Free Connected Librarians course

Here is a message from Mirium Tuohy about the Connected Librarian course.  If there is one PD you should do this year it is this course and it is FREE.

We are pleased to announce that this term we will once again be running SLANZA's online professional development course - Connected Librarians - for our members.

In this course you will learn about a selection of online tools to use and to share with your school community. Topics include professional reading, social bookmarking, community connections, and more.

This course is designed by New Zealand school librarians, for school librarians - ideal for those just starting out with online tools, who are ready and willing to try new things.

The course is free for SLANZA members. Please contact us if you are not sure of your current membership status.

Registrations will open on Monday March 3rd. However, because we still have registrations from members held over from our previous course, we have only 15 additional places available. To ensure that our participants come from a range of school levels (primary, intermediate and secondary) we will select people from the registration list accordingly.
Successful applicants will receive invitations to our learning community immediately. The course will begin on Monday March 10th and run through to the end of term, Thursday April 17th.
More information about the course is available at http://www.slanza.org.nz/online-pd.html

Please do read the flyer and course introduction on that page, hopefully that will answer any questions you might have about working from home/school and workload etc.

 

The email you can contact me on should you have any questions is:

Miriam.tuohy@gmail.com

 

Mirium Tuohy

 

Guest Speaker Adrienne Hannan - The Strategic Librarian

SLANZA Pool of Talent

Dear Members

We  have  had a good response to our call for volunteers for the SLANZA pool of talent. However we still need more. It’s great chance to get actively working for SLANZA, a chance to extend your skills and to work with other like-minded SLANZA  members.

The main areas in which help is required are:

Revalidation – support for those revalidating. Either online mentoring or face to face in your area. Articles on revalidation and the process

Writing/ Collected- We need articles, reviews,  photographs and proof readers. When it comes to proof readers we need a high level of written English and  grammar and a tendency to be pedantic when needed.   

ITC Skills- To help with online tutorials, the website, communication and other matters

Promotion/library Skills - A willingness to share ideas, promote activities, write about your experiences , attendance at workshops and general advice

If you want to be involved or have skills to offer drop a line to NE member Greig Daniels  greig@tokohigh.school.nz . You’ll be on our list to be shoulder tapped when jobs arise or to work on long term initiatives. Be honest about your skills  but don’t underestimate what you can add to SLANZA. We appreciate all offers of help and will try to keep you busy.

Our thanks to all those already involved and hope other members will become involved too.

 

SLANZA National Executive

 

Welcome back for Term 1, 2014 - A message from Bridget Schaumann

Welcome back for Term 1, 2014

Another year of working with young learners lies before us.  I hope you, like me, are feeling a little thrill of excitement at the thought of all those young minds excitedly heading towards your library doors seeking knowledge, looking for help finding and using resources and new books to read.  I hope that you are entering the year rested, well read and up for anything.


Your SLANZA executive had a good break over the holidays and although we were working quietly on a few projects, which we plan to introduce to you later in the year, we mostly read a lot and spent time having a holiday.  This relaxing time has come to an end now though as we launch into a busy time on our projects.  Our first National Executive meeting for the year is in February on the 22nd and 23rd, and as usual if you have matters you would like discussed at the National Executive level, we encourage you to get your regional representative to bring them to our attention.  Your local representative is your voice on the National Executive.


We were very excited about our project to find out the most popular reads for school students in New Zealand at the end of last year.  We will be doing this project again, possibly taking it larger in 2014.  School librarians are the reading experts in your school, we know what the students like to read and we want everyone to know that.


Our big project early in the year is a membership drive.  We have a team of NE members working on this.  They are targeting new schools, those who have been members and dropped off and also primary schools.  We want to encourage those people who may not work in school libraries, but who are interested in the work we do, to join us as members.  We are also interested in recruiting new business members as they help to pay for our magazine Collected and our planned marketing tools for you to use in your libraries.


Regions have begun planning for their term one events, some of these are very large and impressive events, and I encourage you to attend if you possibly can.  Remember it can be a really valuable experience attending a different regions event, why not get a road trip together!  The AGM this year will be held in July this year in Dunedin as part of our weekend school which was so successful in the past.  There will be lots of detail about this coming your way over the coming months as we organise speakers and workshops.


