The happy life of teacher librarians: burgled

Being burgled?  Not fun.
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Cleaning up the mess/broken glass? Not fun either.
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Thinking how much worse it might have been? Most important.
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Having, quite inadvertently, acquired the world's 'coolest' crime scene tape*?
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PRICELESS!

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*I was given the roll of it a while ago, when the bookshop didn't need it any more after the promotion of the DVD of the Underbelly crime series.  Thought I might use it for a 'crime books' display - didn't think I'd end up using it to keep areas secure until the police and fingerprint people and so forth had done their work.  It certainly got noticed (even the police were amused!).
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The happy life of teacher librarians...
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Cheers
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Ruth
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PS. You clean up fingerprint powder with an ammonia-based cleaner, such as Spray'n'Wipe, in case you didn't know (I didn't).  They get you to sign something before they start (because of the anticipated/inevitable mess), and give you a helpful cleanup info card once they're done.
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Think like a designer

In re-imagining our library over the last while, we've changed a bunch of things, and tried new things, and looked at what's been working, and tweaked, and....  I guess we've been designing - experiences, spaces, signage, all sorts of aspects of our school library.
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Helene Blowers has a brilliant entry on her blog, LibraryBytes about 'thinking like a designer'.  And I quote:
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In reading these tips, I think it’s important to recognize that these tips aren’t really related to the craft of “designing” stuff. Instead they’re related to the craft of “thinking about design” and as Garr* also notes most can be applied to any profession.

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1) Embrace constraints. Constraints and limitations are wonderful allies and lead to enhanced creativity and ingenious solutions that without constraints never would have been discovered or created.
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2) Practice restraint. Any fool can be complicated and add more, it takes discipline of mind and strength of will to make the hard choices about what to include and what to exclude.
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3) Adopt the beginner's mind. As the old saying goes, in the expert's mind there are few possibilities, but for one with the beginner's mind, the world is wide open.
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4) Check your ego at the door. This is not about you, it's about them (your audience, customer, patient, student, etc.). Look at the problem from their point of view -- put yourself in their shoes.
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5) Focus on the experience of the design. It's not the thing, it's the experience of the thing.
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6) Become a master storyteller. Often it's not only the design — i.e., the solution to a problem — that is important, but the story of it.
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7) Think communication not decoration. Design — even graphic design — is not about beautification. Design is not just about aesthetics, though aesthetics are important. More than anything, design is about solving problems or making the current situation a little better than before.
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8) Obsess about ideas not tools. Tools are important and necessary, but they come and go as better tools come along. Obsess instead about ideas. Good advice is to go analog in the beginning with the simplest tools possible.
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9) Clarify your intention. Design is about choices and intentions, it is not accidental.
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10) Sharpen your vision & curiosity and learn from the lessons around you. Good designers are skilled at noticing and observing. They are able to see both the big picture and the details of the world around them.
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Bonus:
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(11) Learn all the "rules" and know when and why to break them.
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Read the full post to get more of Garr’s insights to each of the tips above. There’s some great thoughts that I think can be applied to many areas of library services. You don’t have to be a designer to think like one. You just have to be willing to embrace some new approaches.
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*This is based on work by Garr Reynolds: 10 tips on how to think like a designer, from his blog Presentation Zen.  He expands on each of these points - it is worth reading his thoughts.
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Now what else can we design and change and improve....?
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Cheers
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Ruth
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Temeraire film news (August 2009)

 This Comic-Con 2009 interview with Peter Jackson has a little info on his plans for Temeraire on screen (film? miniseries?) but it still sounds a fair way off. He also discusses some other literary adaptations with which he is associated: you may perhaps have heard of The Hobbit? and/or Tintin? Thought so.

The October 2008 issue of Empire (Australian edition) also has this news:

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Cheers, Ruth
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Climate change games

Looking for some climate change games for a colleague doing climate change/greenhouse effect etc with Year 8, I came across a few likely looking prospects.  I haven't entirely played all these, but they looked promising.

