by Library | Jun 18, 2014 | Library News, Uncategorized
Last week Ms Dirlik’s Prep Class (5 year olds) interviewed a storyteller, Alec Williams to ask him some questions for their inquiry into stories. Mr Williams was in England and we were in Turkey so we used Skype. The first question Mr Williams was asked was,”Do stories need a title?” Being a storyteller Mr Williams told a story to answer the question. Over the 30 minute interview Mr Williams used stories and books to answer all the questions. At the end we had enough time for Mr Williams to tell the story “How dog and man became friends.” It had actions and five parts. At the end Mr Williams asked the Prep students to try to tell the story to someone else that afternoon – to their family or friends. One of his beliefs is that everyone enjoys hearing stories and everyone can tell stories. The video below shows Alec speaking about stories and reading. We want to thank Mr Williams for helping Prep answer all their questions. They not only learned about stories but also that many times an expert is the greatest source for information in an inquiry. To book Alec you can email him directly at alec@alecwilliams.co.uk
by Library | Jun 12, 2014 | Library News, Library reports, Uncategorized
Library report May 2014
Successes:
LTEN conference both times in the library
IICS New Literacies Team May 2014
At the start of the month our school hosted the LTEN conference in the library. The first Every LTEN conference, held on 27th April, 2007 was also hosted in our library. It was the perfect example of positive disruption. The Marmara library team, assisted by Cemil and his team, relocated all the MYP/DP collection to temporary area to make room for all the delegates. On the day of the conference Ozlem and Serife helped with registrations. Amanda gave a workshop with Caroline, hosted Kim Cofino from Japan on a Google Hangout and set up student hosts to tour the school.
Marmara Library new layout
The Saturday after the conference Ozlem and I were at school because of the student led conferences so we used our time to rearrange the layout of the shelving for the MYP/DP collection. The new arrangement is more open. It means the library can be used by large groups. We have kept a smaller working space in the centre of the library as well as some individual working spaces.
Greenhouse Book Fairs
We are grateful to Greenhouse Bookshop for running two successful fairs – one at Marmara and the other at Hisar. They were both scheduled for the student led conference days but with the bad weather on the weekend of the Hisar fair they were flexible and agreed to postpone it to the day of the picnic the Tuesday after. Lindsey had about 400TL to spend on books for the Hisar library. Our PTA has decided to hold Greenhouse book fairs at each campus next year, one in fall and the other in spring. They are also investigating running the Greenhouse Book Club a few times each year.
Book Depository experiment
Mrs Bond with Juliette McIver’s book Toucan
The restriction to ordering once a year means that any books that are popular during the year, any changes or developments to units of inquiry or professional readings have to wait until the next ordering period and the August delivery the following year. A couple of months ago I ordered 8 books through Book Depository which provides free delivery to Turkey. Only 8 because there seems to be an 80 Euro maximum to go through Turkish customs without attracting extra charges. All book arrived within three weeks of the order. This may well be the way to go for future ordering. I would like to set aside more money from the library budget next year for ongoing purchases.
Opportunities
The HIsar library and computer lab is being redesigned right now. It has been a great opportunity to design mobile shelving and book bins at the right height for our lower primary students. Thanks to Jane, Judith and Coskun for the opportunity to dream and plan.
Library Feedback
This year I used two open ended questions with colleagues and primary students. Instead of a Google form which gets only a small response from colleagues I want to thank Angela, Chris and Joe for allowing me to take some meeting time to ask for paper and pen responses. I am currently analysing the results. I want to use the information to inform the 2014- 2015 library goals. I have the raw data if you would like to see that too. So far it is clear people appreciate the staff in both libraries with many comments about how helpful, friendly and welcoming they are.
Challenges
Library policies The Library team have begun to create some important guiding policies and procedures for the library. So far we have completed the Circulation Policy and procedures. We have increased the borrowing privileges of every year level – except grade 6 and above which had unlimited borrowing privileges already. We will share these with John and see what the next steps are in communicating these with our school community. This is important work for our team and will need to continue next year.
Library quote – in honour of the Hisar library redesign…
“Congratulations on the new library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a spaceship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you — and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.
[Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]”
― Isaac Asimov
by Library | May 9, 2014 | Library News, Uncategorized
LTEN is the Learning and Technology Exchange Network. It is a network of teachers in schools in Istanbul, Turkey and European countries in our region. It began life in our library here at IICS April 27, 2012 and last week we hosted the 7th meeting on Friday May 2. We had to move many of the shelves to make space this time. Watch for a post next week about the new layout in the library.
The meetings and workshops were all recorded. Take a look and see what happened. Teachers are learners too and LTEN celebrates our learning journey together in Turkey.
Erhan Toksoz, Tom Johnson, Claire Wachowiak, Amanda Bond, Caroline Lewicky, Brycen Davis, John D’Arcy – IICS New Literacies Team
by Library | Mar 14, 2014 | Library News, Uncategorized
Ebrary – our home screen
We have just added ebrary to our electronic resources. Ebrary currently hosts 724,004 documents with 15,156 added in the past 30 days (information from their company website http://www.ebrary.com/corp/index.jsp). Grade 11 students will be the first to learn how to use this wonderful database. It will be an essential tool for information searches for their Extended Essay.
by Library | Mar 6, 2014 | Library News, Uncategorized
We asked our teachers to give feedback about their Love Reading week experiences and to help us make the event better when we run it next year. Some of the responses we received included –
“It really felt like a genuine celebration of reading and the children were very enthusiastic about the whole thing.”
“It reminded us all how fun reading is.”
Love reading week will be back next year along with all the things that our community liked and enjoyed and some new idea too….
by Library | Feb 14, 2014 | Library News, Uncategorized
During Love Reading week we enjoyed stories during the lunch hour. We had guest readers at Hisar and Marmara Campuses, Upper primary enjoyed the ‘Snow Goose’ by Paul Gallico and secondary and grade six enjoyed the High school Speech and Debate students reading their oral interpretation competition stories.
