Remote School Librarianship – 3rd Quarter 2020-2021 (cont’d)

Well, as you can see, my reflections dropped of rapidly once we returned to the building. I’ve been working on a big collection development project; more about that later in 4th Quarter reflections.

Returning to the Building

All staff was required to return to working in the building on February 25th, except for Mondays (asynchronous days). We’ll be continuing this until the end of the school year. I was very nervous about this, on two counts: the risk of COVID-19 infection, and the challenges of being able to understand what people are saying. The latter was the most worrisome to me.

Auditory Challenges

I have had a hearing impairment since I was 5 years old, and have worn hearing aids for most of my life. This resulted (in my non-medical opinion) from a severe reaction to the pertussis vaccine at that age. The result was nerve deafness, which basically means brain damage. There is nothing physically wrong with my ears. I have come to realize that increasing the volume level is only part of the solution to understanding. Auditory processing difficulties are a large part of my hearing impairment. This means that I am constantly gathering clues from a number of sources, including sound, context, and reading lips, to understand meaning. Under normal face-to-face circumstances with a small number of people, I can do this quickly and accurately enough that people don’t realize I have a hearing impairment. COVID-19 has changed this.

As you can imagine, everyone wearing masks has been a nightmare for lip-readers. My audiologist explained that my midrange hearing loss means that I have trouble distinguishing between consonant sounds. Lip-reading replaces that information. Without that, I’m basically hearing only vowel sounds–try that and see how it works for you. If I have context, I can make good guesses about what’s being said, but if someone starts talking to me and I have no idea what they’re talking about, my guesses get pretty random. Sometimes I can’t even tell that someone has started talking to me, leading people to believe that I’m purposefully ignoring them.

Here are some things I’ve tried:

  • Clear plastic masks don’t help. It doesn’t work if I’m the one wearing it–everyone else has to be wearing them for it to work. Also, they steam up, and often press against the wearer’s lips, so I can’t read their lips anyway.
  • Having people stand 6 feet away and pull their mask down is not recommended, but often is the quickest way to understand them.
  • Having paper and pencil so the speaker can write to me is very helpful, but extremely awkward, especially for students. Sometimes that’s the only way I can understand proper nouns, or names.

Fortunately our meetings are still held in Zoom, but sometimes people need to wear masks while they’re attending. Most of the time, to be honest, I stay in my office and avoid talking to people.

Library Lunch Bunch

The bell schedule changed once teachers and students started to come back to the building. Now, instead of 4 blocks with an hour for lunch, we have 8 blocks with 24 minutes for lunch.
The four lunch shifts run from 10:36 to 12:36. I expanded my office hours to run from 10:30 to 12:40, Tuesday through Friday. I rarely have anyone show up, but every now and then Yordy comes in to hear more of my read-aloud of So You Want to Be a Wizard, and sometimes Gaming Club players come in to play Minecraft. At least I’m remaining available.

Gaming Club: Minecraft

Quite a few students have signed up for a Minecraft: Education Edition account. They have to fill out a Google form to join the Gaming Club Canvas course, then they have to fill out a Player Agreement to get a Minecraft account. Our Network Engineer is usually very prompt about creating accounts. Only a few students play on our shared server, which I run during lunch and during Gaming Club, but they’re welcome to play with other Gaming Club friends, too. I’m betting their thinking skills will improve just from playing.

Business as Usual

On Mondays I go out with the Bookmobile. Tuesdays through Fridays I’m available for Library Lunch Bunch. I spend most of Wednesdays in grade level meetings. I submit a weekly newsletter article for publication on Fridays. The rest of the time, I’m either ordering new books (eBooks and print) or cataloging new books.

Library Plan for Hybrid Instruction

Here’s the email that I sent to staff. I don’t know if anyone actually read it.

As of now, this is our plan for hybrid instruction:

  • The library is used for Ms. Bollinger’s classes
  • The Reading Terraces (outside, next to the library) are open for anyone
    • First come, first served
    • Please let us know when you need one unlocked
    • Students must be accompanied by an adult
  • Library stacks (shelves) will be closed except for library staff
  • Students and teachers may continue to put print books on hold (reserve) in the library catalog
    • Reserve books for hybrid students delivered to ELA classrooms upon request
    • Reserve books for remote students placed in front office for pickup
    • Reserve books for all students placed on Bookmobiles on Mondays, weather permitting
  • Instructional collaboration is still strongly encouraged
    • Library instruction will be remote from library office
    • I am happy to pull print books and/or recommend online resources for you
  • Library Lunch Bunch continues on Zoom
    • Tuesday through Friday from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm (all lunch blocks)
    • Students are responsible for getting back to class on time

As always, please let us know of any way we can help you. We are here to support your instruction and your students’ learning.

