School Librarians: Offer Your Teachers Technology Training & Integration

Posted on June 22, 2019 by Barbara Paciotti

Technology can bring creative enrichment to many educational activities, I’m often disappointed at how rarely audio, video, and digital technologies are used to their fullest. Our students need and deserve to learn a variety of ways to express themselves so they may be active participants in our global community. How might a School Librarian make that happen?

As a School Librarian for many years—and a classroom Science Teacher before that—I’ve experienced the barriers which inhibit or restrict the effective use of technology with students. By understanding historic barriers, we can better identify the current obstacles and decide where we to apply our energies toward overcoming them.

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology barriers derive from 3 sources: from teachers, from students, and from the technology itself.

The high cost of technology prevented schools from investing in enough hardware to make regular technology use viable for classrooms, but now even 1:1 computers are affordable for most districts. Along with that, the Federal e-rate has made online access widely available.

Technology breakdowns hindered its wide use, but many tech-related problems disappeared as electronic hardware became more robust, and software became standardized & more reliable. And now, a plethora of digital products are accessible online, making multimedia technology available within most classrooms. Today we can find a reliable tech solution for any educational need, many of them free.

School districts with older hardware or insufficient bandwidth for large-scale online use may still have issues; however, hardware, software, and online technology barriers are nowadays incidentally frustrating, rather than obstructive.

We can consider students a barrier to using digital technology. Historically, their excitement quickly turned to frustration with software glitches and boredom with rote keyboarding exercises. The demand for tech-savvy graduates pushed school districts to narrow inequity through grants, bonds, and corporate funding and provide technology hardware & training for students.

Even with more computers, laptops, and smartphones available, students still lack entry-level tech skills. Keyboarding classes, once prolific, are now scarce, so incidental training during assignments is now the norm for students.

The random, irregular use of technology with students in the classroom means they can’t learn nor master even the fundamentals of using multimedia for their assignments, and brings us to the biggest stumbling block to effective use of technology in the classroom.

Teachers have had technology training for two decades, yet there remains a huge disparity in tech proficiency among teachers. Even younger teachers, who we’d expect to have grown up using a wide variety of tech applications, lack the ability to effectively integrate technology into their classroom activities. Clearly we still need to provide all teachers with time to pursue training in technology applications, but more importantly, we need to provide teachers with more focused training, enabling them to develop tech integration lessons for their students.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT FOR TECHNOLOGY

The typical manner of tech training for teachers is showing a whole group how to use a tool, expecting them to effectively use it with students. This method is cheap and easy, but it isn’t the best way to do it. Teachers add shallow use of a tool to what they’re already doing—as having students type final papers with a word processing tool yet still requiring a handwritten rough draft. Teachers need to see a different way of doing things—even as simple as using that word processing app from the start, tracking changes for comments, proofing, and editing within the tool itself, and doing it all online.

Decades ago, Alan November said “the goal should be to train teachers not to master specific technologies, but instead to design learning environments in which technology helps children learn.” Yes, teachers don’t just need to learn how to use a tool, but to have an integrated model to take back to the classroom.

Bring together a small group of same-grade-level or same-discipline teachers and help them develop a carefully planned multimedia lesson or unit that incorporates tools with curriculum standards and objectives. Even a teacher with rudimentary tech skills can do this for more meaningful student learning, and creative teachers will supplement and enhance the unit for a truly memorable student experience. These tech-integration trained teachers then become facilitators for others in their schools, and more teachers become familiar with, and adept at, planning units to fully integrate multimedia into classroom experiences.

A PROCESS-BASED APPROACH TO TECH TRAINING

One of the most effective technology training paradigms I’ve found is the online Cult of Pedagogy JumpStart course.

JumpStart is a self-paced online technology course for the thoughtful educator. By guiding you through a series of hands-on projects, this course will give you the confidence and skills you need to make smart choices about the tech you use in your teaching.

