Online Conference - 2004

Information Literacy abstracts (last updated 17 December 2003)

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Barbara Stripling (Director of Library Programs, New Visions for Public Schools, New York, USA)

Barbara Stripling has been a classroom teacher, teacher librarian, school administrator, and director of library grant programs at two non profit education organizations.  She has written two books, edited two books, and published numerous articles in various journals.  Her latest book (co-edited with Sandra Hughes-Hassell), published in October 2003, is entitled Curriculum Connections Through the Library: Principles and Practice.  Barbara has been president of the American Association of School Librarians and currently serves on the Executive Board of the American Library Association.

Building independent learners through inquiry (keynote paper)Our information-age society is placing high demands on our youth to develop the skills to learn on their own, to pursue meaning rather than collect facts, to use critical thinking skills to solve problems and make decisions, and to apply what they have learned in new and authentic situations.  Teachers and teacher librarians are responding to their learners' needs by designing instruction that engages students in constructing their own ideas through guided experiences.  Inquiry provides a framework for these experiences by placing students at the heart of learning and empowering them to follow their sense of wonder into new discoveries and insights about the way the world works.  Inquiry skills and strategies enable students to ask intriguing questions, investigate the answers, construct new understandings, and share those understandings with others.  Inquiry is inextricably connected to literacy; in fact, both involve many of the same thinking skills and strategies.  In addition, students are motivated by inquiry to develop their comprehension and writing capacities.  Teacher librarians can help classroom teachers, at all levels, to design effective inquiry-based instruction in science, math, social studies, and language arts that integrates the literacy and inquiry strategies most important to each content area.  Through such collaboration, teacher librarians foster a school wide community of inquiry.

Barbara Combes and Dr Jan Ring

Barbara Combes has recently taken up a contract at Edith Cowan University.  Since 2001 she has been the teacher librarian at Sevenoaks Senior College, an innovative experiment in the use of high-end technology to facilitate the delivery of curriculum and support materials using ICT.  Barbara managed the Library and Information Centre, acted as Webmaster and WebCT Administrator, and collaborated with staff to develop a range of online curriculum models and courseware to support teaching-learning programs at the College.

Jan Ring has recently returned to Edith Cowan University from Singapore where she spent two years at ICUS, a leading corporate eLearning company, as Academic Director, and one year at NIE where she taught the use of IT in Education.  Jan has designed and taught a variety of courses using flexible delivery methods and is an experienced online coach.  She has been actively involved in international courses, both academic and corporate.  Jan's interests are in the building and maintenance of online learning communities.

"If you help us build it, we will come!" - the role of the teacher librarian as an online curriculum facilitator and innovator Interactive online learning can exploit emerging technologies to provide alternative learning experiences and resources, cater for diverse student learning styles and individual differences, and create a learning culture that integrates technology and information literacy outcomes across the school.  Such learning environments create opportunities for the development of lifelong learning skills and the teacher librarian has a pro-active role to play in the design and facilitation of such a learning culture.

This paper examines the role of the teacher librarian as a facilitator for change and how they can be instrumental in the effective integration of technology into the curriculum.

To create a culture of learning that integrates the use of ICT, current research has identified the need for someone at the local level to take on the vital role of ensuring that teachers have ongoing, 'grass roots support' for the development of collaborative teaching-learning environments.  This 'grass roots' person can ensure that all resources, human and physical, are used in the design and creation of curriculum programs that integrate technology and information literacy outcomes into the learning culture of the school.  Due to their unique position, the teacher librarian has overarching curriculum knowledge, experience in managing curriculum resources across the school and a strong collaborative background, making them ideally placed to be such a key person.

In this paper, discussion focuses on a range of online programs and courseware developed and implemented in an innovative Senior College setting by its teacher librarian in collaboration with subject leaders.  These programs use high-end technology to create dynamic and flexible, outcomes-focused learning environments.  The collaborative partnerships forged as a result of the programs and the preliminary results of action research being conducted by a PhD Fellow working at the school will also be discussed.