New Books

Most of our books come in fully processed and cataloged, but I still tweak the records, and often the spine labels. One advantage of running my own library is that I get to decide how things are organized. Here are some changes I make:

  • change the copy price to the actual retail price, rounded up to the nearest dollar
  • add Genre tags (655) and Local tags (658)
  • remove subject headings from Library of Congress (the Juvenile fiction sub-tag makes it look like nonfiction in our catalog)
  • change 741.5 classifications to F for fiction, or the Dewey class for nonfiction – the only books that stay in 741.5 are biographies and how-to books
  • series books have Vol.x at the bottom of the spine label, and the series name added to the book title in the catalog record (I wish that for multiple series by the same author, I had used Vol.1a, Vol.1b, etc., so shelvers could keep series together more easily.)
  • if a series is written by multiple authors, I classify the books under the series name
  • sometimes I change the Dewey class if it makes more sense for our collection
  • sometimes the catalog record we receive is wrong, so I fix it

Although the books are fully processed, we still need to stamp our address inside and check the books in before displaying or shelving them. We also put a New Books bookmark in each one. Our Library Assistant takes care of that. Since students aren’t directly using the library, we’re just shelving the new books.

Reflections

I feel vastly under-used this year. I’m not letting myself worry about it, since I know the classroom teachers are overwhelmed from the constantly changing situation. It seems like as soon as we get used to one way of conducting classes, we have to change to something different. I’m grateful that I have plenty to do behind the scenes in the library, both remotely and in person. I’m also very thankful that I have my own office to work in, both for safety and for focus.

Remote School Librarianship – 1st Quarter 2020-2021

Our district just completed the first quarter of this school year, mostly remotely. Because of rising infection levels of COVID-19, the second quarter will be completely remote. Here’s how this is playing out for our middle school library.

Our mission is to help students and teachers to be successful in the quest for information and good stories. Although it’s easier and more effective with a physical space too, there is much we can do virtually. In fact, I’m able to work almost completely remotely, while still maintaining the library program.

I want to be clear about one thing: Our library is not closed. Only the physical space is closed. Our virtual library is very much open for business!

Bitmoji - Reading eBooks

Of course, I made a Bitmoji!

We have actually had a virtual library since 2006, starting with our online library catalog and website. Of course, this has expanded exponentially recently, especially since March 13, 2020.

I stay connected with quite a few professional learning communities, on social media and in virtual worlds: librarians, middle school teachers, colleagues in virtual worlds, and more. I get ideas from everywhere, so what I’m doing is by no means unique. Here are a few of the things I’ve tried so far:

Weekly Newsletter

I’m very lucky to have such a supportive administrator on my side. Before the school year even started, my principal asked me to have a short article ready every week for our parent newsletter. He said (and I completely agree) that the library program needs to remain visible so it is still seen as necessary. The newsletter goes out by email and phone texts every Friday. Sometimes I make videos or custom graphics to include.

Custom Graphic for Newsletter

eBooks

I’m also very lucky to have an actual budget to buy books and materials during the school year. Almost all of my purchases so far this year have been eBooks. I started out with an order for almost $1000 worth of eBooks to support diversity and anti-racism. I continue to buy books that students and teachers request, and I spent another $1000 to buy eBook versions of some of our most popular print books.

Getting students to actually read eBooks has been a struggle over the last few years, but now we’re finally gaining some ground. Right now there are 9 students with eBooks checked out. There were 189 eBooks used so far this quarter, and 46 just this month. There were 71 eBooks used during all of last school year, and that was an increase over previous years. I made a video showing how to read eBooks, and worked with all of the 6th grade classes to introduce it. I’d like to work with the 7th and 8th graders too, but haven’t been able to so far.

Bookmobiles

Our Bookmobile

Even with increased eBook usage, we still need to provide access to the thousands of print books in our collection. I’ve worked with the other four librarians in our district to develop a plan to use bookmobiles for remote delivery of print materials. Amid a fluctuating environment of food and supply deliveries, we were able to arrange for two district vans every Monday. During the lunch break, one goes to each side of our small city, and students can pick up and drop off materials while we’re there. The secondary librarians and assistants have worked out a schedule to staff the bookmobiles. Unfortunately, because our elementary librarians are tied to fixed full-time class schedules, they’re not able to participate at this time. Students can put books on hold in the online library catalog, or they can email us to request them. The books are held in the front office for pickup for the remainder of the week.