What’s unique about this tech training is that it doesn’t look at “tools”, but rather at processes, specific ways of using technology that can be applied in classroom situations. You learn 10 key processes and complete a hands-on project to practice with each tool. You’ll easily transfer that process to your own classroom, using the same tool or a similar one of your choosing. Here are the 10 processes:

Blogging
Online Collaboration
Mind Mapping
Curation
Screencasting
Flipped Learning
Digital Assessment
HyperDocs (playlists)
QR codes
Podcasting

The course offers 2 options: JumpStart Basic, where you take the course on your own, at whatever pace works for you; and JumpStart Plus, where you get the support and accountability of a community. The JumpStart Plus course is only open for enrollment for about a week, 5 times a year—Jan, Mar, Jun, Jul, Oct—so enroll ASAP!

I’ve taken the JumpStart Plus course, and while I consider myself technologically adept, I learned more than I could have imagined: not only processes and tools, but a completely new vision for how to help students learn technology within a flowing pattern of applied multimedia techniques. I heartily recommend the Cult of Pedagogy JumpStart course for teachers at any tech level, novice to expert.

(I am an affiliate for the JumpStart course. If you sign up using one of my links, I receive a percentage at no extra cost to you.
I am also Cult of Pedagogy’s Pinterest Marketing Specialist, but I receive no compensation for this JumpStart endorsement.)

THE ROLE OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS IN TECH TRAINING

As a School Librarian we can offer a variety of technology training opportunities to teachers, from new ways to use a common tool to full-length design-based integrated technology units. We need to treat professional development for teachers with the same consideration and planning we give to student lessons. I use my Library Lesson Planner for technology professional development so I stay focused on just what teachers need—nothing more, nothing less.

Here are 3 ways to offer technology PD to teachers:

Short faculty meeting presentations
These are 5-10 minute show-and-tells which demonstrate a new facet of a tool teachers are already using. It’s important to make this use part of standard classroom activity so teachers can immediately put it to use, rather than figure out on their own how to incorporate it.
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Topical training before/after school or during common subject planning
Many teachers are willing to come into the School Library before or after school for 20-30 minute tech sessions. These, too, need to be designed as time-savers or enhancements to already-in-use systems so teachers can take them back to the classroom and apply them right away. Some topics I offered my teachers were webpage training, using our email app for lesson scheduling and time management, student blogging and discussion forums, and creating videos from slide presentations.
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Another option is to offer a series of training sessions during common subject planning periods. For example, I created weekly presentations about how to integrate Design Thinking and Technology into lesson units. I provided a pocket folder with brads to hold guided worksheets that teachers used during the various sessions and then kept for reference. I included suggested projects for various subjects, and created a narrated version of the presentations so teachers who were absent or future new teachers could view them. I received several teacher requests to further help integrate technology into a lesson!
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Extended rotating workshops during beginning-of-school-year staff development
Teachers become “students” and spend 45-50 minutes each at 2-3 hands-on stations working through a classroom lesson using new technology tools. This model requires the most planning, strong support from administration, and a cadre of trained colleagues to assist the teacher-students. One year I designed a series of WebQuests using library online subscription databases for informational projects teachers assigned during the school year. My Library Lesson Matrix was invaluable to customize the WebQuests for each subject, which were so successful that teachers had me schedule those same WebQuests with their students!

EXPANDING OUR LEADERSHIP ROLE

It’s no longer enough for School Librarians to promote reading and give lessons on research skills. We need to learn, use, and then integrate multimedia technologies into student learning, and teach our teachers how to do it. We are the best person on our campus to do this: we are the only one familiar with all subject curricula and we are already skilled at integrating into classroom activities. Let’s make it a goal this school year to provide some tech training for our teachers!

Create a Differentiated School Library Orientation for ELL Newcomers

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Barbara Paciotti

A school library orientation influences our relationship with students for the entire school year, so it’s important to have an orientation with all students in the school, including our special populations.

Early on I realized that, even with customized grade-level orientations for ELA classes, Newcomer English Language Learners need a customized orientation with very focused differentiation.