James Henri

James Henri is an Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the Centre for IT in Education, Faculty of Education, and is also involved in a major teaching development project in the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong.  

He is a Vice President of  the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) and the Secretary of the Standing Committee of the School Libraries and Resource Centers Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).  

A former recipient of the ASLA Citation, James has published extensively and his current research interests include: issues in information literacy, information policy in schools, collection management issues, and innovative pedagogical practice online.

Building an information literate school community: Putting teachers firstHow much are school changing to meet the needs of the new millennium? Are they changing at all?  Is it a change in substance or an exercise in reorganising the deck chairs on the Titanic?

The shift in focus from teaching to learning; the shift in focus from stand-alone-subjects to integrated learning; the shift in focus from one teacher 30 students to flexible teaching teams and student groupings; the shift from assessing knowledge to assessing learning; the shift from classrooms (and teachers who are in charge of classrooms) to learning spaces; and the shift from individual foci to a whole school focus represents a revolution in thinking about schooling.

Schools that are serious about substantive change and adopting a 'learning to learn' paradigm are encouraged to construct and mould information literate communities where teachers are themselves information literate.  This shift in thinking brings with it many shifts in practice and has special implications for the role of the teacher librarian and the purpose of information services in schools.  When the information literacy focus shifts from students to teachers then the role of the teacher librarian and of the principal as information leaders must shift too.  Teacher librarians must shift their services and their allocation of time towards teachers.  Principals must make that happen by driving school policy and rewarding school practices that reflect these changes.

This paper will raise issues concerning the role of the teacher librarian as an agent for change in teacher practice in schools that are pursuing a culture characterised by a desire to cultivate autonomous and information literate learners.  The paper will address key teacher deficits and issues that act as road blocks to change.  The argument in this paper is that schools that take information literacy seriously demonstrate their commitment by placing emphasis on building an information literate school community.  This argument is framed in terms of five issues: learning to learn must be more than rhetoric; reward what matters; 'photocopy learning' is not learning at all; seek focus; and plan for success.

Mary-Ann Salisbury and Maureen Twomey

Mary-Ann Salisbury is a teacher librarian with over twenty-five years experience in secondary school libraries in Queensland.  She is currently President of the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and immediate Past President of the School Library Association of Queensland (SLAQ).  She is a qualified trainer in Dimensions of Learning, and has been influential in the introduction of this program and the training of the staff at Runcorn High School, Brisbane, Queensland. 

Maureen Twomey is Head of Faculty - Library Services at St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland.  Maureen has worked in primary and secondary schools in both the public and private education system.  She is President of the School Library Association of Queensland (SLAQ) and a qualified trainer in Dimensions of Learning. 

Thinking Through the thing you do: creating a thinking culture'There is little evidence that changing the curriculum will improve the level of student outcomes unless there are significant attempts to change what teacher do' Ramsey, 2001)

The role of the teacher librarian is a unique position in an educational community.  A major part of the work of a teacher librarian, through co-operative planning and teaching, is the designing and developing of curriculum units and assessment in partnership with teachers.  In facilitating student and staff information needs and the integration of information skills into the curriculum, the teacher librarian is strategically placed to work as a change agent and to develop learning communities.

Information literacy skills are the 'what skills we teach', but with technological change and new directions in curriculum we also need to ensure a pedagogy that promotes lifelong learning - we need to focus on the 'how' of teaching.  Learning outcomes are best improved from both improving the curriculum and improving pedagogy.

A program that incorporates the best of what we know about the learning process; that puts students at the centre of what we do; that supports the best in instructional strategies and dovetails into the outcomes approach to education as well as strongly supporting the development of information literacy skills, is a framework called DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING (DOL).

This paper will discuss the implementation of Dimensions of Learning in two different school settings and the significant role played by the teacher librarian in this implementation.  Discussion will include some of the practical issues that each school faced, the various models of staff training and curriculum integrations support trialed, and possible future directions.

Last updated: 17 December 2003