Reading on a Kindle

Before the summer, I took one of our library Kindles on a test drive.  We got on quite well, and I quickly started looking at the Kindle as 'my book' instead of a device.  I decided to keep reading the Song of Ice and Fire series as ebooks to save my poor hands from breaking under the weight of brick sized books, and to test out the new Kindle model, which I far prefer.  

Today I finished the last book in the series published so far and it dawned on me that I have been reading the same series since August.  Five books. In five months.  This is far, far below my regular reading level.  So what's been going on? 

Part of it is down to the books, or should I call it the text?  I have loved reading this series, but found that after book 3, my attention started to wander but I had already committed myself to these characters and didn't feel as though I could stop*.  And with the eformat so easy to read, so light in my hands, I didn't feel reluctant to pick it up, as I usually would with tomes this size. When I've grown tired of previous serials, my hands have grown physically tired of holding them, I've grown tired of the covers.  This didn't happen with the Kindle so I kept going.  In a way, I wish I hadn't. Five books.  In five months.  When there are so many wonderful books waiting to be read, I've been left feeling a little cheated. 

Though I'm very fond of the Kindle and now have one all of my very own (wooo birthday!), I have come to a realisation.  My reading experience with it so far has been hugely positive, and being able to up the font size when suffering with tired eyes has been a complete godsend.  But I miss paper.  I miss the smell and I miss the ache in my hand from reading for too long. I miss the sense of progression through a book as the balance of pages read and unread starts to shift. The little percentage line at the bottom of the screen just doesn't do it for me.  Having the option of an ereader is wonderful, and its uses are many.  I'm very glad I have one and know that I will use it a lot in the future.  But it's also quite comforting to realise that at heart, I'm a book reader.  Long live ink, paper, string and glue.

*Smart move, George R.R. Martin.  Smart move. 

Letter to Councillors.

Here is the text of a letter that I have sent to the councillors who will make the final decision about the future of the Herts Schools Library Service on Monday 19th December. 

Dear Cllr.,

On 19th December you will be making the decision to either save or close the Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service.  Having looked carefully into the process to this point, I have several concerns that I would wish you to consider.

Firstly, that the process has come this this far without consultation with the stakeholders in this service: the schools.  Before Tuesday 6th December there was no notification that the service was even running at a deficit, let alone in danger of closure.  That it had come as far as the Local & Libraries Panel without consultation is disturbing.  Having spoken to some of those who attended that meeting, I understand that they believed consultation had taken place, through the Schools Forum.  Sadly, this is not the case.  The Schools Forum is charged with making decisions on behalf of the county’s schools, but there is no consultation.  Headteachers and School Librarians were unaware of the proposed closure.  Staff have been shocked. 

The last consultation with schools on this issue took place in 2007, when schools were in a very different position.  Reductions to their budgets have taken place since.  The statistics provided in the report show that there has been a corresponding decline in the numbers of schools subscribing to the service.  This can hardly be surprising when Heads and department leaders have had to make the choice between staff or resource reductions.  Many librarians put off their subscription for this year, intending to buy back in when budgets had stabilised.  At no point was there any indication that the service was in danger of closure. In addition, the statistics show that last year there was in fact an increase in the number of schools subscribing: 14% from primaries and 19% from secondaries in 2010-11.  This has been put down to effective marketing and offers from the SLS, which shows very clearly that there is demand for its services.  Basing a ‘developing trend’ on one year’s decline, particularly when that one year coincides with dramatic budget cuts, is misleading.  It is a Traded Service and therefore commercial, and good commercial sense insists that your stakeholders be kept abreast of any financial difficulty.  This has not happened. 

Some believe that schools have been consulted through the option to subscribe and have ‘voted with their feet’, but this is inaccurate.  Schools have never been given the option to subscribe or loose the service.  The choice they made this year was not to drive it to closure, but to save money in their immediate futures, believing, as we all did, that the service was safe.  The two choices are very different.  I was told that no schools have subscribed since the announcement of the service’s imminent closure. It can hardly be a surprise that schools are unable to invest in a service that they have been told should close. It will also have been very difficult for relevant departments to make arrangements for a new subscription this close to the end of term. 

The timing of this process is of deep concern.  The news only found its way to us, through Twitter, on the 6th December, barely 9 working days before schools break up for the holidays.  The run up to Christmas is an intensely busy time for everyone and for schools to have so little notice that a valued service is under threat, with the final decision to be made after the end of term, is worrying.  The process had already gone so far that many felt that they were already too late to take action, protest, or subscribe in time to save it.

The initial report (Murphy, 2011) into the future of the funding of the service recommended that the ‘SLS would require the existing level of funding from the education budget to be at least maintained.’  The Schools Forum voted in November to do just this.  Funding from the education budget has been guaranteed until 2013 and yet the recommendation was carried forward to close the service (Bignell & Murphy, 2011). This simply does not follow.  The initial report also mentions the potential for running costs to be reduced following the relocation from the New Barnfield site.  This does not appear in the report presented on 7th December. 

The potential impact of the closure has not been fully explored. CILIP (Chartered Instituted of Library and Information Professionals) and the SLA (School Library Association) can provide advice and guidance to schools and librarians, but they are ill equipped to do so, as the structure has traditionally been that they advise the SLS and the SLS advise the end user on a local level.  Problems such as a detailed question on copyright, the licensing of DVDs or the legality of access to information need swift resolution from professionals who are well placed to assist.  The SLS is the source of this for Hertfordshire.

The 7th December report is also contradictory in its assertion that the closing of Schools’ Library Services is a nationwide trend, while suggesting that schools and libraries would be able to buy into similar services from nearby counties. Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service is ‘one of England’s largest and most respected’ (CILIP, 2011) and is often referred to as the SLS flagship.  Surrounding counties will be taking their lead from the decision made by Hertfordshire.  Closure of this service could create a domino effect of similar closures across the country. The closure of these services may be a nationwide trend, but is it really one that we want to be a part of?

There are no practical alternatives for the services provided by the SLS.  They are a hub for resources, advice and training.  They are a powerful buying group and have negotiated substantial discounts on otherwise unaffordable e-resources which will be lost to schools if the service is closed.  The Equality Impact Assessment (Bignell & Murphy, 2011) details the potential for negative impacts, with no action suggested to equalise this.  If the SLS is closed, over one third of secondary schools and nearly half of primary schools in the county will loose access to resources, and these are only the fully subscribing schools.  This represents thousands of children, thousands of learners.  An additional 15% of schools buy Pay As You Use services.  An recent poll by the Literacy Trust revealed that 1 in 3 children does not own a book.  Access to these resources has never been more vital.

