Tag Archives: reflections

SCASL 2011 Reflections & News

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2304781288_651314659e_oSo, it is finally here (well, almost over really)! SCASL Annual Conference started Wednesday afternoon with a few pre-conference sessions (of which I didn’t attend).  I spent most of the day being a gofer for those running the conference to help where needed.  :)

Thursday was a jam packed day.  I presented at two sessions – one for the new scasl.net website redesign.  That was a project near and dear to my heart.  I’ve been pushing to have ALL of SCASL’s web presence streamlined into one site.  This is our start.  All of the information for our organization “should” be up on our website and we’ve integrated a forum for SCASL Members to share.  It is still a work in progress, but we’ve finished phase one!  Now working to add other aspects as per my vision of merging our Ning, Wiki, Flickr, blog, and other online web presence options into ONE space!

My second session was another opportunity to present with my other two Media Musketeers – Cathy Nelson and Fran Bullington!  We presented our There’s An App For That session that we’ve previously done at the Upstate Technology Conference and ETV Technology Workshops this past summer.  It was a very well attended session – standing room only (well, sitting, as they lined the wall!)  I hope everyone learned something new and/or at least enjoyed our session.

I was only able to attend one other session, Cathy Nelson’s Words 2.0h! As always, a great session.  Despite the wifi limitations (read – SLOWNESS) it was a very useful and informative session.  Lots of audience participation/questions/sharing.

And of course Thursday was the General Session with keynote David Loertscher who always has such relevant and thought provoking information to share.  We did have a slight hiccup with the A/V, but he rolled with the punches and I think the audience had some food for thought on what/how to keep ourselves relevant in today’s crazy and challenging times.

And this brings me to the big news.  For those of you who didn’t know, I was up for nomination to run for the office of 2011-12 President-Elect for SCASL.  SCARY!  The membership accepted my nomination, so (heaven help me) I will be President-Elect and in charge of planning the 2012 SCASL Conference which will be in Greenville, SC next year.  Following the business meeting where the elections were confirmed, we had the Awards Luncheon and I had the honor of sitting at the head table.  Still not sure if it was because I’m on the board as the IT Committee Chair or if it was because of being elected prez-elect!  Regardless, had a wonderful chat with Frankie O’Neal, Fran Bullington, and Martha Alewine.

Then of course there was the really fun time – dinner with friends (old and new) at Longhorns this year.  We had a group of 7: Cathyjo, Fran, Steven Reed, Keven Merritt, Tamara Cox, and Carla Nash.

More to come for reflections from today after the Book Award Luncheon!

Making Lemonade

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Buffy Hamilton recently emialed a bunch of us to ask if any of us

“… have been in a situation in which they had little or no funding and rather than feeling sorry for themselves and simply complaining about how unfair it all is, instead found ways to obtain funding and make lemonade out of a very sour situation.”

I thought you guys might be interested in my response to her for how I’m dealing with my own funding shortfalls. …

Unfortunately, I haven’t found funding, I just make do with what I have the same as everybody else.

Our district funds are about $10 per student; however, were were told we could only spend half of the funds before December.  We’ll find out (soon I hope) if we are allowed to spend the rest.  For me, that means only around $3000 for the year (we have just over 300 students this year) and all of my funds were spent with the magazine subscription renewals and buying ink for the printer & copier to last the year.  Thankfully, paper comes out of classroom supplies (and the art teacher donated 6 cases she found stashed in her closet from the previous art teacher’s hoarding) so I don’t have to worry about budgeting for paper.

I also charge fines and have about $500 in my local account.  This is my emergency fund and what I use to purchase a copy of each of the SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees in February.

