I’ve just come home from a Parent Information Night, where I played both the TL and the parent roles. My son has begun year 4 at my school, so I needed to hear about the way things are structured, what the expectations are and so on.

As the Teacher Librarian, I spoke to the assembled group of parents to explain the role of the library as both centre for reading and as promoter of information literacy skills. I explained our opening hours, the resources available for the boys, our philosophy of matching the book to the boy, our efforts to encourage the boys to expand their reading into new areas, my availability to talk to parents, and that the first answer on Google is not always the best.

I felt very pleased when my colleague told me that I spoke well, for which I can partly thank the ‘get over it’ attitude I developed towards potentially embarrassing situations after being an exchange student – having mortified myself in Japanese in front of 1500 students during a school speech competition, there really isn’t much more to be afraid of. However, most of my confidence came from a belief in the value of my role – I make a difference in my students’ lives by helping them discover the solace and escape and joy of reading, and by helping them to know how to find out what they need as they need it, so that they can be confident in their own ability to tackle unknown situations, because they know that all it takes is a little thought and sifting and the answers will become clear.

I love my job.

the Transforming School Libraries e-conference is chugging right along, and I am enjoying skimming through the presentations to choose those most relevant to my situation, and then read/listen/view more carefully and follow the discussions. It has been fascinating to see the use -for instance- of Voicethread, because not only can you add typed or audio comments, but the comments play in order, and you can also ‘write’ on the image when commenting.

I am bringing the deputy head in on Thursday to give her an overview of what I am exploring, and to bounce ideas around regarding what we see the library providing to the school.

I’ll have to keep this brief, as there have been too many late nights and early mornings, and I do not wish to frighten small children tomorrow ;P

Which is a dreadful pun on some half-remembered song from the 80’s, but I just couldn’t resist!! You see, I am participating in an online conference Your School Library – Transforming School Libraries, which goes live tomorrow night (or possibly early Saturday morning once I work out the timezone issues) for about 9 days.

The main theme is how we can delve into the world of web2.0 and beyond to connect and evolve the traditional work of school libraries with the new interactive techonologies available online. So far I have viewed/listened to a presentation on Voicethread, downloaded a PowerPoint from the conference site (my internet was too dodgy to cope with streamed content today), am downloading another ppt from Slideshare, and am hoping for some vodcasts (fingers crossed!!). There is a conference blog, discussion forums (I’m a moderator for one of them – exciting!), chat room, networking tools, participant profiles, and so many possibilities for “walking the talk”!!! I have yet to add a profile pic or fill out my professional details. There appear to be 149 members, I just noticed a new ppt called ‘giggleit’ and there’s a button there for creating ‘web meetings’ – what more could a click-happy TL want?

Aside from all that, I am madly pulling my head together as we launch into Term 1, with a number of changes to The Way Things Are Done, eg a new group-work, collaborative, integrated approach to library time for years 5 and 6, with three teachers here for those lessons!!! Can you imagine???

For now, however, it is time to go home, be a parent, talk to hubby, veg a little in front of the gogglebox, and maybe send a few emails:>