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A Model for Librarian Training: The Media 21 Program

March 26, 2010 By

I am most fortunate to work in a school district (Cherokee County) that has invested time and resources into technology integration training not only for teachers, but also for school librarians.  Our school district recognized early on that our hardware and network infrastructure could not be truly utilized to the fullest extent without instructional support to help district educators effectively integrate technology for improving student learning.  Our district’s innovative Teach 21 and Media 21 programs focus on strategies for engaging students and creating a learning-centered, participatory environment for students.  Ultimately, the overarching program goal is to increase teacher and school librarians’ Level of Technology Integration (LOTI), which is assessed with a pretest and then a final assessment with the rubric for each participant’s culminating Capstone Project.

The Media 21 program, launched in the Fall of 2007, provides school librarians in my district an opportunity not only to hone their teaching craft and expand their toolkit of learning strategies to use in the library, but school librarians can also obtain strategic equipment or hardware that may be needed to support learning initiatives that they have collaboratively planned with classroom teachers.  Jackie Hopkins, Assistant Superintendent of Accountability, Technology and Strategic Planning, explains the significance and value of the Media 21 program:

The MediA21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the school media specialist and the classroom teacher, integrating information literacy skills and competencies into daily classroom lessons and projects.

Esther Brenneman, Instructional Technology Facilitator for my Cherokee County School District, cites five positive benefits of the Media 21 program:

  • The Media 21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the media specialist and classroom teacher.
  • The program provides extensive professional development training in both pedagogy and skills development with latest web 2.0 tools/technologies.
  • The program can help establish the school library media specialist as a leader in her/his school (new Empowering Learners role) as they provide professional training, collaborative efforts and become recognized as a curricular expert.
  • The program is a great opportunity for personal and professional growth..what a great role model for others in the school building!
  • The program establishes information literacy competencies for the entire school, promoting digital citizenship for all (both students and teachers as well as administration).

School librarians apply to the program in the spring of the year they wish to begin enrollment.  The program, which is designed to be completed in a two-year period, begins with a course “The Engaged Learner” that is a mandatory prerequisite for all participants.  In this course, participants explore contemporary learning theories and educational research related to technology and new media literacies; the focus is on how teachers and librarians can apply that research and those learning/teaching paradigms to their practice.

Once you  have completed this introductory course, you then have a mix of required and optional classes you can take over the course of the program.  Courses may include but are not limited to offerings such as SmartBoard/Promethean Board 101 and 102, Podcasting 101, Blogging, Digital Storytelling (Beginning and Advanced), Information Literacy, Scratch, Google 101, Wiki 101, and Web 2.0.  Most participants complete their coursework within the first 12 -18 months and follow the suggested timeline so that they have a solid foundation for the culminating Capstone Project.   Participants also complete a virtual course in online safety so that they are better prepared to teach digital citizenship and have a better awareness of how students can use the web safely.  Another feature of the program is ongoing blog entries participants compose to actively reflect and engage in metacognition on their practice and activities/concepts they are exploring in their coursework.  Throughout the program, participants build a learning portfolio housed on the district’s SharePoint site that includes the blog reflections, student learning artifacts, and librarian created technology integration projects. Technology integration project guidelines are available by viewing this document; in addition, librarians may submit ideas for additional tech integration projects for approval.

The Capstone Project, which is completed during the final year of the program, provides school librarians an opportunity to design and implement a learning initiative that focuses on one or more aspects of information literacy.  Project proposals are submitted in the spring and once approved, may be implemented anytime during the subsequent academic year.  The proposal consists of a mini-research paper on the technologies and/or learning theories associated with the project, a proposal that outlines what information literacy skills will be integrated into the project and how the librarian’s Level of Technology Integration (LOTI) will be improved through the project, and identification of standards addressed in the project, which may include ISTE’s NETS-S for Students, ISTE’s NETS-S for Teachers, the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners, and Georgia Performance Standards.  Each participant presents his/her project at the district’s annual Capstone Expo held annually in May.  I will be presenting my Capstone this spring and am excited that my collaborating teacher, Susan Lester, and some of our Media 21 students will be helping me present our project.

For me, the Media 21 program and my Capstone Project I have implemented since August 2009 have provided a vehicle to develop and pilot a rich collaborative project that has focused on information literacy issues including digital citizenship, social scholarship, cloud computing, evaluation and assessment of the authority of information sources as students have planted the seeds of a personal learning network/environment.  This collaborative project I have co-piloted with classroom teacher Susan Lester has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my librarian career and one that I believe is having a meaningful impact on learning for the students who are in our two classes in this pilot project.  Media 21 has opened a door to the kind of collaboration of which I once only dreamed, and it is a program model I believe that could support other school districts’ efforts to enhance 21st century school librarianship.

You can read, see, and hear more about my Media 21 Capstone project by visiting either my personal Media 21 Capstone Project page (this version is hosted independently of my internal district portfolio) or visit this page to hear more about it, view some terrific supporting videos, and watch an archived version of a webinar I recently participated in as part of the CRSTE Cyberconference in Feburary 2010.

What do you think about this model of professional development for school librarians?  Do you see possibilities for this model to be used in other settings, such as public or academic libraries?  Please share your thoughts!

Buffy Hamilton

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27 Questions with Buffy Hamilton

January 22, 2010 By

1) Your One Sentence Bio

A modern day Southern (and shorter) version of Bunny Watson from Desk Set; also a fierce shieldmaiden of intellectual freedom and loyal friend.

2) Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
Yes, I blog at The Unquiet Librarian; my library brand is The Unquiet Library, which was inspired by Matthew Battles’ book, Library:  An Unquiet History.  In addition, I am generally pretty talkative, so the moniker fits.