Funding from 2013 is uncertain, as new school funding structures come into place.  Changes in the way that the SLS is funded and structured are necessary and inevitable.  The move to a new site should surely be seen as an excellent opportunity to make these changes and show the country an efficient, streamlined service that offers enough to be valued by schools to the extent that Headteachers are willing to invest more of their directly allocated funds.  I believe Tricia Adams, the Director of the School Library Association, has already offered consultancy in this matter.  To simply close such a wonderful resource because of an uncertain future runs counter to good sense, business logic and investment in the most important aspect of all: education.

Hertfordshire County Council have already shown that they value libraries and learning through an admirable refusal to close a single public library, despite the need for heavy cuts.  A Schools’ Library Service may be non-statutory, but this does not mean that it should be thrown away.  Please consider giving the Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service the support it deserves and encourage a new direction in which it can prove its value and save itself.

With hope,

Miss Nicky Adkins

Librarian

Roundwood Park School

Support from Michael Morpurgo

When I heard that the council were planning to close the SLS, I contacted Michael Morgurgo, who does a yearly event there for gifted and talented writers.  Several of my students have been along to this and found it a wonderful day, arriving back at school excited about their own work and eager to take it further.  

Though Michael Morpurgo is away at the moment, promoting the new War Horse film*, he took the time to write a letter to the leader of the council, asking him to consider a different future for the service.  You can read his letter here.  

*sob* 

*let's see if it makes me cry as much as the stage play did... 

Threat to Herts SLS - Statement from CILIP and the National Literacy Trust

CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and the National Literacy Trust have released a joint press statement, condemning the threatened closure of Hertfordshire's Schools Library Service.

Closure of respected Schools Library Service blow to literacy and learning

Hertfordshire Schools Library Services, one of England’s largest and most respected Schools Library Services, is set to close in the New Year. A recent Hertfordshire County Council report recommended the service should close following declining buy-in from schools and uncertainty about the amount of funding the service would receive from central education budgets.

Schools Library Services provide professional support to schools to help manage their libraries. They provide books and resources to support teaching and help encourage reading for pleasure and develop a reading culture in schools.

Annie Mauger, CILIP Chief Executive, responded to the news:

“We are very shocked and saddened. This is a bitter blow to the hundreds of schools and thousands of children who benefit from the support of this service. The proposal to closure the service reflects the difficult decisions that both schools and local authorities have to make. The decline in numbers of schools buying into the service because of reductions in funding and the cuts to local authority library budgets means the service cannot subsidise losses. Vital support for literacy and learning will be lost.

The end result of this decision is pupils getting less support in a time where literacy levels and skills for life are more essential than ever. Hertfordshire County Council may feel that they have no choices as this is a traded service, but my concern is that this will create a domino effect across the country.”

Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust added:

“Schools Library Services are a vital ingredient in effective school library provision for children across the country. Hertfordshire’s Schools Library Service has an iconic status as a centre of excellence in this field. If a service that is one of the biggest and best in the country is set to close, this threatens every Schools Library Service in the country.”

The Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals and the National Literacy Trust asks that government responds to the Estelle Morris Report from the School Library Commission and that an investigation into sustainable models for future provision of Schools Library Services should be taken forward.

CILIP believes it is time to Shout About School Libraries and Schools Library Services, before we lose them.

-ends-

Links with Local Libraries

This morning I spoke to the children's librarian for our local public libraries and we discussed cementing a link between our reading groups and our nearest library, Harpenden.  The branch will be under going a revamp over the next few months, after which we'll be able to contribute displays, reviews and recommendations for the children's and young adult sections.  We also discussed the possibility for some joint events, held at the public library.  With any luck we'll be able to organise some fantastic author visits and invite reading groups from other neighbouring schools along.

Some exciting things ahead!

Threat to Herts SLS

Yesterday we discovered that the Hertfordshire Schools Library Service is under threat of closure.  This has come as a horrible shock, as it's the first time we'd heard that it was even running at a deficit.  I'm teaming up with the lovely folks over at We <3 Libraries to campaign to save it.  The Local and Libraries Panel are meeting TODAY to discuss a report that recommends its closure.  If the recommendation is passed today, it will  be ratified on the 19th December.  The time scale here is horribly short and the lack of consultation intensely worrying.

There are many phone calls to be made.

If you'd like to help, please contact these people.  They're the ones who will make the decision on the 19th.

Stan Lee Excelsior Award

The shortlist for the Stan Lee Excelsior award has been released!  Our shadowers will be reading these through and voting for their own winner next year.

The selection and variety is fantastic, so hopefully we'll be creating some new graphic novel fans and spreading the word across the school.

For more details, please visit the award site.

The Game of Thrones conundrum

I love the Song of Ice and Fire series.  I will quite happily sit and talk for many hours about the awesomeness of Tyrion, whether Sansa is a sympathetic character or not (*cough* no *cough* ) and the fates of the various Starks, the Hands of Kings and who Coldhands is.  The series is engrossing, well written, and has some fantastic ties to discussions about morality and power that have fueled some amazing debates around the reading table.  Word of their greatness is spreading, and now some of our higher level readers in Year 9 (aged 13/14) have asked to reserve them.

My gut says yes.  But there's a little voice in my head that says 'hang on, aren't these books a little bit, well, rapey?'  The violence presented in these novels holds no problems for me in terms of loans.  They're massive bricks of books, and they're only being picked up by strong readers who are aware of their own limits in terms of violence tolerance and will return a book if they're uncomfortable with it.  And yes, I know it's a cheap analogy, but the violence that these students can both see and more importantly meter out in computer games matches or exceeds what's in these books*.  But there's an awful lot of rape.  It's not explicit, in fact it's so sparsely written when it happens that there's safely no chance of any charges of it being pornographic.  But it's always there and frequently used as a threat against female characters.

The thing that stops me deciding an instant no to granting these advanced but younger students access to the books though, is that within the context of the story, this rape is entirely not only realistic, but in a horrible sense, true.  In times of war, particularly the sorts of wars that aren't fought by Generals pushing buttons and firing missiles, rape is a weapon.  It's happening today, in The Democratic Republic of Congo.  It's probably happening in other places too.  At various times in our history, it would have happened here too.  The vulnerability of women (and men, please don't think that I dismiss the sexual violence against men too, but in the context of GoT, so far at least, the threat has been focused on women) in times of war is an important subject and not one that should be ignored.  It's the normalising of rape within the story that worries me for younger readers, but I do feel that with a discussion about it first, and the inevitable follow up to reading these books (our advanced readers always sit at lunchtime and discuss what they've read and I know that these books would be discussed to death, as they are already with our older readers) that it would be an important issue to acknowledge, but not one that should prevent them reading them.  

