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8 Ontario School Library Association ONTARIO SCHOOL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION President's Report Ruth Hall ONTARIO SCHOOL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION President's Report Ruth Hall It is inevitable that someone, on discovering that you are a school librarian, will say, "It must be lovely working in such a quiet peaceful space." That's when you know the person has never set foot in a school library of today. It is the business of OSLA-- your association, to listen to your voices and to speak out on behalf of school library staff. How have we been supporting you over the past few months? This summer, with the support of OTF, OSLA ran our second annual summer PD event. Under the nimble direction of Diana Maliszewski (TingL editor-in-chief ), Roger Nevin (VP, OSLA) and yours truly, we provided a 3-day conference, focused on Together for Learning, the school library vision document, to over 40 teacher-librarians from across the province. Sessions addressed critical thinking, cloud computing, movie making, podcasting, interactive white boards (Smart Boards), differentiated instruction, implementing the learning commons, and assessment & evaluation (Growing Success). Our speakers included Garfield Gini-Newman (OISE & The Critical Thinking Consortium [TC2]), Carol Koechlin (Treasure Mountain Canada [TMC]), Karen Beutler (TDSB), Jo-Anne LaForty (OISE) and Roger Nevin (OSLA, connectingeducation.com). You can get a flavour of our summer experience by looking at the materials posted at the wiki: campotflibrary.pbworks.com. We have mounted a website for Together for Learning where we encourage you to post lessons, thoughts, resources and connections. This is our online space for speaking and listening about the work we are doing, the research, and the teaching-learning environment. Please share your thoughts and experiences: togetherforlearning.ca. Another space to consult is the TMCanada wiki (tmcanada.pbworks.com) where you can share in the work of participants at the June TMC symposium on school libraries in Canada. This is an example of google docs in action where spreadsheets were edited simultaneously in real time to summarize and share individual/group responses. Take advantage of this knowledge building at: tmcanada.pbworks.com/Collaborative- Workspaces. This work is ongoing: engage in the next steps at: tmcanada.pbworks.com/ Time-for-ACTION. You didn't have to be present at the symposium in Edmonton to join in now. Take advantage of this collective knowledge building to inform your actions at your library and your school district this year. In September, coinciding with the launch of full-day kindergarten, Premier Dalton McGuinty hosted an international education summit: Building Blocks for Education Whole System Reform, co-facilitated by Michael Fullen, former Dean of OISE and special advisor to Premier McGuinty, and Sir Michael Barber, education advisor to former British PM Tony Blair. Roger Nevin (VP, OSLA) and I were there to represent school libraries on your behalf. Mr. McGuinty made clear in his opening address that education is his number one priority. The focus of the Summit was to examine the characteristics of successful education systems. It examined four building blocks for reform: standards & targets; assessment and use of data; capacity building & development of the teaching profession; and leadership development and sustainability. While there was a clear emphasis on the use of external tests as measures of education systems (EQAO, PISA), there was also a consistent thread in presentations and group discussions on the need for collaborative learning spaces, educational leadership and on