3) What is your professional background?
I have eighteen years of experience with the Cherokee County School District in north Georgia; I have worked as a high school English teacher, instructional technology specialist, elementary teacher, and school librarian.  I opened  The Unquiet Library at Creekview High School in July of 2006.  I proudly wear the red and black of The University of Georgia (M.Ed. English Education, 2003; Ed.S., Instructional Technology and School Library Media, 2005).

4) What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
I primarily teach high school students from a wide range of backgrounds and interests in grades 9-12 who visit with teachers in various content areas.  I collaborate with classroom teachers to teach a diverse range of skills and learning experiences—searching skills and strategies, information evaluation, website design, social media tools, web 2.0 tools, information management tools and strategies, digital citizenship, presentation zen, blogging skills,  and basic computer skills.  All of my lessons are supported with research/project pathfinders through LibGuides.

5) What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
The most important training I am doing right now is teaching learners how to become fluent in self-filtering information —how to know when it is appropriate to use a particular resource for a particular research or information seeking task, and how to manage those information sources as they learn how to cultivate a personal learning network.   Expanding our definition of information literacy and helping posit information literacy as an essential literacy is critical right now as we encounter multiple forms of information in a dizzying array of formats or “containers”.  Authority is no longer black and white; emerging forms of social scholarship are changing the information landscape, so helping students take an inquiry stance on what counts as authority and when it counts is a must.

6) Where do you get your training?
I primarily learn and grow through my personal learning network via Twitter, Google Reader (an insane array of RSS feeds from many information sources), Facebook, YouTube, and free webinars.  In addition, conversations via Skype and Google Talk/chat are incredibly enriching for me.  In the past year, conferences have also become a significant source of learning.

7) How do you keep up?
I am blessed with the gift of efficient and effective time management, Energizer Bunny like stamina, and Google Reader.

8.)   What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing right now?
Reduced funding in the face of increased demand is a major challenge for all libraries.   For school libraries in particular, we are fighting the negative effects of the standardized testing movement as NCLB (No Child Left Behind) marginalizes inquiry and our collaborative partnerships with teachers who are under pressure to “cover” material.

9) What are biggest challenges for trainers?
My biggest challenge is being able to meet the demand for instruction as I do all the training/teaching for nearly 1700 students and 100+ faculty.  This challenge is magnified when I am engaging in more in-depth and extensive collaborative units that demand more of my time while still trying to meet the needs of other classes I have scheduled.  These challenges are also intensified by the fact that I am also responsible for collection development, website development and our social media presence, library advocacy, and overall program administration.  I am most fortunate to be supported by my fellow librarian, Roxanne, and library clerk, Tammy as well as Wayne and Todd, my network gods.

10) What exciting things are you doing training wise?
My Media 21 project that I have implemented during the first semester of the 2009-10 academic year has been by far the most fulfilling and exciting training I have engaged in since opening my library.  I have essentially served as a co-teacher daily for two sections of 10th Literature/Composition students, teaching them a diverse range of new skills, including the evaluation of social media, blogging, the use of wikis, the development of learning portfolios with Google Sites, cloud computing tools and skills, how to develop a personal information portal, social bookmarking, and presentation zen.

11) What do you wish were you doing?
Although I sometimes wish that I was not always going in 100 directions at any given time, I am actually really doing exactly what I want to at the moment—building a library program that makes a difference in the lives of my students and faculty and changing people’s perceptions about the possibilities of a high school library.    I have an amazing network of colleagues and friends who inspire me and inform my practice—I am truly blessed to do what I do.

12) What would you do with a badger?
I would warn it to be nice to me because I have four long-haired dachshunds.

13) What’s your favorite food?
Does coffee count?  If not, anything with cheese.

14) If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want to have with you?

Good lip gloss, sunscreen, my iPhone, and a great book (yes, I know that is more than one)

15) Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds out of a pickle?
It takes a nap.

16) Post it notes or the back of your hand?
Post it notes—my workstation and workspace at the circulation desk look like a rainbow of Post it notes.

17) Windows or Mac?
Windows but I’d like to explore the Mac world.

18) Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
In my first ever solo webinar this past fall about widgets, my laptop crashed about five minutes into the presentation.  It took nearly twenty minutes to recover and get back in the Elluminate classroom.  Fortunately, I was able to resume without sounding too rattled and was grateful for my fellow colleagues who picked up the baton and led a discussion about uses of widgets until I was able to get back online.

19) What’s your take on handshakes?
Shake firmly but don’t crush my hand, please.

20) Global warming: yes or no
I honestly have not reached any definitive conclusions yet.

21) How did you get into this line of work?
I realized this was the perfect career for me back in 2001 because it taps into my passions for technology, reading, research, and teaching.

22) What is the best part of your job?
Seeing a student or teacher smile with satisfaction when you have helped them in some way or have helped them realize they can do something they previously could not envision.

23) Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
They can’t because I have tiny feet and have a propensity for killer shoes with four inch heels.  Find your own shoes, click your heels three times, and make your own library dreams come true!

24) Sushi or hamburger?
Hamburger from time to time (not a big meat eater) but not sushi—I have a moderate shellfish allergy.

25) LSW or ALA?
Both—I am less comfortable with binaries  as I get older.

26) What one person in the world do you want to have lunch with and why?

This is probably the most difficult question for me as I could generate a list of people past and present.   For now, I would choose author and illustrator Peter Sis—I had the pleasure of meeting him earlier this year and would love to hear more of his mesmerizing stories and of his passion for his art.
27) What cell phone do you have and why?
My iPhone I purchased this past July—it is like having a little computer with me all the time, and it has been invaluable in my conference travels over the last six months.

Buffy Hamilton

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