So, what do you think?  GoT for advanced Year 9 readers?  If anyone could point me in the direction of research or guidance in this area I'd be grateful.


*What isn't matched is the intention of violence and cruelty, which is something that George R.R. Martin does really well.  We know that there are battles, we know that it's kill or be killed and that people will get their arms, legs and noses hacked off. But the nasty, little bits of violence that really get to you.  (Theon's fate. Whatever is happening in the deepest dungeons under King's Landing...) and those are the bits that I approve of the most.  Because they do disgust you.  Because they are scary, unglamorised, without honour, and hold present a much truer picture of violence than knights in shining armour fighting for their liege lords.

NaNoWriMo 2011

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur* but we're now seven days into November, and we all know what that means.  NaNoWriMo is GO!

This year we have a staggering 59 students signed up to take part with us, and some added extras too: the younger brothers and sisters of some of our students who are still in Primary school but who have signed up and are working with us in our virtual classroom and visiting the library for the after-school write-ins.  The down side f numbers like this is that we only have 21 computers in the library, and they're heavily over used even when there aren't nearly 60 novelists trying to bash out 50,000 words before the end of the month.  We've been saved though, by Mrs Wilkins in ICT who has allowed our writers to use one of the ICT rooms most lunchtimes, and by Ms Twomey in MFL who has offered us use of their IT room too.

Additional salvation has come in the form of a very generous investment from our dedicated PTA, who have funded the purchase of ten new netbooks for use in the library.  This is a move that we couldn't have hoped to make with our current budget and makes a very significant difference to what we can offer our students. Once lending agreements have been drawn up and signed, there will also be the opportunity for these machines to be loaned out to students who don't have computers of their own, which will be a huge help to them during coursework crunch times.

So far our novelist have written a staggering 264,314 words, and we're beating the US school who challenged us to a Word War by 19% to 17%, which may seem like a small margin, but their target wordcounts are significantly lower than ours!  The level of ambition shown by our students is truly remarkable.  Almost as remarkable as the sheer numbers of snacks they can get through...



*This is not an exaggeration, have been ill and everything has been distinctly fuzzy...

They're Heeerrreeee

Our new Kindles have arrived! I spent much of yesterday unboxing them and playing around setting them up for use. These are the new models, priced at £89, significantly cheaper than the old style keyboard Kindle we trialed over the summer.

The first thing that struck me was the size.  With teeny tiny hands, I can hold the old Kindle in one hand, but not without stretching my fingers uncomfortably wide.

Plastic buttons a-plenty

Whereas with the new Kindle, it's narrow enough that my fingers wrap around it in a secure hold and I can even turn the pages without it being too uncomfortable.  This is excellent news.  As a librariany type this enables me to drink gin coffee, play with cats and organise things while reading.

Hmmm...

What's interesting about this is that since there is less space taken up with the sides of the device, the screen looks larger.  It isn't (I checked, with a ruler) but still. All the things that bugged me about our original Kindle have gone.  The horrible feel of the black textured plastic has been replaced with a sleek metallic finish, which also give you sense that it can stand up to knocks and bumps more securely.  The grippy effect plastic on the back has been made more tactile, though I worry that this is a surface that fiddling students will be able to scrape off with a fingernail.  Feels lovely though and removed the fear that the device is going to slip from your fingers. 

The hideous clicky keyboard buttons have gone! Using the cursor and the keyboard button is a little fiddly, but not bad.  My one criticism of this is that the keyboard layout is now alphabetical.  Why Amazon, why?  Querty works for a reason, and is all the more important when you're using a cursor to move from letter to letter.  It's worth is, for the lack of crap buttons, but it wouldn't have taken a massive leap of logic to at least give an option of keyboard layouts in the settings. 

And the sceensavers are nicer!

The page turn is faster, removing the need to blink slowly every time you click.  And the page turn buttons themselves have retained the pleasant directionality that the old model had, which minimises accidental page turns, but has lost the cheap, wobbly feel those buttons had.  It's now a secure, affirmative action which is far preferable.  So, what's missing?  The battery life is shorter, but still a month, which is fantastic.  There's less storage space, but still plenty and the reading aloud function has been removed.  Though this is surely a harsh blow for those with severe eyesight problems, the few times I used it, I found the harsh American accents hard to stomach and disliked the way that it tended to ignore clear punctuation markers for pauses and effect.  Luckily within school, our students with eyesight problems manage fine with enlargements, so the Kindle will still be useful to them, but in terms of accessibly, I think this is a step backward. 

We have ordered cases, but they're out of stock at the moment.  I'm wondering what sort of fixing they will use.  The old style Kindle had slots positioned in the side where the case attached, but the new model has nothing like this.  I'm really hoping that they haven't copped out with an elastic at the corners style fixing.  Will let you know when they arrive.  

These Kindles will be available for student use, based on which books they would like to read, i.e., if we only have an ebook version of a book, they will be offered that, with a Kindle, once a parental agreement form has been completed.  We'll need this to ensure that parents will be happy to replace any Kindles that are damaged or lost. Our budget won't stretch to any more!  We'll also be offering ebook loans to student's own devices.  This will be possible with some registering and de-registering, thoguh students will need to return at the end of their loan to 'return' the ebook and have it deleted, as DRM allows.   With the budget restrictions that we have, this I feel will be the true test of whether ebooks take off here.  With Christmas coming, dozens of students have said that they're requesting Kindles. Hopefully we will be able to have enough eventually that those who can't afford them can still have access to the full range of resources. 

Bridging the digital divide*.  Oh yeah. 

*In a predominantly middle-class school in a wealthy area where the school has valued libraries enough to fund the staffing and resources to run one.  I know.  We're like a tiny tributary of the larger dividing river. 

Kindles

Over the summer I test drove a Kindle on behalf of the library (I know, sometimes you've gotta just take one for the team) with a view to buying a small set for the library.  To my surprise, I didn't hate it.  My only interraction with them previously was a quick, 'Ooh, can I have a look?' when my brother got one, and I confess I didn't like it then at all.  The plastic felt horribly plasticy, the buttons were clicky and it made my eyes hurt when it flashed up the next page in negative before it 'turned'.  But when it was my only readng option, I quickly found that I forgot about the device and concentrated on the words.  Within about a week, I found myself saying that I was going to read my book.  Then after three weeks travelling and not breaking my back lugging around all of A Song of Ice and Fire, I realised that I loved it.

The decision to purchase a set for the library though required more than that.  Three things happened within the space of a week that made up our minds.

