Welcome!

Welcome to my blog.  This is a first for me and I am embracing the new skills and challenges.

About me!!!  I am currently in my final year of B Ed (Primary) at Charles Sturt University.  This subject, ETL401 is my one and only elective in my final semester.  I am also undertaking my final prac and internship over the semester so as always, the workload is monumental.

I have two passions in life outside my family.  One is teaching and the other is books.  My entire life I have spent reading everything I could get my hands on.  These days the reading is mostly academic with some light reading at the end of the day purely for enjoyment.  While I love technology and use it everyday in many forms including social networking, there is nothing that beats the feel of opening a book to discover new worlds, characters or information.  So when electives were posted this was the obvious choice for me.

As an avid library user and being involved in schools for years as both a parent and a teacher, I have felt that school libraries seemed to be under utilised.  Kids would go in, be read a book that often had no connection to their curriculum context and then as a reward for sitting still would get to colour in a picture about the book.  Now in fairness, my exposure to these learning experiences were intermittant so I could have been wrong.  There just seemed to be a better way.

To my surprise the subject has revealed that this dilemma has been realised and its now up to us to change the system.  I think the key to doing that is affirming the importance of the school library and librarian and collaboration with other teaching staff. 

My other interest is research.  I was invited to complete a Research Honours degree and my focus was always on improving learning outcomes for all students regardless of ability or background.  I was having trouble narrowing my focus but this subject has given me new perspectives to view the issue from and I may look at it from the role of the librarian.

I just love possibilities!!!

So whether or not anyone reads this blog, it will be helpful being able to record my thoughts and reflections.

Cheers  :-)