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Electrocity

http://www.electrocity.co.nz/

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From New Zealand, this game of 150 turns (but you can take them FAST to grow your city) offers development options and choices - stay green? get big? and the players need to keep their choices supplied with electricity. Games can be saved, and there are viewable examples of other people's cities to see various possibilities. Lots of scope in this one - let kids loose, or maybe set some to grow a metropolis, others to set up an ecologically sustainable place (that is also still economically viable).  Students should pay attention to the hints tab...  I used this one with a class group, and it's now VERY popular at lunchtimes too - engaging/challenging enough for students to want to play it more to increase their scores and skill.

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Let's learn why the earth's climate is changing

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http://www.eschooltoday.com/climate_change_class.html

Although this one looks more aimed at primary school level audiences than secondary, it covers a bunch of issues visually and engagingly, and could be useful with younger/lower secondary classes.

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Stablization Wedges

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http://www.princeton.edu/wedges/Stabilization_Wedges_Game_w8_Oct07.pdf

This one is a board game rather than online, with a 16-page pdf giving you the playing pieces etc.  Having outlined a variety of strategies to level off global warming (eg. wind farms), players then need to select their choice of wedges.

There is a slideshow about the options here:

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/CMI_Resources_new_files/CMI_Stab_Wedges_Movie.swf

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Climate Challenge

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

From the BBC, this requires players over several turns to balance out politics and choices to see the impact of these on climate (and voters).  I'd recommend the tutorial on this one, so students understand what is required and how the game works.

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Among the sources from which I found these are a links page here and one here and the Wikipedia article on global warming games.  All of these offer a bunch more links and ideas on the greenhouse effect, climate change, global warming and so forth and so on.

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Cheers

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Ruth

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PS If you have any other recommendations along similar lines, do please add them in a comment, with the URL, so others can benefit.

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Post No. 401

Just thought I'd note that in less than two years this blog is up to 400 posts.  Not bad going!  Given that I only dip my toe in the many possibilities for school libraries and teacher librarians, it's mindboggling to think how much is out there to discover and deploy.
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It's also rather nice to think of all those ideas shared rather than hoarded - just  lovely to think of other schools trying some of the ideas from here, of the kids enjoying them and the TLs enjoying the kids' pleasure/success/progress and the changes in their libraries.  It can only be good.  Thank you to all who read, comment and share ideas.
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I'm guessing most of you have come to this blog over time.  I went back to look at my first entry, back in February 2008, and it's still apt:

Whaffor?

I keep tripping over useful stuff on the net that's worth a) having in one spot so *I* can find it again and b) having in one spot so others can find it if they wish to.

Being a teacher librarian is a great job. It's changed so much in twenty-coughcough years, but it's still a great job. Just not enough time to sit and drink Diet Coke and read the newspaper, like people seem to think you do, but hey, every job has its cliches.

(Dang, I'm working the bun and glasses thing today - only it's too hot to not have your hair out of the way, and the glasses are a genetic gift from Grandpa. Can't win 'em all...).

So welcome to my virtual office. Pull up a pew. Post a comment. Share useful things you've found that I can add here for other teacher librarians. But bring your own Diet Coke...! And if you were in my real office, you could dig into the jellybean jar. Jellybean diplomacy is damn fine stuff.
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I went to Ikea this evening, and there are SO MANY ideas there, lots of them inexpensive, that school libraries could use.  No, I'm not paid anything by Ikea: that's an unsponsored observation from a long-time fan of their design creativity and often ingenious solutions.  The latest catalogue is out and you can browse it here.  One of the 'co-workers' at Ikea told me that they had 25,000 people through the Rhodes/Homebush Bay [Sydney] store last Sunday - by gosh that's a lot! (glad I wasn't there then!).
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Cheers
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Ruth
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PS.  Yes, I did buy a couple of things for school this evening.  Surely you're not surprised?!

GQ cover on the stand. A hot jacket for the ladies

Advance look at Catching Fire (sequel to The Hunger Games)

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I've had a waiting list for this for months - lots of readers of The Hunger Games wanting to find out what happens next... (I did a blog entry about The Hunger Games here.)

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It's out soon, but if you want to read or listen to a chapter of Suzanne Collins' next book in the trilogy, in advance, NPR in the US has Chapter Two here. (which was also the source of the picture above).

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Cheers

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Ruth

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