Ronalda Johnson's List: Learning Commons

• anchoring entire schools around knowledge, expression, collaboration, and creation in both virtual and physical spaces.
• a dynamic media literacy learning hub
• Amid the rapid changes in new media technologies, the school library has worked to reinvent its core mission around that of the learning commons.
• 2010 report by the Ontario School Library Association:
• For schools, the Learning Commons incorporates the classroom, the school library and the school board to connect students to the real and virtual worlds that are growing and maturing around them.²
• integrated learning.
• a media literacy learning commons, extending its knowledge center to incorporate production, creation, curation, and critical inquiry, it stands to become a vibrant, interactive, and fundable space that learners of tomorrow can harness for lives of active and engaged participation
• To be effective in the 21st Century, citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology.
• most media literacy initiatives were reserved for understanding how to effectively consume messages¹¹ with little exploration into the ways that social media platforms and mobile technologies have shifted the typical producer-receiver structure for messages
• 2.  Introspective to Interactive—The library’s traditional position as information reserve came with the distinct notion of learning as an introspective pursuit: a direct and in-depth relationship with texts that in most cases required solitude, deep concentration, and the static retention of knowledge.
• Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways. A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends.¹⁹
• live music sessions, open mic sessions, poetry readings, poetry slams, listening lunches, group workrooms, and a general focus on expression and interactivity.
• Students are even treated once a week to morning coffee
• When students feel comfortable in the spac
• they stand to feel more engaged around the library as a place to explore, learn, and interact.
• teachers and librarians must be prepared to have the technological infrastructure and instructional knowledge to help in mastering search and investigation online.
• the role of inquiry as a core function of libraries
• Consumption to Connectivity
• his refers both to connectivity within the learning commons space, and connectivity between the learning commons, the classroom, and the community
• “The learning commons in the end of the day is about providing students, teachers, and the community a way to connect to information, to each other, and to their aspirations and dreams,”
• Laptop
• iPads are available for loan, loaded with apps and platforms
• Physical board games
• bout connecting in a very human way.
• a Twitter feed,
• database of resources
• implicit blending of spaces, competencies, and fluencies. Together, these spaces disrupt common silos for the library and the school³⁰ and promote the entire school in the context of the learning community.³
• Expression space
• students engage in creative acts—poetry, music, art, public speaking—and are encouraged to engage in physical and virtual acts of expression.
• Inquiry
• providing points of access and models or guides for investigation through web tools and print materials
• library staff serving as an open and knowledgeable outlet for both classrooms and students who use the space for independent and structured work
• Production space
• emphasis lies on multimedia storytelling.
• space allowing students to create and share stories with simple online platforms, and cultivate habits of participation.

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• a hum of activity with students talking, learning, searching for information on a variety of devices, focusing on content creation and synthesizing of information. The Learning Commons becomes the hub and the heart of the school; a place for teachers and teacher-librarians to collaborate to build inquiry learning and critical thinking skills in students; a place for technology integration and experimentation; a place that is ‘owned’ by students and staff alike. 

• If you demolish your entire reference section by intershelving your reference books with the nonfiction, you will be well on your way toward leading your school to the learning commons.
• pulling any titles that your students actually use (you can tell because they won’t have as much dust on them) and putting those in a "ready reference" or "circulating reference" section and see what happens.
• Focusing on the needs of the users, rather than on pre-existing policies or philosophies
• Start with a small supply table with a couple of essentials that students usually have to request, such as scissors or gluesticks
• set expectations high and maintain accountability
• Flexibility is the key to success
• sometimes unsure
• frustrated or confused?
• unaware
• remove those barriers.
• create Web navigation resources that are assignment or course specific
• a list of passwords
• a password-protected page on our blog and keep a current list of all library resource passwords there.
• using simple and obvious Web design.
• add directions or print hand-outs for some users
• If you circulate electronic resources be sure to provide users with software, batteries, instructions, cables, memory cards, and flexible loan policies.
• be a technology leader
• Show the faculty how to integrate new research tools, ereaders, and digital voice recorders into the curriculum and be a technological leader with student users as well.
• he Learning Commons: Seven Simple Steps to Transform Your Library

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