So, I created a Read-Aloud Orientation plan using WIDA-ELD Standards and Can-Do Descriptors that met their needs.

3 GREAT READ-ALOUDS FOR ELL NEWCOMERS

A new school is an even more “alien environment” for ELL Newcomers (who also face a new city, state, country, and language), so I spread their library orientation across 3 weekly visits that help them get to know me better and gradually build their understanding of using the School Library.

I believe ELL Newcomers need to hear English spoken fluidly—not ‘fluently’, but ‘fluidly’—so the pacing and tone of the language becomes ingrained in their minds. For that reason I read aloud a picture book about the library at each of their 3 library visits:

Visit #1: Tomás & the Library Lady shares the Newcomers’ situation because Tomás and his family move from his home in Texas to Iowa. The local librarian helps him find wonderful books to read to his family, and this encourages our Newcomers to take their books home and practice learning English by reading to their own family.
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Visit #2: The Librarian from the Black Lagoon addresses Newcomers’ fear of things they’ve not yet experienced and helps reduce that worry through humor, as well as preparing them to learn the do’s and don’t’s of the school library.
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Visit #3: The Library Dragon highlights the joy and power of a library read-aloud. The words & phrases related to ‘fire’ preview synonyms & idioms for ELA and where students can locate different books in the library.

image of Tomas and the Library Lady picture book

image of Librarian from the Black Lagoon book

ATTAINABLE HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES

Yes, students, especially ELL Newcomers, love read-alouds, but ALL library visits must be purposeful if we want teachers to use valuable class time to support our library program. I use follow-up hands-on activities that help ELLs meet English Language Arts objectives for ELL Level 1 students:

WIDA-ELD topic & academic language – word/phrase level Vocabulary Usage, sentence level Language Forms & Conventions, and discourse level Linguistic Complexity.
Can-Do Descriptors for performance tasks in Listening, Speaking, Writing, and Reading.
Differentiation strategies that offer sensory, graphic, and interactive support.

I chose these 3 stories because they naturally lead into activities that support classroom learning and help ELLs develop useful library skills. After the read-aloud, my modeling & guided practice activity has ELLs associate concrete visual stimuli with English language terms:

Visit #1 supports ELA concepts of story plot and compare/contrast
- I Have, Who Has roundabout game begins with a student reading aloud the first plot question. I prompt “Who has the answer?” A student says “I have it,” reads their event, then their Who Has question. The game continues through the story, ending with the student who began.
- Tomás and Me Venn diagram helps each student recall details of the story using compare/contrast by entering how they and Tomás are the same as or different from each other.
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Visit #2 presents library expectations with a concept attainment task allowing table groups to collaborate on sorting 12 pictorial cards into YES or NO categories for actions that are OK or unacceptable. (It’s the same activity as the one for 6g, but with fewer and simpler cards.)
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Visit #3 supports ELA recall of story details and similarities using a simple word search grid of story words related to fire, and supports ELD learning about idioms with fire-related phrases from the story.

The Venn diagram and the word search/idioms worksheets
can both be used as daily grades for the ELL teacher.

ELLS USE WHAT THEY’VE LEARNED

Next, Independent practice gives students an opportunity to use what they’ve learned.

Visit #1: Rather than confuse ELLs with navigating an unfamiliar environment, I hand-pick and lay out on tables a variety of picture books for students to browse, just as Tomás’s librarian chose books for him.
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We have quite a diverse language population, so I display our bilingual picture books (in Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, Korean, Japanese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Arabic, Persian, Tagalog) along with a selection of English picture books with stories from or about other countries and cultures. This helps ELLs feel more at home in our school library, and I encourage them to choose a book to check out and take home to read to their families, as Tomás did.
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Visit #2 also gives students time to browse for books. I still have books laid out on tables, which some prefer, but now that the library isn’t such a scary place, I show them the adjoining bookshelf sections of bilingual books, picture books, and graphic novels. Students choose at least 1 book, and at checkout they receive a special ELL bookmark of library information of their learned policies & expectations.
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Visit #3 reinforces ELA compare/contrast and helps ELLS have pride in learning a new language, while retaining pride in their home language and culture. Students use English word/picture card prompts for things and events in the library and write the terms in their home language on the reverse side of the card. Then they affix tape and take the card to the proper location in the library and tape the card up to share their home language with the rest of the school.
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Other students love seeing these cards and it gives them a conversation starter with ELL Newcomers in their classes. Plus I love having the “Welcome” and “Hello” cards in several languages (and alphabets!) displayed on my library doors every year!

