Scholarly Work - Education
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/2974
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Item School librarians’ advocacy for the profession: Results of a U.S. national survey(2011-07) Ewbank, Ann D.As a result of eliminations in school librarian positions due to funding reductions in schools and school districts across the United States, library associations encourage school librarians to advocate for the profession. A U.S. national survey of 381 school librarians investigated present advocacy efforts, needs, obstacles, and successful methods. An overwhelming majority of school librarians believe that advocacy for the profession is important. Only half of the respondents reported engaging in advocacy activities. Respondents who reported position or funding threats were more likely to advocate and perceive a greater level of success in their advocacy efforts. The most frequent obstacles to advocacy were lack of time and lack of awareness. Future research should investigate advocacy impact on decision-making. Library associations are challenged to motivate school librarians to engage in the process of advocacy.Item Library Advocacy Through Twitter: A Social Media Analysis of #savelibraries and #getESEAright(2015-07) Ewbank, Ann D.Advocacy groups of all types use social media to reach their constituents. However, are messages of library advocacy disseminated through social media reaching those who can become allies in the quest to save libraries? How far reaching are library advocacy messages? This study addresses the use of Twitter for library advocacy. A review of the literature outlining social network analysis and the use of Twitter for advocacy, procedures for using NodeXL (a software package for social media analysis), and a taxonomy of Twitter conversations are provided. An analysis of the spread of the hashtags #savelibraries and #getESEAright through Twitter is then given. Findings suggest that both hashtags had moderate success by spreading beyond the “echo chamber”. Finally, recommendations for libraries, librarians, and advocacy groups are outlined.Item Arizona’s reversal of fortune to no longer require educational spending to be tracked at the school level: A historical legislative analysis(2010-03) Jimenez-Castellanos, O.; Barnett, J.; Ewbank, Ann D.Efforts to provide equitable and adequate resources to schools continue to be debated in state legislatures across the United States. In all cases, these conversations are significantly limited by the publicly available fiscal data. Researchers and policymakers recognize that money is generally allocated to districts that disperse the resources to schools, meaning that spending is more accurately determined at the local level rather than the state level. A historical legislative analysis reveals that in Arizona, policymakers opted to track educational spending at the school level in 1998. However, a decade later in 2008, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed HB2369 that reverted back to district level fiscal reporting. This decision seems counter-intuitive to the growing accountability mentality in many legislatures across the United States. As such, the authors contend that the Arizona decision is unique and provides a context for other state legislatures because fiscal accountability has gone from district level to school level and back to district level reporting.Item Values-oriented factors leading to retention of school librarian positions: A school district case study(2011-03) Ewbank, Ann D.The number of U.S. school librarians has greatly diminished despite advocacy efforts on the local and national level. This case study investigated the factors that led governing board members in a mid-size urban high school district to retain certified school librarian positions despite a major economic crisis. Data were collected through school district documents and interviews with the district superintendent, a governing board member, the director of finance, a school administrator, and a librarian. Using an organizational decision-making framework, the researcher constructed the following values-oriented themes contributing to the retention of librarians: employee involvement, transparency in communication, trust between district leadership and the governing board, a commitment to the district’s core values, and the value placed on the school library program by the district’s stakeholders. Findings indicated that practitioners can advocate on the basis of organizational factors that contribute to school librarian retention. Future research should investigate additional school districts’ decisionmaking processes in the retention of school librarian positions. All locations and names used in this study are pseudonyms.Item Novice Researchers Find their Power: Using Technology to Support the Development of Doctoral Students(2012) Ewbank, Ann D.; Foulger, Teresa S.; Wetzel, Keith A.This study examines innovative technology uses of proficient doctoral students in action research and uses the findings for doctoral program planning and revision. The authors conducted an environmental scan of students’ uses of technology to support their work throughout the dissertation process. They identified one to three students in each phase of the action research cycle, called “power users,” who innovatively used technology. Rogers’ (2003) theory of diffusion suggests that, as a result of the understandings from this study, the faculty-researchers are gatekeepers, responsible for systematically addressing the diffusion