It is all very exciting - features of technology.

As I read about Quality management in education, I realise it is all very well to have the technology - for example each student from Year 9  receiving a laptop, which I see as a potential feature of education. What good is this feature if we do not have the quality teaching to go with it!

Organisational theory- Bennett

Bennett (2001) has given some useful insights of the effectivness of organisation theory in schools, and looks at the element that can be missing - power. "Surprisingly" there is no clearly defined view of an organisation, but one definition is given above and another by Greenfield (1989) who reports organisation have members and it would fold without them. The structure of the taks, the purpose and resources are all elements of an organisation Bennett (2001, p.101- 103),shows an organisation should be a dynamic place such as our school environment.

A point that Kerri pointed out which was also a hightlight for me in Bennett (2001,p. 111) was that power need not be a negative element. Foucalut (1984?) relates power to self discipline and achieving personal and collective successes, here this could potentially be talking about empowerment.

I am still contemplating whether a school should be called an organisation!

Leadership

The teacher librarian (TL) is positioned well to take on a leadership role within in the school. Having the knowledge of the curriculum and the students of the school gives the TL get advantages of developing whole school policies.

Warren Bennis (1999) in the Donham  (2005) article discuss the attributes of successful business people could be transferred to the library. These attributes include:

• technical competence
• conceptual skills
• people skills
• judgment and
• character

These are all excellent skills, but I see these skills in people who are good at what they do, no matter what career they have taken. So, what sets people or leaders apart? Donham (2005) goes on to discuss is the more important element is "leaders act from an internal locus of control" (p.296).The person has the power to overcome obstacles such as negative teacher and proceed to link in what will work with that teacher to provide the best teaching for the students. This can be inspiring for all those involved.

Another term I like is "proactive". Hartzell (2000,p.15) suggests that proactive people look for opportunities for change, they anticipate and prevent problems and they take actions and they don't give up. To make this proactive attitude work, people need to work together as a good and value each others strengths and weakness. For it is impossible to be an expert in all areas, but collaboration will bring on the most success.

Leaders need to begin with a vision. Fullan (1996) tell us of three attibutes for a sound vision:

1. "Sharedness' - the degree to which it is shared.
2. "Concreteness" - the degree to which people have some concrete image of what it will look like
3. "Clarity"- the degree to which people are skilled in carrying it out.

Lao Tzu, a Chinese Taoist philosopher said, "When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it  ourselves.'"

References

Donhan, J. (2005). Leadership. In Enhancing teaching and learning: a leadership guide for school library media specialists (2nd ed.) (pp. 295-305). New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers

Fullan, M. (1996). "Professional Culture and Educational Change."School Psychology Review 25 (4): 496-500

Academic Writing

Over the break between subjects I decided to improve my writing skills by participating in a course offered by CSU entitled SSS022 Writing at University. I have found it very helpful and here are some of the points I have learnt:

After receiving an email back from Joyce, I realise that a thesis statement does not need to be controversial! It is just a statement on what you think of the topic. The focus should then be on the task works "describe" and "explain''.
It is a valuable learning process, which I hope I can implement in this assignment 3 and in the following assignments to come.
Reflecting on Module 2, I now have a better understanding of "critical" thinking and writing.  Critical thinking is much more successful if it has some strength, and, by gaining access to the evidence, being able to evaluate it, you find that you have the substance to support your ideas convincingly when you write.  Germov (2000) maintains that:

The tertiary essay has to do more than simply describe a topic: it's not just a summary of your reading; you are required to critically question or analyse your material.  Being critical doesn't mean criticising just for the sake of criticising something.  In academic work, being critical means making an objective assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the theories and research findings that are relevant to your essay topic.  Such an approach is sometimes called critical analysis. (pp. 36-37)

How can you learn to do critical analysis?? As stated in this module a good way to answer a question is to continually ask yourself how each piece of research, theory, evidence, concept, definition or criticism that you come across in your reading fits in with what you already know about the topic. I feel this is a type of cross referencing, picking out the similar thoughts/ideas from a number of authors you have read. It gives the point more authenticity if it is supported by a collection of authors.  Analysing is important to establish common points and points that conflict .
 Going back to Learning Activity 2.7: Task Word Analysis, I think this is a good way to analyse and unpack an assignment question. The use of the framework below could be very useful.

Topic =
Focus =
Task =
Limitations =
A great site to look at as a guide to essay writing is:
 http://www.csu.edu.au/division/studserv/my-studies/learning/guides/essay/intro which contains the summary below:
Your thesis is a statement, not another question and sits in the introduction.
An introduction containing these features might look like this:


I will definitely be using these skills in my future assignments!