week 1 readings

Wow it's already the beginning of week 2 and I feel like I am already behind. I had such high expectations for me this semester, oh well I will just continue to chase my tail.

Covey, S. (1990). Principles of personal management.In The seven habits of highly effective people: restoring the character ethic (pp145-164) NY: Simon & Shuster.

While this was extremely interesting to read it was also slightly confronting as I saw myself in more than one area. Instead of completing my uni work I have been operating in the 4th quadrant of not important, not urgent activities. Making phone calls has been at the top of my list, followed my making another coffee while I checked the mail box. Oops, as I said very confronting. At work it also occurs as I make the umpteenth visit to photocopy worksheets that I won't need for a few more weeks instead of accessioning that huge pile of resources that can't be found on SCIS.
One aspect of this reading was that it's ok to say no. That is actually something I am quite good at doing, although the reasons are not always the ones given in this reading.
I used to be really good at time management at prioritising things, but then I had children and seem to spend a lot of time walking around in circles putting out fires.
Quadrant 2 is my aim so that I can manage my life effectively.
Quadrant 2 has the following 6 criteria.
1. Coherence
2. Balance
3. Focus
4. A "People" dimension
5. Flexibility
6. Portability

Who knows by the end of this semester I might be functioning in that quadrant much more frequently.

Hazell, A (1990). School library and information services in Australia. In M. Nimon & Hazell (Eds),Promoting learning: challenges in teacher librarianship(pp.17-22). Adelaide: Auslib Press.

This article talks about what has happened in teacher librarianship in Australia in the 80's. It suggested that:
1. TL clarify their role in an effort to continue to make an impact on the educational program of their schools.
2. The TL major focus must be to work cooperatively with classroom teachers to produce information literate students.
3. The TL needs to promote their role to administrators and colleagues.
4. the need to develop an updated set of national guidelines and statistical database relating to school libraries is essential if effective lobbying of resources is to occur.

Thankfully this article gave a definition of Resource based learning which was a good thing because I had no idea what it was.
The definition given was " The methodology that assumes students learn from their own direct confrontation, individually or in a group, with a learning resource or set of resources and activities connected with them, rather than by a conventional exposition by a teacher"


Haycock, C 1991, 'Resource-based learning: a shift in the roles of teacher, learner', NASSP Bulletin, vol. 75(535), pp 15-22.

This article was all about Resource-Based learning. Haycock said that RBL is not a way of teaching. It is a way of facilitating learning where students use resources to broaden their learning base.

Information literacy is synonymous with knowing how to learn which which is what I strive for when teaching students in library.
It's interesting that the teacher must plan the resource based environment and can't just use the time as completing a project, but instead it goes beyond this.

For information literacy to be learnt it can't be done in isolation, but instead needs to be integrated. I try to do this in my current position by working collaboratively with the other teachers to ensure that what we cover in library links in with whatever unit they are studying. at present stage 3 is studying democracy so in library we are researching different people that had an impact on democracy. It's harder than it sounds.