1. Amazon joined up with Overdrive to offer Kindle lending through US libraries.
I think this will spread to the UK pretty quickly and Kindle's position as the dominant e-reader is a lot stronger.

2. A fellow school librarian recommended an e-book management app called Calibre, which means that it would not only possible, but also relatively easy to transfer single books to clean Kindles.   One concern was that if we were issuing full Kindles with our full collections on them, we'd have a) no way of noting down which books were being borrowed and b) no way of checking suitability.  Game of Thrones is not suitable for Year 7s, but Year 10 will LOVE it.

3. The new Kindles were released.  Smaller, simpler, with fewer clicky buttons and a lower price tag.

Sold.

So our first five Kindles are on the way.  We'll trial them, see how the students react and go from there.

Staff CPD

There has been increasing interest from staff about information literacy, research skills and use of the internet to promote and engage. An introductory lesson last year sparked a lot of attention, particularly from the Science department, who made great use of research skills in their coursework modules last year and noticed an increase in marks in this area, and also MFL, who launched a student blog.

This year we've been asked to expand on this and have designed a CPD course based on the Cambridge Librarians '23 Things' that I followed with great interest through Twitter and their blog posts. Staff are being asked to attend an initial introductory session, but following that, the course will be completed at their convenience, looking at one Thing per week and blogging their progress. If we can get a group of teachers and support staff who are committed to using these tools and passing on these skills, I think this stands a very good chance of making a significant difference. Having seen how much of an impact tools like blogging, Twitter and use of Google docs has had on my own work, the potential here is huge.

 If you'd like to follow along, the whole process will be blogged through the RPS 23 Things blog. Anyone working in a similar field would be more than welcome to join us.

Research Skills and Information Literacy

After the successful information literacy session run for Year 12 last year, we've been running similar and focusing much more on establishing and maintaining effective PLNs (Personal Learning Networks).  This was the area that really caught students' attention last year, and we saw a huge increase in the use of Twitter and also reported use of more Facebook study groups springing up, which was fantastic.

Research Skills and Information Literacy

View more presentations from rpslibrary

This is the presentation we've been giving.  If you'd like a copy of the notes that go with it, please email us at librarianATroundwoodparkDOThertsschDotuk

Guardian Young Critics

Today is the deadline for the Guardian Young Critics competition, which has kept our reviewers busy over the summer!  They've had a great time working their way through the longlist and discussing their opinions.  So far My Name is Mina and My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece have emerged as the favourites, so they were surprised to find one of these off the shortlist.  The shortlist has caused quite a stir and some interesting discussions.  The conclusion that they came to was that a shortlist for children's fiction that is chosen by adults will fall short.  They were reminded that the Carnegie shortlist is chosen by adults too, but was shouted down when they recalled that the Carnegie shortlist is chosen by librarians, predominantly children's librarians, who they felt would have a must more accurate view of what young readers want.

So, what do you think?  Are we putting too much emphasis on prizes for children's fiction judged by adults?

Read our readers' fantastic reviews on their blog.

Nerdfighter Projects

With Project Rollercoaster nearing completion, our Nerdfighters have started to think about what they'd like to do next.  The main area of interest seems to be craft related, so the knitters have taken off their work again.  They've been training up our new Year 7 library regulars and the knitting box is a horrific mess, I mean, productive and creative hotbed of activity.  Yeah.

Our more experienced knitters are launching a range of mittens, knitted in our new house colours, to be sold to students across the school.  They start at £4 but can be customised with buttons and crochet flowers (thank you to Nicole in Year 10 for teaching me how to make these) for an extra couple of pounds.  The original plan was to raise money for charity, but they took me quietly aside and asked if instead they might be allowed to fund an author visit, which we'd had to cancel plans for after budget restrictions were felt a little too tightly.  After a brief moment of eye dabbing and awwwing, I of course agreed and they're now working on raising money to have Patrick Ness come and visit later in the year.  They really enjoyed his Twitter chat with us during Carnegie, so they would love to have him come and speak about his work.  His name is scrawled on the money box and the double entry book-keeping sheets they're keeping (yes, they're really doing it properly) is titled accordingly.

So if anyone wants any mittens, I know where you can get some great ones.

Welcome Back!

Term has begun and I'm delighted to report that we already have a fantastically enthusiastic new intake of Year 7s who have begun to colonise the library and make it their own. 

There's a lot coming up this term. 

• Open Evening.  Eugh.  Clean all the things! 
• Booked Up.  I'm so glad that the funding for Booked Up is still there.  Those in charge of grants and awards must be aware of how absolutely wonderful this is for our students, many of whom don't own books of their own, as well as how important a message this is.  Literacy is important.  Important enough that they want ALL students to own books.  
• Project Rollercoaster!  The research is well underway and we've set a deadline of 21st October, just before half term, for projects to be completed.  We're hoping to have a presentation afternoon, inviting parents and staff to share in the work that our Nerdfighters have been doing.  And then...  ALTON TOWERS. 
• NaNoWriMo - Project Rollercoaster wraps up just in time for us to launch this year's event!  It looks as though the uptake this year is going to be particularly impressive, in fact I'm quite worried that we just won't have enough computers.  The achievements of last year will be hard to top, but I think we can do it. 
• Christmas!  Yes, I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but still.  

There are also the inductions for the new Year 7s of course, and information literacy sessions with the new Year 12s. 

This year we're also running a school wide CPD course based on the Cambridge librarians 23 Things programme.  Over the course of 23 weeks, we'll look at research skills and new media, with a direct focus on how these things can be integrated into teaching and learning. 

Exciting times. 

Student Blog update

Following our very sucessful use of our student blog for Carnegie this year, we're not going to stop!  We'll now be shadowing the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, which is a fantastic set of eight books:

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Mr Gum and the Secret Hideout by Andy Stanton

Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans

Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardinge

Return to Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan

Moon Pie by Simon Mason

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Momentum by Saci Lloyd

This will be a much more independent project than the Carnegie, but we have a dedicated team who are already gathering their books together and reviewing! With the award stretching over the summer, there will also be the challenge of getting books to each other over the break, so we're going to trial use of an enbedded forum.  I'm still sorting through the security settings, but I'm hopeful that this will give them an ongoing point of contact during the break.  

Last Day of Term

Phew, we're finally here!  *flails, falls down*

It's been an exhausting last couple of days and I think we've all hit the burn out stage.  The rush on summer loans hasn't let up and there are huge gaps on all the shelves, but some of the faster readers who took out their stacks last week have already returned handfuls of books that they've finished, so if your book wasn't here earlier in the week, it may be here now!

