Facing the challenges

It has been a slow week. Finding it hard to keep the motivation levels up at this stage, especially with weekends filled with travelling and weddings at the moment. Falling back into my old habits, spending too long doing things that I don't need to be doing, and finding any kind of distraction from what I should be doing. Hoping to get my brain back on topic by focusing it in this blog post.

I finally finished the readings for topic 1. At this stage I am not going to search for other relevant readings, and I feel that I have some catching up to do, and I need to make sure I am organised for my assignments as next week is going to be very challening, trying to study away from home (well, my current home, and I'll have my family around to distract me, and no James to keep me on task).

I am finding it a little difficult at this stage to directly apply what I am learning, to make comparisons and see what impact what I am learning will have. This is because I am not working in a library, and have not found the time this year to really get involved with one. I will now try to specifically apply what I have learned about digital citizenship so far to what I will do as a teacher librarian.

There are some particular things that I have learned about that I will cover here:

- Transliteracy: I will need to support students in applying literacy skills and learning to different kinds of texts and technologies. I expect to do this by:
+ Encouraging both students and teachers to try, and apply, new technologies/programs/Web tools.
+ Ensuring I have an up to date knowledge of these technologies.
+ Set a good example by showing my own transliteracy skills.

- Digital Citizenship: This is more than just participating in the digital world, it is participating responsibly. I expect to be a good digital citizen, and to encourage my students to be the same, by:
+ Adhering to, and advocating, the 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship as outlined in Digital Citizenship in Schools. These could be advocated with posters, within lessons/units of work, and in discussions with students in groups or individually as issues arise.
+ Always showing my respect for others when online - thinking about how what I write/do may affect others, and making this thought process clear to students.

Forseeable challenges in the role as promoter of these things:
- Amount of time spent with each student - Would I have classes of students at specific times? What would be the focus in these lessons? How would digital citizenship skills and understandings be portrayed to those students who do not get regular library time?
- Teacher attitudes - Will the other staff in the school in which I work understand the importance of digital citizenship and transliteracy? Would they see it as something for the TL to deal with on her own, or would it be a whole school issue with the TL the leader to turn to for support and ideas? Ultimately I would aim for this, and would work towards it by educating staff over time if necessary.
- Facilities - What technologies will be available to students, and where? Will they have computer access in the classroom as well as the library? What will the student:computer ratio be? Laptops are a great way to combat this, especially as the become more affordable, and I would encourage this as an option, but obviously would have to find ways to work around this challenge depending on the situation.

This has been helpful - starting to apply what I am learning to what I may encounter in the future. I shall try to do this more in my blogs. Application helps the learning process.

Now, to move on to the next step and get some more reading under control.

References:

The Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. (2007). Digital Citizenship in Schools (pp. 13-37). International Society for Technology in Education.

Be prepared...

As we said when we were girl guides. Though now I ask you to be prepared for an onslaught of seemingly random thoughts and ideas, as I rapidly progress through my readings in order to rapidly progess through my assignments.

Firstly focussing on 'Information Environment', with that assignment being due... very soon...

Three key factors I think a primary school teacher librarian would need to take into account before providing an information service to teachers:


- How the teachers would like that information provided - with busy schedules, it's going to be important that teachers feel that they are being helped, not just having more of their time consumed. What actions will make teachers feel that the TL is saving them time by providing them with information? What can the TL say to make this clear?

- What information teachers want - It is important that as professionals we continue to expand our knowledge of our field; as such, things like professional journals and new information on teaching/learning are important, but once again these can be time consuming. The TL needs to find out which information is important to which teachers, and to inform them appropriately as they find articles/information, rather than just throwing whatever they find at everyone.

- The TL would particularly need to take into account the attitudes of the teachers - how they percieve the role of the TL. They may need to clarify their position and capabilities to the teachers as a whole, and to outline just what they can do to help them. If the role that they wish to play is not clear, this could end up with frustration in both camps: The TL frustrated that the teachers do not seem to respect them in their role and are not making the most of such a great resource, the teachers feeling that the TL is not available as a resource as they have not made their commitment clear and have not clarified what they can do to help.