Facilitating ICT Curriculum and Pedagogy Development in Your School (LIBE 477B)

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Baby steps first – get to know your staff

I think that the first step for a teacher-librarian in supporting ICT curriculum and pedagogy at their school is to get to know their school, staff and administration. Diana Redina, on her blog Renovated Learning, talks about “learning to be intentional with change”   and “making micro-changes.”  As I am at a new school this year and am also in a new TL position, I do not feel like I am in a position to suddenly make swift decisions about how to best facilitate learning and growth with ICT skills. Instead, I have been working on connecting with staff.  I have started to network with teachers in my department (English), and have tried to touch base with some other teachers who I know through other avenues.  I have also been connecting with my colleague and co-TL as she has been at the school for many years and has cultivated relationship with staff members. Honestly, I think it’s going to take a few years to get a good sense of staff at the school and also to understand where people’s strengths lie.  Not everyone is a technology aficionado, but everyone has something that makes them a great teacher.

It’s important to know your staff and their strengths so that you can know where to look for resources – someone on staff will certainly be more skilled than I with technology -- and also to help set some goals as whole for the school.   

One of my goals is that I want to try and touch base with each department to discuss how they foresee working with the library. Both myself and my co-librarian come from a humanities background, so we naturally gravitate towards the English and Socials departments and can develop resources quite easily for them. But, we aren’t as sure how to support other departments such as Math and Science. I have started to ask a few teachers about this and how they think they could work with the library.  As I get to know the departments and staff, I hope to learn about what’s happening in their classrooms and where staff members are utilizing technology and where there is room for growth. 

As with anything, I think it is important to ask what people want to learn about to find out where people’s interests lie with relation to ICT skills. This will allow me to meet them where they are at and to learn from them as well.  It’s no use to spout out information, if no one is listening.

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Modelling ICT skills

One way that we have been sharing ICT skills this year is by modelling them in our library classes.  We co-created a research unit with the English department this year for all grade ten classes.  One of our goals was to use Google Classroom to facilitate the lesson and also to get all grade ten students up and running with an account.  In our department we have teachers who are very proficient with Google Classroom to those who have not yet tried it. By modelling its use in our lessons we are demonstrating how it can be utilized and also how easy it is to use.   A teacher who sees this might become interested in the platform and decide to give it a chance in his/her own classroom.  The same goes for any other tool or platform we might choose to use. 

Throughout our lesson we also used an application called Pear Deck, which allows students to respond via an electronic device (phone, tablet, or computer) and allows the teacher to display students’ responses on the LCD projector.  As they say on the Pear Deck website “Pear Deck brings the classroom “clicker” into the 21st century with not only multiple choice-style questions, but text responses, numbers, drawings, draggable pins on images, and more.”  Essentially, you ask a question and decide how you want students to respond.   We chose to use Pear Deck as it is an integrated platform that can be used with Google tools. You can use Google Classroom to sign up your students and you can include it in a Google Slides presentation as an add-on feature.   We integrated it into our Google Slides presentation so that we could project student responses as we went.

 A Quick How  To on Using Pear Deck with Google Slides

1. Find the "Add-on" link in the menu bar of Google Slides. Click on "Get add-ons"

2. Select Pear Deck from the options.

3. You will need to sign in with an e-mail account to access Pear Deck, but once you do you simply use the application to create your slides. They have various slide templates that you can use or you can create your own.  See image to the right for an example. 

To utilize this application, we had students in groups using our library iPads to collaborate and discuss and then use the application to respond.  Not only were we demonstrating how to use Pear Deck, but also how you can use technology in a collaborative manner.  So many people are quick to ban personal technology devices in the classroom, but used in an appropriate manner they can be engaging for the students. 

We also used Google Forms at the end of our lessons to get feedback on student understanding.  Google forms are a great way to create exit tickets and collect formative assessment. We also introduced students (and staff) to two bibliography tools online – Easy Bib and BibMe. 

Overall a teacher who comes into the library to work with us on this unit will be exposed to:

                -Google classroom

                -Google slides

                -Google docs

                -Pear Deck

                -Google forms

                -Using the library iPads in a collaborative nature

                -Easy bib and Bib me

It is our hope that they might choose to implement one of these tools in their own classroom and to know that we can support them if they need help.

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Put on a show – showcasing staff talent

Another way that a teacher-librarian could help support the ICT skills in a school is to show case what other staff are doing.  As librarians are not attached to a set group of students on a daily basis, we have a lot more freedom to visit teachers in their classrooms and see what they are doing.  Unfortunately, teaching is a bit of a solo profession.  We work in a building with lots of other adults, but rarely get the chance to share what we are doing.  By show casing what is happening in your school you might inspire someone to try something new or at least talk to that person to learn more.  Not everyone is going to be able to work with the teacher- librarian due to time constraints, schedules, conflicting personalities, etc.   But, if you can provide staff members with other opportunities to gain ICT skills and other experts to talk to, you are hopefully facilitating a learning community in your school.

Someone I’d like to showcase at our school is a math teacher who is using a 3D printer in her classroom. She came into the library the other day with her class to ask if we had any problems her class could solve using a 3D printer.  We provided her with broken tape dispenser – the piece that that tape sits on is currently missing and we have improvised with cardboard.  But, a piece of plastic 3D printed to fit perfectly would be much better!  This teacher is innovative in her teaching and is asking her students to think in new and exciting ways about math.  I know nothing about 3D printing, but she would be an excellent resource for anyone else interested.

My colleague and I discussed this idea today and we have decided that we want to create a display area in the library to highlight things happening in classrooms at our school. We also discussed creating an Instagram account for our library to add another dimension to our sharing.  Hopefully by sharing what is happening in classrooms we can help facilitate a collaborative network of learners at our school. 

Ultimately, I think that by knowing your staff, modelling technology and showcasing others you can create an atmosphere at your school where staff members feel supported in their learning and are willing to try something new.  

I did also find a Blog post on the Daring Librarian which has a few other suggestions as well – it’s called "8 Practical Tips for the Care and Feeding of a Reluctant Tech User." 

All images are from Pixabay and used under the CCO Creative Commons.

Bibliography

Jones, G. (2017, August 15). 8 Practical Tips for the Care and Feeding of the Reluctant Tech User [Web log post]. Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2017/08/8-practical-tips-for-care-and-feeding.html

Pear Deck. (2017). Retrieved October 18, 2017, from https://www.peardeck.com/

Redina, D. (2017, October). Be Intentional: Why Slow Change is Good for You [Web log post]. Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://renovatedlearning.com/2017/10/09/slow-change/