Future Vision of SLLC



School Library Learning Commons


My key elements of my vision for a teacher librarian have not changed since I started this program at UBC this past summer. My current school does not have a SLLC (School Library Learning Commons), which is common across most schools in my district in Calgary. Since the Calgary Board of Education does not have many Teacher Librarians positions it will be my responsibility to provide the administration team with the knowledge that a TL is there to help provide resources to support classroom instructions and help students within the Learning Commons (Harvey, 2005). So I must go back to the basic on designing and implementing the transition from traditional library to learning commons.


Currently I have applied for a government grant or CIF (classroom improvement funding) the Provence has provided this year for individual teachers. If approved I have hopes to help with the transition of the physical space with updated furniture. It has been hard seeing other districts have already in place Learning Commons or databases and where I work we are starting from the ground up with very little support. This has been a good thing but also very challenging. It is my hopes to gather information and resources for teachers who are in my position or schools in my position with no TL to help them with their own transition. I am currently not sure the best platform in which to present this information.


Retrieved from Google
My first goal is to sit down and figure out all the important information that is necessary to start a SLLC. Some ideas that pop into my head now are examples of policies, procedures, mission statements. Providing resources or examples on what a TL does or how a SLLC should look like. Providing online organizations or affiliations teachers can become a part of to network and gather information, especially in Alberta or Calgary specifically. This is still all in the brainstorm stage, if any of my peers can guide me in areas that they think are most necessary for new TL's to know when stepping into the job please let me know.


Resources
CIF funding. Retrieved Nov 8 from:
https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=47142BC7EB45C-C1A0-5BC3-AB95734C53B103EC

Harvey, C. A. (2005). What should a teacher expect a school Library Media Specialist to be? Library Media Connection, 23(5), 23.

Comments

  1. Christine Farrell11 November 2017 at 20:14

    Yes I can relate to the fact that there are few TL in CBE; I just moved from Calgary and took the LA course as a way to learn more because i want to eventually get onto a TL role in Victoria. You are ambitious and thats a great idea to apply for funding.Behind Central collegiate is a CTS computer technology centre that we went to for more resources about creation of a learning commons when i took the LA course last Oct. Good luck!

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  2. Aaron Mueller13 November 2017 at 07:05

    A good start to your brainstorming and idea generating. I think this topic is very important for you, your school, and your district. I hope that the grant comes through. One platform I can recommend for sharing your findings, resources, recommendations and exemplars would be a blog, similiar to what you have for this course, but a bit more focused on just the transition to learning commons models. Look to the "Leading Learning" document, as well as the BCTLA "Library to Learning Commons" publications for support. Good start.

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  3. Unknown13 November 2017 at 16:43

    Wow, you are brave to take on such a huge project, I hope you get the grant. It is exciting and a lot of work to redesign a library and transition to a SLLC mode. At my last school, the TL there really enjoyed the process. She had done a lot of research beforehand into the type of furnishing and general layout and design of the space, so she had a clear vision as what she wanted the space to look like. I really like the Library Media Network (LM-net) site and find that to be a good site to get any kind of information and support about anything and everything concerning librarianship, from other librarians around the world.

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  4. librarymuser14 November 2017 at 19:26

    What a great idea to share what you are learning from your experience. I hope that you are able to find a forum to share what you gather. You might want to try sending a simple questionnaire to TLs via the BCTLA with permission. It would be voluntary but you might get some good pieces of information. I would fill it out.

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