Quadrant 4 here I am!!!

Before I start on this reading, I think that it is interesting that I proved yet again that I mostly operate in the 4th quadrant of Covey's time management matrix.
Yesterday when I should have been doing uni work I spent the day phoning builders, looking up different building companies on the Internet, looking up plans for our house, then phoning friends and telling them that we were going to demolish our house and rebuild. Of course these were all time wasters. Not to mention the biggest time waster of all was writing out my resume for a job interview that I don't have any hope of getting and then going to visit staff at a school I used to work at so that they could 'help' me with my resume. Yep all quadrant 4 and all time wasters.
This term my goal is to allow myself to fall into this quadrant less frequently than I am currently doing.
As a result of my extremely poor time management skills I got absolutely no uni work done on my allocated uni day and I am off to 'COLOUR' a women's conference tomorrow for the weekend so things aren't looking that great work wise.
Oh well here I go writing some stuff before I have to get dinner tonight.


Haycock, K. (2003). The crisis in Canada's school libraries: The case for reform and re-investment

This was an absolutely fascinating article to read in the wake of what's occurring at Loftus public school. The Principal there has deemed that a TL is unnecessary and so has not employed on this year in an effort to try and save money in his budget. After reading this he is doing exactly what they are doing in Canada.I feel like going up to the school and presenting him with all of the research to show him why he is doing the children such a huge disservice.
1. School libraries are more than rooms dedicated to storing books.
2. Well stocked, well equipped libraries with motivated professional TL's can expect to have * capable and avid readers;
* learners who are information literate;
* teachers who are partnering with the TL to create high quality learning experiences.
* standardised tests tend to be 10-20% higher than in schools without this investment.
3. High achieving schools place a high priority on the library.
4. Teachers' quality of teaching is seriously hampered when there is no library support.
5. School libraries and TL's have a positive effect on student achievement.
6. Collaboration between the Tl and the class teacher is essential to maximise student achievement.
7. TL's have a positive impact on student proficiency in information skills and research strategies.
8. Students learn more and produce better research products following planned, integrated information skills instruction by the teacher and TL together (Haycock, 1997) Therefore it is not a great idea to use library as release from face to face teaching.
9. Students often lack a clear search focus and need to develop search strategies when searching for information on the Internet.
10. If students are to become independent, efficient readers, they need a rich supply of books. (Allington, 2002)
11. Flexible library scheduling helps to increase student motivation and library use.

Developing a culture of collaboration is not easy.