We have been doing some work on our processes, particularly the way that decisions of the National Executive are recorded.  We hope to make life easier for National Executives of the future.  Many thanks to Rosalba Finnerty for her help with this over the holidays.  We will be offering our very successful professional development courses again this year, and we are looking towards extending these to offer more exciting options.  We are looking at different ways we can deliver courses to our members and using different platforms to allow members access to regular PD regardless of location, targeting those beginning in school librarianship, as well as those who are very experienced.  National Exec members will be presenting at various conferences and workshops during the year and if you are attending one of these presentations do some and say hello and have a chat. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our activities and we hope that you enjoy and get great value from the community SLANZA provides for you.

Bridget Schaumann
President

Happy New Year/SLANZA Planning meeting

Happy New Year and welcome back to the SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau blog.

I hope that all of you have had a relaxing break and a chance to read lots of books.  The highlight of my reading was "The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton.

We are holding a meeting to plan SLANZA events for 2014 at the Whangarei Libraries at 10 am on Friday 24 January 2014.  We would love to have as many SLANZA members attend as possible.  Please RSVP Lisa Salter ruawailibrary@gmail.com

If you are unable to attend you are welcome to email Lisa with any suggestions for SLANZA activities.

Happy holiday reading

The summer holidays are fast approaching and on behalf of the SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau committee I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and  long, lazy, sunny, summer holidays with the chance to relax and read some books.

If you haven't read the latest copy of Collected - New Direction: out with the old and in with the new - then you should do so now. Lisa Salter and her team have yet again done us proud with plenty of ideas to get you thinking about what old practices you could discontinue and what new ones you could embrace.

Happy holidays :)


Dee

Graphic Novels To Enhance Creativity And Imagination

Saturday morning in early November, SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau held a session at the Whangarei Public Library with comic book guru Stu Colson from Heroes For Sale. Aimed for school librarians and teachers the presentation attracted fifteen people, and we were certainly impressed with his passion and knowledge on the subject.

We began with an interesting history of comics, covering the self-regulating Comics Code Authority and sharing little gems like the fact that the biggest selling comics during World War II were romance comics read by the soldiers!. As well he discussed the storytelling techniques utilized in graphic novels: the pacing, impact, mood and length of the story.

Stu Colson strongly believes that graphic novels are a gateway to children becoming interested in reading for fun, and convinced us that exposure to images enhances our students’ creativity and imagination. 

Stu Colson Next Saturday

SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau has organised for Stu Colson from Heroes for Sale to come up from Auckland to Whangarei to do a session about graphic novels next Saturday morning, 9th November, at 11 am at Whangarei Libraries.

A flyer about the event is attached, and here is the post about it on the SLANZA blog

http://slanzanorthland.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/graphic-novels-with-stu-colson-saturday.html

Stu Colson from HEROES FOR SALE will share why comics are:

·         an important gateway to students becoming interested in reading for personal pleasure

·         a sophisticated story telling medium in their own right

·         the single greatest story telling medium for enhancing and enriching our imaginations

We know how much students like graphic novels, with the combination of visuals and words making them so engaging and accessible, and we know that there are so many more graphic novels available now … 

·         What's happening in your school library with graphic novels?  Where are they shelved?

·         How do you choose which to buy?

·         How are they promoted? Who uses them most?

·         How can they be integrated into classroom reading and writing programmes?

We need to know numbers attending this workshop in order for it to go ahead, so please let Julia Smith at Kerikeri High School know ASAP if you are planning to come along  jsmith@kerikerihigh.ac.nz 

This session is relevant for librarians and teachers, primary and secondary.  Talk to English teachers, art teachers, teaching colleagues, library colleagues…

We need YOU !  If we don't get the numbers, then we will need to let Stu know to save him the trip…  If you are local in Whangarei then it is a couple of hours out of your weekend, a bit more if you have to travel from out of Whangarei - come to town and do some shopping too !

Kind regards, Jeannie

Jeannie Skinner | Programme Adviser, Northland | Services to Schools

National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa 

"Out with the old, In with the new"

Hi,

We are currently working on the Term 4 issue Collected and would love to have at least one article from our region.  The theme is "Out with the old, In with the new".  

