were turned off.  It was the Trivia category which really caught my attention.  For these posts there were up to 6 or 7 comments!  Given the grave lack of comments on any library blog up to now, I needed to know the answer!  Prizes….. pizza certificates and soda certificates were given to the winner of the trivia questions!  Students had to visit the library and/or read the books to be able to answer the questions. Students really participated!  This gives me something to think about.  Are students intrinsically motivated to comment on a library blog (from what I’ve seen apparently not) or is there a real need to use extrinsic motivation? I wonder if any students would have participated in the trivia quiz if there weren’t any prizes.  It would be an interesting research topic.Overall I really liked this blog.  Mrs. Glatt seemed to put herself into the blog and I really felt I got a sense of who she was and her true passion for books and connecting with students.This school is also working with podcasts, so it is using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. 

Olson Middle School Media Center

Olson Middle School, Bloomington MN. has four blogs connected to their Media Center.  Three of them are creations of Mrs. Kochel and the fourth is hosted by Mrs. Gillis who is also a teacher in the school.  Each blog can be found by following the links from the school’s welcome page.  Clicking on the sidebar Media Center button takes you to the Media Center’s Home Page.  I did not find this page particularly inspiring.  Clicking on student resources takes you to another page and by clicking on a “Book Info” button you are taken to a page that provides links to the various blogs.  This is not easily navigated and there are several buttons that could take you in different directions and make finding the blogs less likely.  The links for the blogs are just underlined links and don’t look very inviting or interesting, especially to children.However, once there, OMS Book Blog written by Mrs. Kochel is really eye catching.  Mrs. Kochel reviews books in such a way it makes me want to read!  Her reviews are lively and interesting.  She put the covers of the books beside each review which focuses the reader.  The sidebar has a choice of genres which categorize books and make searching for a review easier.  Also if a student was interested in a certain genre he or she could easily locate good books.  It is easy to navigate and fun to read.There are several external links provided.  One link goes to another local middle school’s media centre blog which also reviews books.  There is also a link to Mrs.Gillis Book of the Week Blog .  This is also a book reviewing blog. Each week Mrs. Gillis reviews a book.  It is up to date and interesting to view and read. The First Person Fiction Blog is there to help Grade 8 students find a first person fiction book.  It shows book covers but does not provide any information beyond that and does not provide a review.  It is basically a visual book list. 

Pageturners Book of the Week Blog  is written by Mrs. Kochel and  Tom Postler.  Although it is called “Book of the Week blog” postings are not weekly.  It is again a book review blog.

Across all blogs there are very few comments on the postings. There are no book reviews by students.  These blogs do not seem to be interactive but rather the teacher’s domain.  I think they wouldn’t be that different if they were web pages.   How to make blogs become more interactive seems to be essential to the nature of a blog.

Dutch Forks Middle School

Dutch Forks Middle School, Irmo, South Carolina  has a Media Center that uses blogs to publish student’s book reports.  The Book Review Blog can be easily navigated to by going to the School’s home page and clicking on the side menu option of Media Center.  A link is clearly marked on this page. The book blog’s link on the side menu from the school’s Welcome page is not activated and a “coming soon” message appears. The blog is administered by Melinda Hare, who is the school’s media specialist.  Clicking on her web page does not produce very much information.  Most pages are in place but have not been utilized. The Book Blog has been the work of two classes.  Mrs. Dobbin’s Grade Seven class posted some excellent reviews. Rachel made three comments on different posts and Hannah’s mom commented on her post. Mrs. Howe’s class also wrote book reviews.  However, these were added to the blog as comments so no one was able comment on the reviews. Mrs. Hare did write a general comment at the end of the postings.  After browsing the school website in order to find out the age of Mrs. Howe’s students, I did stumble on Mrs. Howe’s blog for book reviews. It was written by student but once again done so that the postings were put in as comments and so no one could add a comment about the reviews. There are no external links from the blog but you can navigate around the school’s web site from the blog. I think this school is getting its feet wet using Web 2.0 tools.  It also has a web page promising podcasts in the near future. Once again it becomes evident that getting students to participate and make comments about people’s postings is a challenge.  I think if the teacher commented on each posting it might encourage others to comment.  Or maybe it could be an assignment to comment on a posting.  I do believe that once people start commenting and having their postings commented on, they will want to do it more.  To improve the blog I think the librarian could write a few reviews of her own.  She doesn’t seem to be very present on her blog.  I also think a few external links would make the blog more interesting for students and parents to browse.

Voices from the Inglenook

   

One of my favourite school library blogs is from Cold Spring School, Santa Barbara, California.  Mrs. Pedersen writes the blog called Voices from the Inglenook.   From the school web page Voices from the Inglenook can be found by following the links classroom, then library.  

It is easy to find the blog once you are on the school’s web site.  The librarian has a web page that links to the blog.  The overall appearance of the blog is interesting and easy to read.   It is updated each week, and has been in existence since August 2006.  It seems mainly geared to parents telling them what has been happening in the library each week.  The font is small and it would be hard for younger students to read. If I was a parent in the school, I would feel that I really knew what my child was doing in the library.  I would use the links and enjoy the photos of projects posted.  The tone of the blog makes Mrs. Pedersen seem very approachable and I would feel welcome in the library.           

There are a number of interesting links.  Two links are to other blogs supported by the library.  One is a research blog and the other is a library skills blog.  The research blog is where students can post their research projects.  Although there were several interesting postings there were no comments made about any of the postings. The second blog looked more like a web page and linked to different games.  I really liked the highlights web site where I could build a snowman.   I will use this as a fun activity with my students. I had to scroll down quite a way to find assignments for the older students to complete.  It had assignments where students had to evaluate web sites, which is such an important skill for students to learn.  Once again, there were no comments posted. Other links were Books for Boys, Book Wink, A guide to the Best in New Children’s books by Esme Codell, Librarian’s Guide to the Internet and Nancy Keane’s ATN Booklist Wiki.  I really liked the Book Wink link as it gave book talks of current children’s books which would encourage children to read.  I appreciated the links to experts in the field as a guide to various books.           

I’m not sure how to encourage comments.  I think if a few teachers posted then it might start a trend.  Or get a few parents who you know well to comment.  Maybe people feel a bit intimidated writing something that everyone can read.  It could be made a library assignment to comment on the blog posting.  I was really pleased to see my comment posted, and I think once you have done it once you are more likely to do it again. 

I will revisit this blog as I found it inspirational for my own school library blog.  I was disappointed by the lack of comments posted.  I would find it quite discouraging to keep posting and have no feedback!      

Why this Blog?

Hi,

My name is Barbara Heard and I’m currently taking LIBR 500, Foundations in Information Technology at the University of British Columbia.  You can find out more about me on my “About” page. 

The purpose of this blog is to examine how various school libraries use the web 2.0 tool of blogs.  I am interested in the use of blogs in school libraries as I think as a future school librarian it is an excellent way to communicate with the school community and get people to interact.