Slow Time of the Year?

January is not usually packed with reseach classes, but amazingly enough, we are still quite busy.  There is a lot of planning to be done for the Spring.  We are spending what is left of our budget, introducing Nooks to our circulation, creating book displays, helping both staff and students who come see us, taking care of technology issues, and running a Twitter contest to enlist more followers after creating a Twitter handle for the DHS Library, which is @dhs_library. Then there are the presentations and staff development classes we are designing.

In addition to our TCEA presentation we are making in Austin next week, and the presentation we are making for our district Showcase on Feb. 18th, we are also analyzing a staff survey we sent out last week.  I created the survey in Google Forms because, to be quite honest, I hadn't done that before; I usually use Survey Monkey.  When we went to Keller's YAK Fest a couple of weeks back, the librarians there convinced us that Google Forms was the way to go.  The free Survey Monkey only allows 100 responses, and Google Forms has no limit that I have hit yet.

On our survey, the librarians wanted to know how we could focus our efforts this semester to help.  If you are interested in what we asked, here is a link to our form... Staff Survey Link

 

I set up the survey to be anonymous so more people would be willing to answer it, but I did ask for the subject they taught; I was curious to see if every department was represented. We did indeed have many teachers from different departments answer our survey.  Yay!  I do have to mention this side note...although the survey was anonymous, we were amazed by the number of teachers who came by to see if we could guess which set of responses were theirs.  LOL!

 

After analyzing our results, we decided to focus on staff development, and here were our results...

• Alternatives to PPTs = 21%
• School Fusion = 15%
• Web 2.0 Tools that are subject specific = 15%
• Flipped Learning Model of Instruction = 13%
• Pinterest = 12%
• Twitter = 8%
• Organizing a Research project = 7%
• Word 2010 & Win 7 = 6%
• Google Docs = 2%
• Saving You Tube videos = .5%
• CPS Clickers = .5%

We are planning to tackle "Alternatives to PPT" first for obvious reasons, and we are going to take advantage of our library space and offer classes there.  We plan to offer a different digital tool each week (on Mondays)  in February during all blocks and after school.  For some teachers, that will be enough.  We are going to offer to teach the class to their students as well, if they feel like spending some time with us in the library. We hope that in offering to teach the classes to the students, those teachers who are intimidated by new technology will have the protection of adverse consequences they need.  AND the students get the exposure to a new tool.  It's win-win.

 

Our first Alternative PPT class is Kizoa, http://www.kizoa.com/ .  Karen is using this one in our TCEA presentation next week.  After that, we are going to introduce the staff to Spicynodes, http://www.spicynodes.org/.  I am using this tool in our TCEA presentation.  Blanca hasn't announced her tool of choice yet.  She is hoping to learn about a new tool at the technology conference next week.

 

The next class the staff wants is School Fusion.  For those of you who are not familiar, School Fusion is an interactive website that our teachers use for class.  We plan to address this topic during our sessions at the District Showcase on Feb. 18th.  Then we are thinking of a monthly work session after school to give the teachers a safe environment to explore.  Here is our library School Fusion page http://library-services.dhs.duncanvilleisd.org .

 

The 3rd class the staff wants is Web2.0 tools that are subject specific.  So we are going to start with the 4 core, English, S.S., Science, and Math (with different tools for each topic within a subject...i.e. Chemistry, Biology, Physics  within Science).  Then we are going to do Fine Arts and Sp. Ed.  We plan to create a LibGuide for each area, and then giving the link to that LibGuide to the appropriate teachers.  After the teachers explore the LibGuide, we will then offer a class, if 4 or more teachers are interested, to guide them through the resources.  If you are not familiar with LibGuides, they are the best.  Blanca went to a LibGuides session at the Texas Library Association (TLA) conference 2 years ago, and she convinced us to buy this product.  They are great.  Think of it like a digital Pathfinder.  Many colleges and some high schools have these.  Here is a link to our LibGuides site if you are interested http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/ . If you are a librarian, I encourage you to take a look, and no, I am not receiving an compensation from the company for this.

 

So to say January is our slow time of year is a matter of opinion.  See you next time!

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

Semester one is almost over, and so far we have survived Freshman orientation and both the Sophomore and Senior research papers.  We have promoted Banned Books Week, an Angry Birds Family Night, and the Elves in our Shelves.

Looking forward, we are planning our presentations for the Texas Computer Education Association at the beginning of February and our District Showcase in the middle of February.  The Juniors are coming in March for their big research unit, the Freshman are coming in May, and we want to plan another family night for Texas Public School's Week.  Of course, I have not forgotten School Library Week and Teen Tech Week....can't wait for those.  Fun times in the library!

As I prepare my part of our TCEA presentation, I want to take a few minutes to stress the importance of keeping library statistics as a way to promote your presence.  We started collecting stats 3 years ago when the district decided to hire 3 full time librarians at the same school. We wanted to make sure that our stats supported the fact that 3 librarians are a necessity on our campus, not a luxury.

Three years ago, we prepared a monthly report and sent it to our Principal and APs.  At the end of the year, we invited our teachers, staff, the administrators (superintendent, deputy superintendents,  heads of departments, library director, etc), school board members, and key community members (mayor, public librarian, etc) to come to an end of year bash where we also shared our stats for the year and thanked them for their support.

Last year, we sent the monthly reports to the Principal and APs again.  Then quarterly, we also sent them to key people in the district with which we had an established relationship, and we invited everyone back at the end of the year to thank them for their support.  This year, we started by sending out the first month to all key people in the district asking them to reply if they wanted to be kept on the mailing list and receive a library report each month.  Over half of our audience replied with a definite "yes," including 2 school board members.

So, where do you start?

Three years ago we started taking stats on our book circulation totals, how many classes we were either co-teaching or facilitating, the number of students coming to the library on passes, and the number of technology problems we solved.  Here is what our report looked like .....

This year we are keeping track of our circulation statistics, number of searches from our databases, the classes we co-teach/facilitate, students who come in before and after school, students who come in on passes during the day, the number of staff development meetings and events that we host, the amount of technology that is checked out by our teachers, and the number of technology issues we solve.  Here is what our report looks like now .....

Needless to say, our report has grown.  I think it is all about reporting on the things you deem important. Does a report like this take time?  Of course, but the numbers speak for themselves. This is a great way to promote your library to those who make the decisions in your district.  Just a thought!