How a School Librarian Can Teach Online Subscription Services

How a School Librarian Can Teach Online Subscription Services - Here are 3 ways School Librarians can introduce specific relevant features of subject and grade-level appropriate resources to teachers & students to support classroom content learning, along with a review of how to use them correctly. #NoSweatLibraryAt first glance, a School Library today looks much as it did a century ago: rows and rows of books. But, a second look reveals the influx of technology with desktop, laptop, and tablet computers. By the turn of the millennium, computers and their associated digital applications significantly changed School Libraries. Nowhere is this more visible than with online subscription database services available through the Internet.

Online subscription resources in K-12 schools began as add-ons to familiar print resources—digitized copies of encyclopedias, periodicals, biographies. They were costly, so most schools had only one, or maybe two. As online subscription services proliferated, they became affordable, and now are the primary reference resource in most secondary schools. Eventually service providers combined different types of reference into their own brand-name tools, so now a single resource can provide multiple forms of reference beyond what the tool’s common name would suggest.

SCHOOL LIBRARIANS ARE THE INFORMATION SPECIALISTS

In my medium-sized district, our middle schools alone have access to more than 40 different online subscription services—4 encyclopedias, 9 periodical databases, and more than 30 specialty reference databases and e-books. Imagine being a student or teacher seeing that long list of resource names on a school webpage. They are too bewildered to determine which service to use for their information need, so it’s no wonder they become discouraged and simply type some search terms into Google.

School Librarians Are (Online) Information Specialists - It's our responsibility as School Librarians to know what each of our online subscription services offer, and to determine when and with whom to use each feature of each resource. Here's how I do it... #NoSweatLibraryIt’s unrealistic to expect intermittent users to know our online subscription services and their features, or take the time to learn—on their own—how to use these database services. These services are usually chosen and funded by the District Library Department or the individual School Librarian, so it’s our responsibility as School Librarians to know what each of these online subscription services offer, and to determine when and with whom to use each feature of each resourceAfter all, we are the Information Specialists; we are the Instructional Partners, familiar with everyone’s curriculum; we are the Future Ready Librarians who curate, manage, and integrate digital resources for our students and teachers.

We can’t just run through the list, telling teachers and students all that’s available: if it isn’t immediately relevant to classroom learning, it’s meaningless and quickly forgotten. Instead, we need to create Library Lessons that integrate particular features of specific tools with a classroom activity.

INTEGRATING ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION RESOURCES

I treat online resources the same as the print collection. I don’t introduce all the Dewey Subject books at once, but rather, each topical group as it applies to a classroom assignment. So also, I introduce online resources during subject area visits, focusing on features that fulfill the purpose of the library visit, avoiding others that do not.

My Library Lesson Curriculum Matrix - Composite example of an older version for the 1st grading period.

Sample Library Lesson Matrix

I use my Library Lesson Matrix to organize online resource lessons. Just as I examine each subject’s curriculum to identify a possible library lesson to enter into my Matrix, so also I examine each online subscription service. I utilize any trainings offered online and try out each feature to see which curriculum need it can satisfy and for which grade level. I record brand name and features into the subject units, then move on to the next online service.

It takes time to go through all the services, but I become comfortable enough with each tool to integrate it and teach it. By mapping these out in my Matrix, I can progressively build online skills so students are proficient in using our online subscription resources before they leave our campus.

USING INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS CORRECTLY

Focus on Content, Not Format, for Information Sources - School Library Lessons that emphasize content type--encyclopedia, topical source, periodical--are more beneficial to students than dwelling on format--print, digital, online. It's an important distinction. Learn more... #NoSweatLibraryThere’s continuing controversy about requiring students to use print or digital or online sources for assignments. We must help teachers realize that the format of information (print vs digital vs online) is NOT important, but rather the TYPE of resource and its content value:

  • Encyclopedias for general information and overview of topic;
  • Content-specific resources for in-depth information;
  • Periodicals for focused, condensed, and current information.

Encyclopedias and periodicals, in print, digital, or online versions, are pretty obvious, but content resources aren’t as obvious to students and teachers, so I always include specifics about these:

  • Print content includes all those specialty tomes we have in our reference area or topical books in the Dewey area.
  • Digital includes CDs and DVDs that we got primarily for teachers but students can be using them, too.
  • Online includes e-books, subscription services (like a biography database), and Web-based books (like Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Digital Book Index).

