The 2019 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) National Conference was held in Louisville, Ky., in November. While the weather in Louisville was decidedly frosty, the atmosphere in the convention center was warm and enthusiastic.
As school librarians, we want our students and patrons to feel welcome in our space. We want to build community — and programming is a great way to do it.
The new American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards expressly address inclusivity in the standards with "Include," one of the Standards' six Shared Foundations. "Include" states that students, librarians and libraries will be able to “demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.”
Last month, our blog provided an introduction to deepfakes, a technique in which artificial intelligence-based technology is used to alter or produce video content, tricking viewers into believing that something happened when it actually did not.
This month, we follow up with more on this important subject, including resources and programming ideas for all ages.
The 2019 ALA Annual Conference was held in Washington D.C. from June 20 to 25. This year, we set out with the intention of sharing some of our favorite takeaways from the conference for our July blog post — and the program ideas they've inspired now that we're back home.
Between the two of us we have over 45 years of teaching experience. (Yes, we are stunned by that, too!) From the beginning, our library programming has taught students to responsibly and critically select and evaluate their resources. It’s the very foundation of media and information literacy and a critical skill for students to master in their K-12 education.
As librarians, we are continually challenged and tasked with creating programming that teach multiple literacies — including information literacy, digital literacy, news literacy and media literacy — in fun, engaging and interactive ways.
The exchange goes something like this:
Librarian: “I wanted to let you know about some great resources that I have available for research with your students.”
Teacher: “I just send my kids to (insert well-known search engine here).”
Most of us are familiar with TED Talks, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas through short, often powerful, talks. As librarians, we can use the format of a TED Talk to engage students and teachers with research and encourage them to spread their ideas.
We chose to incorporate TED-ED into our ninth-grade programming — with excellent results. In fact, we are now hoping to spread it to eighth and fifth grades as culminating projects during those capstone years in our district.
Actual text message exchange between one of the authors of this blog and her child:
In our 2019 blog post "Reel ‘Em In! Get Secondary Students Hooked on Self-Selected Titles," we shared how classroom book clubs were taking off and how the culture of reading we were developing within our school.
