My Conversation with Mrs. Baccomo

    

    Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Emily Baccomo about the shared foundation of engage. This foundation is centered on the safe, legal, and ethical use and creation and sharing of information. Throughout our conversation, I was able to see how she structures her middle school library and the thoughtfulness that she puts into creating materials to use with students and teachers alike.

    I learned that in everything that she creates and promotes that she is modeling this domain. For example, she annually trains the faculty on copyright as the law states. The last three years I have been in a classroom and never have been trained on the copyright laws. I appreciated that she makes it a point to do this with her teachers and shows them resources to use that are free to use. I learned about a new website to use called Copyright and Creativity. Something that we both related on is that we should all be modeling to students our own expectations. That means we should be properly citing materials and following copyright law. 

    Another topic of our conversation was how she tiers research instruction. Even though students are in middle school, it is vital to still scaffold as they are learning to research. She even has a research tools section with a handbook on her library website. As we were looking at examples of what she does to scaffold, I found myself thinking about how important it is to put in the work to make these materials because of how useful they will be in the long run. Also, having a strong knowledge of the standards will allow for more collaboration with teachers. That in turn makes creating the resources worth it. If the teachers buy in to collaborating like they do at LEMS, then you are showing them how the AASL standards complement their SC standards. All of this is a win-win situation for students and their learning, which is what every teacher and librarian wants. Ultimately, I see the benefits of putting in the extra work of creating resources to ensure that students are ethically and safely engaging with and sharing information that they are learning.

    The final piece of advice that she left me with was that whenever teachers have team meetings, department meetings, or PLC meetings that you should try your best to go to those meetings and let them know how you can help them as they discuss their agenda and plans. This advice is so simple, but I would not have automatically thought about it on my own. As of right now I think that I would love to be in a middle school library and this interview opened my eyes to see the possibilities of meeting these engage AASL standards. I left the interview excited about how I could make a difference in the library through collaborating with the teachers in the building.