District Administration - February 2011 - (Page 24)

Going out of Print physical school libraries, “it’s silly to buy a $900 set of encyclopedias when the same information is available online—and with extra features,” says Beverly Keegan, administrator of the Mill Creek Elementary School library in the Central Bucks County (Pa.) School District. Librarians as New Media Experts School librarians have gotten so involved in technology that Bonnie Kelley, supervisor of library media/technology for Pinellas County (Fla.) Schools, was a leader in the September 2010 initiative to buy more than 2,200 Kindles with state funds and lend every student in Clearwater High School a new Kindle, although the e-readers are used for classroom textbooks. Meanwhile, even districts that have been slammed by budget cuts, such as those in Moraga and San Bernardino counties in California, have computers, databases and/or e-readers in school libraries. “I can’t say more funds are going for digital media than for books—yet—but the amount of money devoted to them has increased,” says Arturo Delgado, the San Bernardino County Unified School District superintendent of schools. For David Loertscher, Library 2.0 advocate and author of The New Learning Commons, these changes are overdue. “There is still a tremendous role for books,” he says. “There will always be print A high school student at the San Bernardino County (Calif.) Unified School District uses the technology download station at the library to download data and ebooks to her iPod. Students at Clearwater High School in the Pinellas County (Fla.) Schools unpack and test out their new Kindles, mesmerized by its capabilities. Every student in the school has one. 24 February 2011 books.” However, his ideal library—the learning commons—is “a learning laboratory where books don’t get in the way.” He wants the bookshelves pushed to the perimeter so central spaces can better accommodate groups of learners (see sidebar). Loertscher believes that “the old model of having the kids check out a book and then sending them back to the classroom doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Kids can now check out digital resources any time, anywhere. … That is the way the world is going.” He also values the fact that digital media can enhance access to students with special challenges. Kindles, for example, enable readers to enlarge font sizes. And Loertscher, who has severe vision problems, can attach earphones to the device. He also wants the school library Web site to be more democratic—a virtual learning commons. If it only offers oneway streams of information from sources and experts to the school children, he warns, “the kids will ignore that; they’ll just use Google,” which many librarians distrust for its inability to separate reliable sources from sites that have unsubstantiated or incomplete information but good keywords. “What’s needed is a wiki-type virtual space where kids can debate, upload videos and control their own information space instead of us trying to manage the information space,” Loertscher says. “Traditional library environments are primarily text-based and require learning the system from experts [librarians].This traditional model is no longer appropriate,” declares Rolf Erikson, lead author of Designing a School Library Media Center for the Future, in a story posted on DesignShare, an education Web site. “Today’s library is a learning space, not a … book museum.” “Let’s face it,” adds Doug Johnson, author of The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving (and Thriving) in School Media Centers. “The Net Generation wants its information and entertainment in digital formats. Ours may well be the last generation to use cellulose-based information-storage technology,” he says. The Budget Crunch and Red Flags But as administrators know, it’s funding cuts, not books, that block the way forward. Revenue shortfalls in Moraga County School District threatened the very existence of its libraries. “Rather than shut down libraries,” says Superintendent Bruce Burns, “the district applied for grants and dropped an administrator, a gardener, and a maintenance person.” The community then raised more funds for library staffing, so school libraries are now open four days a week. Even if libraries were not threatened by recessionary budgets, would it pay to give every student an e-reader, as ClearDistrict Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - February 2011

District Administration - February 2011
Contents
Going Out of Print
From the Editor
News Update
Technology Update
Safety & Security
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Successful Strategies for English Language Learners
Mobile Goes Mainstream
Virtually Possible
Problem/Solution
New Products
Product Focus
Superintendent’s Insights
Crisis Response
Student Counsel

District Administration - February 2011