Summer Reading - American Libraries June 2018

So one of my summer goals was to catch up on all of the ALA publications that have piled up over the school year. I've managed to read one so far. #babysteps

Supporting Middle School Reading by Kelsey Cohen (p. 28)

I love the idea of capturing data online and presenting it graphically so that the dashboard serves as inspiration.

Thoughts: I read A TON, and keep students up-to-date on what I enjoyed by posting printouts of book covers on a bulletin board. I blog my recommendations and post on Facebook for parents. I love when kids are surprised that I've read a book they're checking out or returning and can comment on it. I support Goosebumps and Captain Underpants and graphic novels as "real" books.

But there's only so much I can do split between two schools and spending only 35 minutes per week with each class. And I can't say that there's a true reading culture at either of my schools.

Yes, there are reading log requirements for most classrooms. But how many kids are looking at the clock after each page read? How many parents just sign whatever's noted? How many teachers are  reading for 20 minutes every night themselves?

I know that there's not enough time in the day for anyone in an elementary school. Our district introduced many new demands last year, and "sustained silent reading" is looked upon by some administrators as "wasted instructional time." But, as stated on Twitter last week:

twitter.com/watkinskaleb

So what can I do to have more of an impact? Not sure, to be honest. I have the kids in grades 3-5 create reading plans (TM Mrs. Melanie Roy) and add to them when we get batches of new books (which occurs a lot more frequently at one school, because I'm able to spend book fair money). But most of the kids forget about them as soon as I've collected them for safekeeping. I think only one student proactively asked to check theirs all last year.

scholastic.com

Takeaways: Devise an online way for them to maintain reading plans ... maybe use Destiny Quest? Hmm ... just emailed our state organization listserv and learned that the functionality is migrating to Discover this year. Will have to wait for that. 

Add a booktalk requirement to everyone's library grade. Including K. Maybe ask the principals if I can have some of them delivered as morning announcements. 

Encourage teachers - and the principals! - to share what they are reading all year, not just during Reading Week.

"Beyond Fake News" by Meredith Farkas (p. 78)

The standard web evaulation checklists (e.g. CRAAP) may not really work after all for students, according to an article on InsideHigherEd.com:

"As we gain experience, we come to “know” things, including which sources may be reliable, as well as the ways sources that seem reliable on the surface may be biased. The CRAAP test is an effort to codify what sophisticated source evaluators are doing, except it isn't an accurate reflection of the knowledge and condtions under which we work. 

Experienced academics don’t actually use the CRAAP test. The CRAAP test is an approximation of a much more sophisticated process rooted in that domain knowledge. Giving it to students as a substitute for knowledge may not be doing them any favors."

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Michael Caulfield recommends "going beyond the About page of the source to see what others ... say" and "trying to follow the information back to the original source."

Thoughts: I feel that for elementary school students, educators can cut down on bad web searches by providing vetted sources and explaining WHY they are quality. And classroom teachers may want to have their librarians check the list ... I once saw All About Explorers listed as a legit source for a 5th grade project.

I've noticed that the kids really struggle with processing information and putting it into their own words; they should be focusing on USING the information at this point, in my opinion, and get those skills down before wading through Google search results (of which they only ever use whatever's above the fold, as I have witnessed many many times).

Takeaway: Remind teachers on a regular basis that I can create LibGuides for research projects. Only two people took me up on it last year.

"Data Security" by Nicole Hennig (p. 80)

I realized that I haven't backed up any new documents that I created over the past school year. Yikes. Luckily, I just found a new flash drive while sifting through the piles of stuff on my desk, so I will make sure to do this ASAP. And then keep it somewhere that is not my laptop in case the house burns down.

Hennig recommends paying for cloud backup services such as Backblaze, IDrive, Carbonite, and SpiderOak One.

She also recommends using a password manager. I have a formula for my passwords that usually doesn't fail me, but I'm intrigued by her assertion that "password managers can generate secure, hard-to-crack passwords for you and provide browser plug-ins that will autotype the password into login pages so you never need to remember them." She mentions two: LastPass (free) and 1Password.

commonsense.org

Thoughts: It makes me bananas when students AND TEACHERS keep documents on individual machines, although my schools are moving towards Google for everything, which is cutting down on that practice. I already do Common Sense Media's password lesson with grade 4, and I just saw that they have a version for younger grades. 

Takeaway: Add password lesson to Grade 2 curriculum.