Today is also a sad day as I'm saying goodbye to my form.  7NAd are no more!  I'd really hoped to carry on with them right up through the school,  but sadly this hasn't been possible (ggrrrr...) so it's quite upsetting.  But I hope they know that I will be their unofficial form tutor for as long as they're here.  Next year they'll become 8RWa, with Miss Way taking over.  She's a wonderful form tutor so I know they'll be well looked after, but I'll miss them horribly.

So, what's happening over the summer?

Those students who are taking part in shadowing The Guardian award will be posting their reviews over the summer on our student blog, so do take a look at what they think.

The Nerdfighters will continue their projects and continue the amazing research that they've already put so much time and energy into.  Some of the things they've discovered and learned about already has been really impressive.  Year 8 students have been putting the sixth form to shame with their knowledge of psychology.  We're going to have a fantastic collection of rollercoaster experts by the time this is all finished, and some of the ideas for their final pieces sound absolutely brilliant and so exciting!  

Some lucky folk are off to the Edinburgh book festival over the break, which I'm very jealous off, but I'm running away to the other side of the world to play with hobbits*, so I'm hoping that they will all bring back signed books and interesting news for us all.

Hope you all have a fantastic summer!  Read a lot, then come straight back up to the library when we're all back in September.



*I might not find hobbits but I will look carefully! Will also keep  my eyes open for worryingly attractive dwarves, though I do think Thorin looks a bit like a Klingon.

Counting Down the Days

Five to go.  Then summer.

All around the school, things have been winding down.  Not in the library though...  Here, spurred on by the extended loan period and increased allowances, students have been flocking to the issue desk with armfuls of books to take out over the summer. It's aces.  Friday was a particularly crazy one, with over 260 issues going out over the course of the day.  There are huge gaps on the shelves now, and it's not just the most popular reads that have been going out; there's been a lot of interest in the hidden gems too.

News of the new Cherub book by Robert Muchamore has been drawing a lot of attention, but I'm sorry folks, you'll have a bit of a wait for that yet!  We'll be getting a few copies in, but probably not as many as folks who've been asking for it.

And of course it's been a huge week for Harry Potter fans, with the release of HP7b.  There were some interesting discussions about spoilers on Twitter and other sites, resulting in a determination that you can't claim to have had a plot spoiled if the narrative came straight from a best selling book that's been out for several years and that if you haven't read it, then you're not a big enough fan to justify your irritation.  Fair play.  

The other exciting news of this week is that we've taken receipt of our first library Kindle! Now, I must confess that I'm not a fan of them.  I don't like the lack of a touch screen, the buttons are clunky, it's made of plastic for heaven's sake.  But I've been trialling it and I think it's starting to grow on me.  The key thing is when you stop noticing the device and your attention goes back to what you're reading.  

The trial book of choice is Holly Black's Red Glove, sequel to White Cat which I adored earlier in the year.  The happy point has been reached where I'm no longer thinking of the Kindle, but of the book.  The advantages of this thing are starting to present themselves.  You can read one handed, lay the book (not book!) on your lap while you eat and turn the pages by hitting the button with a chopstick*, it's lighter than a book of double the thickness if you take it out of the case** and it's right - the strain on your eyes that I've come to expect when reading off a screen just isn't there.  The electronic ink is quite fab.  But the flash up of the next page in negative is horribly off-putting and I do keep coming back to the fact that it's plastic and for me, that just feels a bit wrong.  I reserve the right to change my mind when I'm tired and it reads to me.  

With a bit of luck we'll get the eBook management system up and running and over the next few months request either some additional funding or some donations so that we can get a couple more and start loaning them out.  Exciting times! 

Speaking of exciting times, thank you to all the students who have helped me out this week while I hobbled around the library and shouted at you all from the comfy chairs.  After pulling a tendon in my knee (not recommended) I've been very grateful to you all for being so fab!



* Please do not hit library loans with chopsticks.
** Which weighs almost as much as the Kindle!  Daft, but also detracts from the overwhelming plastic-ness of it.

Stock-take Challenge!

It's Activities Week so there are no classes booked into the library.  This was our best and only chance to get a stock take done, something that I haven't done since I took over the post.  The difficulty is my contract - term time only, so instead of doing such things that require an empty library in the holidays, I have to try to squeeze them in around manic numbers of students.

Our catalogue lists over nearly eleven thousand, which used to take two and a half weeks to stock-take.  Our challenge was to do it in one!  This required careful planning and a cut-throat system.

1. Acquire wireless netbook and a spare scanner. 

Then the computer can be put on the reshelving trolley and wheeled around.  I'm pretty sure that three days of the old time was spent just carrying books to the desk. Nightmare waste of time!

2. Instigate system. 

Pick up a book, scan it.  Then PUT IT BACK.  No stopping and checking it through, no thinking 'gosh, this looks interesting,' and flicking through the pages.  Such things were FORBIDDEN.  If the book was in the wrong place, never mind.  Parent volunteers can help us to check the order another week.  If the book fell apart in my hands, a small green PostIt would be stuck in the top, then it was to go straight back on the shelf. Barcode unrecognised?  Add it to the pile on the trolley and LEAVE IT THERE.  No investigation, no 'Oh, I'll just check the title on the catalogue...' No.

3. Keep going.

On Monday I worked alone, annoying the rest of the staff using the library for their Review Day, and took one half hour break to eat lunch.  Coffee was drunk at the trolley, toilet breaks were limited. On Tuesday, Mrs Sweet helped to keep everyone else away from me while I carried on.  And when Mrs Clarke arrived on Wednesday, she was shown how it all worked and since then, the sound of beeping has not paused for more than a minute.  We've staggered breaks and lunchtimes, had one of us working though constantly.

Of these I think that the portability of the computer probably made the most difference, but The System is the one that I'm most proud of.  It took guts and it took discipline, but it's really worked.

And you know what?  We've done it.  10.30 am on Friday morning, and the stock-take that used to take two and a half weeks is complete.

The 'Missing' list is quite long - about 200 items, but this is less than 2% of our stock, and in the two years since the last one, we've migrated the catalogue to our new system, moved a lot around, and been fantastically busy!  Over the next two weeks we'll spend time mopping up - Mrs Sweet is the finding stuff queen and I'm sure will get that number down to under 100 before we break up for the summer.

WIN.

Student Blog update

Following our very sucessful use of our student blog for Carnegie this year, we're not going to stop!  We'll now be shadowing the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, which is a fantastic set of eight books:

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Mr Gum and the Secret Hideout by Andy Stanton

Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans

Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardinge

Return to Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan

Moon Pie by Simon Mason

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Momentum by Saci Lloyd

This will be a much more independent project than the Carnegie, but we have a dedicated team who are already gathering their books together and reviewing! With the award stretching over the summer, there will also be the challenge of getting books to each other over the break, so we're going to trial use of an enbedded forum.  I'm still sorting through the security settings, but I'm hopeful that this will give them an ongoing point of contact during the break.  