What are you going to do differently next year or not do?  Maybe something you learned in PD this year that you are going to implement next year or a story about looking forward to or reflecting on BYOD or Ebooks or new partnerships?  We are very keen to have some stories from primary school libraries, often under represented in or publication.  

We also require book reviews, especially of New Zealand or new books.  

Can you think of  of something to share or you can shoulder tap someone you know has a good story?  

Sorry I won't be at the Stu Colson event, I'll be at the NE meeting.  I expect it will go well, please encourage your colleagues to attend, this is an opportunity for the school librarian to bring along some teachers and show the benefits of SLANZA to the school and the ways that the library supports teaching and learning.

Thanks,

Lisa Salter

TTT NE Representative

RLIANZA   l   SLANZA Communications Leader   l   ruawailibrary.wordpress.com

Study Grant applications for 2014

Thinking about studying in 2014?  SLANZA offers study grants each year to those working in school library teams for courses offered by approved education providers.

The deadline for submitting an application for 2014 is Thursday 31 October 2013.  Application forms available on the SLANZA website.

Tour of Auckland school libraries : SLANZA Waikato

Hello Northland school librarians

Would you be interested in visiting some Auckland school libraries in Term 4?

The Waikato SLANZA / NLNZ Annual School Library Tour this year is in Auckland, and there are two dates :

Auckland Secondary school libraries tour: Friday, 8th November, 10:00am-3pm:

• Morning tea and visit to BLENZ (Blind and Low Vision Education Network New Zealand)
• Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate
• Botany Downs Public Library (lunch at The Botany Downs Town Centre)
• Ormiston Senior College
• Papakura High School.

Auckland Primary school libraries tour: Friday, 15th November, 10:00am-3pm:

• Morning tea and visit to Services to Schools, National Library of New Zealand, Parnell
• St Helier’s Primary School
• Elm Park School (Pakuranga)
• Botany Downs Public Library (lunch at The Botany Downs Town Centre)
• Elim Christian College (Junior Campus)
• Redoubt North School (Manukau).

The tours are jointly organised between SLANZA Waikato Bay of Plenty and the National Library advisers.  They are valuable not only for those of you who are thinking of remodelling or building new libraries, but also just for getting new ideas for your library environment – also a good chance to catch up with people working in other school libraries...

How about car-pooling with some other Northland colleagues, or maybe heading down to Auckland early on Friday and making a weekend of it?

Everyone is welcome – to come on either, or both tours, and on both days you will have an opportunity to visit Botany Downs Public Library in the Botany Downs Town Centre, where you will be able to purchase lunch (your own cost).

A detailed schedule for the whole day will be forwarded to all registrants.
Transport is your own responsibility.
Cost: $5 per person.

For further information and/or registration, please contact Linda McCullough at Services to Schools, National Library Hamilton ph 07 856 9134 or fill in the registration form available at this link, or contact Jeannie Skinner.

Congratulations to Clare Giesbers

Congratulations to Clare Giesbers, Library Manager at Northland College, who was awarded the SLANZA Award of Merit for Library Manager at the 2013 SLANZA Conference.   

The Award was presented to Clare by Northland College Principal, Jim Luders, at a full school assembly, and he expressed his appreciation, on behalf of staff and students, for the services and programmes Clare provides through the library to support teaching and learning.

Clare has worked steadily, with an unflagging resolve, to make the library welcoming and accessible for students to discover the pleasures of reading, to engage with resources in print and online, and to make connections with all that the library can offer, within and beyond the four walls. 

Congratulations Lisa!

A big congratulations to Lisa Salter who is shortly to start her new job as Manager, Kaipara District Libraries.  Lisa says that she should be around until the next SLANZA AGM so we have her for a bit longer.

Lisa, we don't want you to leave us but we are really really proud of you for stepping up into this new job and we wish you all the best.

SLANZA Lifetime Member Award - Jeannie Skinner

Lisa Salter, Jeannie Skinner and Fiona Mackie - SLANZA Conference - July 2013

Congratulations to Jeannie Skinner for being awarded a SLANZA Lifetime Member Award at the recent SLANZA Conference.

This was awarded in recognition of the tireless effort Jeannie has put into the development of Te Tai
Tokerau as a region, for her advocacy and passion for the promotion of literacy and
reading, and the unstinting support Jeannie has provided to all involved in school
libraries across Northland.