A FINE BEGINNING…

This set of library lessons is a positive and productive library orientation for ELL Level 1 Newcomers. They especially like Visit #3 about The Library Dragon because I have a huge stuffed dragon that students can sit with during the read-aloud.

After these lessons students feel very comfortable talking to me and using the library, so ensuing library visits are every other week like other ELA classes. Although we’ve had different ELL teachers through the years, they all look forward to beginning the school year with their Newcomers in this way.

If this set of lessons appeals to you, the full package of the ELL Level 1 Newcomers Library Orientation lesson plan, printouts, and worksheets are available at No Sweat Library, my TPT store.

Create Customized School Library Orientations for Each Grade Level

Posted on August 26, 2018 by Barbara Paciotti

We all give a School Library Orientation to our lowest-grade-level, new-to-the-school students so they can learn about their “new” school library, but how many of us have one for our returning students?

A library orientation customized for each grade level is a powerful way to connect with students and teachers at the beginning of the school year. I discovered very quickly that the effort I expend on higher-grade-level orientations generates multiple benefits throughout the rest of the school year.

ADVANTAGES OF CUSTOMIZED ORIENTATIONS

Rekindle interest in the library – The first library visit influences a student’s attitude toward subsequent visits during the remainder of the school year. Since so many schools now have a high level of student transience—mine is 34%—we also need to introduce the school library to a lot of brand new higher-grade-level students.
Highlight new reading choices – New grade level = new subject content + increased maturity. Customized orientations can align with the new grade’s curricula and the changed interests of students, especially topics or formats they may not have noticed before.
Establish silent sustained reading to the end of the period – The beginning of the school year is usually free of any benchmarks, testing, etc., so teachers are more willing to give us a whole class period for our orientation. In my case, ELA teachers want students to check out a fiction book, and because my library orientations focus on reading and narrative literature, students have time to become immersed in their book.
Stimulate teachers to consider more library lessons – My ELA teachers appreciate that I structure my orientations to support their curriculum, so they allow me to give a Library Lesson at the start of each new unit of study. I also have unique orientations for Social Studies, for Science, for World Language, and for Art classes, which has encouraged those teachers to plan other Library Lessons throughout the school year.
Use the same orientations every school year – With so many demands on a school librarian at the start of school, not having to create first-visit lessons is a time-saver and alleviates stress.

WHAT TO DO; WHAT TO AVOID

The key to a successful “returnee” orientation is to give students a stimulating, interactive, hands-on activity that is completely different from their previous grade‘s orientation. It should also revive prior knowledge and give a new perspective on the library and its resources.

Don’t bore returning students with rules and procedures they already know. Summarize information on a Library Bookmark to be picked up at checkout. Give top grade level students a Library Brochure with resources for larger projects and planning their future. These two library info tools save time to allow for longer, more complex activities with higher-grade students, yet guarantee any new students learn our library expectations and can ask us specific questions later on for clarification.

A new school year brings excitement but also apprehension. To relieve new-grade-level uncertainty, provide a familiar structure to returning student orientations. Of the four segments for my Library Lessons—direct instruction, modeling/guided practice, independent practice, and sharing/reflecting—I keep 3 of them the same as what students have already experienced:

Direct instruction for returning student orientations is a review of safety procedures for fire drills and code Red—they’re too important to omit—and showing students the bookmark or brochure about library policies & expectations that they’ll receive at checkout.
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Independent practice during any regular book checkout visit includes students browsing the shelves and choosing a fiction book they can enjoy reading. Since this is the reason the teacher brings them to the library for an orientation, I’m diligent to give students plenty of time to fulfill that purpose.
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Sharing/reflecting for any regular book checkout visit is our standard checkout procedure where students read quietly while I invite each table to check out their selections. I encourage students to reflect on their book choice as they begin reading their new book so their book choices improve and their sustained reading time increases.