Making the Move

Yup, we've shifted over to Blogger.  Wordpress was pretty, but with the Roundwood Readers blog running so well on here, it seemed to daft to continue in a different place.  So we're back to where the embedding is easy and Miss A can remember her sign in...

Carnegie Blog

Just realised how silent this blog is in comparison to our new Readers' blog!  Take a look here to see why this one had tumbleweeds all over it.

#busy

Carnegie Day

 

It’s all coming to an end!

Yes, it’s Carnegie announcement day, which means that all of this joy is coming to an end.  But there’s been so much wonderful stuff happening this year!

Last Wednesday we were visited by the Shadowers at Sir John Lawes school across town.  It was fantastic to hear some new opinions on the books, and though some of the discussions were heated, we made some excellent new friends and are really looking forward to doing more with them in the future.  Hopefully they will join us in becoming Nerdfighters! Many thanks to Ms Warman for arranging their visit and piling them all into the minibus.

 



Then yesterday we had an amazing Shadowing meeting and took part in something very new to us – a Twitter interview with Patrick Ness!  We all settled down with tribute doughnuts, went through the inevitable ICT emergency (why block Twitter school?!  Why?!) but were all set and ready to go at 1.30.  Will and I typed in questions and queries, and Patrick answered them all, giving us an insight into his writing.  The tweets have been archived here, so if you’d like to have a look at our questions, please go ahead!  We’d like to say a huge thank you to Patrick for giving us his time.

 



 

And now, the day is here.  Thursday 23^rd June.  Carnegie Day.

At 12.30, they will announce the winner of this year’s Carnegie medal, and we’ll know if our Shadowing vote matched that of the judges.  So I guess it’s time to announce our own winner.

The RPS Readers Carnegie Shadowing winner for 2011 is…

 

Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness.



 

This amazing book held us captivated right the way through as the war raged.  Our sympathies were pulled tight across all sides at one time or another and many returned from reading this book with shredding nails!  Those who read it as a stand alone enjoyed it and appreciated the story for what it was enough that some of these readers were among those who voted it their winner.  And those who read the whole trilogy were bowled over by the complexities and involvement that they felt with the characters, all of whom we came to love or admire in some way.  Yes, even the Mayor.  He may be the most wonderful villain ever created.

Awesome.

Review-a-mania

37 Shadowers!   I'm sure this should be greeted with a fanfare every time I say it.  Really fab number.  And since that meeting, and the thirty second demolishing of three double sized packets of biscuits, over a dozen reviews have been posted to our Shadowing Blog, at least one for each of the shortlisted novels.  So if you've had a look at the shortlist and  you're not sure where to start, have a look and see what our students think before you make your choice.

Good work everyone!

First reviews trickling in

We don't have 34 Shadowers anymore.  We have 37.  Aces.

After a slight panic that we wouldn't be able to buy in enough books for them all (a perfectly justified fear, as it turned out) the Shadowers were asked to chose one book from the shortlist and buy their own copy to then share.  Today several books were added to the Carnegie shelf with just a name scribbled inside, so a huge thank you to those students who have already been shopping and are so generously sharing their books.  Makes me a little bit teary to be honest *sniffs*  Ahem.  Anyway...

The first reviews are up on our blog and have been copied over to our official Shadowing site, hosted by CILIP.  Plans are in the pipeline for some very exciting student participation this year, with videos, fan fiction (including some from the POV of the Spackle from Patrick Ness's Monsters of Men - awesome) and animated book trailers on their way.  With any luck there'll be a few surprises before the winner is announced too.

It's an odd week this week, with only two school days before we run away to largely ignore someone's wedding, but that means another gorgeously long weekend with plenty of reading time.  Thumbs up, Royals ;)  We're also celebrating the fact that several of our students were out of school at the University of Hertfordshire Creative Writing Competition Development Day, after having their entries shortlisted. Good luck to them for the next stage too.

Carnegie Shadowing is GO!

This lunchtime saw our first formal meeting of the Carnegie Shadowing group, and they all turned up clutching books and reaching for copies of the shortlist.  All thirty four of them.  Yup.  Thirty four Shadowers this year.  Aces.

Sadly this has caused a bit of a crisis in the book stock department, as although we have 4-5 copies of each of the shortlisted books, some of them have yet to be delivered and even then they are we won't have enough.  Luckily, our Shadowers have agreed that they will all buy one copy of one of the books and swap them around.  Phew.

Our new site is up and running, and there should be reviews trickling through over the next day or two, as those who grabbed books last Friday are already finishing them off.

This and NaNoWriMo are my favourite times of the year.  I think I even like them more than Christmas...

The Mortal Instruments, by Cassandra Clare

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="425" caption="Parts I - IV"][/caption]

Clary has grown up thinking that she’s entirely normal, until one day she sees people who others seem to miss, their eyes just skate over them.  Enter the world of the Shadowhunters, where humans born with the blood of an angel in their veins, the Nephilim, fight to defend the world from the evils that would wish humanity harm.  Uneasy alliances with vampires and werewolves, dashing warlocks, a likable heroine and a marvellously sardonic hero make these books a fantastic read.



This is one of those series to get utterly lost in, so if you’re planning to read them, make sure that you have them all lined up.  This is a complex series of many characters, but they are drawn well enough that I found myself gossiping about them with students right away, and I must admit that there is something slightly soap-opera-ish about it all.  Forbidden love (there were several very confused teens wandering around the library muttering, ‘But it’s so right!  And so wrong!’ an evil absent father, a complex history and back story, heroism, awkward and potentially forbidden love (there’s a scene in City of Glass that had us all squealing and clapping our hands), loyalty and revenge. Combined with this is a consistent and workable mythology.  Oh, and really nasty demons and monsters too.  Awesome.  And I’m totally crushing on Luke.

 

There are some books that you read, love and hug quietly to your chest.  They’re a private experience.  This series is very much a shared one, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the range of its appeal; I’d thought that this might be dismissed as a girly book, but the boys in our reading circle seem to have embraced it just as fully as the girls.  To quote one of them ‘Well, it’s a bit like Twilight, but, you know, good.’

Bring on City of Fallen Angels.

Carnegie Shortlist announced

Yup it's my favourite time of year again - Carnegie Time!