Ways I have been coping (and I’m sure its nothing others aren’t also doing):

Reduce existing costs:

  • I didn’t renew a subscription database and cut “expensive” magazines (for example, cut People Magazine which was over $100 and got 6 other subscriptions instead for LESS than what People cost!)
  • I also do not purchase many non-fiction titles unless they are student requests or “hot” titles.
  • I hate to say it, but I no longer purchase solely from Follet or buy full price books.  I buy all of my titles from Books-a-Million’s bargain table.  Yes, it means my kids have to wait for new titles, but sorry, I don’t have the funds.  Will have to find alternatives since BAM hasn’t been putting new teen books out for a while now.  My only Follet order will be the SCYABA books.
  • I only replace toner cartridges for the library’s networked printer once a quarter.  If it runs out before then, tough.  Means students and teachers have to think about what they print. BTW, at least half of my 35 teachers have their computer’s networked to my printer and print out interims.  I should mention that we don’t charge for copies or printing as a previous principal did away with charging since we are a Title 1 school.  Only school related materials may be printed.
  • I only replace the library copier cartridge once a semester.  The copier policy is “only research materials may be copied.”

Find free alternatives:

  • Thankfully, our state has DISCUS (scdiscus.org) that provides free research databases for SC residents.
  • The state also picked up the cost of SCOIS (our career/college database) for high schools.
  • Use online Web 2.0 tools where I can (and when they aren’t blocked!)  LOVE Google everything!
  • We’re using an Edublog account for a high school book club blog – http://2readornot2read.edublogs.org and instead of buying class sets of books we have genre/theme meetings where students choose their own books from what we (or they) have available.
  • I volunteered for the SC Young Adult Book Award Committee and a perk is we get to keep some of the free titles used for review.
  • Tip: Register for Teen Read Week as soon as registration opens (early spring).  I’ve gotten a handful of free books this way!

Request donations/Begging:

  • I donate a LOT of titles to the library (a couple hundred or more a year).  Almost always they are the new YA books that the kids are vying for (as well as myself.)  Yes, expensive for me, but I write off on my (and my parents) taxes and it makes me feel good to be able to purchase the books the kids are begging me to get.
  • I ask teacher, students, and parents to donate books – especially new books (recent copyright dates).  I don’t get as many as I’d like, but I get a few.
  • I beg my principal to let me have first crack at any leftover technology or supply money at the end of the year.

Borrow from the public library and other schools:

  • The librarian at the public library has a student here and she volunteers for me once a week.  If they have a book a student wants, she’ll bring it in for them (if they have a library card) or to me and I’ll create a temporary record and check it out to the student.  Students return the book to me and she takes them back when she comes to me that week.  Our district doesn’t have a true ILL program so we make do with what we can.
  • I also ILL professional materials from the public library all the time.  No way can I afford the prices!
  • We borrow from other school libraries in the district.  Not as easy to do as books aren’t allowed to be transported via our district courier.  We have to make arrangements to get items from and back to schools.

Traditional  methods to raise funds don’t work here.  The only fundraisers that work are ones involving candy/food.  I want to try a book fundraiser from Book Warehouse, but am hesitant as we have so few students and even fewer parents/community members come to the school.  I’m willing to write grants and things like Donors Choice, but finding the time to do so in my already hectic schedule is tough.  Yes, an excuse I know!

Hope this helps.  By now you know I can’t be concise!  I tend to write/say too much.

Heather

UPDATE:  Since sending this to her, I received approval to spend $1200 more of my district funds (YAY!) and we were told that the the courier would now accept our library books so we can now ILL between schools!  However, on the sad side, once again Arts funding (ie: ETV, StreamlineSC, OnePlaceSC) and DISCUS are up on the chopping block by our legislature.  Sigh.  When will they understand how vital these services are for public education?

Flickrcc: “Lemon on Grass” by Cillian Storm

Looking Ahead (my new year’s resolutions!)

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Well it is a new year and like everyone else I am taking stock of the year gone by and looking ahead to what I’d like to accomplish in the new one ahead.

Long Range Goals for 2010-11

Long Range Goals & Objectives for 2010-11

Work Goals

The chart indicates the goals & objectives I set in my Long Range Plans for 2010-11.  Some are completed, some are in progress, and sadly, some have not been initiated as yet.  With these goals in mind, I am recommitting to seeing that these goals are initiated or completed this school year.

Increase Advocacy & Collaboration Efforts

I have updated my “Welcome Back” brochure that I usually give teachers in August, but I didn’t this year.  I have tailored it toward our new teachers (20% of our faculty are new this year) in an attempt to increase collaboration with this group.

