This is an introduction to a critical effort to support local public libraries throughout the United States, not in competition with any other efforts, programs or initiatives, but with the goal to fund a robust, long lived and essential endowment in response to ongoing defunding of critical library staffing and resources in our communities, especially poor land rural localities.
Sarah Houghton organized a training for library staff throughout her county from the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and a stellar local senior non-profit named Senior Access dedicated to serving residents with memory loss issues. This training was inspired by two things: in her year in the San Rafael Leadership Institute when her class project was raising funds for Senior Access, and a demographic study from the Association of Bay Area Governments that highlighted Marin County’s median age compared to regional, state, and national norms.
Debbie Rabina, Ph.D., Professor, Pratt Institute, School of Information posted this blog that merits sharing for both its intent, the use of Twitter to attract the attention of the President-Elect, and the crowd sourcing concept. Rabina states: America deserves a president who is well versed in the history of this nation and the documents upon which that history was built. Let’s present those documents to the President-Elect through his favorite medium–Twitter. Tweetathon began at 9am (central) on December 1, 2016. You are welcome to join at any time. Feel free to use whatever government related document (Supreme Court decisions, inaugural addresses, speeches, early American papers, etc.) strikes your fancy. Tag each tweet with the hashtag #GovDocs2Trump and please send them to @realdonaldtrump. This way we can fill his feed.
David Rothman addresses an often overlook paradigm shift – using a smartphone for slow reading. You almost always have your smartphone with you. And with an estimated 190 million smartphone users in the US, Rothman posits that the discipline of reading on a small screen device can be learned, absent distractions (such as email and social media intrusions). Reading is fundamental (RIF), but the way we read has fundamentally shifted. Read on!
David Rothman warns of a new trend exemplified by a Kansas school district. It is replacing licensed elementary school librarians with regular teachers with technical training who oversee makerspaces.
In Part 5 of her 5 part series, Lorette Weldon, Librarian and Educator discusses how high school students are not guaranteed success in college when they have completed college-preparatory courses. In high school English, mathematics and science courses, students have not consistently been taught how “to draw inferences, interpret results, analyze conflicting source documents, support arguments with evidence, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, draw conclusions, offer explanations, conduct research, and generally think deeply about what they are being taught.”
In Part 4 of a 5 Part series, Librarian and Educator Lorette Weldon focuses on a core issue related to STEM education – high school students are not guaranteed success in college when they have completed college-preparatory courses. Weldon outlines the curriculum requirements that substantiate a progression to higher education.
In Part 3 of a 5 Part series, Librarian and Educator Lorette Weldon focuses on a challenging issue – data, placement tests and student records should provide school administrators with the history of courses students have taken and what credit they received. Yet despite this information, every year there between 16% and 40% of entering freshmen are unprepared for college level courses.