Librarians

Mar 12 2021

Learning Never Stops for Librarians

By Heeru Bhojwani General, Librarian's Role, Library curriculum, Professional Development No Comments

School Librarians: Learning about eBooks, print books, information & media literacy.

In India, most professional development for national school librarians usually address technical aspects like the OPAC – Online public access catalogue or how to access the books, maintaining the stock of books, and rules for the libraries and purchase of books. During this pandemic, librarians learned different technology tools like google sites, pear deck, Kahoot and other tools to build their technology skills.

However, the Librarians role is changing. Librarians growth lies in the need to work in collaboration with teachers and the school curriculum. Librarians need to read and learn about books & stories and ways to support primary and secondary schools’ teaching and learning to remain relevant. If the librarian works in a progressive environment, professional development is the only way to help them stay relevant to the changing landscape. And, Liferarian Association provides the opportunity.

Professional Development for International School Librarians

International Schools are looking for librarians with multi-literacy skills, information and media literacy knowledge & skills to support elementary and secondary schools.

Professional Development for Indian School Librarians

With the onset of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Librarians can capitalize on this change in education policy and opt for an opportunity to learn about the curriculum. When included in the staff meetings, librarians can better understand the school curriculum’s needs, thus creating a relevant collection of books for literacy and nonfiction books to support the interdisciplinary approach, experiential learning, and project-based learning mentioned in the education policy.

The Liferarian Association has initiated two practical courses to help build library skills and knowledge.

Code 01: Extended essay and Research skills (5 synchronous sessions) – INR 5,500

In this course, participants will learn how to research and teach students how to formulate a research question. Teach students how to identify and cite resources correctly, and it’s importance. Participants will learn and receive practical ways to help students plan, reflect and learn to guide students research and project work.

Code 02: Liferarian’s School Library Course (6 synchronous sessions) – INR 6,500

In this course, participants will learn the importance of a library curriculum and create one relevant to their school. Learn how to read aloud stories by learning about the different literacy strategies like authors’ purpose, inference, analyzing the plot and more. During the writing session, librarians or educators will learn how to write and support creative writing through practical lessons and writing exercises. Besides literacy, participants will learn how to help research skills, project work within the school structure—learning about media, digital citizenship, and advocating for the ethical use of information by understanding copyright and plagiarism concepts. This course will include practical lessons and ideas to empower the librarians.

Some responses and feedback from the workshops were:

I didn’t know how important it was to connect with the school curriculum.
I now know a lot about copyright, media literacy and the importance of ethical use of information, and now I know how to teach my students.
During my classes in this international school, I can now teach information literacy skills.
I did not know there were so many aspects of literacy when you read aloud picture books. I now learned how important it is to have focused learning strategies.
I discovered that I like to write, and writing involves revisions and thinking.
I did not know the Librarians can do so much.

This coursework is for librarians who want to change the way educators think about librarians and evolving with other educators, as learning doesn’t stop.

Oct 21 2020

Professional Growth and Learning

By Heeru Bhojwani Librarian's Role, Professional Development, Professional Learning 2 Comments

What is Professional Growth?

Growth and learning are essential facets of professional life. As I begin, reflecting on my personal, professional experience, I realize the only thing constant thing in my professional life is the desire to learn and grow so that I can continue to support the school community. I am grateful to the many people in my professional life, the professional development opportunities I have received to grow, learn and give back to the educational community.

Professional development is not collecting all the certificates to show and prove your growth. Yes, credentials are essential at initial points of your career. Certificates of courses are an incentive and motivation to continue to learn. Certificates do prove a point. As you begin to think and practise your craft of teaching, you understand that learning is an intrinsic part of professional life, where pursuing current practices, updated pedagogical approaches are the only essential aspect of growth.

CC-BY-SA-4.0 Redaksjonelt: Åse Elin Langeland

What do Librarians Learn?

As an elementary and secondary school librarian, I aimed to learn all about new literature that is available, for all children and literature for teenagers. Understanding their interests is important and giving them voice and choice, instead of downing students with what I thought was suitable for children.

Soon, I realized, librarians not only need to know about literature but understand how technology and technology were impacting the learning. Teachers and librarians are learning about information and media literacy, learning how to evaluate sources and teach students how to evaluate news and media. To stay relevant, learning and evolving is a process, and one cannot hold on to the laurels of the past.

Learning can be anything of your interest. I have dabbled in learning new tech tools to deliver and support teaching and learning. Tech tools should merely be the bells and whistles instead should be used to add meaning and value to the teaching, as taught by my teacher, Bernajean Porter.

Recently, I took a course on best practices for online teaching and learning; next, I learned how to create an online newspaper with my students. I took a course on writing blog posts while learning new strategies and techniques in writing. I read philosophy. I took short courses in teaching EAL (English as another language), and now I am taking a short study-course in understanding how one can support the high abilities students.