 

Our Shadowing group seems to have about doubled in size this year, though it could be even more: we'll not know until our first official meeting next Wednesday lunchtime, but so far interest levels have been at an all time high.

 

The shortlist was announced today:

Prisoner of the Inquisition, by Theresa Breslin



Zarita, only daughter of the town magistrate lives a life of ease. Saulo, son of a family reduced by circumstances to begging, swears vengeance, after witnessing his father wrongfully arrested and brutally killed. As the Spanish Inquisition arrives, bringing a climate of suspicion and acts of torture to the town, the fates of Zarita and Saulo intertwine, with tragic consequences.

The Death Defying Pepper Roux, by Geraldine McCaughrean



Pepper Roux awakes on his fourteenth birthday; the day he has been told he must die. He doesn't want to disappoint, but he doesn't want to die either. So he goes on the run, setting sail on a sea of adventures, courting mayhem and disaster at every turn. Can he escape his fate – for a while at least?

Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness



The third and final volume in the "Chaos Walking Trilogy" finds three armies marching on New Prentisstown, each intent on destroying the others. Todd and Viola are caught in the middle with no chance of escape or, it seems, of stopping the fighting. But then a third voice enters the fray, one bent on revenge.

The Bride's Farewell, by Meg Rosoff



On the morning of her wedding, Pell Ridley creeps out of bed in the dark, kisses her sisters goodbye and flees on horseback, determined to escape a future that offers nothing but hard work, and sorrow. The road ahead is rich with encounters that lead her closer to the untold story of her past. And she meets a hunter, whose fate also seems strangely entwined with her own.

White Crow, by Marcus Sedgwick



Two lives, two centuries apart, but obsessed by the same question: is there life after death? When city girl Rebecca arrives in the quiet village of Winterfold one relentlessly hot summer, her uneasy friendship with strange, elfin Ferelith sets in motion a shocking chain of events

Out of Shadows, by Jason Wallace



It is Zimbabwe in the 1980s. The civil war is over, independence has been won, and Robert Mugabe has come to power, offering hope, land and freedom to black Africans. For Robert Jacklin, it's all new too as he gets used to a new continent, a new country, a new school. But he is quickly forced to realise that for many of his fellow pupils, the battle for their old country rages on.

 

Good list! There were cheers and whoops for some of the books when the list was read out at break time.

 

This year we're also taking our Shadowing participation a step further.  Last year some of our members were frustrated by the lack of user functionality on our official Shadowing site (y'know, that one that WON the Shadowing site prize - wooo!) so this year, as well as running that, we'll be posting to our very own, super-swanky new blog - the Roundwood Readers! We'll be posting out reviews, thoughts, and book trailers  there, giving us the chance to show you more photos of our process, more videos of our discussions, and more of our ever valuable opinions! Comments and feedback on the student posts would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry blog

I know I've been neglecting you.  It's been a crazy busy time, with the regular library stuff, a full time job on its own, getting busier than ever, and a couple of events that have taken up a lot of time but should end up being very beneficial.

 
The first was the launch of our Trust School Status, a mini-charrette (consultation process) with the Trust Partners (Herts Uni, Sir John Lawes School, Presedence ICT and Rothamsted) that was held at the University on the 22nd March.  Thirteen of our students and a similar number from SJL went along to talk through plans and ideas about how the Trust could be work for the schools and what we could all bring to the mix.  Our students did so well and spoke eloquently and confidently, often leading discussion and feedback sessions.  I know the staff at the University and the Trust partners were very impressed with all of them!  Of course, knowing what they're all like it wasn't a huge surprise for me, though Alex's capacity for crisps came as a bit of a surprise, and Max's attachment to the flipboard pens was a little worrying.  Congratulations to everyone who took part though.

The second was my trip up to Cambridge for the Cambridge Librarians' TeachMeet.  It was my first one and I'd taken the bold step of agreeing to present, which may have been a little foolhardy.  It was a wonderful evening though, and I learned a lot from all there as well as having the chance to put names to Twitter names! My presentation went well though, and you can see it here:

[slideshare id=7436719&doc=camlibtmnicky-110329155637-phpapp01]

The notes are available over here.

And now with these over, I'm clear to focus on my favourite part of the library year.  It's Carnegie Shadowing time!

Awesome

Have been playing with the avatar generator on the Skullduggery Pleasant site.

Aces.



Complete with roller derby nose plaster.

World Book Day

Happy World Book Day everyone!  It’s been a frenetic day up here in the library, with the book swap running through break and lunchtime, with some fantastic books being offered for exchange this year.



We’ve also been handing out the £1 book tokens to forms all round the school and showing off the posters for the specially published books.



Sofie, Tegan and Lucy took over the library at lunch to run a very successful and impressively rowdy game of Book Charades, with dozens of students from all year groups taking part.  Year 7 dominated though, possibily because they could yell the most.



There were quizzes and competitions with all the entries being taken before the end of the break, and now we’re sitting up in the computer area working on our stories for the various creative writing competitions that our writing groups are entering this term.

Around this merry chaos, reading and knitting continued.



Our charity knitting group are working well and have started sewing their first blanket together.  Their skill is increasing every day and there are fewer dropped stitches to pick up now.



Lovely day!

First Steps

The first batch of DVDs have arrived! Also out of shot there's another box with Science based ones, such as Planet Earth and The Sky at Night, as well as several History documentaries.  But as you can see, we've gone for the classics in terms of tie-ins with the texts taught by English, and have invested quite a lot in our new Modern Foreign Languages selection, which I think are going to be really useful for students studying languages at GCSE and A level.  Additionally there are just a few that I couldn't do without ;)

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

 

This is a Christmas story really, so I came to it a little late in the game, but with the last remnants of flu still hanging around, this was a fun book to curl up under a blanket with.

Dash is browsing in his favourite New York bookshop when he finds a red Moleskin notebook with a message and a task written on its pages.  When he decides to take the notebook up on its offer of adventure, he completes the task and leaves it with a new one of his own, striking up an interesting relationship with its owner, Lily.  What I really enjoyed about this story was the role that the notebook played for the two of them, a connection and a place where they could show their real and honest selves, the selves that they couldn't often show in real life for fear of appearing too vulnerable.  Written in alternate chapters by the book's two authors, Dash and Lily are two very distinct voices, but there's a point somewhere a long the way where you can hear that they're picking up the same language, and as they get closer to meeting, the hope that they'll suit each other is balanced out by the awful fear that they might not.  Sounds a bit sicky, doens't it?  And it could it, were it not for Dash's sardonic manner and the wodnerful supporting cast, provided mostly by Lily's extended family. I hope one day I can be as marvellous as her aunt.

