Creative Commons image courtesy of
Pixabay
I
liked how the prompt for this week’s blog post referred to the needs of our
school communities rather than community. It acknowledges that they’re not a
homogenous group of people with the same skill level, interest, or needs. I
find that in my school the library and my role in the library occupy a bit of a
gray area. I am not the main tech person in our school (I don’t have charge
over the school iPads or laptops), but I am the main contact for tech tools
like the coding and robotics equipment and their apps (which, due to the
ever-present tech problems of memory space and age, are only available on the
library iPads). But I wouldn’t say I’m the go-to person for these tools for
everyone either. Our grade 7 teachers are fairly self-sufficient. There are a
few others who like to try new things as collab projects. And there are a few
others who, so far, haven’t wanted to try anything at all tech related. I’m
sure you could find similar situations in most schools. And these are just the
teachers. Parents, students, and admin have their own intricacies. Supporting
the ICT needs of this diverse group of people requires a flexible and
multi-faceted approach. I have not tried all the following ideas, but they are
things that I’ve begun thinking about.
- Lunch and learns: where new tools can be presented in a relaxed
atmosphere without requiring a before or after school time commitment.
- Staff meeting presentations: these have to be more like teasers for
lunch and learns because no one likes a long staff meeting. An important
point is to show the tool in action in some way. When people can see
something being used successfully in a way that’s adaptable to their own program,
they’re more likely to try it themselves.
- Enquiry group: putting out a call to interested parties to delve more deeply into a particular resource or tool. In the same way that Mark Ray talks about training “librarians as trainers”, when we do that in our own school communities it can effect change for all parties involved: a librarian training a teacher training a student training their parents.
- Promoting at promotional events: at our recent Milk & Cookies
night we had a small literacy table promoting reading apps and websites
that featured French texts. Many parents don’t necessarily speak French,
so having a resource to support our students at home is important for us.
I would like to see this event grow and have a literacy station that could
feature students demonstrating home access apps and websites for the
benefit of parents, students, and teachers alike.
- Pre-planning: getting an outline of their focuses for the year from
all the grade groups and tailoring an expo of resources for perusal during
the first few staff meetings of the year.
- Creating collections: this feature is available on Destiny Discover and could potentially meet a lot of ICT needs. It is linked with your library site and gives the user the ability to create a collection of digital and print resources to focus on particular topics in the classroom. This might also be a way to delve into the full cupboard of teacher guides and resources that no one has ever asked for or used since I’ve been at the school. It’s been district provided, but it has to be sparingly used as it’s not in our language of instruction.
Works cited:
"Creating Collections Destiny
Discover." YouTube, 22 Nov. 2017,
Ray, Mark. "Changing the
Conversation About Librarians | Mark Ray |
Hi Emily, I like the idea of embedding new tech into staff meeting presentations. That way staff can see first hand how the tools work in a practical setting. Like any good teaching the content needs to be relevant to the needs of the audience/students.
ReplyDeleteYou have shared some good ideas on how to support the development of ICT skills. I appreciate your discussion and recognition that there are several communities within a school and that a one-size-fits-all model is not effective. Have you used any of the strategies you outlined? Examples from some Lunch and Learn sessions or promotional events like your Milk and Cookies night would be good takeaways for your reader. Some additional links to resources would enhance your discussion.
ReplyDeleteGood ideas Emily. I ll keep the Creating Collection ones and about the staff meeting, I ll change it for school Pro D presentation.
ReplyDelete