Blog #3- Technology Leadership

As technology continues to be an ever growing presence in our lives, we are constantly trying to figure out the best ways to effectively implement it into our daily routines.  Teaching is not exempt from this.  There always seem to be SO many new programs and resources introduced each year.  While this can be overwhelming, it is important to stay knowledgeable of all that is offered.  One way that I try to stay up to date is by reading various technology and education blogs.  While recently exploring Dr. Med Kharbah's blog, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, I came across a review for an awesome resource called Pixton.  This resource jumped out to me as a great way to marry literacy skills (& various content areas) and technology.  It allows students to easily create their own characters, settings, dialogue and story line in a graphic story format.  Because students in my school are currently obsessed with graphic novels, I believe that this would be a great way to engage them across various content areas.  Pixton also offers a variety of lesson plans that teachers, and librarians, can easily implement with their students.  

Technology's place in education, and the library, is always evolving.  I find myself sharing more and more technology information and resources with the members of my school. Because of this, it is important that I have a good relationship with my Technology Learning Coach (TLC).  While she is the first line of communication for all things "techie", I also play an important role in sharing technology with the school.  Lois Wine (2016) states that, "They each bring special skills to a collaborative partnership, the school librarian as an expert on information literacy and the technology integration specialist as a technology expert".  Together we can provide a plethora of technology and integration information to our staff and students. 

"Libraries need to meet learners where they are, and where they are is on their laptops, tablets, and phones. To remain relevant in the lives of our digitally connected students, school libraries must be both available and useful (Boyer, 2016)". This quote alone explains why it is so important for librarians, teachers and TLCs to work together to educate our students. Our students are enthralled in technology on a daily basis. If we want to engage and excite them about learning, creating and growing, we truly have to meet them where they are technologically.

References:

Boyer, B. (2016). Meet your learners where they are: virtualizing the school library. Internet@Schools,

            23(1), 4+.

Pixton Comic & Storyboard Builder for Education. (n.d.). Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://www.pixton.com/

Wine, L. D. (2016, March). School librarians as technology leaders: An evolution in practice. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 57(2), 207–220. https://doi.org/10.3138/jelis.57.2.207

Blog Post #2- Digesting an Information Diet

Photo from pixaby.com

In today's society, information is constantly being thrown at us. News shows, magazines, podcasts, emails, radio segments, newspapers, social media- all sending various bits of information throughout our daily lives.  Because of this constant barrage of information, it is important for people to know how to properly take in and "digest" everything.  We should be able to sift through all that is offered and determine what and how we utilize the variety of info.

As a classroom teacher, I was used to helping my third graders gather research from resources I vetted and pre-selected for them.  I was controlling their "information diet" to ensure that they were getting real, genuine facts.  As an elementary librarian, however, I now realize that it is my job to help students find and identify these resources for themselves.  I am tasked with teaching them how to sort, verify and vet outlets of information to determine the difference between what is real and what is fake.  In Joyce Valenza's article for School Library Journal (2016), she mentions the need "to teach the important lessons of everyday civics for new consumption and production landscapes."  This can be a daunting task, as many students think that if they hear or see it on the internet or TV, surely it must be real.

One of the resources I have used to help teach students these important skills is Common Sense Education.  They offer great videos and lesson plans to use with a variety of grade levels.  Last year, I used the lesson below to help teach my 5th graders how to determine if a news article was from a reliable source.  In having genuine conversation with them, they had never thought to check for these things.  They had always just assumed that the information they read was correct.  With this mindset, they had no set information diet.  They were consuming everything as truth and therefore had no idea of how or when to apply it to their lives.

Even with the youngest students, I have started discussing how to properly research.  I worked with several 3rd grade classes this week on identifying reliable research sources and how to identify keywords that will return better search results.  Kreuger Library's video (2016) on selecting and using keywords is very similar to how I teach my students- except in a bit simpler form, of course.  This process really helps students understand the importance of using  proper and specific search terms.  I then go on to explain that once the results are returned, it is their job to figure out which pieces of information are going to be the most helpful for their specific needs.  While this can be a daunting task for 3rd graders, it is a skill they must be able to utilize.  Otherwise, they will continue to be overloaded with information and never know how to create their own "information diet". 

Because of the overload of technology and information present in our day to day lives, these skills are important for students to learn.  As an elementary librarian, it is my job to help students learn and implement the skills to help them develop a healthy "information diet".

References:

Krueger Library - Winona State University. (2016, August 19). Selecting & using keywords [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6kjt2Mt_4w

Valenza, J. (2016, November 26). Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world. School Library Journal. Retrieved from https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/

Making A Connection = Making Things Better

During my years as a classroom teacher, the curriculum standards were always at the tip of my fingers.  And, even though they changed over the years, I considered myself to be well versed in them. After all, these state standards dictated what I was required to teach. They were my guiding path.  However, when I transitioned into my current role as an elementary school librarian, I felt a bit lost.  I knew about the National Standards put out by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), but struggled to understand the format and was quickly intimidated.  As my first year progressed and I attempted to dig deeper into these standards, my email inbox began to fill up with information from the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE).  Each new email invited me to conferences or seminars to learn how to use their standards with my students.  Was I supposed to implement both sets of standards?  To say I was overwhelmed was an understatement! 

In reading Courtney Lewis' article, "Collaborating to Communicate: Librarian Reading Groups and Understanding Standards", I began to realize that it wasn't just me that was feeling this way.  While she collaborated with other librarians in her area to break down and better understand the AASL standards (Lewis, pg. 38), I think it would be helpful to do the same with the ISTE standards.  Having a deeper understanding of both sets of standards, would help me, to better correlate and implement them.  While the AASL standards provide a path for librarians to follow when planning instruction, the ISTE standards focus specifically on implementing and utilizing technology.

As I further explored the various articles and resources, I found the Crosswalk for the AASL and ISTE standards to be very helpful in my quest to understand both.  Because there is a big push in education to implement technology, it only seems natural to use the Crosswalk to help align and implement both sets of standards.  This document would also be helpful to share and discuss with my fellow teachers (who don't seem to understand that librarians still have standards to follow) as well as administrators.  As Lewis points out, "Comparing one or two areas of the Shared Foundations in a discussion with your administrator shows how aligned the ISTE/AASL standards are under “Inquire” and emphasizes the importance of inquiry throughout the curriculum.  The number of empty boxes on the ISTE side of the crosswalk under “Include” can demonstrate school librarians’ emphasis on issues of diversity and inclusivity in our work (Lewis, pg. 42)".

Below are a few more sites that I found helpful in learning more about both sets of standards:

Resources

AASL. (2018a). Introducing the AASL Standards framework for learners. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL-Standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pdf

AASL. (2018b). National School Library Standards crosswalk with ISTE Standards for students and educators. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180828-aasl-standards-crosswalk-iste.pdf

Elementary Librarian. (2018, July 13). Breaking down the AASL National School Library Standards. https://elementarylibrarian.com/breaking-down-the-aasl-national-school-library-standards/

ISTE. (n.d.). The ISTE Standards. https://www.iste.org/iste-standards

Lewis, C. L. (2019). Collaborating to communicate: Librarian reading groups and understanding standards. Knowledge Quest, 47(5), 36–43.

PA Farrington Associates. (2019, January 3). Thing 23: New AASL Standards. Cool Tools for School. https://cooltoolsforschool.net/new-aasl-standards-2/