This is non-frilly and at times gut wrenching romance that will appeal to anyone who picks it up!

Good News

It's a tense time for schools and libraries across the country at the moment as the cuts start to bite.  Many we know have been threatened with, or notified of redundancies.  The good news here is that the staffing hours in our lovely library have not been cut this year, so we'll continue to be able to do all the things that we love doing so much!  And, you know, eating and having homes, little essentials like that.

We'd like to extend our thanks to those who made the decisions and managed this difficult situation.

Room, by Emma Donoghue

Five year old Jack lives with Ma in Room.  In Room, there is Rug, there is Bed, there is Table.  All things are proper nouns, because this room and his mother are Jack's entire life, after she was kidnapped and imprisoned by 'Old Nick', who brings them food and comes by almost nightly to take advantage of his prisoner while Jack hides in Wardrobe.  Sounds horrific, and it is, but it is a story of more hope and love than I can remember reading in a long time.  The thing is that Jack's happy in this tiny world, it is all that he knows.  It's only when he tells us of his Ma's desperation, as the details of her story filter down to us, that the true horror of their situation becomes apparent.  It's difficult to say much more without saying too much, but this is truly an amazing book, narrated by an engaging and captivating character.  Looking forward to the discussion on this one.  Read it now.

Christmas Reading Update

Though I took a massive stack of books home over the break, the evil flu that decided to infect me stopped my eyes working properly and I managed to do impressively little reading over the two week break.  Boo.  But here’s what I did get through:

 

White Cat, by Holly Black



First book in the Curse Workers series, and my favourite of the break, White Cat tells the story of Cassell, who lives in a world where magic workers are heavily reagulated, but a black market of shady magical dealings runs like a dark river under him and his family.  The only non-curse worker in his family and haunted by his deeds years ago, Cassell suffers from strange dreams about a white cat, who seems to be asking for his help.

I loved this book and found it utterly gripping.  The characters are appealingly dark and tied up in a complicated world of allegiances and employment.  There are strong elements of horror in this story, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the faint hearted; there’s an underlying violence in some parts that’s quite harsh but fleshes the book out from fairy tale to a very human world.  Really looking forward to the second part of the series, Red Glove, but can’t believe I have to wait until June for it!  If anyone has an ARC they could slip my way, I will reward you biscuits.

 

Nobody’s Girl, by Sarra Manning



Seventeen year old Bea has grown up overshadowed by her energetic and exuberant mother, who is determined that her daughter will not repeat her own youthful mistakes.  When the popular crowd at school suddenly befriend her and invite her on holiday with them, it seems like the perfect way to step out of the gloom and into her own life, but when plans change and she finds herself suddenly alone in Europe, the world opens up and she starts to find her own way.

I read this as an attempt to read outside my comfort zone and experiment with some of the books that are really popular with my students, and I admit I struggled.  Around a third of the way through, I gave up for several days.  Not having been a girly girl or having a group of female friends at that age, the whole bitchiness and back stabbing, tried my patience in such a way that indicates that Manning captured perfectly how these relationships play out, with the mind games, manipulation and feelings of rejection that I’d always fought to avoid so stubbornly.  It was a bit like hating snakes but deciding to read a book about them.   But I returned to it when I started to recover a bit, and as soon as Bea and Toph (read it, you’ll find out who he is) were in Paris, I became very fond of this book and of the two of them, and when I closed the book after the last page, had a big silly grin on my face.

 

The Dark is Rising, by Susan Hill



If was dark, freezing and there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. Of course I had to read this book!  Book two of The Dark is Rising sequence, this book tells the tale of Will Stanton, seventh son of the seventh son, and born an Old One, warrior of the light.  In the dead of winter, the dark is rising and it’s up to Will to find the six Signs of Light and bring them together to save our world from freezing.

I first read this sequence of books when I was very young and absolutely adored them.  Magic, history, adventure bravery, there was nothing not to like.  Re-reading them as an adult, I still loved them, though this time I only read The Dark is Rising, as it was the most approapriate to the season.  Getting utterly carried away in this story is harder now, some elements have dated a little, and I occasionally felt that there was too much going on, such as Will’s first trip to the Great Hall, but the sense of wonder and the feeling that winter is something so much bigger than just the cold that bites at your fingertips will never be lost, and I’ll continue to reach for this book any time it snows before Christmas.

Experimenting with Pathfinders

We’ve often been told that the current generation of students in our schools are the ‘Google Generation*’, a group of students who use the web with ease and feel that they have no need for books and traditional research as we know it.  What we’re seeing in schools however, is a generation of students who though they may use the internet widely, do so ineffectively and use only a very limited number of applications.  They may be a whiz at Facebook and MSN IM, but ask them a question and their primary search strategy is to type the whole thing into a Google searchbar and hit enter.  Sadly, many of their teachers are also at a similar stage, but being better at selecting key words, get better results with only a little more skill.  Though students are taught how to use advance searches and strategies in ICT, this is seldom backed up and would need consistent reinforcement to become the norm.

The difficulty that we face in library based research lessons is that there is neither the time or the space to teach these skills.  The library isn’t laid out as a classroom, and unless it’s a small group it’s nearly impossible for me to speak to a whole class all at once, let alone monitor their progress.  So more and more this year we’re going to be focusing on passing these skills on to teachers to drill down to their classes, and setting up Pathfinders for students. This involves breaking down the task of research into a series of stages and providing them with starting points, or sign posts long the way.  Often these also open up the possibility for talking through search strategies with individual groups, as by providing a clear direction, they are able to see quite clearly where they want their research to go.

The format of these Pathfinders is proving tricky to perfect as yet.  Unfortunately our VLE just, well, isn’t, so there’s no central space to display the information.  At the moment I’m experimenting with creating documents and webpages that will guide them through, but haven’t quite found the right formula.  What I need is something that our students can get to with one click from out home page.  You know, like a VLE…**  So at the moment we’re making good use of sites such as Diigo to collect key sites, and also Pearltrees, which allows you to display your links in a way with huge student appeal.  This is the Pearltree created for the Year 12 English groups who are just about to start studying The Great Gatsby:

Great Gatsby Pearltree (Sorry, it won't embed.)

Students were able to find starting points on many areas of interest and then take their research further using key words that they identified during their reading.  So far it’s working well!  We’ll continue to investigate and develop formats and presentation until something clicks, then feedback on the process.  Wouldn't it be great to use something like a VLE for this?  *winks at ICT people*  *bats eyelashes*

*And may I congratulate the writer of this article on his wonderful moustache.

**Apparently there is one, it just hasn’t been set up, and staff haven’t been trained on it.  This is hugely useful, as you can imagine.