Are these related to my Library? Is this going to help me in the Library and Information Sciences? Working in a school as a librarian, I believe, it is essential to learn about the strategies and tools that teachers are using in their classes so that librarians can continue to be relevant in the changing needs of the educational landscape. Follow the Liferarian Blog to learn more

Where can Librarians Learn?

Liferarian Association is hosting a Virtual Conference with presenters who are practising librarians in various International Schools, being abreast with new technologies and pedagogies of teaching and learning, they too are active learners. Teaching and sharing is another facet of professional development when individuals hone their skills, deepen their understanding as they share with others.

Join the tribe and learn from this virtual conference on the 21st of November 2020. it is free, hosted by the Liferarian Association. This conference will include more than 20 presentations, author presentations and meet with some book distributors. Registrations will open on the 7th of November, 2020

I love what Gandhi said, ” Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever.”

Apr 09 2020

Virtual Class for Librarians

By Heeru Bhojwani Librarian's Role, Literacy, Virtual Learning One Comment

Tina Franklin libros y ebooks, Flickr

During the lockdown and virtual classes, librarians are looking out for ways to connect with students, teachers and the community.

So, what can librarians do during this time of virtual learning with students?

Virtual Learning eBooks

During this time, librarians can capitalize on all the beautiful eBooks available for students. An opportunity to use the interactive eBooks where the books are either animated and read aloud rather than the pdf versions. Many Pdf’s are floating around, but as ethical users of information, we must ensure that our students are using the eBooks ethically. Fair use guidelines may not always be used, especially when eBooks are available for purchase or shared by the vendors at discounted rates or free.

Let’s capitalize on the eBooks that are offered for free by the companies.

Library Classes – Virtual

During the library online classes, we can capitalize this moment to create a love for reading and writing. Instead of using activities like – making your bookmark, asking questions like who is the character? what is the moral of the story? Let us use this opportunity to ask open-ended questions? Questions that help students think and help students develop the 21st-century skills of thinking analytically, critically or even having their own opinions and perspectives of stories that they read.

Examples of Virtual Learning eBooks

Vooks is offering a 1-month free trial. A kid-safe, ad-free streaming library of read-aloud animated storybooks. A curated list of eBooks that help builds vocabulary, love of reading, immersion, and fluency.

For example, Title fo the book: The Easter Unicorn is a story about an Easter Bunny who is away on vacation, when a magical unicorn comes to the rescue, saving Easter Day!

Here is a list of activities that might go with the story:

Activity 1: Students can read the picture and retell the story and record the story using the Flipgrid app (video response)

Activity 2: Students can research and draw three magical creatures that do not exist.

Activity 3: Students can write a paragraph, describing a unicorn to someone who hasn’t seen one.

Activity 4: Students can research and describe why rabbits are related to easter?

Activity 5: Students can explain why easter celebration is in April?

Virtual Learning Activity

RazPlus is offering a 2-month free trial. A guided reading program, with lesson plans and discussion cards. Try this out. For example: Title of the book: Gorillas by Keera Freed.

Gorillas are the largest primates in the world. Gorillas is an informative text that highlights how gorillas survive in the forests of Africa. The book can also be used to teach students how to identify main idea and details as well as to summarize to better understand the text. If you want to teach using the skills, get this trial and learn new teaching strategies and apply them to your students. (Available on Discussion Cards of the story)

How are gorillas similar and different than human beings (Skill of compare and contrast)
Why do you think humans teach gorillas sign language. How does this help man and animals? (Analysis)
Why might gorilla babies ride on their mother back (Make inferences & draw conclusions)
Why are gorillas endangered? (Cause and Effect)
How can people help gorillas? (Evaluate)

Vooks: A streaming service for kids, where storybooks come to life!

Finally, a better screen time option. Title of the book: Inventors, who changed the World.

Activities related to the story:

What qualities or characteristics should a person have to become an inventor? What are some traits you may have?
Select on the inventions you learned about and explain how it has impacted the world.
Research on the internet and find out three inventions in the 21st century that have positively impacted the world and explain.
What would happen if inventors did not share their failed research ideas and successful ideas with the world?
Why is it important to share ideas with others? How is it beneficial to the community?
What is the author’s purpose in writing the story? How do you know it?

StoryWeaver is another free eBook resources that students can use to inquire, think critically and use the eBooks to create stories.

Title of the book: More or Less? Need to Guess! ,Written by Gayathri Tirthapura, Illustrated by Sahitya Rani – So many mithai boxes to count, so little time! Can Ranjita and Vikram do it? Yes, using a cool math trick called ‘Approximately More-or-Less’! Read this fun wedding story to learn the trick yourself.

Activity 1: What was the problem in the story and how was it solved?

