All Things: School Libraries

Technology Integration (Blogshare)

Edutopia, which is hosted by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, is a blog site that consistently provides readers with ideas, tools, and resources to promote creativity, innovation, and learning in K-12 students. Although it began with a focus on technology, the blog has expanded to other topics such as social and emotional learning, project-based learning, teacher development, and more. Its purpose is to engage students in life-long learning through collaboration, problem-solving, and creative thinking. Teachers, administrators, and parents can find value within this blog as it shares what is actually possible for students to do within a learning environment. The video below gives more insight into the core values and beliefs of Edutopia.

https://youtu.be/8vDuGyToRoQ

Johnson (2012) suggests that school librarians should not only teach technology skills to students but “ensure [students] are prepared to succeed and participate [in] a digital society,” (p. 2). Through the various blog posts in which I visited on Edutopia, both teachers and school librarians could benefit greatly from the tools and resources shared within the blogs to assist them in ensuring the technological learning of students. The blogs share a wealth of information and resources for technology integration that can be applied across all content areas. However, when I found “Technology Integration” under the topics tab, which reveals a lot of neat, engaging ways to implement technology into learning environments, I found a blog that could really benefit social studies teachers. The particular blog post that caught my attention (mainly due to my recent obsession with AR/VR tools and resources), was 5 Worthwhile Augmented and Virtual Reality Tools by Kathryn Nieves. The blog shares five free resources that are a great, engaging way for students to integrate their learning with technology. These resources can not only be used within a social studies classroom, but also within the school library as a supplement or enhancement to what students are learning within the classroom. Johnson also suggests the belief that the role of the school librarian should move beyond “provider of resources to one who leads in the use or integration of these resources for learning,” (p. 3). The five resources below promote that belief:

Story Spheres is a website where students can create VR experiences by uploading or selecting 360-degree-images and customizing the image to tell a story or facts about a topic through narration, music, etc. This tool would give students an opportunity to create, analyze, and give facts about the places they are learning about in a social studies classroom, from their home/school environment in elementary grades to national/international environments in middle and high school.
HistoryView VR provides VR tours of historic sites, such as museums, national parks, etc. Touchpoints allow students to learn more facts about the selected location either using a VR headset, tablet, or laptop. This tool would be great for students in upper elementary grades and beyond within a social studies class as they can learn a wealth of information about specific places both nationally and internationally.
Metaverse is an AR experience on both a website and app that allows students to translate their learning through 2D, 3D, and 3D animation tools, narration, music, and more. Students can print a QR code to share their creation with their peers. This can be beneficial for summarizing information learned about a social studies topic, such as the branches of government or goods and services.
Tour Creator allows students to create a VR tour using Google Maps to create a ‘scene’ that students customize what they are learning using touchpoints, music, and notes about their creation. This can be beneficial for students who are learning about places, like their state and its major cities, in geography, further advancing and establishing their learned information.
Panoform is a VR experience that uses real-life drawings to showcase student learning via VR headset, tablet, phone, or laptop. This could be beneficial for students when learning about other cultures or even major historic moments.

Edutopia, and in particular the 5 Worthwhile Augmented and Virtual Reality Tools blog post, really provides teachers, school librarians, administrators, and parents alike with current, attainable technology resources to use within the classroom. Smith (2010) proposes that “sustained project-based experiences with feedback provide the best opportunities for teaching educators how to implement technology,” (p. 627). When teachers, school librarians, administrators, and other school leaders are provided with adequate technological training and support, students will benefit immensely by learning skills needed to manage in the 21st century.

References

Johnson, M.P. (2012). School librarians as technology integration leaders: Enablers and barriers to leadership enactment. School Library Research, 15, 1-33.

Johnston, M.P. (2012). Connecting teacher librarians for technology integration leadership. School Libraries Worldwide, 18(1), 18-33.

Nieves, K. (2019, December 27). 5 worthwhile augmented and virtual reality tools. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-worthwhile-augmented-and-virtual-reality-tools

Smith, D. (2010). Making the case for the leadership role of school librarians in technology integration. Library Hi Tech, 28(4), 617-631.

Information Diet

Information literacy, technology, and digital media engulf our everyday lives. Navigating through each can be overwhelming and discouraging, especially if we do not know how to properly traverse through the information overload. For me, I know this is how I feel oftentimes when I am feeling rather “hungry” for information. I found a lot of insight in the “rules of thumb” from Valenza’s (2016) article. The most prominent features for me include:

Suspect the sensational– exaggerated, emotional text should cause skepticism
Think outside the reliability box– unlikely voices can be accurate and authoritative, given the need
Triangulate– verify information with multiple sources
Be suspicious of pictures– images can be easily distorted, manipulated, or digitally born digital

The Framework for 21^st Century Learning (2015) details the “skills, knowledge, and expertise” that students need to “succeed in work and life,” (para. 1), including literate skills within information, media, and ICT (information, communications, and technology).

The Framework highlights in information literacy that students should be able to have access to and evaluate information efficiently, effectively, critically, and competently. By practicing metaliteracy, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (2016) suggests that through information literacy students will be compromised with “abilities in which [they] are consumers and creators of information…in collaborative spaces.” Through metaliteracy, students will be armored with six key concepts that include: determining authority, understanding that the creation of information is a process, understanding that information is valuable, using inquiry in research, promoting scholarships as conversations, and strategically exploring information (para. 3).

