Thing 26: Taking the Lead: Connecting with your Stakeholders
One thing that stood out for me was the post “10 things classroom teachers need to know about modern school librarians.” I agreed with so much of it. People often ask me what I am reading and I stare at them blankly because there is never enough time in a day to just read. The books that the teachers are using as the basis for their research are the books I am reading at night to keep up with the classes.
1) We hate quiet.
2) We love collaboration.
3) We are technology people at heart.
4) We don’t read all day.
5) We don’t know everything.
6) We’re all passionate about something.
7) We network like crazy.
8) We fight for your right to access information.
9) We protect patron privacy.
10) We’re in an ever-changing field.
All school librarians, in order to be properly certified, need a Master’s degree and a license through the state. In MA, we are “Library Teacher, K-12.” All of us have done student teaching in an elementary school AND either a high school or middle school. We go through a lot of the same process that teachers do: MTEL, mentoring programs, student teaching. We may not have a classroom specialty, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do everything we can to help our classroom teachers out.
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mcas and taylor
https://libraryallegra.wordpress.com/
Your Stakeholder Connected Librarian Toolkit Connected Librarians Day 2014 – Heidi Neltner
As I was watching Your Stakeholder I was thinking of the things I do now and what I want to improve.
I am working on being more flexible with teachers now that they have Chrome Books in some classrooms. I have been asked to go to the classroom to talk to the students about MLA and APA. I always did this in the library with the students. So to switch my routine of having students come to the library to me going into classrooms is an effort. I am trying to break out of the idea that research has to be done within the four walls of the library. I am happy that some teachers with Chrome Books still bring their classes into the library. Teachers still bring their classes in for research that requires the use of print materials. I also teach web site evaluation in both the classroom and library. I have been going to work with teachers in the classroom only in my high school library. I still believe that at my 7-8 building, students need to come into the library for instruction.
Some things I do to promote my library are open it up for meetings and events. Many times there is not a choice so we make the best of it and use it as an opportunity to promote ourselves. The BOE meets there on a regular basis so we display student work and have organized book displays. We also have student resources clearly labeled on shelves for all to see. We now have a Maker Spaces table which we just created this year. We have posters of student learning objectives and of web site evaluation. We use the library itself as a promotional tool. We show how students are succeeding by showing student research in the library and the process they use through library instruction aids.
Many times teachers will ask about a project I did with another teacher that they saw in the library. This is a great conversation starter. We also have K – 12 department head meetings in the library which gives me the opportunity to show off the high school library program.
Researching the stakeholders was helpful because sometimes I inadvertently omit some one. I usually focus on teachers and what I can do for them. I have recently started communicating to students via our Gmail account that every student has. I also started emailing the entire staff and not just the teaching faculty. Many of the support staff have asked about OverDrive as well as other things so I started including them in my emails. It has helped to connect with the support staff because they are an integral part of our academic environment.
I usually send an email to the faculty to ask for book and magazine recommendations for purchase for the school year. This year I decided to use Google to email all students and staff for their input. I immediately got tons of responses from the students. In the past I had some vendor book lists for students to look through and write down the book they wanted me to order. This was flawed because I only had a small representation of the student body helping me order books. By reaching out to all the students I have a more accurate list of books to order.
I have been learning about using different parts of Google. I used Google forms to get students to volunteer for the book festival at our school. It was easy by asking what time they wanted to volunteer grade and shirt size. I had all the responses in Excel and responded to each student via email their assignments for that day.
Other than using Google to be in contact with students and staff I use my library web page for promoting the library. I create pathfinders, student book reviews, and publicize activities. I also use I use Smore to promote monthly activities and resources. I send the Smore to the faculty at both of my buildings with the very first links to my library home pages. I then give them tech tips and anything else they I think they could use.
So I need to work on the parent stake holders. I created a Social Media Guide for Parents on my library web page. So I know I need to start off slowly and not try to take on too much at once to improve my relationships with my stakeholders.
Some ideas for the future is to learn Aurasma and Powtoon. I really liked the idea of using a dedicated computer for students to sign in to the library via Google. That is an awesome idea that serves many purposes. So I have a better plan now on where I would eventually like my library to connect with stakeholders.
neednewname 