Jeannie’s nomination was accompanied by several heartfelt testimonies, outlining the dedication Jeannie has shown to SLANZA and the invaluable support she provides to all people involved with school libraries across Te Tai Tokerau. Jeannie is known for her love of and advocacy for all forms of literature and has been instrumental in assisting schools to apply for grants to improve their libraries and collections. She is a moving force in ensuring Northland has author tours and the Storylines festival, to the envy of other areas. She has served on the committee since it began and one of the testimonies said “Since Jeannie returned to Northland, she has always been on the SLANZA committee, and it will be a sad day when this is not so.”

Well done, Jeannie.  You really deserve this award.

--

End of Term

The wild winds are blowing outside and we await spring anxiously. Hopefully the weather for the holidays will give us opportunities to get back outside and enjoy the fresh air. Spare a thought for me as I head off to the public library system where the school holidays are the busiest days of the year.

A few reminders:

• Our Graphic Novel workshop is Saturday 9 November at Whangarei Library from 11.00am - 12noon. Try and encourage your school colleagues to come along with you.
• Collected should (I hope!) be out on Friday with plenty of conference reading. 
• The NE are meeting in early November, let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
• Welcome to our new members, we appreciate you joining our flock.
• Thank you to Jeannie. Those who attended her Northland Secondary School's Annual PD Day came away buzzing with useful new ideas.
• Join the National Library online communities and make some time every day for professional reading, free professional development.

I hope that you all get enough of a rest to tackle Term 4 with it's stocktake and end of year reporting. 

Lisa Salter
Te Tai Tokerau NE Representative
SLANZA Communications Leader

Just finished reading - More Than This by Patrick Ness 
http://ruawailibrary.wordpress.com/

Graphic Novels with Stu Colson - Saturday 9 November - 11 am - 12 pm - Whangarei Libraries, May Bain Room

We are very excited that Stu Colson from Heroes for Sale is coming to Whangarei  Libraries on Saturday 9 November, 11 am - 12 pm.

He will share why Graphic Novels and comics are important and will also have a selection of comics to view, buy or order.

We would love to see you all there. 

FREE - SLANZA members (and staff from their schools)
$5.00  - LIANZA members
$10.00 - Public

Please pay at the door, but a RSVP to Julia Smith would be appreciated.  jsmith@kerikerihigh.ac.nz

SLANZA Conference 2013 : Many things…

Lisa asked me to write a piece for the SLANZA Collected magazine about highlights of attending the Wellington SLANZA Conference, with the instruction to keep it brief...  I thought I was doing well at just under 500 words, but the limit was an-almost-impossible 100, so I'll post my entry here as originally written and provide an edited version for Collected which will be, as ever, full to the brim with many great contributions...

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.  Archilochus

Attending a SLANZA Conference is always rewarding but this year’s conference in Wellington was memorable for a number of reasons – and nothing to do with another one of those “storms of the century” and all the airport shenanigans… 

Wellington’s Winds of Change Conference highlights for me include :

• being challenged to try new things and hearing new ideas.  Sometimes a speaker can encapsulate a big idea in a memorable way – Ross Todd is brilliant at that, and I appreciated Erica McWilliams’ “fox / hedgehog” advice for libraries about taking an approach which is about many little things rather than one big thing – being multi-disciplinary, hybrid, adaptable, tolerant of complexity, getting the right mix of virtual and physical, and embracing people, culture and experimentation…
• hearing from real practitioners at workshops about some of the great things they are doing - Michelle Simms from Te Totara Primary School on “How to gamify your library” gave a workshop which was brilliantly researched and presented, providing both high tech and practical examples of strategies to engage students. Sue Esterman and the students from Scots College with SCRABOL, and Bridget with her flying solo strategies were other highlights. It was hard to choose which workshop to attend and I’m glad that the Conference proceedings are up on the SLANZA website to explore, refresh memory and share… 
• catching up face to face with National Library colleagues from around the country, and putting faces to names – from librarians through their list serv communications, to guest speakers like inspiring Tara Brabazon and steady Cathy Wylie, not to mention the inimitable Kim Hill after years of listening to her on the radio…

I also want to mention that I was very grateful to receive sponsorship to attend Conference from the SLANZA National Executive and Te Tai Tokerau region – it has been lovely in the past to give grants out to people and this year I felt very fortunate to be on the receiving end.  