of technology. Recommendations include the adoption of a shared technology vision and leveraging the power users’ skills through the doctoral program.Item License to drive: Safe social networking use in innovative schools(2013-03) Foulger, Teresa S.; Ewbank, Ann D.; Carter, Heather L.; Reicks, P.; Darby, S.This article advocates for the use of social networking tools as a way for teachers and students to enrich learning possibilities. While some school systems resist the use of social networking tools for learning purposes, others are moving forward with this idea. There is clearly a need for policy that will guide the decision-making and peda-gogical orientations of school administrators and teachers. The authors suggest that policy surrounding the use of social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram take into account two equally important objectives: innovation and safety . They propose that educational institutions create policies that empower learners to strengthen their communication skills, expand global perspectives, and create unlimited networking capacity.Item Union-Active School Librarians and School Library Advocacy: A Modified Case Study of the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association and the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation(2015-01) Ewbank, Ann D.This modified case study examines how the members of the British Columbia TeacherLibrarians’ Association (BCTLA), a Provincial Specialist Association (PSA) of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), work together to advocate for strong school library programs headed by a credentialed school librarian. Since 2002, despite nullification of a collective bargaining agreement that mandated a ratio of school librarians to students, the province has maintained 70 percent of its school librarian positions. The researcher found that the BCTF provides the structure and megaphone for advocacy, while the members of BCTLA are responsible for the “boots on the ground” advocacy. Members of BCTLA are passionate about the role of school librarians despite significant challenges. Two-way communication between BCTF and BCTLA is vital. Additionally, a strong personal connection exists among BCTLA members. However, despite consistent advocacy efforts made by BCTLA and BCTF, the organizations face an uphill battle in terms of having their efforts impact policy. Librarian interest groups can use the structure of the union to promote school library issues. If a union is not available, school librarians can use influence-building techniques and professional associations to effectively advocate for strong school libraries. Union activity in support of school libraries offers a promising opportunity for library advocates.Item Moral spaces in MySpace: Preservice teachers’ perspectives about ethical issues in social networking(2009-01) Foulger, Teresa S.; Ewbank, Ann D.; Kay, Adam; Osborn Popp, Sharon; Carter, Heather L.My Space and Facebook are innovative digital communication tools that surpass traditional means of social interaction. However, in some instances in which educators have used these tools, public reactions to them have resulted in sanctions. With the notion that traditional ideas of privacy and teacher conduct are not yet defined in online worlds, the researchers developed a case-based reasoning intervention to support more informed decisions by preservice teachers. The case-based coursework led students to perceive a need for more definitive guidelines about their participation in social networking spaces. The findings have professional development implications for educators and educational institutions that wish to harness the positive potential of social networking tools without risking professional status.Item Education library 2.0: The establishment of a dynamic multi-site liaison program(2009-12) Ewbank, Ann D.Using a combination of marketing, Web 2.0 tools, videoconferencing, face-to-face instruction and site visits, a library presence including systematic information literacy instruction is embedded into multiple programs at sixteen sites in a growing college of education with nearly 6000 students and over 115 full-time faculty members. As the needs of the students and faculty evolve, the library program responds. This article describes the education library liaison program for Arizona State University’s College of Teacher Education and Leadership, including both successes and challenges, within the context of university, college, and library change.Item Conceptualizing the innovation: Factors influencing doctoral candidates’ interventions in the action research dissertation(2013-09) Wetzel, Keith A.; Ewbank, Ann D.In this action research study, we describe how doctoral candidates conceptualize innovations for their dissertations and outline how we are using the results to improve the doctoral dissertation experience for our new cohort. Over the course of one academic year (2010/11) we documented our students’ process of conceptualizing their innovations as they moved from general ideas to concrete plans, which they would carry out the following year during their dissertation research. We found four major factors influencing the conceptualization of the innovation: the leader–scholar community, prior cycles of action research, interactions with stakeholders, and the student’s work context. As the next cycle in this action research study, we shared the results with our local community and are currently implementing recommended changes based on the study for the next cohort of students.