Online Read-Alouds

Mrs. O'Connell on Zoom

Mrs. O’Connell on Zoom

Our classroom teachers have daily office hours during their planning times, which vary by grade levels. (We’re on a 4×4 block schedule.) The whole school has a lunch break at the same time every day, so I hold library office hours then. I started out doing a read-aloud of one of my favorite novels, So You Want to Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane. I check out the eBook and share my screen so students can read along if they want to. I’ve branched out into showing book trailers occasionally, along with recorded author interviews and some live online conference literary events. Currently I’m starting to read The Best Christmas Ever, by Barbara Robinson.

Canvas Course

Library Canvas Course Home Page

The heart of our virtual library is our course in Canvas, the Learning Management System that our district uses. Our library course has evolved since 2015, when our district adopted Canvas. I just revised the home page again last week to incorporate buttons instead of text. I hope it will make it easier to navigate. In the interests of transparency, I include blocks in my schedule that show what I’ve been working on behind the scenes – cataloging, updating Canvas, weeding, etc. I provide resources that the classroom teachers and students can use; my next step is to make my slideshows into videos, since I finally learned how to do that in August.

Online Book Fairs

Usually we have an on-site book fair with Scholastic Book Fairs in February, combined with an online book fair that runs concurrently. This year we cancelled the on-site fair, and added another online book fair with Junior Library Guild (JLG). Usually we gross over $3,000.00 at our on-site book fair. At the JLG book fair that just finished, we made just over $55.00. I’m expecting to sell a little more at the Scholastic fair, but I’m not expecting a lot. Our community as a whole struggles with being online, and just like the rest of the world, the pandemic is having a significant negative financial impact on many. That said, there was no negative impact to having a virtual book fair. It was easy to set up and manage, and there were no costs involved.

Our main goal with all of our book fairs is to promote literacy and encourage student ownership of their library collection, and I don’t know that we did that, either. In January I’ll be looking for ways to encourage both of those things, including possibly visiting language arts classes to do previews.

Reflections

I feel like there is a lot that our library can offer to our students, teachers, and parents. However, I think our actual impact has been minimal so far. I have been able to build connections with the students with whom I’ve interacted, and that’s priceless. I’m also building on last year’s connections, as with the student who, with her mother, donated books and a gift card to the library in support. I will keep on being here, and doing what I do, and continue exploring how I can maximize the help we can give. I feel very lucky to be able to do what I love, remotely.

Remote School Librarianship

Me at my remote library office

Me at my remote library office

Due to the COVID-19 coronavirus, our school buildings, along with most of the rest of the world, have been closed for almost two months now, and will be closed for the rest of the school year. We have been teaching and learning completely online since Friday, March 13, 2020 (Friday the 13th, after the start of Daylight Savings Time and a full moon).

It’s a challenge being a librarian from a distance, but we can curate online resources as well as physical ones. The challenge, as with physical resources, is getting people to use them. I really enjoy being able to attend staff and content area meetings online, and I’m able to meet with the other district librarians weekly instead of annually, which is wonderful! I’ve been able to communicate with a few students through Canvas (the Canvas LMS, or Learning Management System, https://www.instructure.com/canvas/), and I’m using some Canvas features more. It’s really unfortunate that we had to spend the rest of our budgets before the schools closed, because now we don’t have the funds to provide the online resources that our students are asking for.

I have to tell you, I am so proud of our teachers and administrators for the way this teaching-from-home is working for our school district. Our administrators had the foresight to begin implementing our 1:1 laptop initiative AND staff training years ago. Our teachers and students were already used to using Canvas and other online tools, which made it much easier (not easy, but easier) to go completely online. In talking with other teachers around the country, it seems like the plan that many districts made was “Let’s hope it doesn’t happen”. Our school had a few meetings before the closing, and then we were pretty much ready to go. We just had to make sure everyone took their laptops and chargers home.

We didn’t think we would be out for longer than a few weeks. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out for the upcoming school year. One thing is for sure–things will never be quite the same again, and that might be a good thing for education.