Activity 2: Describe a wedding that you last attended?

Activity 3: What is the author’s purpose for writing the story? Is it to inform? Entertain or Persuade? How do you know that? Explain

Activity 4: Create a story that will help solve a math problem.

Activity 5: What genre is this story? Explain.

GetEpic: An online eBook Platform: Title of the Book: The Trojan Horse: The Fall of Troy.

Ancient Greece’s best warriors battled their enemies, the Trojans, in a desperate attempt to win back King

What genre is this story?
How is a myth different from historical fiction?
Describe the external and internal characteristics of the main character?
Who are the supporting characters and how do they bring out the best qualities of the main character?
Rewrite the Greek Myth using Indian setting and characters
What are some of the Indian myths you have heard? How is it different and similar to the Indian myths

For more eBook Resources – check out the Liferarian Padlet

Mar 31 2019

Understanding Media

By Heeru Bhojwani Media Literacy No Comments

There are three purposes of Media – To Persuade, To Inform and To Entertain, however, in my opinion, there is the fourth purpose and that is understanding perspective. Many young people are sharing their ideas, opinions and views on social media using self-created media. With over 1 billion people using Facebook, 1 million using Instagram, 1.5 billion using Whatsapp on a daily bases, it is so important for librarians, teachers, and technology teachers to have students understand media.

All our news, entertainment comes from Media. Dr. Anubhati Yadav, Department Head of New Media and Course Director of Advertising and Public Relations Course says, from 2 years old to adults all respond to media, therefore, it is important for students to learn about the purpose of media, how it is created and how students can use media effectively to create, learn and share. Today, being literate, meaning able to read and write is not adequate, it is important to be meta-literate, that is individuals can draw inferences, conclusions, and ideas from a variety of media products like infographics, maps embedded with media, videos, and virtual reality products.

Media literacy is the ability to understand how the media work, how they convey meaning. Media Literacy also involves critical thinking about the thousands of messages we are bombarded with on a daily basis – Frank Baker in Media Literacy

Other than reading to students, librarians can embed “Media Literacy” in their curriculum. They can use advertisements in magazines and digital media products to teach students the elements of media and what it takes to create a message for the audience. Common Sense Media and Media Smarts, have resources to support teachers. Mr. Frank Baker, a specialist in Media Literacy has a Media Literacy Clearinghouse to support educators. Renee Hobbs founder of Media Education Lab has resources to teach media literacy. Check out this video from Common Sense and 5 Essential questions to ask when viewing media.

Jul 07 2018

Reading Aloud Stories with Purpose -1

By Heeru Bhojwani Librarian's Role, PYP Profiles, Readaloud, Reading and Writing, School Libraries 2 Comments

The education landscape is changing and so is reading aloud stories to children. I remember reading Night Monster by Sushree Mishra, illustrated by Sanket Pethkar; Published by Karadi Tales, 2015. It is a story about feeling scared and overcoming the fear of the night which is the general outcome of the story (comprehension) but as a librarian, it’s important to look at other aspects of a picture book. 1. You can nudge students to look at other forms of expressions like notes, and letters to convey meaning. 2. At an international school, you can use the learner attitude of empathy. 3. You can explain the ATL skills of Communication or Thinking; creatively and problem-solving strategies used by the sister to help her little brother. Asking students, what are the different ways they have problem-solved in their lives using different approaches. 4. Describe Jarul Book Award and how this award empowers children to make an impact and that students have a voice in deciding the winner of the prize. 5. You could also analyze the style of drawing, asking why the illustrator might have chosen to use shades of blue and black; ask what medium has he used to draw his picture, how long must he have taken, and why did he choose different sizes of his objects while relating the story? Sanket Pethkar is a full-time illustrator and as a teacher-librarian, you can discuss his passion for art and how this could be a profession for some. It’s time to go beyond simply the understanding or comprehension of the story.

Another story I read aloud was the Cycle’s Dream by Prabhat(Author), Vidyut Roy (Illustrator) by Elavya (2013). This story was read to many age groups, the teacher nudged the children to think about the environment, the impact of oil on the world, the futuristic world and how it would look. This was followed by an engagement, where students were prompted to create a world in the future, they could either draw or write about their future world. It could be a fantasy or a futuristic science fiction. Again, a teaching moment for a teacher-librarian, when children could learn about different genres and how fantasy differs from science fiction.

Some of the students wanted to discuss the publication of this book and how it was made, students researched and wondered how long it took for the publisher to make this book since it was created in a special format made from recycled paper. Many publishers are willing and often respond to student questions should they intend to pursue their inquiry.

It’s so important to go beyond the comprehension level of the story. We all agree that children do understand stories, our job as teacher librarians are to look at picture books with a different lens and nudge them to think creatively and critically.