For media literacy, the Framework explains how students should be able to analyze media by examining and valuing points of view and understand how to use and interpret products of the media. Gungor and McHargue (2017) display in their podcast how there is a current “strange media nihilism” that is causing many people to away from news due to the vast amount of absurdity in fake news.

With ICT, the Framework relates that students should be able to use and apply technology for communication and research purposes. Students should obtain the ability to use and communicate with others the skills and competencies they have learned through their research. According to the Big6, the skills provided are necessary when students need to “solve a problem, make a decision, or complete a task,” which fits perfectly with ICT. In short, the Big6 skills allow students use and apply technology and communication with others to identify a problem, determine and select viable resources, locate and access information from those sources, engage with and extract necessary information, organize and present their findings, and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the outcome.

For me, the biggest gain from this week’s readings, resources, and podcast was understanding how the concepts of information, technology, and digital media all intersect and blend cohesively by creating literate doers of the world who can identify, evaluate, validate, and synthesize problems, resources, and their findings accurately, effectively, and efficiently while utilizing their creativity, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills. This all made me realize how much I need to exercise my own skills and implement an information diet for myself!

My information diet (which needs to be refreshed and “healthier”) currently consists of teacher blogs, subreddits about libraries, books and world news, librarian tweets, and news apps. I believe the information diet of a school librarian could still include these but become more diligent in consuming more information about libraries and information withing journals and associations reflecting library science and information. Not only that, but also becoming cognizant of and utilizing skills needed to verify sources and use the “rules of thumb”.

References

Association of College Research Libraries. (2016, January 11). Framework for information literacy for higher education. http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/framework1.pdf

Gungor, M., & McHargue, M. (Hosts). (2017, March 7). Fake News & Media Literacy [Audio podcast episode]. In The Liturgists Podcast. The Liturgists. Retrieved from https://theliturgists.com/podcast/2017/3/7/fake-news-media-literacy

Partnership for 21st Century Learning. (2015, May). Framework for 21st Century Learning. https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/5dd6acf5e22a7/11839738?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27P21_framework_0515.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200201T011057Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PLTYPZRQMY%2F20200201%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=aa07b300b4341f58b1a53e27eb0676514909266297015bbe63135854b18a0d63

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

A Comparison of the AASL and ISTE Standards

Being in my fourth year of teaching, I have come to understand and adapt myself around the importance of using standards to promote student learning. Upon examining the AASL and ISTE standards, it became even clearer to me the overwhelming impact these standards can have on student learning. When I say “student learning” I am not just speaking academically, but also by obtaining life skills necessary to have in order to be a contributing, engaging, and collaborative thinker within society.

Technology is constantly and consistently evolving and is a part of most everyone’s daily life in some way or another. Preparing students to obtain and utilize technological and digital skills is critical to have as a 21st century citizen. Gerakois (2016) explains how the Future Ready Schools (FRS) initiative suggests “school librarians as likelly leaders in the digital transformation of learning” and FRS are “developing resources and strategies to help librarians fulfill this vital role,” (para. 2). As a school librarian, it is important that these skills be identified and taught to students.

The AASL and ISTE standards are both very important and powerful tools for school librarians to utilize in school libraries. When viewing the Crosswalk between the AASL and ISTE standards, it becomes quite clear the similarities and differences between the two standards. Both standards have a high emphasis on student inquiry, where critical thinking promotes identifying and solving problems. The two standards share a great importance on collaboration as well, envisioning that students can work with others to expand their perspectives and work together towards goals. Both standards put an emphasize on exploration, too, aspiring to have students’ experiences broaden as they learn. Being engaged is another similarity between the two standards, where students share and communicate with others what they are doing and have learned.

A difference between the two standards is that ISTE does not place too much emphasis on inclusion during the learning process. Learning networks that enable the learning process is prominent and Lewis explains that ISTE’s version of inclusion is more aligned with STEM/STEAM endeavors (2019). AASL, however, puts a great deal of emphasis on inclusion during the learning process as promotes unbiased perspectives, awareness of other perspectives, and building empathy for diversity. It seems ISTE’s standards primarily focus on inclusion of technologies whereas AASL’s standards lean more toward inclusion of others.

Another difference is the lack of standards ISTE has with curating. Tools, platforms, prototypes and other methods are used to “create collections of artifacts” through digital resources (American Association of School Libraries, p. 4), promoting the standard through technology, yet again. AASL is geared more towards understanding which information is needed to be preserved, using appropriate resources to collect and contribute to the information, and deeming the appropriateness of the curated information.

In conclusion, both standards seem like a great tool for school librarians to use, although not separately. When combined, the AASL and ISTE standards could prove to be a powerful tool since they are both, in their own ways, “learner-determined” (O’Connor, 2019). Just like most things, especially in the educational world, pulling from multiple sources is usually better than sticking to just one tool or resource. Therefore, using both standards to compliment and prepare the school library and all its users, any school librarian can accomplish teaching social and technological skills that all students need to be equipped for the 21st century.

References

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). 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

Gerakois, J. (2016, July 25). Are you a future ready librarian? Knowledge Quest. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/future-ready-librarian/

Lewis, C. (2019). Leveraging crosswalks for communication. Knowledge Quest 47(5), 42-43.