Building Community in Minecraft

As I noted in an earlier blog, I was able to teach a one-week course in Minecraft at my middle school, twice a year. During the 2015-2016 school year, in the two courses on Minecraft and Media Literacy, I noticed some troubling episodes of griefing (other players who, innocently or maliciously, cause trouble for others.) Objects built in Minecraft do not have builder identifiers like those in SL and similar worlds, and anyone can make or break objects anywhere. When things are damaged, students often do not have the maturity to admit when they’ve done something wrong, which makes it really difficult to figure out who damaged something. I wanted to explore community-building in Minecraft to see if this could be addressed socially, rather than punitively. I decided that my 2016-2017 Intersession courses would be on Community Building in Minecraft.

I set up the course so we would be addressing community-building on two fronts: our community as a class, and the community that we would (literally) build in Minecraft. I again housed the course content in our Canvas LMS. Our school uses Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH),which involves building a social contract together at the beginning of each course. Even though we would only be together for a week, it’s a worthwhile process. I also had the students do a Minecraft experience survey and daily reflective writing.

I spent quite a bit of time before the course started setting up a place for the students to build. I used the special MinecraftEdu blocks to make a border around a large area; lay down blocks to mark off and label 4 quadrants; and set up a survival hut in the middle.

For the first day, they played in Survival mode for about an hour, then we talked about which resources we needed to survive, and how we could obtain them. We also brainstormed about the same things in the physical world. My reflection from Day 1 included this: “The Minecraft Experience survey showed a wide range of experience levels, but most students seem to be familiar with at least the basics of Minecraft. In the survival world, they did a good job of finding and identifying resources. For the most part, they played without incident. I was able to play, myself, which doesn’t always happen. One student told me later that he felt like he was being griefed by someone, but didn’t feel like he could talk to the person without getting upset. I suggested approaching any situation like that with the most charitable explanation in mind–in this case, that the person probably didn’t mean it and was trying to fix it later.”

My reflection for Day 2 included: “We spent about an hour playing in the survival world. I had meant to let them play for about 10 minutes, but we were all having so much fun that we just kept on going. Afterwards a really productive discussion developed about what contributions people had made to the community, how trade could be handled, and what jobs and roles are needed in a community. That segued nicely into talking about what buildings we need in a community. I showed them a map of [our small city] with some of the community buildings located, then we listed what buildings we could include in our Minecraft community. We then rated them as essential (yellow), luxury (blue), or in-between (green). The 6th graders left on a field trip at 9:00, so they missed most of the discussion and planning.

“Next, we started planning the community on paper. One student drew a grid, and planned a railroad around the perimeter. Other students cut out their planned buildings on paper and embellished them with markers. There was lots of discussion about building methods.”

On the third day the students divided up into smaller groups to design and build together. Some students wanted to work individually, which was fine. Once we got inworld, each group had to find a spot on which to build, and write down the team members’ names and the Minecraft coordinates for their group. They continued to write a short reflection each day. I asked guiding questions such as:

  • What have you done in Minecraft today?
  • How are you helping your team?
  • How are others helping you?
  • What challenges are you facing in this class?
  • How do you feel about your experiences in this class so far, and why?

I found it worked best to have them do the reflection in the beginning of each class, about the previous day. That set the tone for the class, and gave them something to do while we got started. Of course, they weren’t being graded, so they didn’t have to meet any standards, but for the most part they wrote thoughtfully and quietly.

We had had some trouble with griefing, so we talked about it together but didn’t come to any conclusions or consensus about what to do about it. For the beginning of Day 4, I had them reflect on these questions:

  • What else would you like to learn to do in Minecraft?
  • Describe at least one example of griefing that you’ve observed in this class. How did it make different people feel? What are some good ways to deal with griefing?
  • What you plan to start with today
  • What you need to do to finish your build
  • How you have grown during this class
  • How do you feel about your experiences in this class so far, and why?
    What have you learned about yourself through this class?

I showed the students how to take and find screenshots of their builds, and I had hoped that they could put them together and make a short machinima like we had done for the Media Literacy course. They really weren’t too interested, and we just ran out of time. They could walk around inworld and visit each other’s buildings, and that made it easy for them to share what they were doing. This video shows some of their innovative ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ce5ZROQJU

I’d like to say that we developed a close-knit and kind community in this course, but I really couldn’t conclude that it made much of a difference. That said, I do think that, for the most part, the students worked well together, had a lot of fun, and learned a lot.