I have been fairly neglectful in posting a regular blog entry. As you can see I am endeavouring to remedy this. Over the next few weeks, I will also share my views on each topic.

Assignment One is now done and I thought I would go back to my entry from last month to answer this question. Now that I have completed half a semester, now would be a good opportunity to propose a new answer to my question: What is a teacher librarian?

It is vastly different to what I proposed at the start of semester.

The role of the teacher librarian is to teach the school community how to effectively use information and equip students with the skills that they will need for effective learning. This includes the provision of a variety of resources that will assist students in fulfilling this objective including literature and multimedia sources.

In addition, teacher librarians contribute actively to the professional development of staff through programming and proposing suitable teaching strategies that will develop skills in information literacy which will ensure that students achieve academic success.

A Day at the School Library

I had the opportunity to fill in for an absent teacher-librarian at a catholic school in southern Sydney last week, and provided me with a chance to experience the role of teacher librarian on a school day.

This was my first casual day in this role and I have been employed as a casual teacher of Human Society and It's Environment at the school.

The day went well. As it was a sports day, I only had three three periods plus managing the library during the recess and lunch breaks. It is normal for the library to be quiet.

I was fortunate that the library assistant was there to teach me in how to loan and return books. The students at the school use their "ID Cards" to borrow. Laptops can also be loaned as the school only provides laptops to Year 9 Students. I am aware other schools provide laptops to year 11 students and it was disappointing to see that the students missed out at this school.

Also I engaged in a teaching role through supervising two study classes and I was allowed to move them from their classroom to the library. The students enjoyed it as they had the option to read or borrow the laptops, reducing possible misbehaviour amongst themselves.

Sport Supervision was part of my role, supervising students undertaking ice skating at Canterbury Ice Rink.

There was plenty to keep me occupied!!!

At this school, the teacher librarian seems to assume an active role in the day to day life of the school. They are not confined to the library, but also provide supervision of classes and also part-take in activities such as school sport.

For a person like myself, I can find working alone in the school library to be isolating, and to be provided with the additional responsibilities provides myself with an opportunity to get to know the students better. It means that I can in my role use the information about students to provide suitable resources that will assist in their learning. We are not librarians, but teachers as well. We are there to educate the students!!!

Flat Earth News

I am currently reading the book 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies.

I find it amazing some of the material that I have come up across especially when it relates to the evaluation of material.

We have to be very careful with what is being published, especially with the lack of follow up or research. Journalists are under pressure to find information for their organisation and have it published as quickly as possible. If it often means relying merely on regurgitating press releases, not conduct interviews or research to undertake background but also not questioning the validity of information handed to them by agencies and informers.

Some of it is recycled stuff from the past, and all of a sudden the media picks on it because it's the talk of the day.