Over the last 3 weeks or so our class has done a series of blog posts on the culture of reading in schools, developing a PLN, supporting teachers’ professional development and world libraries.  I believe the postings that resonated most with me were the ones about supporting teachers’ professional development.

All of the topics have helped me learn, grow and reflect as a professional educator, however, I think that I have been hesitant to support teachers’ professional development because I am still a new teacher and was uncertain what I had to offer my colleagues.  After doing my own post and reading my group members’ posts I can see that as a teacher-librarian there are many ways I can support my colleagues.
My key take-aways from my fellow bloggers are:

Ms. K Birkland:  Ms. Birkland provided an infographic, titled “Working Together Is Working Smarter” from AASL that outlines various ways teacher-librarians collaborate.  I think this graphic provides an interesting visual that showcases the many areas teacher-librarians “play a critical role” (AASL).

Mme. Leslie:  Mme. Leslie reminded me that every educator comes to the table with a different perspective and a different ability level.  She also reminded me that teacher-librarians “need to be good listeners” “in order to best respond to the needs of the staff” (Leslie, 2014).

Kacy Morgan: Kacy mentioned that teachers need time to explore the resources.  Perhaps, that means the teacher-librarian teaches a class something and instead of the teacher assisting, the teacher could learn with the students.  In a teacher’s already busy day, having 30 minutes to sit down and explore a resource with students might make a difference in their confidence and their ability to use this tool in their classroom.  Kacy also mentioned that students “can be your greatest assistant in learning technology” (Morgan, 2014).  My thought is that a teacher-librarian could set up a technology group who could be called upon to assist teachers in their classrooms.

Leisbet Beaudry:  Leisbet spoke about a workshop she attended that sparked a collaborative project with a grade 2 teacher.  This project continued the next year and the teacher had plans to show other teachers how this collaboration benefited the students and herself.  This example helped me understand that teachers are one of a teacher-librarians best marketing tools.  Start a small project with a teacher and that teacher will spread the word to other colleagues.  I don’t need to jump right in by running a professional development session.  I can start small by supporting one teacher and this may in turn bring me other teachers to support.

 

Works Cited:

American Association of School Librarians. (2014). Working together is working smarter. [image online] Available at: http://www.ala.org/aasl/research/ncle-infographic [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

Beaudry, L. ( 2014,February 16, 2014). Supporting teachers learning ict.Beaudry Library Journey, [web log] Retrieved from: http://beaudrylibrary.blogspot.ca/2014/02/supporting-teachers-learning-ict.html [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

Ben-Avraham, Y. (2011). Solving jigsaw puzzle. [image online] Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/epublicist/8718123610/in/photostream/ [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

Birkland ( 2014,February 28, 2014). Supporting teachers’ ict curriculum. Ms. K Birkland’s UBC Blog, [web log] Retrieved from: http://mskbirkland.blogspot.ca/2014/02/supporting-teachers-ict-curriculum.html [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

Leslie, J. ( 2014,February 21, 2014). Supporting others. Mme Leslie, [web log] Retrieved from: http://mmeleslie.blogspot.ca/2014/02/supporting-others.html [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

Morgan, K. ( 2014,February 19, 2014). We could all use a little help from our friends. Kacy Morgan LIBE, [web log] Retrieved from: http://kacymorganlibe.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/we-could-all-use-a-little-help-from-our-friends-inquiry-blog-post-3/ [Accessed: 1 Mar 2014].

As a teacher-librarian I not only support students’ learning but I also support teachers’ learning.  Every staff member is at a different place in their learning journey with ICT so it is important to provide a variety of opportunities that will allow each teacher to grow.

Last year, I continually had informal discussions with teachers about tools and resources I was using in hopes I could form a relationship with them that would allow them to see me as a valuable resource.  Often, teachers would come to me for assistance or recommendations for tools to use with their class.  One way I could have furthered this learning would be to host “Lunch and Learn” workshops.

Another way I could help support the professional development of the staff at our school would be to post links to interesting articles, web 2.0 tools or teaching resources on our school’s HUB.

In addition to my two above ideas, I think a wonderful way to support teachers’ ICT development is through collaboration.  Collaboration, working together to teach students, can have a positive effect on both students and teachers.  In true collaboration, I believe the teacher and teacher-librarian learn from each other.  The teacher-librarian can share his/her knowledge of current pedagogy with relation to ICT, knowledge of 21st century skills and knowledge of web 2.0 tools.

I found a video on this website that touches on what a teacher-libriarian offers.  The website also provides links to other ways teacher-librarians can support staff.

Works Cited

Library Resources (2011, February 6). How your teacher librarian can help you #2 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-2q8dK3r8

Teachers Connecting with Teacher Librarians – Information Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2014, from http://www.connect2tls.info

Personal Learning Network

For those of you who don’t know PLN stands for personal learning network.  According to Wikipdia, a PLN is “an informal learning network that consists of people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from” (PLN, 2014).  As an educator, having a professional PLN is essential to developing and growing my teaching pedagogy and practice.

The video below is interesting because it says that a PLN is “not a thing or a plan” but a “mindset that starts with a question: How do my relationships make me a better teacher?” (Youtube).  Thinking about it in this way makes me expand my idea that a PLN is based on web 2.0 tools to an understanding that my PLN is all around me whether I am online or not.  There are several ways I have already developed a PLN and, after doing some research for this course, several ways I would like to increase my PLN in the future.

Currently, I belong to a Discovery Education Network group on Edmodo.  This group consists of educators from the Surrey School District who attended a 3 session workshop called Den Stars as well as educators from around North America.  In this Edmodo page, we discuss how we are incorporating Discovery Education into our classroom as well as other web 2.0 tools.  In addition to being a Den Star, I often check my Flipboard magazine set up to import tweets from #sd36learn, #sd36LC and #tlchat.  In the future, I would like to not only gain information from these posts but also contribute information to the feeds.

I have had a personal twitter account for sometime but recently set up a professional one. Now I have to start sorting through the people I follow to move them to my professional twitter account.  I see Twitter as a great way to keep informed and connected to those who are taking the same diploma program as me.  We are all working towards a similar goal and can definitely learn from one another.  I am like a hidden twitter user though.  I do not tweet!  One of my goals is to contribute to discussions on Twitter.  Can you have a PLN without really contributing?

In researching PLN, I came across an interesting blog post.  Kate Kingslensmith writes about PLNs and provides an in-depth list of ways to create a PLN.  Take a look at it here.  She also has a link to the stages one experiences when developing a PLN.  I have set up many of the web 2.0 tools Kate has suggested, like Twitter, Delicious and Digg Reader, but feel that I have not used them to their full networking potential.  I know that I have not necessarily been a contributor in the exchange of information.  I have been more like an information taker than giver!  While I don’t see this stage in Kate’s steps of PLN development, maybe as I become more comfortable with the tools, I will understand how I can be a contributor to someone else’s PLN.

As the Youtube video mentioned, not all of my PLN is online. I have created my own network of other kindergarten teachers who I can bounce ideas off of and who I gain new knowledge from.  We do this, sometimes through email, but also in the lunch room or at workshops.

Going forward, I would like to really focus in on using one or two tools to develop my PLN. I think if I narrowed my focus, I would gain a better connection to other educators and have more confidence in asking questions and sharing my experiences and knowledge.

 

Works Cited

Personal learning network. (2014, January 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:57, February 10, 2014, fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Personal_learning_network&oldid=591462441

Klingensmith, K. (2009, May 5).  PLN: Your Personal Learning Network Made Easy | Once a Teacher… Retrieved February 10, 2014 from http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/pln-your-personal-learning-network-made-easy/