I have also updated the LMC Teacher Guidelines and will place a copy in every teacher’s mailbox for them to add to their Teacher Handbook.

Instructional Technology

We received an iPod Grant just before the school year began.  Unfortunately, we still don’t have all of the bugs worked out (including no campus wide wifi); however, just before winter break our two carts were ready for us to begin using them in classrooms.  I am looking forward to assisting teachers with the implementation and use of the iPods in the classroom.

Documentation

I’m sure it is no surprise to learn that I’m an organizational “freak,” – especially since most librarians tend to be!  However, while I can usually find anything I’m looking for without too much time and effort, I have trouble putting together reports.  Mostly because I find it BORING and tedious.  I resolve to do better!

Personal Goals

Get healthy

Some of you know that I was diagnosed as a diabetic back in October.  I’ve been doing good about cutting out sugar and modifying my diet, but not so good at giving up the carbs.  (Bread, pasta, and cheese are my biggest weaknesses!) So my number one goal for the new year is to eat healthier and exercise more.

Read

- at least ONE YA book per month and write a review for the 2 Read or Not 2 Read blog.

- at least ONE book per month just for me!  Reading for my own personal enjoyment has been something that has been superseded by reading professional publications and online reading.  One of the things I’ve lamented over since becoming a librarian is that I no longer have time to read just for me and reading isn’t always “fun” anymore.

- the professional review magazines the library subscribes to every month.  Kind of a “duh” goal, but since the library has no money to buy books I haven’t been reading the review magazines lately.  That has to change.  Yes, I can’t buy books, but I still need to keep abreast of whats coming out, trends, and to keep a list for the “just in case I get funding” possibility.

Document

- my reading for the year using the My Bookshelf app for my iPhone.  I don’t know if it is because I read so many of the same type of books or if I’m just loosing my memory, but I can’t remember what books I’ve read.  I originally purchased this app to catalog my home library, but found I liked BooksApp better as I can use the iPhone camera to scan in the ISBN barcode instead of having to manually type/search for the books.  However, since I have My Bookshelf also, I might as well put it to use by documenting my 2011 reading!

- my YA reading using the LibraryThing account and by reviewing the books on the 2 Read or Not 2 Read blog.

- my day by jotting at least a sentence or two on the Momento diary app on my iPhone.  I have to say I like how I can set up the app to capture my online contributions (blog, flickr, twitter, etc.) as well as diary entries to record my “life.”

Re-commit to

- my blog by writing at lease one blog post a week.  I’ve fallen off the PLN wagon by not participating lately.  I still read my RSS Reader, but I haven’t been contributing.  I need to do better.

-  to Twitter.  I’ve never been a big “tweeter,” but I was pretty good at reading the tweets of those I follow.  However, ever since school started back I haven’t been keeping up with Twitter.  I probably will never be a big contributor to Twitter, but I did find it useful and informative so I need to get back in the habit of at least checking Twitter periodically throughout the day.

Conferences/Workshops (partial list!)

- SCASL Webinars.  As the Chair of SCASL’s IT Committee, on agenda item I am determined to see completed is a series of webinars to our members.  They are going to begin this month and hopefully have at least one a month.  Stay tuned for more details.

- present at the ETV Workshops in March (hopefully!) I submitted two workshop sessions and am waiting to hear if they were accepted.

- c0-presenting at the SCASL Annual Conference in March (hopefully!)  Haven’t heard conclusively, but I agreed to be on a panel session, as well as co-present a session to introduce SCASL’s new (forthcoming) web site.

- present at our district’s TechFest in March.  Applications to present haven’t gone out yet, but I agreed to submit one when they go out.

- take another photography class in March.  Yep, March is going to be a jam packed month.   I really want to learn all the ins and outs of my camera and taking better photographs.

- attend ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia this June!  This will be my first time attending ISTE and I am so excited (and a little terrified at how expensive this trip will be!)  So, along with this goal is one to begin budgeting to put money aside for ISTE!

So this is a start on my plans for the next few months!  Wish me luck.