When I collaborate with teachers, I articulate the different types of resources and recommend what’s best for students to use for the assignment. In my Library Lesson I teach students about types of resources and how to use whichever format is accessible when working on the assignment—print version, in-house digital version, or online version. This is important in a digitally-divided school where some students may not have online access from home.

With Library Lessons that focus on type rather than format, students and teachers learn that print, digital, and online information sources all contribute to student success.

HOW I TEACH ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

Scaffold Lessons for Online Subscription Services - Students learn our Online Subscription Services better when School Librarians scaffold Library Lessons as WebQuests, with Curated & Bookmarked Articles, and through Resource Lists. Here's how I do it... #NoSweatLibraryCarefully crafted Library Lessons, customized for each grade level, scaffolded throughout the school year, and aligned with classroom curriculum activities help students (and teachers) become familiar with which online subscription resource feature to use for their information need. It takes time and curriculum savvy to create these lessons, but we can use them year after year for the same online services.

I’ve discovered the best way to scaffold these type of lessons is to use WebQuests to introduce online services a few at a time, use curated folders of bookmarked articles within each online service for specific assignments, and to create Resource Lists of online services and other Web-based tools for longer research assignments.

WebQuests to Introduce Services

WebQuests are my favorite way to introduce online subscription database services. Using the term “WebQuest” to introduce our online resources emphasizes to students that they are the first, best choice to find information on the WorldWideWeb. Each of my WebQuests is designed for a single class period, presents just 3 different online tools with 1 or 2 features of each, and satisfies a particular classroom assignment. Teachers appreciate this guided introduction to high-quality resources that is integrated into their lessons, and, because students respond on a printed or digital worksheet, there’s a daily grade for the class period.

I believe an encyclopedia is the best reference tool for students to begin research, so the first WebQuest of the school year introduces a grade-appropriate online encyclopedia, and I use it for that grade’s online lessons throughout the school year. Repeatedly using a familiar tool activates prior knowledge so students become comfortable using various features of the tool, and we develop online browsing and searching skills that they can apply to other online resources.

As an example, my first two 6g WebQuests—one for Science, one for Social Studies—occur about 2 weeks apart. The only difference is in the features I introduce to meet the needs of the two different subjects.

6g Science Biography WebQuest 6g Social Studies Countries WebQuest
  • introduce WebQuest concept
  • introduce WebQuest structure
  • introduce grade-appropriate encyclopedia
  • 2 features of encyclopedia & their search strategies
  • biography database
  • periodical database
  • same WebQuest concept
  • same WebQuest structure
  • use same grade-level encyclopedia
  • 2 new features of encyclopedia & their search strategies
  • countries database
  • map database

Subsequent 6g WebQuests begin with the same encyclopedia and offer 2 additional subscription resources that meet the needs of the subject, the project, the research, and the lesson. Eventually 6g students learn all the subscription services relevant to their grade-level, how to locate them on the main library page, and how to use their features. (If they ask about other tools they find on the resource homepage, I say I’ll teach them in higher grades, but they’re free to examine them on their own.)

Curating & Bookmarking for Specific Library Lessons

User-created folders is a feature now offered by most online subscription services, where we can curate folders for subjects and grade levels, and then bookmark into them articles chosen from their database. I love using curated folders & bookmarked articles to guide students who have a limited time frame for certain assignments. Once I create a named folder within a service, we can use that same folder and its articles for the same lessons in following years, for as long as we have the online service.

An example of such curating is our English/Language Arts expository text unit across all 3 middle school grade levels. Bookmarked online articles are a perfect match for the unit’s elements:

  • Unit theme=Technology & the Power of Information.
  • Content skills=summarization, inference, and interpretation.
  • Required resources=non-fiction books, newspapers, magazines, memoirs, speeches.
  • Final product=an expository written instrument.

