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.

2 1/2 billion seconds!

Today at church I learnt that we only live for approximately two and a half billion seconds, so I'm not going to waste one of those seconds. I'm going to get stuck into all of my readings and get on top of this course.

Looking over the final assignment I don't want to get caught the way I did last year and not have a proper starting point to reflect back on.
Having already completed 2 subjects,(1 more successful than the other)I have a much better idea of the role of a teacher librarian.
When I first started I thought the role entailed reading stories to children, scanning their books as they borrowed them and getting heaps of release time to do all of that library admin. I now know that it is soooo much more, and the more I learn the more incapable I feel.
As a TL I have a responsibility to stay informed about the latest resources that may be of some help to my students and colleagues. These resources include both written and electronic. I also need to be able to critically evaluate them and not merely describe them. One of the major things I feel that I can contribute to a school is to teach students information literacy skills so that they will be life long learners and not just completing assignments for the sake of them.
I also want to create a love of reading in my students by constantly sourcing my library with up to date books and culling the older books that have many pages falling out.
The role of a TL is constantly changing as technology is also changing.
Hopefully at the end of the semester when I complete my second assignment this information will be of some use to me, but it will also be interesting if I change my views in any way.

A New Year to conquer

Well here I am back on the uni train.
Hopefully I will be able to stay on top of everything this year.
I am not really looking forward to having to sacrifice all of my leisure time in an effort to complete this course and judging by all of the readings in ETL401 that's exactly what I will be doing.
Officially we don't kick off until the 1st March, so I am going to enjoy my final social event until July which is going to the cricket with my family. We are off to the twenty20 match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. As I am not a cricket fan hopefully Australia will thrash the West Indians and we will be home early.
Anyway I have printed off a whole lot of readings to read if I get stuck for something to do.
At least it's not too bad sitting in the members stand away from all of the yobbos.

Decision making and problem solving

Well I am on the home stretch now, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...I will get some sort of social life back...yay.
I am finishing off my final assignment for the semester and I am busy reflecting on my new knowledge.
I am excited that I have learned how to make well informed decisions and where to go to find more information. I am becoming an expert at problem solving because that's all I seem to do at present, but it is good to have some academic learning behind me and brilliant people that I can quote.
I can't seem to let go of my brilliant group from our group assignment. We managed to have a skype meeting the other night to discuss a few problems 2 of us were having with this assignment. I feel blessed to be able to throw around ideas with this wonderful group in an effort to solve a few problems I was having with getting it all together.
As Savage (1989)stated people utilize many means of communication and that is what I have learned in this course as I learned to do a blog, learned the intricacy's of Skype, kept a WIKI up to date, made a WIKI and sent numerous emails as well as contributing to the forum. Yes Savage sums it all up really well, People really do utilize many means of communication.

I'm back!!

Well it is ages since I have blogged. As you can probably tell it hasn't been the highest priority in my life.
My eldest son turned 15 during this week. Can't quite believe he is that old.....In 12months he will be pestering us for driving lessons. Now that is really scary.
My life spiralled out of control since the last blog entry.
My rheumatoid arthritis flared up terribly so I have just been trying to recover from that.
I have also been working on a pathfinder and analysis for ETL 501 so that has been consuming me for the entire school holidays.
Now I can devote my attention to the final assignment in ETL504. I have actually felt quite overwhelmed and don't really know where to start, but as I am running out of time I guess I need to start somewhere, so today is it!
It's such a beautiful day outside too which is a pity.

My boy is 12

I can't believe it, my middle child has turned 12 today... Where have all of those years gone? I think I lived in a blur when he was little which is why they seem to have gone so fast.
Oh well he went skipping off to school happy in the knowledge that he now has a nice new ipod dock and an i tunes card to buy games for his ipod. Then tonight his special request for dinner is a visit to sizzler!!! I can't wait until my kids hate going there as much as we do.
Anyway Happy Birthday Joel.

Post assignment traumatic stress syndrome

As a sufferer of Rheumatoid arthritis I thought I had the condition under control with appropriate medication. However, over the last few days this has been proven to be incorrect.
On Monday night I had no sleep due to intense pain in my joints caused by this condition. I was also unable to put any weight on my legs due to the intense pain. The only time I have experienced such pain was 12 months ago before I was diagnosed with this condition.
After having an emergency appointment with my specialist yesterday he asked if I had been under any stress lately??? My response was 'Is the Pope catholic???'
Obviously things like: starting a new job in a new school, group assignments, having a fight with your sons school which resulted in the teacher hanging up on you, witnessing a horrific bus crash full of your friends children, and the usual events that occur in a family with 3 children possibly could put me under a bit of stress.
He also pointed out the warning signs that my body had been giving me over the last few weeks and that I had chosen to ignore may also have contributed to the flaring up of the arthritis.
So today, I find myself at home instead of at work recovering and taking triple the amount of prednisone that I was taking in an effort to get it under control again.
I didn't realise just how stressful the group assignment was.....My group was really wonderful, but with two people used to completing assignments at a very high standard there were lots of last minute re-writes that I was not used to. I usually complete my assignments ahead of time and submit them early in case there are any unforeseen problems. they on the other hand work on them until the last minute, (which is probably why they do so well). Unfortunately I found that incredibly stressful.
Oh well, the doctor has said to reduce the stress in my life.......unfortunately I don't have any ideas how to do that, and it is too late to drop a subject so I guess I will plough on until the end of the year. In the meantime, I think I will go and watch Oprah!