Such uniformity means I need only customize the modeling/guided practice segment of each grade’s orientation and allow returning students to fully engage in, and enjoy, their new group activity.

TRY DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES UNTIL SUCCESSFUL

We may need to try several orientation activities before discovering those that work best for each particular grade level of students:

In-the-middle grades need reminders about what they learned the previous year, presented in a fun new way.
Our highest grades need to see the library in a new way, a different perspective. They are the perfect “guinea pigs” to try out big changes in organization, materials, facility arrangement or technology.

Even after settling on the perfect lessons, be open to a new activity that might prove more engaging or relevant for a certain grade level. If you are a middle school librarian, the following ideas, which I’ve tried at various times, might work for you.

Seventh graders enjoy interactive game-like tasks that allow them to talk or move around. Library Bingo, Library Jeopardy, Scavenger Hunts, and Breakouts are all activities that refresh their library knowledge while constructively fulfilling their need for socializing. I do a Scavenger Hunt.

My 7g Scavenger Hunt reviews various library locations, features new formats of reading materials students may have overlooked, and introduces books related to grade-specific subject content, like topical Dewey books for their first two Science units and the Special Collection of fiction & non-fiction books to support 7g Social Studies. It does get noisy, but students have a fun review, don’t get bored, and the Hunt sheet is handed in for their daily grade.
(Clipboards for students to write on are invaluable for this activity.)

The key to a successful scavenger hunt is to have the same number tasks as library tables. Each group begins with the same numbered task as their table number, which takes students to different library locations and avoids jostling and overcrowding.

Eighth graders prefer sophisticated tasks that entail analysis and application, and provides guidance but not overt supervision. Speed Dating Fiction, Progressive Dinner of Tasty Reads, Breakouts, Playlists/HyperDocs, and Viewing Book Trailers with QR codes are all popular with this age. Using QR codes to view Book Trailers finally captured my 8^th graders attention; I give details about it in an earlier post.

I briefly show students how easy it is to make a video book-talk using copyright-free pictures and an online video creation tool, then play my 40-second sample. Since the first ELA project is a video book-talk, teachers appreciate my “sneak peak” to get students excited to do their own. Then they use QR codes to watch book trailers which provide an introduction to new reading choices appropriate to 8g maturity and curricula, like our selection of high school State Reading List books and the Special Collections of fiction and non-fiction books that support 8g Social Studies.

PROGRESSIVELY BUILD YOUR ORIENTATION REPERTOIRE

I know you, too, can reap the benefits of customized library orientations. If you are a new librarian or starting at a new school, you can begin as I did: I created an orientation for our lowest-grade-level students—6^th graders—but presented it to all the grades. The next year’s incoming 6g got that same orientation, but I created a new orientation for the next higher grade level and presented it to both 7^th & 8^th graders. Then the third year, the incoming 6g got the original orientation, new 7g students got the second orientation, and I created another new orientation just for our highest grade level 8g students. Other than a couple adjustments for 8g, I give the same 3 orientations every year and it’s always a new experience for each grade level of students. If you have more than three grade levels, just keep going until you have a unique orientation for all the grade levels in your building!

My success with Customized Library Orientations means I never have to convince the English Language Arts teachers to bring their classes to the library at the start of school. In fact, they seek me out to schedule their visits the week before school begins!

Get my 7g Library Orientation or 8g Library Orientation through my NoSweat TPT store, or save with the 678 Orientation bundle.

Looking Backward – No Sweat Library Lessons & Management That Works

Reflections from A Middle School Librarian

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