At successive library visits during the grading period, I progressively build Info-Lit skills using different resource formats to activate prior knowledge and then lead students into new experiences to create a final product unique to each grade:

6g ELA Visit 1) Examine components of non-fiction print books (table of contents, index, glossary, graphics).
Visit 2) Learn how to summarize a print magazine article.
Visit 3) Access the chosen online service, go to named folder, read a bookmarked article, and create an expository essay poster with your table group.
7g ELA Visit 1) Compare non-fiction print books and e-books.
Visit 2) Locate new online service, access named folder, and summarize bookmarked magazine article
Visit 3) Using the same online service, do a topical search, read at least 2 articles, and create a written essay.
8g ELA Visit 1) Examine print memoirs from the Biography area.
Visit 2) Access and compare a topical non-fiction print book, an e-book, and a free Web-based memoir.
Visit 3) Access online services and read bookmarked and self-searched articles to produce an online e-zine.

Resource Lists for Longer Research Assignments

Once students have learned how to access and use grade-appropriate online subscription services, I guide them less formally to relevant online resources through customized Resource Lists. Others may call this a Subject Guide, Library Guide, or Pathfinder. (Academic librarian Patricia Knapp devised and named the “Pathfinder” in the 1960s as course resources for college students.) I call it a “Resource List” because it’s a list of resources which support a research assignment.

I build a Resource List using my Library Lesson Planner, just as I would any library lesson. Why so much work?

  • I want to be sure the Resource List fulfills subject & information literacy standards and meets research requirements of the final product.
  • Teachers typically intend a library visit as an introduction to a research project, so I want a short, meaningful lesson to cultivate the requisite Information Literacy skills along with presenting the Resource List.
Resource List Example

LibLessonPlanner example

As I fill out my Library Lesson Planner for “Resources students will use,” I refer to my Library Lesson Matrix to glean print and online resources I’ve already selected as grade and subject appropriate for the assignment. I also enter any guidelines from teachers or subject curriculum guides to help me choose other Web sites that will be helpful for students.

I organize my Resource List according to the problem-solving model I’ve chosen as best for the particular research assignment, and I create it as a webpage so students can access it 24/7 (and so I can make changes or additions without issuing a new handout). Here is a brief enumeration of what I might include on my Resource Lists, as applicable to the project and the problem-solving model:

1. Problem-solving model as organizational structure
2. Recommended resources for background reading/investigation
3. Guidelines for creating questions about the research topic
4. Search strategies for different resources
5. Reminders about citation and creating a bibliography
6. Reminders about paraphrasing and summarizing
7. Resources available in the library (books, reference, other)
8. Recommended online subscription services
9. Recommended Web sites chosen by the librarian or teachers
10. Reminders about assignment requirements (from the teacher’s checklist)

USING OTHER ONLINE SERVICES FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

When I began creating my Library Lessons for online subscription services in the early 2000s, we used printed guides, but over the years I’ve transmuted them into digital and online documents. For example, WebQuests have become HyperDocs, bookmarking & curation lessons also use tools such as TES blendspace, elink.io, or Wakelet, and my Resource Lists are Symbaloo webmixes or Webjets.

Regardless of the subscription services we have or the other online tools we might use to facilitate lessons, the essence of teaching online subscription services to our students is this:

  • Limit lessons to grade-appropriate services
  • Refine choices to only 2 or 3 different services
  • Focus on content-relevant features

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41 Useful Websites for School Librarians

41 Useful Websites for School Librarians - School Librarians will find these 41 quality Websites very helpful to gather information & ideas on professional development, library advocacy, library lessons & activities, reading promotion, and educational technology. #NoSweatLibrarySchool Librarians accumulate dozens of great websites as we read education and library listservs, bloggers, Facebook group comments, and Twitter feeds. The hard part is trying to keep these sites organized in a logical manner.

I’ve tried numerous curation tools, but for personal use I find a simple browser folder—Library & Librarian—with topical subfolders is faster than an external site for storing and using my most useful sites. Alas, always in a hurry, I often just save a URL to the main folder, so I have a lo-o-ong list of uncategorized sites to organize into topical subfolders.

While I do that, I’m sharing out these valuable resources on professional development & advocacy, library lessons & activities, reading promotion, and technology, accompanied by short annotations on why they’re helpful. So here they are: 41 Useful Websites for School Librarians.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, ADVOCACY

AASL eCOLLAB51 Free Webinars from the American Association of School Librarians on professional learning topics. 