Also, at the Conference I was presented with the SLANZA Honorary Life Membership Award which was a huge compliment, unexpected and truly delightful. I’ve been an Adviser with National Library for so long, working with many schools over the years, and feel very strongly that SLANZA is a crucial partner and ally in achieving the same goals of successful school libraries to support young learners.  Working with SLANZA committees in Northland over the past 13 years has been a really rewarding part of my job, and continues to be so.

Jeannie Skinner, Programme Adviser, Services to Schools Northland.

SLANZA Award for the Promotion of Reading to Trina Yuretich, Ahipara School

Trina Yuretich, Teacher with Library Responsibility and Deputy Principal at Ahipara School, is an active and energetic teacher who is always seeking new ways to engage students with reading for pleasure, through the library, her classroom and the school community. She was the recipient of the SLANZA Award for the Promotion of Reading in 2013.
 

Amongst various reading activities, Trina has been promoting summer holiday reading for students and staff. Last year she organised a fabulous summer reading photo competition which had many wonderful entries, and here is Trina herself, reading for pleasure in the summer sunshine at 90 Mile Beach, Te Oneroa-a-Tohe...

There was a great article in the local paper, The Northland Age, about Trina getting the Award,  and also in the following week's editorial  by Peter Jackson, where she was lauded :

Petrina Yuretich is one of those teachers who, far from simply teaching their pupils, shares her passion with them. And her particular passion is reading.  A few weeks ago she won an award for that, but her real reward is still to come. She is planting seeds that will grow, making a huge contribution to enabling the children she teaches today to become intelligent, inquisitive adults. Reading is the key that arguably unlocks every other form of learning. It does so in a fashion that hasn't changed since the first book was printed, and will not change despite social media.

A teacher can give her pupils no greater gift than the knowledge that between the covers of a book lie not only knowledge but wonder, the opportunity to experience people, places and events that no lifetime of actual experience ever will. Books can transport the reader far beyond their own immediate world, in a fashion that social media never will, and a child who develops a love of books early is truly blessed.
Petrina Yuretich knows that; she wants to see children reading not simply as a means of gaining knowledge pertinent to their education, but for pleasure. That is a wonderful thing. In the vernacular, it is cool. Uber cool....

She is the sort of teacher who, despite the unions, bureaucrats and politicians, gives her profession a good name, and who children will remember fondly, and with gratitude, long after their school days have ended.
We've all had great teachers at some point in our academic careers, no doubt - the writer and his contemporaries benefited immensely from some stunningly good teachers at Kaitaia Primary, Intermediate and College all those years ago - and it is gratifying to know they are still being produced by a system in which many have lost faith. Long may they continue to introduce their charges to a world that only they and parents can unlock for them, so that they too might experience the lightness of being that books and education can offer...

SLANZA Principals' Award to Lee Whitelaw, Ohaeawai School

Lee Whitelaw, Principal at Ohaeawai School was a recipient of SLANZA’s Principals’ Award in 2013.

Lee has placed the library at the heart of literacy learning at Ohaeawai since she arrived at the school. She understands the vital importance of creating enthusiastic, fluent, engaged readers and writers, and sees the library as integral to achieving that goal.  At Ohaeawai, a decile 2 school of 160 students, 55% Māori, 96% of the children are reading at or above National Standards. 

The library is well staffed and supported, has strong and collaborative partnerships with the classroom programmes, and is actively creating readers and supporting learners throughout the day.  The library is also providing positive library experiences for the whole school community with parents regularly visiting to select books to share with their children.  

To hear Lee talk about her view of the library at Ohaeawai, see the Leading a learning community video on the Services to Schools website, and for more about the library and its school community relationships, see this short interview with Liz Christensen talking about how the library is involved with the Reading Together programme. 

SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau Committee meeting 10 August 2013

The rain didn't deter a hardy bunch of SLANZA TTT committe members gathering at Alfresco's Restaurant and Bar in Paihia.  Whilst enjoying a leisurely lunch we discussed numerous possibilities for Term 3 and 4 events.

Look out for more details when these events are confirmed.