submitted by Walt Chapman

Insights based on the article found here:https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/gimme-a-c-for-collaboration-meeting-the-needs-of-special-education-classrooms-through-outreach-and-advocacy/

Creating an inclusive environment in our school library has been a priority for me. In the class, Invigorate your School Library with the AASL National Standards, taught by Deborah Rinio of University of Alaska Fairbanks, I was introduced to the standards. The second foundation that the standards are based on is “Include”. Our school has a diverse population with many languages and cultures represented. It has not been too hard to find literature that represents our student’s heritage. I have had a more difficult time getting our physically and behaviorally challenged and developmentally delayed students to be part of our library community. 

I have been in discussions with our integrated preschool teacher and our DEC spec. ed. teacher on how to provide services to their students who are in self-contained classrooms. At the start of the year we had talked about formally scheduling an adaptive story/library time to get students and staff used to using the library. In both classrooms, the student’s challenges made it difficult for them to come to the library. Each teacher said they would try later in the year and I did not think too much about it.

Reading the article about how a Public Librarian is going into Spec. Ed. Classrooms, brought out what should have been an obvious next step for me. If the students are not ready to go to the library, the library needs to go to them. I am now envisioning following the model of the librarian in the article and slowly getting acquainted with the students, assessing their needs and providing story time and chances for inquiry learning experience in their classroom. Hopefully this will build relationships and make it easier for these students to eventually make down to the library.

By Sheryl Wittig

Teachers are expected to post their learning goals for students.  I do not have a fixed whiteboard, or open wall space.  I do have a 12’ screen and ceiling-mounted projector, and often post our goals on Google Slides.  I’m not going to drop the screen, flip on the projector just to show my kinder class today’s learning goals (unless the rest of the lesson was online).  But I want something present in my classroom that acknowledges the new standards and encourages students, staff and especially me to consider each foundation, key commitment, domain and competency.  I want students to ask questions about what they see.  So - something interesting and near where they like to be in the library.

​I picked up some of those vinyl clings promoting the new standards.  The view out our bay window is too beautiful to obscure it with anything.  The windows to the computer lab have potential, but usually full of drawings made during this year’s graphic novel illustrator guest visit (thanks, Mini-Con).  But the kids love spending time on the computers.  We have two large built-in computer counters with a rows of lights crossing over each.  I built six mobiles - one for each of the shared foundations.  The top layer of each mobile is the shared foundation on one side, and its key commitment on the other side. The next layer down are the four domains, and on the back side of each of those is it’s competencies.  These are ceiling mounted and dangle about over the computer counters.  I had the pieces cut out (you know, like half a year ago, then set aside), and the fishing line and swivels.  So I had to learn more about making mobiles. https://www.marcomahler.com/how-to-make-mobiles/ was a good starting point.  I got myself some galvanized, 14 gauge wire and several hours later I had six mobiles hanging above my computer tables.

By Sheryl Wittig

​I would recommend taking the LS593 Invigorating Your Library with the AASL National Standards to anyone interested in delving deeper into the new AASL standards and applying them to your program.  Attending multiple Standards sessions at AASL in Phoenix was a great orientation to the new standards. For me, that gave me a good overview of the Standards and each of the six Shared Foundations.  But I still wasn’t ready to implement them. 

The Alaska School Leadership Academy in Juneau this summer also addressed the standards; many of our activities gave us opportunities to apply the standards.  But the online, self-paced course that kept a dozen or so of us busy most of the fall was the most helpful.  It was the opportunity to really read, study, reflect, and share that has better prepared me for the task at hand.  We studied the learner framework, including aligning lessons to the new standards.  We looked at our own practice in the librarian framework, and found alignments with evaluation tools used in Alaska, such as Marzano and Danielson. 

I found the library framework study to be enlightening, and after conducting a library program evaluation, I now have a game plan for what I need to do to improve my library. I would recommend this class to all school library staff in Alaska.  In particular, if you don’t have an administrator in your district facilitating your standards work, or a support network, participating will help you find that network - in your district, state and/or nationally - and together you will be better prepared for the task at hand.

For more information:
https://standards.aasl.org/ Portal with all sorts of resources to support our implementation of the new standards.    

http://www.ala.org/aasl/ecollab  Great webinars about timely topics PLUS catch those sessions you missed or revisit those you did attend at the last AASL conference.  Some webinars are free, so require current AASL membership.  ​

https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/   A handy website for finding out what other school librarians have to say about a topic, or find that article you remember reading.  