Library Impact Studies Infographica compact advocacy tool from Library Research Service. Available for print & online viewing.

Library and Information Science EncyclopediaIf you encounter library terminology in your readings, but may not be quite sure what it is, consult this brief list for an explanation! From internationally-known blogger librarian Salman Haider.

Mackin CommunityBook vendor Mackin’s blog with resources for libraries & classrooms, makerspaces, and professional learning. Add this site to your feed!

Project ConnectSponsored by Follett, this site offers guidance for the Future Ready Librarians framework, including PD and teaching ideas.

School Librarians: Why we still need them!article by Jamie McKenzie with some strong support to use for advocacy.

School Libraries WorkWhile you can still download the 2008 version directly, the newer 2016 version wants you to submit your email address and other info. Still, a valuable document to use for advocacy and justifying (alas, we need to) having a certified School Librarian in a school library.

Top School Library BlogsA list maintained by Laura McPherson with 50 librarian bloggers you can add to your blog feed!

Virtual Middle School LibraryWith dozens of links to useful resources for school librarians, this site, maintained by Linda Bertland, retired school librarian, has an especially valuable resource page for professional learning.

Web JunctionA free learning site from OCLC Research offers self-paced courses, webinar recordings on a variety of topics related to library services and management.

What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)a U.S. Dept of Education website with research on programs, products, practices, and policies that answers the question “What works in education?”

LIBRARY LESSONS & ACTIVITIES

AASL Best Websites for Teaching & LearningEvery year our national association picks, what they consider to be, websites of ” innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. … free web-based sites that are user friendly.” What’s especially nice is the little icons that show which of our Shared Foundations each one addresses.

Bingo Cards & Word Searches are quick ways to engage students for reviewing content. Here are 3 sites that generate customized bingo cards on a 3×3, 4×4, or 5×5 grid: BingoBaker & ESLactivities both generate cards with words or graphics; MyFreeBingoCards has thematic backgrounds for words or numbers. WordSearchLab has already created searches, or create your own of any size and number of words.

5 Minute Lesson Plan Series37 different downloadable graphic templates to quickly create a lesson plan. Whatever your admin wants, you’ll probably find it here.

HyperDocs Interactive Content & MultimediaAs stated on the site: “The most difficult and time consuming part of creating a HyperDoc … is finding the content to engage your students in the learning process. I’ve curated several lists that I hope will help get your started.” There are a dozen categories with a varying number of websites with resources and tools.

Interactive Learning Menus (Choice Boards)Ideas for differentiated learning that give students a menu or choice of learning activities; can be part of a HyperDoc. From Shake Up Learning.

Makerspace Starter KitThe Daring Librarian, Gwyneth Jones, provides a list of great tools for starting a makerspace in your library.

Primary Source Setsthe Digital Public Library of America has more than 35 million digital resources including these curated collections on topics in history, literature, and culture, with teaching guides for class use.

Skype in the ClassroomMicrosoft’s FREE go-to source for Virtual Field Trips, Guest Speakers, classroom connections, and live collaboration projects. I first heard about this from Stony Evans, and think it’s one of the most engaging activities you can do with students.

Smithsonian Learning Labfree, interactive, easy-to-use tools using the millions of Smithsonian resources to adapt one of thousands of existing collections, or to create your own lessons, like digital research skills with built-in tools for creating & using proper citations.

Spruce Up Learning Centers w/ Tech – Tony Vincent’s blog post with lots of specific information and examples to make any learning station in your library that much better with technology.

READING PROMOTION

Biblionasiumsort of a GoodReads for kids; free, protected site for ages 6-13 to encourage independent reading. Tools can create book reviews, reading logs, and personalized reading lists.

Classroom Libraries: Best apps for keeping trackWe Are Teachers blog post offers 6 apps teachers can use to keep track of their class books. Hey, they’re gonna have ’em, so we might as well support them…and they’ll love us for it and support the library even more! 

Librarians Lovenifty book talks and display ideas from secondary school librarians.

Library of Congress Center for the Booka rich resource for librarians with recommended books, author webcasts, book awards, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.

