Will online schhols replace home schooling?

The New York Times today (June 4, 2010) reports a movement in California and other states to offer online schooling as charter schools. By signing up for this system, parents can have the flexibility of home schooling, avoid the local public schools, and still ensure their children receive a sound education. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. Education experts differ on whether elementary and high school students really receive a comparable education from a home-based online school to the one they would get from a face-to-face school. The social interaction of classrooms and the mix of children from many different kinds of homes certainly offers a different experience from home-based learning. Also missing at home are the gyms, libraries, and extracurricular activities offered in many schools. Nonetheless, charter schools are encouraged and will probably continue to grow. Public librarians will have to take over more and more of the work of school libraries to fill the gaps left by bypassing brick and mortar schools. Are we ready for that?

What do librarians do?

People who think librarians spend all their time shelving books and helping children to find a good book ought to read about how one school librarian worked fast to create a lesson on the Gulf oil spill. Putting together online information from a variety of sources is going to be a greater and greater share of a librarian's job. Teachers and students want to learn about what is going on in the world right now and want to understand how to get information about current issues as well as history, science and all the traditional school subjects. Librarians are well positioned to be leaders in finding information and putting it together in meaningful packages for students. The world moves too quickly for books to keep up. We have to supplement books with all sorts of digital information that makes connections between the lasting truths of books and current news headlines. Three cheers for librarians who become leaders in this task.

Essential reading for librarians

Once in a while I come across an article which offers such useful, commonsense information that it's almost impossible not to recommend it to everyone I meet. Our old friend School Library Journal offers just such an article today about the importance of making school libraries accessible to children who have difficulty reading print. Although most libraries still place heavy emphasis on print sources, David Socol's article on "The Unhappy Place" points out that as a child he was unable to sign out books because he had difficulty in writing. Media switching--listening to books, viewing drama--can offer experiences just as vivid and thought-provoking as reading pring. We all know this, but all too often libraries still have some barriers to full participation by all individuals. Read this article and think about what you can do to make you library more accessible.

More talk about tech

Sometimes it seems that tech innovations get all the media attention, while librarians who push books and help kids learn how to use them get very little attention. This year's conference of the National Conference of Teachers of English (NCTE) had some good sessions on bringing electronics and print together. It's good to be reminded that print and e-books aren't locked in some kind of combat; they are complementary formats to help children connect with books. Twitter, Facebook and hand-held computers can all be used in teaching and learning. School libraries are often ahead of public libraries in seeing the value of tech tools for young people. It's well worth looking over the fence to see what the schools are doing instead of focusing too closely on keeping up with other public libraries. Our audience is the same, we ought to work together to serve all children in all libraries.

Are they really going digital?

The announcement recently that a school library in Massachusetts was going completely digital, based apparently on the lack of book circulation, has caused concern. A thoughtful post on the YALSA blog raises some of the questions we librarians should be asking before we send out mournful tweets. What was the school library doing before this decision was made? Was the school librarian an important figure in the decision to make a basic change in the library collection? How many books circulate in other school libraries every day? What do the students think? Are they reading books at all? Do they have a great public library next door to the school? There are too many questions that beg for answers, and too many opinions thrown out without any facts to back them up. It's not enough to jump on a story and assume a position--pro-book or pro-digital--without asking the more important questions about the impact of any decision. In this world of easy, inexpensive blogging it's more important than ever for librarians to share their experiences, their knowledge and more especially the facts behind their opinions. That's the only way to earn the respect of administrators and the public.

New information formats

The Alaska Library Association has started a new initiative to make state documents available on flash drives for use in Alaskan schools. As reported in School Library Journal, a number of small communities in Alaska have limited or unreliable internet access and having documents available in a robust format would help teachers and students. There hasn't been much coverage of the use of flash drives for storing and sharing information, at least not in the library press, yet the technology is available and used by most high school students these days. When you think about the sheer volume of material that could be made available in small packages, the advantages and possibilities seem huge. Let's hope there will be some funding for similar projects in other parts of the country and around the world.

More cooperation

Schools and public libraries often work together to help children have better access to the resources they need for homework and pleasure. Often this is done by simple means such as linking to each other's catalogs on the homepage of each system. New York City is now aiming for a more elaborate way of inducing students to use their public library resources through developing widgets to make the process easy. School Library Journal reports that work has started on these widgets and the first of them will be introduced at the NYC School Library Conference in the fall. Librarians throughout the country will be keeping on eye on the developments. It sounds like a winning idea for everyone.