By Pam Verfaillie

Digital MakerSpace - what will YOU make?
How are you going to express yourself in the digital realm? 
Click on the icons to connect with free online tools to get you started in making everything from infographics to presentations and books, music to videos.  Explore basic coding or even experiment to make your own apps! 
The majority of these websites have been recommended by the American Association of School Librarians.  Check out the websites here.

By Debi Tice
The 2018 School Library Leadership Academy in Juneau focused on the lens of STEAM.  I have been interested in coding for some time, and would primarily use Scratch for a unit on coding when I taught middle school Computer Science classes.  In my role as librarian, I would promote “Hour of Code” and would use their site in December for a week or two of lessons. This past spring I was able to host an after-school coding club for our middle school students.  We used a variety of resources such as Code.org, Spheros, Google’s CS First.  I built lessons for the students in Google Classroom and allowed them pretty much free time to explore and build where they saw fit.  This Google Slide, “Coding as MakerSpace”, has multiple links for exploration that I used.  It also includes many of the resources shared with us during the STEAM academy in Juneau. 
View slides here

By Debi Tice

The 2018 School Library Leadership Academy in Juneau focused on the lens of STEAM.  I am a champion of the A in STEAM and feel that there is art in all that we do. I was particularly excited to have a chance to listen to Laura Connor, Research Associate Professor at UAF.  Her presentation on “STEAM- The Colors of Nature” served as the inspiration for a future collaboration between the library, the middle school art teacher, and the 7th grade science teachers.  The first few days of school being back in session this August came with, tears, hugs, smiles, laughter, and conversations about scheduling.  I discussed the idea of collaboration between art and the 7th grade science native Alaskan tree unit and a way the library could support them both.  Resulting from the discussion and the inspiration from Laura Connor is the following MakerSpace lesson idea in a skeleton form that would can be adapted for grade levels and content areas.  

​Summarizing the Project:  What elements of native Alaskan plants make them valuable for creative expression?

• Concept(s) addressed:     
  • Plants have inherent characteristics that are desirable for creating art/craft projects
  • The elements of a plant can direct the design and form of artistic expression

To continue reading, click here.

What is Pi Academy?
By Audrey Drew
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I had read about Raspberry Pi some time ago, and as a former Ed Tech Collaborator, we had two Raspberry Pi laptops in our playground equipment.  The Raspberry Pi laptops we used to show others had just a breadboard, power supply, and built in monitor. It was interesting and you could access the internet and that was about all we showed others.  The biggest selling point was that you could build a computer for under $100. That sounded great! However, little did I know at the time, that there was so much more you could do with a few Raspberry Pi components, a keyboard and a used monitor/tablet. This past April I went back to school librarianship and started planning how to build my makerspace and library projects. Raspberry Pi seemed like it might be a good addition to what I already had available for my students.
To read more about Audrey's experience, click here.

The Lilead Project will launch four Lilead Leaders courses for school library professionals at any level who are looking to hone their leadership skills and work toward lasting transformational change for their students, schools, and districts during the 2018-2019 school year. 

The Lilead Leaders courses will focus on four topics:

1. Preparing for Transformational Change (Aug 15 - Oct 9, 2018)
2. Implementing Evidence-Based Practice (Oct 24 - Dec 18, 2018)
3. Communicating and Coalition-Building for Change (Jan 9 - Feb 12, 2019)
4. Cultivating Individual and Team Leadership (Feb 27 - Apr 9, 2019)

The Lilead Leaders courses were developed from themes that emerged from professional development in the Lilead Fellows Program. Dr. Ann Carlson Weeks, member of the Lilead Project team and Professor of the Practice at the University of Maryland, stated, “From the Lilead Fellows Program, we determined four major topics of professional development that guide school library leaders in becoming agents for transformational change. The Lilead Leaders courses will provide a collaborative learning opportunity for school library professionals to become more effective leaders for their schools and districts as they gain new skills and tackle major challenges in their current work.”

Registration is now open for the first Leaders course, “Preparing for Transformational Change." Groups of 10 or more students registering concurrently may receive a discount by contacting the Lilead Project at lileadproject@gmail.com. 

Register Now!Students will receive continuing education units (CEUs) from the University of Maryland’s Office of Extended Services (OES). individuals may choose to take all four courses or select one or more courses that are particularly applicable to their work. Whether starting with the first course in August 2018 or with a later course, the first course a student takes is $349; subsequent courses come at a reduced price of $279. 
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The Lilead Project
www.lileadproject.org
lileadproject@gmail.com
(240) 770-1692