The Online Books Page –  Plain website listing over 3 million free books on the Web, along with archives & indexes in languages around the world. This large database is maintained by a digital librarian at UPenn.

Social Justice BooksBooklists and other resources to help librarians build a diverse collection of titles and encourage a more culturally responsive reading experience for students.

State Award Reading ListsThis Simon & Schuster site has current Award Reading Lists from every state, along with curriculum, teaching, & reading group guides, themed collections, & reading levels. If you need labels for your State Award Reading List, they’re available as a customization in my Reading Promotion for ELA product at No Sweat Library, my TPT store. 

SYNC If you’ve never heard of this site, you are in for a treat. SYNC offers FREE audiobooks for teens every summer—2 complete audiobooks a week for 14 weeks. I always told students about it at their last library visit of the school year and provided the link and a QR code to the site.

TECHNOLOGY

AASL Best Apps for Teaching & Learning – As with the websites, AASL picks, what they consider to be, apps of “exceptional value to inquiry-based teaching and learning.” They also have little icons to show which of our Shared Foundations each addresses.

BEAM Chart MakerYes, we teach students how to make spreadsheet data graphs, like MS Excel, but this online app is quick & easy. Just choose the style, click the graph element, and fill in the information. Graphics like this can add so much to those end-of-grading-period library reports for principals & teachers. (If you don’t do that, this is a great way to get started!)

GooseChase EduFree and reasonably priced options to create educational scavenger hunts with mobile technology (IOS or Android app). Students (or teachers!) earn points by submitting a photo, video, or text.

Internet Archive Digital Library – Hundreds of millions of important webpages and media. Their Wayback Machine is a searchable database of 20+ years of web history.

Kathy Schrock’s Guide to EverythingIf you need information or guidance on educational technology, this is the place to go! Kathy has been blogging about edtech for more than 20 years and is still the best one-stop spot for general edtech info.

Media Literacy Educator CertificationDeveloped by PBS/KQED & Digital Promise, you can earn 8 media literacy micro-credentials to become a PBS Certified Media Literacy Educator.

Minecraft Education EditionIf you want to use Minecraft in your library, this site is the gateway to the education edition of the popular game. Special features for educators such as easy tutorials, classroom management tools, secure sign-in, classroom collaboration and tons of sample lessons, plus a global network of mentors and tech support.

100 Useful Websites for Educators and Students – With YA Books & More, Naomi Bates blogs about books, websites, and anything else a librarian might need. This page is a list of what she considers the most valuable website collection a librarian can have. It’s about 3 years old, but most of the links are still valid…and on my own “best” list!

Top 20 PowerPoint AlternativesPost from the Visme blog offers an open-minded examination of free & paid apps to use for presentations. Video demos are helpful. (Heavy content, allow time to load in browser.)

You may be wondering about sites for information literacy or subject areas. Those are also huge unorganized lists, so we’ll save them for future blog posts. For now, have fun looking these over and adding them to your browser bookmarks. If you have some bookmarked sites on these 4 topics you’d like to share, add them into the comments!

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School Librarians: Offer Your Teachers Technology Training & Integration

School Librarians: Offer Your Teachers Technology Training & Integration - Effective use of technology in the classroom is often the result of teachers who haven't learned to use it or integrate it into their lessons. School Librarians are already adept at technology and integration, so we can be the best person to provide ongoing technology training for our teachers. #NoSweatLibraryTechnology 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.

Why Educational Technology Isn't Integrated into Classroom Learning - School Librarians have been integrating educational technology into library activities for a long time, but 3 historic barriers continue to prevent its efficient use in the classroom with students. Learn how we can change that! #NoSweatLibraryWe 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:JumpStart Your Technology Training for Teachers - School Librarians can help teachers integrate educational technology into their classroom lesson activities by directing them to Cult of Pedagogy's JumpStart or JumpStartPlus online course. Take the course as a group for discounts! #NoSweatLibrary #CultofPedagogy

  1. Blogging
  2. Online Collaboration
  3. Mind Mapping
  4. Curation
  5. Screencasting
  6. Flipped Learning
  7. Digital Assessment
  8. HyperDocs (playlists)
  9. QR codes
  10. 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.
    linebreak
    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!

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